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Dec. 7, 2007 - The Unexplained - Howard Hughes
56:26
Edition 8 - James Van Praagh

Globally renown American Medium Jame Van Praagh is in conversation with Howard about hislife and how he has communicated with spirits including Marilyn Monroe.

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Across the UK and around the world by webcast and podcast, my name is Howard Hughes, and this is The Unexplained.
Good to be here.
Now we have a unique situation on the Unexplained website.
Things are hotting up at www.theunexplained.tv.
And I'll explain how, this month, and this month only, that is December 2007, we have simultaneously two new shows running back-to-back together on the site.
You can listen to either or both at the same time, whatever you want to do.
Two shows there, completely free, nothing to pay, and that's a situation I will have to address one of these days, but not right now.
So we have, first off, our recent show with Richard C. Hoagland, the author of Dark Mission, of course, the story as he sees it of NASA and the conspiracies around the North American Space Administration.
And this show that we're doing now with internationally renowned medium James Van Praague, a man who is known across the United States and around the world for reasons that I think you're about to hear.
Two special shows, and don't forget, a lot of people asking me, how do I hear past shows?
Well, there is a way to do that, and it's completely free again.
That is to go to iTunes.
You'll see directions to that here at the website, www.theunexplained.tv.
And all the shows that I've done up to now are archived there.
Now, as I said, I'm going to have to address the subject of funding for this because I can't, unfortunately, carry on doing it for free.
The money is going to run out.
But for now, we're going to keep on doing it as a free service to establish the show, which, bear in mind, doesn't get any publicity anywhere.
I don't advertise it.
I can't afford to put out news releases about it.
And yet, somehow, you get to hear about it because I get hundreds and hundreds of emails that tell me exactly that.
So thank you for emailing the show.
Give me your feedback.
Tell me what you think.
Any ideas that you have for the show, any thoughts about it.
Always pleased to hear from you.
Let's get on to the main subject of this show, James Van Praague, internationally renowned medium, as we say, a man who has a great deal to say.
And live from Pasadena, California to the Unexplained, here he is.
James, nice to have you on.
Thank you very much, Howard.
Nice to have you.
Nice to be had.
Now, I've heard about you and your sense of humor, but I think we're all right.
We're on the internet, so you can virtually say what you like on the internet.
It's not quite the same as broadcast radio.
But you do such a lot of media in the States, James.
Such a lot.
Yes, very, very true.
How do you get time for your core activity?
Well, I mean, the part of my job, my mission is to really reach out and enlighten as many people as possible.
And part of doing that is on the media.
And really, that was my mission 25 years ago when I started this.
Before we get into talking about you, how do you see the media, the radio and the television there particularly?
Do you see it as a kind of way of advertising yourself, as a way of teasing people with this information?
And then you get them not hooked in, but you bring them in, and then you say, okay, this is what I really do?
I first have to educate people.
The first thing is education.
And because people, this is very new to a lot of people, although it's been around for many, many years and years.
But people really still have a sense of fear and unsure, being unsure about this topic.
So I really, the first number one step is to educate.
And after that, then we can get the interest going.
And once people realize there's a commonality that we all have experiences, that we've all had, it's not just me, but it's universal, we all have experiences, then it opens them up to more say, wow, yes, I do have some intuition.
What is intuition?
And it gets them thinking.
And then we can move on to the next level.
Well, I've had a life of strange experiences and weird coincidences.
And up until very recently, it was very hard for me, especially as a guy who's been a journalist for most of his life, very hard for me to talk about them.
These days, I find, partly because of the work of people like yourself, it's more accepted to debate these things.
Oh, that's very, very true.
It's very much now in the mainstream consciousness.
Where when I first started doing this work 25 years ago, I was looked at the weirdo, the strange one who talked to dead people.
You don't discuss those sorts of things.
Well, now, of course, it's mainstream.
Everybody has experiences and everybody talks about it.
Let's kick off with some basic education because you said you want to educate people, so here's a chance.
What is a medium?
What's a psychic and what's a psychic medium?
Because, you know, we both know those terms are bandied around all the time, and often they're used to mean the same thing.
What are they?
It's a very good question, Howard.
A medium is the interface.
It's a person who is a vessel, if you will, between the higher vibrations of the spirit world, the higher energies of the spiritual dimensions, and the lower ones of the physical earth.
And they're able to receive information, impressions, thoughts, feelings from those higher realms and relay them to people on the earth.
I'm known as a survival evidence medium, which most mediums are, but what a medium's job really is to prove life after death.
A psychic, every single person is psychic from one degree or another, which means everybody is intuitive.
It's our sixth sense.
A psychic is someone who's able to read the energy around a person at that particular time and see where they might be going in the future, where they've been in the past.
Every medium is a psychic, but not every psychic is a medium.
What do you?
Which means that a medium first has to have a foundation of true intuition of psychic ability.
I am a medium, but I also have psychic ability.
So what a psychic medium is, and I hate the term, I don't think it's a correct term.
Think of the Virgo, I am very detailed and analytical.
A psychic medium, it just seems like an oxymoron because you have to be psychic in order to be a medium.
So I use the term spirit medium because that's what I am, or spiritual medium.
Okay, so some people, from what you're hinting there, kind of use it as a way of bigging up, as we say in the UK, their title.
You know, I recently met a guy and I told him I'm a radio consultant.
That's one of the things that I do.
And he said, okay, well, that sounds fine, but why don't you make it sound more impressive by calling yourself a senior radio consultant?
So it seems to me that the words psychic medium are often used to big up the title.
And I think it's to make people who, a lot more people are aware what a psychic is than a medium.
I think that's part of it as well.
Okay, what's your story?
How did you know that you had what you would call a gift?
I was born with this way.
I was born As a weird kid.
As a child, the movie The Sixth Sense was very much a story of my life.
That was my childhood.
I used to see spirits as a little boy.
I was never afraid of them.
I always thought everybody could see these sorts of things.
And as a child, you're very open.
You really haven't learned judgment or conditioning yet.
And I remember I said to my mother when I was seven years old, and I'm kneeling down saying prayers before bed.
And I said to my mother, who are those people at the end of the bed with the lights around them?
And she said, oh, you see them too.
