Ruth Montgomery

Leslie Flint

James Van Praagh

Brian E. Hurst

Rosemary Altea

Private reading at James Van Praagh's home

Beverly Garland Hotel: in line for an evening with James Van Praagh, July 13, 1997

Interview with James Van Praagh
(October 09, 1996)

T: If we talk about death, we have to be sad--it's tradition. We have to grieve, and we have to cry. And the biggest miracle of your demonstrations is that everybody is, at the end, happy--lifted up and energized.
J: Very true, very true. And why is that? Well, I think the reason why people are happy is because first what I do is, I provide proof. I provide evidential details of their loved ones, whether it's names, or places, or facts that I would not know about them, and it proves that this information is coming from somewhere. And it's such specific information, that it can only be known from the person who passed away in spirit, and the person who is receiving the information. Also, people have often said, "Well, maybe you are doing mind reading." This is not true, because I have brought through information for people who were sitting in the room, and they did not understand who I was talking about or the names I was bringing through. They went home and asked their relatives, and it made total sense. So it proves indeed that there is no mind reading here. So really what I do is facilitate proof of life after death, that we do leave this shell. Because we are all energy anyway; life is the life-force, so energy. We are made up of energy, and you can't kill energy. How can you kill energy? You can't do it. So, it just shows you that energy moves on. And I'm able to attract that energy again to come back, and they impress me with thoughts, feelings, emotions, and I'm able to get to a place where I'm just silent, and I'm receiving these things, these feelings and emotions, and I'm able to give them to people. And it makes them feel very good. And the people in the room, even if they don't get a personal message themselves, they feel the strength of that emotion, the strength of the proof of life after death. And indeed, we all are common, we all have this in common, don't we -- the death experiences. So we can relate to it, and in turn that makes us feel better and happy.

T: It is true. And that happens, really, the effect of energizing. I am not earning big money. But the next day after I attended your demonstration, I had an astrology customer. She wanted to pay me and I asked $80. She gave me the check, I thanked her and put the check aside. When she was gone, I discovered that the check was for $150. Vladimir said, "It happened because you attended Van Praagh's demonstration and you still had his energy when you did your reading."
J: [Laughing] What's your birth sign?

T: Leo.
J: You are a Leo! Oh, great. I love Leo. I'm August 23rd. I'm on Leo-Virgo cusp. I'm zero degree Virgo. My rising is Capricorn, and my Moon sign is in Sagittarius. And I have four planets in Leo: Mercury, Venus, some other planets -- I'm not sure which ones they are, Saturn maybe. And everything of mine is in the Eighth House [according to an astrological terminology, Eighth House rules death and resurrection], or the Twelfth House [rules secluded and hidden things, including esoteric teachings and mediumship], I have a loaded Eighth, and a loaded Twelfth; they're psychic houses.

T: Absolutely, absolutely.
J: And all my planets are at above horizon, the top of the horizon, which of course, you know, is for the public. And this is why  I'm able to do this work. 'Cause I was born for this sort of work. I came back here to do that kind of work.

T: Absolutely, absolutely.
J: And Brian Hurst was the one that really recognized that in me, that I had this gift. And I didn't believe him, and sure enough…it seems like it happened.

T: But, did you have a teacher to master the energies, because I have been at Brian's demonstrations, and I had seen many, many great psychics. But I have not seen such an ability to handle group-energy. It is remarkable.
J: Well, I believe that. Brian started me, but I also sat in development circle for many years. In development circle we sit together with certain people, every once a week and you really let spirit work on your energies. And I think that helped quite a bit. And I really got to tell you that… part of it is, you know, thought is very real. Thoughts are real. And if you believe in something, and hold to it, and know it is going to happen, it will manifest. And I knew that this would manifest. I knew it. I just knew it.

T: What do you consider more important, to give the message that life is eternal, what Leslie Flint did, what Brian is doing, or to cleanse the aura of people who come to your demonstrations? There is a crowd of a hundred, four hundred, maybe five hundred people at a demonstration; they all do change, yes?
J: Yes, yes, yes. We all change, yes.

