James Van Praagh, a best-selling author and psychic, will appear in the Xanadu Theater at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City this Saturday. PHOTO COURTESY OF SEAN KAPER PHOTOGRAPHY
— James Van Praagh says he can bridge the gap between the living and the dead.
When James Van Praagh was just 2 years old he saw a man with white hair and piercing blue eyes standing in the corner of his bedroom near his crib.
“I had no idea who he was, but sometime later, as my grandmother was showing me pictures in a family album, I pointed to the man, and my grandmother told me that was my grandfather, who had died before I was born. I recognized him as the man standing near my crib,” said Van Praagh, a best-selling author and world-renowned psychic who will appear in the Xanadu Theater at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City this Saturday.
As the years went by, Van Praagh tried to forget the many psychic experiences he had had. He moved out to Los Angeles to try his hand at becoming a sitcom writer. However, without too much luck, he found himself working in the basement of a talent agency stapling papers together but feeling he was there for some more important reason.
“One day, my supervisor asked if I wanted to go with her to see a medium, someone who talks to the dead,” Van Praagh remembered. “I didn’t believe in that stuff, but I thought I’d go with her anyway. At that point in my life, I guess you could call me a skeptic.”
But the medium Van Praagh went to see that day was a man named Brian Hurst, who predicted that soon Van Praagh would become a medium himself. Van Praagh remained skeptical — until about two years later when he was talking with a girl on the phone and got a very strong sensation.
“I remember telling her there’s a lady here,” he recalled. “She’s like a grandmother. She’s from Idaho, a place her grandmother had lived. Other details came through, too. The grandmother talked about a rose petal footstool, which the girl confirmed her grandmother had made. And that was the first communication, the first example of evidential proof I had that what Brian had told me was coming true. At the time, I was twenty-four years old.”
And Van Praagh’s abilities have only grown from there, leading to his appearance on multiple TV shows and authoring several top-selling books. A distinguished TV critic once called him “spectacular.”
And if you’ve ever received a reading from him, as I have, you would have to agree.
Today Van Praagh, 54, describes himself as a survival evidence medium, meaning that he is able to bridge the gap between two planes of existence, that of the living and that of the dead, by providing evidential proof of life after death via detailed messages.
“It’s all done mentally,” he explained. “When the spirits come in, they have to slow down their mental thoughts to the earth vibration, the earth mindset if you will. Many of them send feelings, which come through easily, as well as little tidbits of information. For example, they’ll come through with names, or what the person was doing — simple things so the person knows it’s them. They can only send simple thoughts because it’s so hard for them to send complex thoughts.”
Van Praagh said he also helps people recognize their own ability.
“Most people do not think they’re psychic. They think they don’t have intuition,” he said. “But every single person is born with intuition — it’s just a matter of degree. Some people have a stronger sense of intuition than others, but we can all develop it.
“And so,” he concluded, “I teach people how to use what they have, how they can take the responsibility to start developing their own sensitivity. I think it’s important to get in touch with our inner selves, our inner world, to learn to go inside. It’s just a matter of opening up, starting to trust and listening to that inner world.” ••