I used to see them when I was a little girl.
And she said, those are God's angels.
They'll always take care of you, protect you.
You don't need to be a fear of them.
So this thing runs in the family.
Oh, yes, very much so.
My British grandmother from Wales, actually, used to do tea leaf readings when I was a little boy.
And my grandfather, my mother's side, used to also be very intuitive psychic, if you will.
I was going to bring you onto this, but let's just take a little detour for half a second.
I was going to ask you about that whole thing to do with teacup reading and all of those things that used to happen here.
I don't know whether you know, James.
I suspect you do.
But there is a whole tradition in this country, especially in the sort of 1910s, 20s, and 30s, of fireside, at-home mediums and psychics, people who do this in their living room.
One of the very first interviews I ever did as a broadcaster was to go and see an old lady who'd been a teacher.
She'd had a very responsible teaching position, but she gave me the whole history of mediumship in Liverpool as it was back in the 30s, where people would go around to each other's homes and there would be seances and, like you say, teacup readings, all of those things.
Yes, I think in those days where you didn't have really the radio yet, you didn't have television, you didn't have those instruments which really took you away from people, the interaction with people.
I think after dinner, it was a very common thing for people to go in the sitting room and sit and discuss and talk.
And you had candlelight.
And it's very interesting, but a lot of people would do that.
They'd sit and they'd have the tea afterwards, and that's where the tea readings would come, tea leaf readings.
And that's where a lot of development as mediums came because you also sat in the dark.
And you were able to build up the energy, if you will, in that darkness.
That's what happens, a seance.
Well, one of these stories this woman told me in Liverpool, she was fascinating.
I just had to let her talk, was how in the darkness, in this front room in Liverpool, they had a series of seances, and some of them got very, very intense, is the only word that I can use.
And in one of them, a small child is the way that she tells it.
And I'll find that tape one of these days and put it on here.
But a small child appeared from nowhere and a trumpet.
They used to use a trumpet to herald the arrival of the spirit.
And that thing danced around and the child touched one of the members of the audience there.
And she told me that was the greatest proof of evidence of survival and spirit and all the rest of it that she'd ever seen.
And that was back in that era.
Oh, yes, Victorian days.
And they used to sit all the time.
And I was very fortunate.
I was very, very fortunate to sit with one of the greatest mediums, physical mediums.
Now, a physical medium is someone who does produce physical manifestation, where there's a substance called ectoplasm, which comes out of the medium's nose, ears, mouth.
And they can form, the spirit people can form an actual body of someone.
It can move the trumpet around.
They can form an actual artificial voice box.
So you believe in that, James?
Do you believe in that?
I sat with Leslie.
I sat with Leslie Flint.
Leslie Flint was the greatest medium in the 20th century.
Of course, British.
And I used to sit with Leslie many, many times.
And I actually had my mother's voice come through in a seance room and my nickname.
And everybody heard it.
I have a tape of this.
Also, people can go online at LeslieFlint.com and listen to tapes.
Queen Victoria comes through.
You have a wonderful Oscar Wilde comes through.
Gandhi comes through.
Well, Queen Victoria, Gandhi, Oscar Wilde, they're all well and good.
But for you to get the voice of your own mother, and we all know our own mother's voice.
If we know one voice in this world, that's the one we'll know.
And for it to convince you, that's something, isn't it?
Oh, and that was years before my first book came out.
And she said, you're going to write a book.
You're going to travel over water.
You're going to help many, many people.
And we have plans for you over here.
And this is back in the early 80s.
So it all came to manifest.
Okay, I took you on a detour.
I'm sorry for that, but it was a fascinating detour.
There you are as a kid, age seven.
You see things at the end of the bed.
Your mom says, oh, you see those too.
What do you do then?
Well, what happens was it set up a sense where I was not fearful of it.
So I was not surprised when the spirits would show up in my schoolroom or when I went to church or whatever it was.
I was not afraid.
They would talk to me, and I would talk to them.
As a child again, you're not really conditioned.
You're not afraid.
And listen, you've just come from the spirit world.
As a child, your mindset is pretty much still in that spiritual realm because it's where you just came from.
So the older you get, you lose that sort of sense of innocence.
Is that reincarnation you're talking about?
No, no, no, no.
I'm just talking about just being aware of them as a child and that they're there.
And then when I hit probably around the age of teenage years, it closed down.
I didn't see them anymore.
My mind was doing other things.
Didn't really pay attention to them.
I didn't really see them probably until, I would say, my early 20s.
And that's when I went to my first medium, an English gentleman named Brian Hearst.
And he was the one that predicted that I would do this work.
He said, the spirit people want to use you.
You are a medium.
And I really didn't know what a medium was at the time.
And he said, a medium is someone who talks to dead people, and the spirit people want to use you.
And I thought he was crazy.
But he did read through.
Yes.
And he did read through many details of family members that had passed over.
So he did get my curiosity going.
And I started reading up as many books as I could on life after death and psychic phenomena.
And I remember every book I read spoke about learning to know who you are, what's your soul's path, and so forth.
And the way to do that is through meditation.
So I started meditating, just really to relax and so forth.
And it was through meditation, I would say probably after about two or three months of meditation, and I'm just talking about 15 minutes a day, if you will, very informal, I started seeing spirit again as it did as a child.
And then I was working at some job as a paralegal, and I saw this girl's grandmother standing next to her.
And I actually went up to this girl and I asked her, I thought, oh, she's going to think I'm crazy, but I have to do this.
And I said, there's a woman behind you, and she's talking about a yellow house with white shutters and needlepoint.
And she said, oh, that was my grandmother.
And she started crying.
She said, my grandmother and I made a pact that when she dies, if she can come back and say hello to me, she would.
And she said, she had a yellow house with white shutters.
And the last thing she taught me on a summer holiday was how to do needlepoint for a, and we made a cover for a pillow together.
And I went and called up that medium who predicted this, and I was very scared because I was very unaware of what this was.
And he said, James, don't you remember the prediction that was made two years ago to the day?
Wow.
Well, there is a difference, isn't there?
As we've hinted, there's a difference between having a gift, and maybe an awful lot of people have a gift, and developing a gift, learning how to use it.
That is correct.
That is correct.