T: Because of this energizing and cleansing and releasing of fear -- I don't know, what is more important in your case?
J: Well, it's really both; it goes hand in hand. It's the same thing because you can't take one away from the other. With Leslie, who I've met many times, sat with him also, and my mother's come through in the séance room, with her voice, and it was very incredible. Leslie was one of the best mediums, physical mediums of our time. And Brian is very good also, his mental mediumship. And when you bring through evidential details, that you know, it does release a lot of the problems people have. I will release with that work, you know, the guilt, that they might have with someone that passed over. It resolves a lot of personal problems, and they can move on with their lives. They can see that they're--major healing takes place there. People often call me healer. And it's very true, I think I'm a healer. And it helps people to move on, and to realize that death is just an experience, that we'll see each other again, that this person can contact us. They were just with us for a certain time, to learn certain things. We have an obligation to ourselves to live our lives, and move on; we all have our own paths. And it helps people to move on to their path, as well.

T: May I ask one question on regarding--
J: Let me just interrupt you, and maybe this will help you a little bit. And I don't know what it means, but you talk about the energies. I also figure, not to pat myself on the head, 'cause I'm not like that. But when doing television shows one of the most common reactions people have, or responses, they said they knew I was genuine when they looked in my eyes. They saw my blue eyes, and they knew that I was sincere and genuine. And they could feel that even across the television set, they could feel the energy. And it's very, very common for people: when they see me on the television, they feel better.

T: That's fantastic.
J: What's your question?

T: If we are so dull on the Earth, how do our relatives become so smart in heaven?
J: Well, because we are asleep on the Earth; we're not aware here. You know, spirit calls us "the walking dead," on the Earth, the walking dead. Because many of us live a life where it's very regimented, it's very black and white. We all live by the senses--our eyes, smells, the five or six senses. We don't use the other sense of feeling, emotion, and we don't get in contact with our spiritual selves. Most people don't. And they really take life for just every day, for "this is what it is," and "how much money I can make," and "what position I can get," and they don't really feel the true part of it, which is the spirit, spiritual and love. And what I go through every day, I see love. I'm only human too. I mean, I have troubles and I have frailties and foibles. But I think it's very important that people get back in touch with love. They do not think only about themselves. I do believe now that things are changing; there is a change where people are not looking for outside religions anymore, or outside to fulfill this need, they go inside. I think more people now are beginning to go into their inner self. I always say to people, "There's a world inside you, and it is so more fascinating than the world outside of you." And I believe that's the reason it's so dull, and most people aren't aware. They're totally unaware. And when the test's over, of course, the awareness increases. There's a whole new world, the spirit, and the true world.

T: Does the spirit world need us?
J: Yes, very much. We both depend upon each other. Because, this is very interesting, many people think that just because someone passes into spirit that they're all-knowledgeable, that they have full awareness, and that's not true. We teach them as well. We might be more involved than someone in the spirit world. See? They might be not as involved. I've had many clients that the spirit has come through for, and they said, "Oh, you helped me. You helped me to move on. You helped me to realize certain things about love." And they want to thank the person on the Earth. Because they learned from them. They can see how the person on the Earth goes through different situations and how they deal with situations, and have love or forgiveness, and they see that, and they teach them. "Oh, wow, that's amazing how they did that!" and it teaches them. And also they can impress us, they can help us. The spirits do help us. We have our free will, of course, and we have karmic considerations that they cannot interfere with. We have our karma. They cannot interfere with it. There are certain experiences we must go through, and as painful as it is, it's only to learn things, it's only learning. And the spirit people, it's unfortunate, they have to go through watching us go through this pain, but they know that in the long run we'll gain from this. But they can help influence certain things in our lives, like getting jobs, or money, or whatever, or bringing someone into your life. They can help with these things. As long as there's no karma involved--they cannot interfere with the karma.