You know, Howard, that's the biggest thing.
My biggest thing is that people, when I teach classes, I find, and I used to teach a lot of classes, that when they get a certain amount of what I call psychism, when they have this ability and they see it, they see this ability and they get very jazzed up and happy and amazed by it, and they go out and do readings.
Well, that's the worst thing possible because you need to develop it like it's an instrument and you need to develop it properly because you're working a lot with the endocrine system of the body.
And you have to work with the spirit people to energize your body a certain way, to set up the vibration of your body a certain way.
And people rush out and do these readings, I think, to satisfy their ego, and they're ill-prepared, and in the long run, it can hurt them physically.
So that's almost like learning to drive a little British mini-car and then going out and taking the next day, once you've learned to drive that, taking a big yellow American school bus out on the road, isn't it?
That's the difference.
Yeah, okay.
That is correct.
And it's irresponsible, and it's hurtful.
Well, let me give you a personal example, you know.
I told you about this journalistic background, and it's quite a tough background.
Now, I've had what people have told me, and I don't know if it is, something, some kind of ability.
Oh, you're very psychic.
You are very, very intuitive.
Well, people have said that.
Now, I'm not sure, but there's always been some kind of intuition there.
And I was in a newsroom situation just a few months ago, and one of my colleagues, a woman, very skeptical about all of this, she knew my interest in this and the fact that I do this show and all the rest of it.
And I thought to myself, okay, I can't do this to order.
I can't do this when people say, prove it to me.
It's very hard.
You must know it's very hard to, especially if you're not trained, you know anything about it.
How do I prove that I've got some kind of intuition to this woman?
And I just said to her, okay, blue tablecloth.
What do those words mean to you?
She went white and she said, I have just written.
And she'd been sitting a long way away from me.
There was no way I could see what she was writing.
She said, I've just written those two words, blue tablecloth, in my diary.
And I'm going to buy a blue tablecloth.
I said, well, the funny thing was, I saw a picture of a blue tablecloth with candles on the top.
And she said, I have a market store.
I sell candles.
This is a true story.
And I was looking for a tablecloth to put over the market store so I could display my candles.
Oh, my goodness.
I don't know what that was or where it came from.
Maybe that was telepathy.
I don't know, but that was something.
What do you think?
It certainly was something.
And certainly, now, this is very interesting because there's the right brain, which is the intuitive part of us, if you will.
Then there's the left brain, the analytical, critical mind.
When we get the information, as you did, you notice you have to give it as quickly as you get it.
And it makes no sense to you.
But if you kept that in your head and said, what's a blue tablecloth meter?
It's not going to mean anything to her.
And you kind of rationalize it, you will lose it.
Because the left brain is getting involved.
And this is not analytical.
It's energy.
It's flowing.
And that's what it is.
And the more you pay attention to that flow of energy, if you will, when you just get it and give it out, the quicker you'll develop.
Well, I just felt in that situation, and this conversation is not about me, but I wanted to tell you this story.
I just felt in that conversation that I had to try this thing out, not only for her, but for me.
And I thought, if I do, yeah, prove it to myself.
And I thought, if I do this thing and something happens, then she's learned something and so have I. And you know, Howard, also, when you do do that, when you get that flow of energy, if you will, that intuition, that feeling, and if you develop that feeling, that's what it's all about.
That's what has to be developed, is that sense of just let go and let God.
Just get that feeling going.
And that's really what it is.
And when people say to me, prove it, I can't prove it.
It is what it is.
Whatever comes through, comes through.
How did you get from the stage where you were able to drive the little mini car to driving the school bus where you are now?
I sat for many, many years in development, in a development circle with a British medium named Brian Hearst.
And we sat every Tuesday night for about two hours to develop, to develop the intuition, to develop the sensitivity, if you will.
And after many years of doing that, three or four years, then you begin to learn how you, like you just talked about, that energy, that feeling.
And you learn what that is.
And you learn to use that.
And then you really, a major part of this is having faith, is having belief in the energy, having belief in what the spirit world gives you.
And it's trial and error.
It really is trial and error.
So I started practicing on people in the development circles.
I started practicing on friends.
And then you get to that sense of that energy, what it feels like, and you use it more, and that's when it fully develops.
So I started doing that on a regular basis.
And really, it came strong, strong, furious.
It was very strong.
And I had to make a big, big life choice.
And the choice was I was working at the time at Paramount Studios, making a lot of money as a manager there.
And I had a car and insurance and all that sort of thing for over here.
You know, we need all that over here in healthcare.
You too.
Yes.
And spirit would come to me in these development circles.
And at that time, I learned who my guide, one of my guides was.
Believe it or not, he was a British, I'm very connected with the British here.
He was a doctor named Harry.
Dr. Harry.
And he was in the 30s.
He was a doctor, an internist, I guess it was, in London.
And we looked him up and we found him.
Anyway, he came through and he said to me, you must do this work.
If you do this Work with us, you will never be in need.
And I remember that energy that came through when I was giving these readings to people and the messages.
That love energy was something so incredible that I knew there was nothing else on this earth that could match that energy and how the person would feel after I brought through a message to them, how it changed them.
Their whole aura lit up.
Weight was off their shoulders.
And I thought that's the greatest work there is.
Problem is, and we both know this, that however sincere you might be about this and the people who trained you, there are a lot of people who are not qualified to drive the big school bus that we talked about, or indeed are charlatans playing inside.
And those people are providing comfort to the bereaved when they shouldn't ought to be, if you know what I'm saying.
Oh, very, very much so.
Very, very much so.
And a part of my position also is to point those people out who are the frauds, because it makes everybody else in this business, in the field, it brings it down, if you will.
It brings it down.
And of course, there are charlatans in every field.
But unfortunately, it kind of people associate this field with sideshows, circuses, and that sort of thing.
Well, what would you say the percentage then of genuine mediums, assuming there are such a thing, to charlatans or the plain misguided?
What do you think the ratio is there?
Well, you know, it's hard to say, Howard, because my whole world is really within the public.
As far as the media goes, I can tell you about people on television, but as far as people just out there doing this, there are what we call, I don't know if you have them over there, I'm sure you must, psychic fairs.
You have psychic fares?
Everywhere.
Yes.
So the level of psychic ability with those people, I'm not sure how high the level is.
I'm sure they're good intended and they're have a certain amount of psychic ability.
But as far as the level, I'm not sure of them.
There are a lot of wannabes, a lot of wannabes.
When I first started doing this work on television, oh my goodness, people came out of the woodwork because they wanted to be famous.
And I thought, oh my gosh, that's the wrong reason.
The only reason I'm on television and well-known with this sort of thing is to get the word out.
And that means I have to be on television often.
I didn't seek that.
That's not my, you know, I didn't want to be on television necessarily, but because of this work and getting the word out, I had to.
But yes, there were a lot of people who wanted to just be stars and be out there, and that's, of course, the wrong reason.
And I wonder if that whole process is helped or hindered by, there's a great TV show that you will know.
It's famous both sides of the Atlantic called Medium.
The lady in that makes it all look so easy.
And there she goes into a hostage situation.
The man gets shot in the hostage situation.
And there he is.
His soul, his spirit walks out of the building.
And she said, I see him right now.
He's been shot.
She makes that look as if communication between this side and that side is really easy.
Is that a good thing?
Yeah, you have to look at the big picture.
You have to look at the big picture.
Because listen, I'm the producer and creator of Ghost Whisperer also.
And I have a lot of problems with that because it's very Hollywood.
It's very Hollywood.
And there's a violence and so forth.
But you have to remember, a lot of people don't know about the subject matter, and you have to entertain them.
Television is an entertainment media, and you have to entertain them.
I have no problem with that in that you'll be reaching millions and millions and millions of people, at least opening them up to the idea that life goes on, that spirits are indeed around us all the time.
And that's what Ghost was for.
I had to come up to the terms with that because I was watching how these producers and writers were writing the show.
After I would sit with them for three hours and tell them what's possible, what's not possible, they totally ignored me, did what they wanted to do.
But the thing is, the bigger picture is it's getting out to so many millions of people.
And I've had hundreds of emails from people saying, I never knew about this subject matter.
It got my curiosity going.
And I want to thank you for putting this on the air because now I'm questioning my own spirituality.
But here comes the journalist and me who will say to you, that is going to encourage people who shouldn't be doing this to do it or make untrained, unscrupulous people get into it because it makes it look like, you know, this is showbiz and it's really easy.
So then you have to say, Howard, then you have to say, well, what's the worst?
Is it better than not existing whatsoever?
I mean, you know what I'm saying?
It's better than not having it on television at all.
You know, saying the ideal thing would be have it on perfectly the way it should be and portrayed in the ideal way it is.
But unfortunately, dealing with a lot of egos, a lot of this industry which they don't understand, this work, I think just to get a spiritual show on television is a miracle.
Well, absolutely.
Now, here's a point.
How do you think that in the space of, I would say, 20 years, we got from the situation where people would say we can't touch material like that for a start off.
The religious right would go nuts, to a situation now where it's perfectly acceptable to put this on mainstream television?
Oh, not only acceptable, but they want more and more and more of this.
I was on Larry King about five years ago on one of my appearances there, and I said to Larry, I said, you watch what's going to happen.
There are going to be more movies, more books, more television shows dealing with life after death and spirituality and the paranormal.
I said, you watch, because people are hungry.
People are thirsty, and they recognize truth.
They recognize truth.
Whatever it's going to, the windows it's going to be in, you know, whatever that looks like as far as what it's a scary show or whatever it is, it's going to be out there.
People recognize a certain ounce of truth in there, that they are spirit.
They are spirit first and foremost.
On whatever level that might be, I do believe that people know that they're a spirit first and foremost having a physical experience.
And I think they recognize that.
I think that it's okay now for people to talk about their experiences.
I think everybody has experiences.
And listen, when I first came out with my work, like I said earlier, people thought I was nuts and crazy.
Trying to sell my first book, Talking to Heaven.
It was amazing.
I used to go all around the major publishers in New York, and they would say to me from one to the other, James, no one wants to know about this material.
It's morbid.
No one wants to talk to dead people.
That's just so morbid, it's not going to sell.
And I said, yes, it will.
You are wrong.
And they said, what do you mean?
I said, everybody in the world, we share two common experiences.
The first is birth, and we know a little bit about that.
The second is death, and people want to know more about that experience that we're going to share.
So the more enlightenment you can give that experience, They want to know about it.
So, what is it that's making people quest more than they did?
Is it that they've been shown the good life on television and they want to live forever and cheat death?
Or is it because there's a growing spirituality that's coming out of somewhere that's affecting and infecting everybody?
You know, Howard, I think it's a number of factors that are involved.
I don't think it's just one simple answer.
I think it's really a myriad of different types of things.
Number one, I do think that there's an evolution, if you will, that there's an evolution of consciousness on the planet.
I think that is exactly what's going on.
That's a major part of it.
And that's what we're seeing all these TV shows and books and so forth.
I also think that at a time where there's a war going on, that people are looking for some truth, some answers.
I don't think organized religions have answered those quests.
I think people realize that they have to start going within to themselves, going back in with themselves and questioning their own spirituality.
What does that mean?
Where am I going?
Their own mortality, if you will.
And I think that's part of this as well, the interest.
And of course, organized religions that used to have an awful lot to say about this and still do to some extent would say that you are supping with the devil, as they say over here.
What a wonderful devil if he can do this.
And, you know, it's funny because I went to a seminary to be a priest, and that's when many of my first experiences happened.
I would see many things.
But this is very interesting, Howard.
It was during the Easter holiday at the seminary.
I was 14 years old, and every student had to go to this, they called the altar, and pray for about a half an hour of benediction, whatever it was they called it.
And really, prayer and meditation, I call it the same thing.
I was sitting there or kneeling there, if you will, communicating with God, whatever prayer is, and I heard very distinctly, God is much bigger than these four walls.
You must find God outside of these four walls.
And that's where my sense of religion ended and my sense of spirituality began, was that point.
So I think God is much bigger than that.
I think it's so funny.
I just wrote about this in my new book.
You know, man wants to control God and create God as they see them.
When God is so much bigger, they limit God, that energy of God.
They want to own God.
One religion isn't better than any other religion.