T: Thank you, it was a wonderful answer to my question.
J: I hope it answered it! [Laughing] I just go on and on… There are so many questions, I didn't know which ones you wanted to ask.

T: Oh, yes, about the person [at a recent demonstration]--a spirit entity wanted to show you that he had died of cancer, and he did something to you, and you said, "He gave me the whole thing."
J: What does that mean? Is that what you're asking, what does that mean when I say they give me it?

T: Yes, "the whole thing"--was it something negative? Or in order to show you that it was…
J: Yes, I understand. What happens is, when spirits come to me, they will give me a feeling, a sense of what was wrong with them. I sometimes feel it physically, and sometimes I don't. It depends on who is communicating, how the spirit wants to communicate. Sometimes they'll show me, like an amputee has no leg. And I'll say, "Oh, they were missing a leg." Or, if they had arthritis very badly [interrupted by phone ringing]--I'm sorry, I'm just going to answer that. [Returns]

T: James, I am asking because of readers, not even because of me. Because many women are very superstitious, they believe that we give negative thoughts to each other, eat each other's energy, you know. There is between women endless consideration about who takes energy from whom, who is so called "spiritual vampire," who is carrying light and who is spreading darkness. In my country they say, "This woman gave me the 'bad eye' and since that time I have no luck," or something like that. "She gave her 'bad eye' to my child, and the child has been sick ever since!"
J: Yes, negativity.

T: Is it possible that the spirit world also gives us some kind of negativity?
J: Well, yes. Yes, obviously. Because you have to remember that there are different levels of spirit evolution. In the Bible Jesus says, "My Father has a house of many mansions." What that means are the various spirit levels that exist. And we go to that level, which we created, based upon our love, on our thoughts, feelings, words, and deeds. And just like on the Earth, there are some very nasty people in the spirit world. They are on a lower level of evolution, and they might want to go after someone. Or attack someone, spirit attack. And I do believe that this exists, no doubt about it. When I do my work, I do protect myself with white light around me, with Christ's white light of divinity and love. The strongest words we have in the English language are two words; they're the very strongest in the energy of the English language--that's LOVE and GOD. Those two words are the fastest vibrational words we have in our language. LOVE and GOD. And I always bring love energy around me. And love, when you have love energy around you, it's like a bright light--shshshshsh!--and darker forces, or lower forces, cannot handle this light, cannot handle the light, and they will go away. And I always have to protect myself. Whenever I do work, I always protect myself, because I don't want to take on anyone else's stuff. There's no reason to. Yes. But I do believe if you're true of heart and you're in a good space, and you put yourself in a good God-like space, divinity. I think that like attracts like, and you attract only good things.

T: I would love to, if I had a chance, I would love to translate this into my languages, Estonian and Russian, because really, your message is worth being introduced to people over there.
J: I hope you can. Well, the people over there have been suppressed for so long because of the government. I think when freedoms are taken away from people, when individuality is pulled away, then that is just awful. I think that's a sin. And even in this country, with power, and governments all over -- it's all power and greed. And that's evil. I think that's not working with the light. Spirits call these people "the walking dead"! Their vision is very limited. They do not see people of different races, different colors, different creeds, as the same. And we're all the same because we've all got life force. We're all living… we're life force. We all are Gods: each one of us has a spark of God. The outside might look different. The color might be different--the complexion, the face, whatever, the stature, the body--but we're the same inside. And if people realize that more, they could respect each other more. And if they realize how they treat each other, it'll come back right to them, because we're connected. Then they would change their lives. But unfortunately, the governments are so much into greed and the power, the power, power, power. And unfortunately, the religions have been involved with power--how to control the masses. And yet the Catholic Church is one of the most corrupt organizations around. And it's destroying people's lives. The monasteries are the wealthiest landowners in the world. And yet they have so many poor people. Well, they could sell a few of those lands, and they would help some poor people out. To me, to see the Pope in his beautiful robes, and the gold, I just don't understand it. It's hypocrisy, it really is, it's hypocritical. It really is. It doesn't make sense.