I've often thought this whole business of God and religion, and I often see religions, in my very simplistic way, as sort of paths all to the same energy, whatever it may be.
We call it God, but whatever that might be.
And all the different religions, the great colour of Hinduism that I know so well, and the Church of England and all the rest of it, they're all like, I mean, a lot of people are going to disagree with me about this.
At some point, we'll agree too.
Well, you know, I'm probably going to get emails about it, but what the hell.
You know, they're motorways.
They're highways to the same thing, maybe.
Yes, it's exactly correct.
I mean, I totally, totally agree with you on that.
I believe there are many paths to light.
You know, this is just my point.
So it's one way.
So here's the point.
If they're highways to the same thing, what's the thing that they're highways to?
I really think it's self-enlightenment, self-realization.
I do believe it's self-realization.
I think it's remembering.
I really do believe that when we come down to this level, this third-dimensional world, we go through what's called the valley of forgetfulness.
And we have like a clean slate, if you will.
I think that these paths are really ways of reminding us of our source, who we really are, that we actually are spiritual, God-like beings, that we have that God spark.
And I think that's what these paths are.
I think they're ways of reminding us who we really are.
Here's the big question.
We're halfway through this, so time to ask it.
What happens when we die?
Oh, well, I can tell you firsthand because I had a near-death experience last year, so I can tell you firsthand what happens when we die.
It's a very natural, natural process.
There is no pain at all involved with death.
And I've done, oh my goodness, how many thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of readings.
I've never had a spirit say they've been in pain when they died.
Yes, leading up to the death, whether it's a disease or whatever that could be, that could be trauma, problems there.
When the actual spirit leaves the body, there is no pain.
Many times you're aware of it, you're conscious of it, and sometimes you're unconscious of it, and you're in the spiritual realm.
I personally left a body, I had food poisoning, and I blacked out, and I hit the floor, and I left my body, and I was very aware of my cousin who had died 30 years earlier, who I had not communicated with ever until 30 years earlier.
And she said to me, you're okay.
And I said, well, what's going on?
She said, it'll be all over very soon.
And I had the wherewithal to say, telepathically, you mean over, over, or over?
And she said, do not worry about it.
And I remember there was a wonderful sense of peace.
Peace.
It's indescribable.
There's a sense of wholeness, if you will, peace.
It seems like you're out of this limitations of the physical world, the physical body.
So hold on, what you had was the classic NDE, near-death experience.
That is correct.
And your cousin came and said, this is going to be all right, but never really explained whether all right was I'm going to die or I'm coming back.
That is correct.
And I saw my father in the distance.
Very interesting.
I saw my father in the distance who had died two years earlier.
He did not say anything to me.
And I just observed him, and it was almost like an acknowledgement, if you will.
I just think we acknowledged each other, and then I heard, James, James.
I was back in my body within a split second.
And it wasn't something that I had to think about, oh, I got to get back in my body.
I was just back there, okay?
And I remember there was a friend of mine, and he said, are you okay?
And I looked up, and I looked up, and I opened my eyes, and out of my mouth came these words.
I said to him, life is hard.
Life is hard.
Dying is easy.
Life is difficult.
Dying is easy.
Life is difficult.
And I remember saying that.
And really through the many communications I've had, it's a natural state of being.
You know, we leave our bodies every night we go to sleep.
We have what's inside of us a spirit body.
And at night, we sometimes shake before we leave.
Your spirit is not leaving the correct access of the body.
We leave every night we go to sleep and we go to the spiritual realms.
And our spirit body is connected to the physical body by the silver cord.
It's known as a silver cord.
You might have heard that.
It's also referred to In the Bible.
And this silver cord is a tether.
And we can see our families and friends and guides, if you will, in the spirit world.
And in the morning, we wake up.
We're unaware.
Sometimes we're unaware of it.
Other times we have dreams.
At the time of death, this silver cord is severed.
And it's a process.
It takes several months sometimes for it to be severed, sometimes right away, depending on the type of death.
But that's what happens.
And you see your loved ones.
Everyone, it's very interesting because you never die alone.
You always have your family and friends, the ones who've had love bonds created on this earth.
They come back to get you.
So this is a process that happens in stages.
I've always wondered about that because sadly, my mom, who I was very close to, died in hospital last year.
And I was having to drive up from London to be there.
I never made it.
She died before I got there.
But I was conscious of going in there to see her, and it didn't seem to me, and for a long time afterwards, it just did not seem to me, maybe this was psychological, I don't know, didn't feel to me that she was not around.
It felt to me that she was around in some form.
And now that we've moved like 18 months on from that, I feel she's gone to another stage, maybe.
Very, very true.
Very, very true.
That's what happens.
They go to another stage.
It's exactly what happens.
There are two stages.
There's that preliminary stage, if you will, when you leave the body and you really adapt, if you will, to the other side, your new state of life.
And then you move on to another stage.
But about 18 months.
That's right.
Two years.
That's correct.
Exactly right.
Okay, and is that for any reason?
Is that to make it easier on the people here who are grieving, which, you know, we all were and anybody who's been through this experience, of course, will be.
Is that part that's far?
Okay.
I think that's part of it.
I think part of it is to be around those loved ones on the earth and to influence them, to send them thoughts that you're okay.
You know, I tell people this, which is very funny, very interesting.
How many people have been driving their cars and they think of their loved one who has passed over?
Did you ever think that the loved one is sitting right next to you in the seat, sending you a thought of themselves, and you're just picking up on their energy?
It's a lovely, lovely thought.
So, okay, we have this 18-month period, and then the person who has died goes on to do something else.
What's the word?
I believe that the first part when you pass over is not only to influence those people, let them know you're okay, it's also the spirit who is adapting to the new state of life.
Because even though they are a spirit and they've had this, that's where they come from, you have to remember that they've just come from the physical three-dimensional world, and their mindset is still very much with that three-dimensional world.
There is no such thing as time.
Time is not measured over there.
Everything is done telepathically, so there's no physical voices, if you will.
So it must be a hell of a shock.
It can be.
It can be, depending on their awareness of the afterlife.
But see, that's where the family and friends come to help you with this transition.
It's kind of a transitional state, if you will.
And mostly it's around a year of the earth time.
It can be sooner.
But I've pretty much been feeling about a year, two years, 18 months, 12 months.
It's around that period that they move on to the next stage.
Okay, and that's when the people down here on our plane are perhaps a little easier with the idea that the person they loved has gone.
And maybe that's also, as you say, so that the person who's gone has adjusted to the fact that they are somewhere else.
So now we get into the situation.
We get into the question of what's the somewhere else and what do they have to do next?
What's the next phase in this?
Very good question.
Very, very good.
See, I know why you're a journalist because you have a good mind.
You're always thinking.
This is very, very good.
Well, you know, this is interesting, Howard, because remember, we can only look at this through a three-dimensional way and through the physical descriptions that we have on this level, right?
So when I say to you there's a world over there, a spirit world, I really can't tell you 100% of what that's like because we're looking through it through the glasses of a three-dimensional physical world.
So if I tell you that it's green, there's a place, you know what green looks like on this physical earth, but a green in a spiritual realm might be a very different color altogether.
So life in that other realm might be very different altogether.
So we can only give it physical traits, if you will, but I think that's limiting it.
But I will tell you what I know from the spirit world.
There seems to be a higher level you go to where there is, if you will, gardens that we have here on this earth, but even more so.
There seems to be a limitlessness as far as borders.
There seems to be houses there that we would recognize, all different types of architecture, depending on the soul's liking, if you will, they desire.
If they desire a big place over there, they can have that.
So the experience of crossing over is influenced by the person, the spirit, the individual who's crossed over, which reminds me of, and you talked about Hollywood, that Robin Williams movie, Is It When Dreams May Come, and over on the other side, what is experienced is to do with the life and the likings and the preferences of the person who's crossed over.
This is very, very true.
And also, I was a consultant on that movie.
I'll tell you the only thing about that movie they did not do correctly was a suicide, because their whole suicide thing there is very, very different than what they portrayed it.
But I will tell you this.
The colors were incredible.
I thought they did a great job as far as portraying it that way.
It was the best advertisement for not committing suicide, no matter how bad things get that there could ever be, because there it was.
It was saying, killing yourself is a bad thing, and you're not going to get the peace that you think you're going to get.
Is that how it is?
You know, it depends on the suicide.
If someone kills themselves because there's a chemical imbalance in their brain, it's very different than someone who kills themselves because their stocks went down.
It's a very different type of thing.
There's always love over the spirit world.
There's always help over there.
You're never pushed down to hell because you've killed yourself.
It seems that the people that are left behind, the spirit that dies that way, they seem to be obsessed with the people left behind, what they did to the people left behind.
That seems to be the worst part of it.
They also might have to come back and relive certain lessons because this is our schoolroom and they didn't pass certain tests.
So they might have to come back next time and try to pass those tests.
Which is what a lot of Eastern religions say.
You know, you get it wrong here, and you've got to come back and do it again, get it right.
You've got to learn it, don't you?
You've got to learn the full Spectrum of that lesson.
That's correct.
There's also something which is very, very interesting, Howard, which I've been told many, many times.
There is indeed a life review.
When you pass over, there is a life review.
Now, because it's a different dimension, 80 years in the physical earth can be seconds in that world.
It seems that you not only experience the past life, you'll experience situations that you had on this earth, but you feel it even 10, 20 times stronger, which means that if you go into a market and you're in a very bad mood and you yell at the store clerk, and that store clerk goes to a coworker and yells at them and is bad to them, and then that person goes home and screams at their family and creates havoc with the family.
When you pass over and you have that life review, you see that situation and you feel how that clerk felt when you yelled at them.
You feel what you did with that energy, and you see how your one word, your one thought is responsible for that person and that person and that person.
So it's a rippling effect, if you will.
Now, unless we're Mother Teresa, most of us have caused, whether we've meant to or whether we haven't meant to, have caused upset or pain to other people in our lives.
It's part of the human condition.
I mean, no one is perfect.
So does that mean that everybody's got a whole lot of this stuff coming to them?
You betcha.
Gee, how do you prepare for that?
Well, how do you prepare for that?
By being conscious, by being mindful, by being aware of yourself as a spiritual being and being responsible for your thoughts, your words, and your deeds.
So that means that the message from this is all of us have to say, okay, I'm going to be a better person from today.
That is correct.
That is correct.
And this is our schoolroom, so no one is perfect.
We're learning.
We're learning.
But at least if you have that sense of I've done wrong here, now I know better.
I'm going to change things.
That's the first step of being mindful.
And now I've started doing this.
I swear it's amazing to me.
About 10 years ago, I really started getting more involved with my daily activities as far as what I say to people, what I think about people, and how I treat people.
And it's really amazing how it changes your life once you do that.
Being mindful.
And I always get by it with this, you know, and I grew up in a Christian background, if you will.
But it's very true.
I always say, like when I'm with a person in a social situation, whether it's at a party, whether it's at work, whatever it is, how would I like to be treated?
So I'm going to treat that person how I would love to be treated.
Now, I have one lady, she takes care of my, she cleans my house once a week, and I feel for her, and I give her things, I treat her nicely, I laugh with her, because I want to be treated that way too.
And I feel that's the way you do it.
You have to treat one another.
Everybody's the same.
You know, I do believe we're all connected.
And one of the biggest, this is very interesting, one of the biggest illusions that we have, because this world, this third-dimensional world, is the illusionary world, but one of the biggest illusions that we have is there's a sense of separativeness, that we're separate from one another, when in truth, we are all connected.
I used to work at a hospice many, many years ago, and there was a man there who was passing on, and he was going in and out, if you will, of the body, and he came back and opened his eyes, and he said, we're all one.
We're all one.
Closed his eyes and dropped dead.
And I often say it's like the ice cubes in a tray.
You know, you have separate ice cubes.
But if you took the ice cubes out and you raised the temperature, they would melt and become one.
And you would not be able to differentiate one ice cube from another.
So there are two schools of thought here, aren't there?
That here we can all influence each other.
We all have an influence on this world.
Correct.
And yet you were also saying, I think, that there's the other world that we're going to, the other state of being that we're going to, where we can't have an influence over it, or can we?
Well, I think that the other world is, when you first get there, you've created your world, if you will, based on how you lived your life with the physical earth.
A really cute little story I want to share with you, if you don't mind.
St. Peter met this man at the gate, okay?
And this man passed over.
He was extremely wealthy, one of the wealthiest people in the world, on the earth, came over there, and St. Peter led him through the gate, and this man saw these beautiful parks and gardens and castles.
And he said, oh, I used to have several of these mansions and castles when I was on the earth.
And he showed him beautiful gardens and beautiful colors and so forth.
And then walking around the path, and he goes down a little further, and it starts getting a little darker.
And he's looking around, and the houses are getting smaller.
And this man said, well, where's my house?
And St. Peter said, don't worry, we'll get there.
Goes down a few more steps, and he notes it gets darker.
And the houses start getting very small, and it really starts turning into like a various cardboard boxes, all right?
And very dark.
And St. Peter points to this little cardboard box in the corner, all the way to the other side of the path.
And the man said, well, what's this?
And he said, well, that's your house.
What do you mean that's my house?
I was one of the wealthiest men in the world.
I own mansions and castles, and I had so many people working for me.
What do you mean that's my house?
I deserve better than that.
And St. Peter looked at him and he said, we could only build with the materials you sent us.
Oh, ho, ho.
What a great story.
I love that.
I've got to remember that one.
Let's go to that one.
That's a good one.
That really is a good one.
And it really describes it perfectly.
Because your thoughts are real.
You create with your thoughts.
And what you're putting out, you will get back.
Thoughts are so real.
Thoughts are things.
Thoughts is material.
It's matter.
And it really does make a difference.
You must have read that research recently.
Some scientist somewhere said that it appears that by looking at a distant part of the universe, we have somehow, by looking at it and looking at it with a particular mindset, clearly, we've influenced it.
Yes.
Yes, we do.
You bet.
That's exactly right.
We create.
We are constantly creating, creating, creating constantly with our thoughts.
We're constantly creating.
We don't see these thoughts because we're, again, limited in a three-dimensional world.
You don't see them flying in the air, just like you don't see cell phone transmissions or radio or television signals.
But we know they exist because there's transmitters and receivers.
We receive the signals, so we know they're there, right?
So thoughts are the same thing.
Thoughts are out there.
And when you pass into that other realm, you actually see the thoughts.
James, do you believe in ghosts?
Oh, of course.
My life.
All right.
Well, look, the UK, you will know this when you come here.
The UK is full of old buildings, and a lot of those old buildings.
I live very close.
Have you heard of Hampton Court?
I've been to Hampton Court when I was 14 years old, and I saw lots of Stuarts there.
All right, well, Hampton Court is a good thing.
And not only that, but Henry VIII walks around there a lot.
Well, apparently he does, and you know, if anybody's got a few things to atone for, I guess he's got a few things to atone for.
But that place has got such a big history, and it's said to be one of the most haunted places in the UK.
Let me share with you, Howard, as you're talking, I'm just getting a hit on this.
I think, like, Howard, like Henry VIII and so forth, a lot of those people, I think that when they left the body, and I think some of the hauntings are because of this, that when they leave the body, they're aware of all the negative things they did, if you will.
And in those days, it was a very religious culture.
They might be afraid to move on to the light for what God might do to them.
They know what's coming to them.
That's exactly right.
Think of it that way.
So they stay behind and they go with their old haunts.
So what does that mean for all the tyrants and despots and dictators and bad people who've murdered tens and tens of thousands of people?
Does that mean when they get into that situation, they might be thinking to themselves, well, I can't go any further than this because I'm going to pay for this?
I think there is a certain amount of percentage of people, of spirits, that will have that mindset, that say, I can't move on.
I'm staying here because I'm afraid of what I've done.
If they have that consciousness, you know, if they're aware of that.
Some of them aren't even aware that they've killed anything.
They have no sense of wrong.
So, you know, they don't have that.
But in the spirit world, there are many, many levels.
In the Bible, it says, my father has a house with many mansions.
What I believe that means, interpreting that, there are many, many levels of spiritual awareness, evolution, if you will.
And you go to that level which you've created based upon your thoughts, your words, and your deeds.
It seems like on this earth, we're thrown together with people of all different levels of spiritual evolution.
All different levels.
But in the spiritual realms, you go to that level.
You're attracted to that level, that vibration, of people exactly the same way as you.
So there are levels of people who are tyrants, and they have to deal with each other on that level.
So they're a tyrant school.
They're tyrants who have to live with themselves.
Okay, so they're having to deal with the situation.
You bet, over and over and over again.
With our situations.
Listen, I didn't let you finish about ghosts, and I should have.
Like I say, we have all these haunted buildings in the UK.
They're old pubs, and there was even a shop, I think, in the west country of England a few years ago that made the national news because it was a shoe shop, and the spirit was throwing the shoes around the shop, and the people who worked in that shop were quitting, and they were very scared, as you might be.
What are those things?
Well, they're all different levels, if you will, of ghosts, if you will, or spirits, you know, spirits or ghosts, whatever you want to call them.
There are different types.
So there might be some who don't want to move on, who like to stay and hang around and deal with the living.
And, you know, a lot of people, let's say they pass out of the body and they're still not settled.
They haven't resolved certain conflicts.
And this is my show, Ghost Wisp, where we deal with this every week, where they are still so obsessed, if you will, with whether it's a will that they have to make sure it's done, you know, gets the money, gets to the right people.
They're obsessed physically with the place they used to live in.
They want certain conditions to happen for people that are behind them.
So they'll stay there to try to influence things to happen.
So there are different types of ghosts.
Those ghosts, they're the ones who are afraid to pass over because they're afraid of what God, with what they believe, that condemnation, whatever it's going to get to them.
They're going to have to deal with themselves.
They don't want to leave, so they face that.
And then there are also just people who are, listen, once you leave the body, you can travel.
If you're nosy, you can go and do anything you want.
You can see anything you want.
And there are those types of spirits as well.
Like a combination of those different types of spirits.
Here's a left field question for you.
Have you communicated as a medium with anybody who's been famous?
A lot.
A lot.
Like who?
Goodness gracious.
Let me think.
Marilyn Monroe has come through me.
Oh, Marilyn.
Yes, Marilyn Monroe.
Liberace has come through.
Betty Davis has come through.
All right, well, let's talk about Marilyn because, of course, Marilyn Monroe fascinates everybody.
Certainly fascinates me.
How did she die?
Marilyn, she was killed.
She was killed by the CIA, by Robert Kennedy's people.
They killed her.
Yeah.
And she shot her up.
She knew that.
She knew that as she died.
This is a very, very interesting.
Yes, this is very interesting.
I sat many years ago when I was doing private readings then, because I stopped doing them 15 years ago to spread the word more on television and so forth through books.
But I used to do private readings every day.
I sat with Susan Straussberg.
Susan Straussberg was the daughter of Lee Straussberg, very famous in Marilyn's life.
He was a director in an acting school and so forth.
Marlon Brando went, they did the Method, that type of acting, the Method acting.
And she was writing a book about Marilyn because she grew up with Marilyn Monroe.
And she wanted to see if she can come through.
And we sat for a good 45 minutes.
Nothing happened.
I mean, she had other people come through, but not Marilyn.
At the very, very end, I heard in my head, this is Norma.
Norma Ray, Norma.
And that was her name.
And I said, well, she's here and she's speaking about an apartment that you two used to share in New York.
And Susan Strasbourg said, yes, when I was a little girl, we shared an apartment.
We used to kind of hang out, if you will, in the village, in the Greenwich Village.
And Marilyn said that she could write this book.
But the one thing that really stood out to me, what Marilyn said, it really was amazing.
She said, I wish they would pay homage to themselves instead of to me.
Meaning the general public.
I wish they'd pay homage to themselves instead of to me.
Well, that kind of ties in with a lot of stuff that we've read about her, that she was, in fact, lacking in self-confidence, quite humble person.
Very humble.
But I think, you know, it's very funny because a lot of celebrities who I've brought through, they say, well, the personality that you know was not my who I am.
That was a television or a movie persona.
That wasn't really who I am.
That's what you saw.
Very different than that.
One person I did bring through, which is a very funny story.
I was sitting with this man, And I never know who people want to contact, and I don't want to know ahead of time.
And I said to him, in the middle of the reading, I said to this gentleman, There's a lady over here, and her left hand is moving very quickly, and she's saying she has a cigarette in her hand, and she sounds like Betty Davis.
And she's going, Betty Davis.
And he said, Oh, that's correct.
That's Betty Davis.
I used to be her secretary.
Wow.
And she came through, this is very interesting.
She said to the gentleman, she said, you have her desk, and her desk has a cigarette burn in the wood, and her initials are also carved on that desk.
And he said, yes, I have it in my sitting room.
How bizarre is that?
I don't know.
You could probably try for 20 years to explain that away in inverted commas rationally, and I don't think you would succeed.
That's an amazing story.
It's amazing.
No, it is amazing.
And I remember I was, Peter Allen came through once.
This girl is sitting there, and I said, I feel like I want to say going to Rio, Rio de Janeiro, this song Rio de Janeiro.
And I said, who's Peter?
She said, that's Peter Allen.
We knew him very well, and every New Year's Eve, we would go down to South America with him in Rio and celebrate.
So that was another interesting one.
So actually, there's a whole, if you ever wanted to get involved in this, but this whole thing about contacting famous spirits, and there's a whole TV show, isn't there, Dead Famous about that.
You could get involved in that if you wanted to.
Yes, if I wanted to, but that's, you know, it is what it is.
That to me is just, I don't know, TV stuff.
I guess it's okay, but there's more to it than just famous dead people.
I mean, I don't know.
I think it's more about the living, like the more everyday people of my world.
Now, James, I didn't know this, but I had a feeling about this.
You have, as has come out in the three quarters of an hour that we've talked, big connection with the UK.
So, you know, are you coming here and when?
Yes, I would like to go over there.
I have not been over there yet.
My books are very popular there.
I'm pretty popular over there.
Ghost Whisperer is huge over there.
I have put together a TV show, which I'm actually speaking to BBC World about.
And there's nothing set yet, but I really want to go over there and I want to do a television show.
Because my background is also, my grandmother was from London.
My grandmother was from Wales.
So I have a love there of the UK.
And I just want to go back and do that because I haven't done that yet in my career.
And I really would like to bring my point of view, my perspective, if you will, over to the UK.
Because we have now Lisa Williams over here, and she's very popular here.
I know she's popular back there as well.
But I think it would be very interesting to have the American go over to the UK and do some work.
No, I think that's true.
And I don't think it's quite been done in that way.
We have a lot of homegrown talent in the UK, you know, and a certain amount of TV shows that are on satellite and cable TV and going mainstream too.
But we don't have people from other countries, not really, not yet.
No, but we will.
I'll make it happen.
Right.
Well, this has been a fascinating conversation, and as they say, and as I've said before, to be continued, I would say.
Yes, very much so, Howard.
Very much so.
No, I greatly enjoyed this.
Now, if anybody wants to find out about you, how do they do it?
They go to my website, which, listen, I'm having a wonderful cruise in August, a psychic cruise.
And it's a whole week with me on a ship, and I teach people about psychic development.
And an amazing cruise that's going to be.
And it's limited the amount of people we're going to have.
If people are interested to learn more about me or my cruise or my workshops, they go to my website, which is vanprog.com, V-A-N-P-R-A-A-G-H.com.
And it's a wonderful community of people as well.
And of the books, which is a good starter?
Talking to Heaven, my first book.
It's a very good primer, Talking to Heaven.
It describes my experience as far as how I became aware of this ability, this world, and how I delved into it and what it all means.
And it's a very good basic fundamental book, Talking to Heaven.
James Van Prague, pleasure to talk to you, and I wish you all the very best.
And I hope that in 2008, maybe we'll meet when you come to the UK.
Oh, I'm looking forward to it.
James, thank you very much.
Thank you, Howard.
This has been The Unexplained.
James Van Praag has been my guest on this show.
Thank you very much for listening.
Thank you to Graham Mullins, my webmaster, for his design work on the site and his continuing hard work.
Thank you to Martin for the theme tune.
Thank you to you for listening.
Don't forget triple w.theunexplained.tv.
Go to the website.
Send me an email through it.
Tell me what you think.
Take care.
Thank you.
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