T: The Russian church today is also involved in politics, and over there they use The Russian church for fanning nationalism, and worse, chauvinism. If small Germany did what it did being fascist, then what would Russia do becoming chauvinistic?
J: But you know, people need to believe in something. And they trick people's minds and have them believing that the government will answer your questions, and you believe in us. And people just give over everything to them, thinking it will help them. And they realize that no, it won't. Because it goes back to self. It goes back to self, and to have people responsible for themselves. And they're responsible for their own happiness. And no one else can make them happy but themselves. The secret's in here, inside. Isn't that right? Do you understand?

T: Absolutely! This is what all the Russian immigrants are doing here in America. It is our dish, our cup of tea. Before we were limited to dependency on the government, and here we learn personal responsibility.
J: Very true, very true.

T: It is not so much for me, but whoever will read it, that idea of where is paradise and where is hell? It is an eternal, universal question.
J: We're all looking, where is heaven, where is the spiritual world? We're all looking at it from the physical point of view: it has to be someplace physical, it has to be behind the next door. We have to understand, this is not physical, it's spiritual. The spirit world is inter-dimensional. It's in us, and it's around us, right here [indicating the heart] and it's above us and below us. And it's around the Earth world, and it's above the Earth. And like I said, there are many levels, and you create the level inside yourself, what you did. You create your own hell, your own heaven. You go to that place when you die, based upon how you treated each other, how you loved each other. And you go to a place where there are people who are on the exact same level that you are. So, if there are people who are very evil, if you were evil in your lifetime, and say, you killed someone, then you will go to a place where there are other people who killed people. You have to live with those people, and that's the hell. That's what happens.

T: Would you like to say something about your family?
J:  Did you get a press kit on me? We mailed the presskit with the newspaper articles and I'll give you one of those. It tells you everything. I was raised Irish Catholic by my mother. And I never believed--I went to Catholic school for eight years and then I went to a church mass, and I never believed it. I loved the songs, and I loved the dress, what they dressed up in, the ceremonial part of it. But I never believed what they were getting at. Because, they kept talking about--and I don't mean to offend anyone with this., but--the body and blood of Christ. And I was like--now, of course, I realize it was symbolic, but when you look at it as a kid, you think, first of all, that's very disgusting, eating the body and blood--yuck! And then I didn't understand how a man, a human being, could change this, just by waving a hand, to make this into the body and blood of Christ. I didn't understand. It didn't make sense whatsoever to me. The music made more sense to me than that. And when I graduated from the eighth grade, I went to a Catholic seminary to become a priest--for a year. Isn't that something? Of course, now, when I look back at it, it could have been from past-life memories of being in a monastery, or a nunnery or something--the religious element. And I believe that. I wrote in my book, "That is where my sense of religion ended and a sense of spirituality began." Because I always had an inner feeling, these feelings--hard to describe--of a love, of a certain feeling, that there was more to it than religion. And I really believed it, that religion was so limiting. I mean my religion was just too limiting. And I knew there was more than that. Yes.
And my family never believed in what I did, until I appeared on a television show, called "The Joan Rivers Show," back about three years ago. And I guess that made them--made me have some credibility [Laughter] You can tell, that for years, they don't believe you. They think you're some kind of a nut in California, the land of fruit and nuts, California. But then they started believing it. They saw what I did, it was real, and they're very proud of me now. My grandparents were psychic. Yeah, my grandparents. My grandmother was psychic on my father's side. I was very close with her. And my grandmother and father on my mother's side were very psychic. They're all from the Celtic area, Ireland and England, which is very, very psychic, intuitive. It is surrounded by water. And it's always been known for the intuitive.

T:Yes, it's an amazing spot. [I tell him a story about the Estonian psychic Heiki Krimm].
J: I would love to meet him [Krimm]. I would love to meet him. I'll fly over. I'd love to, it would be great. We could do a meeting. I don't speak your language, but--translate! I did that in Brazil. I was translated, I worked with someone who translated the message.

T: It's fantastic. I will let them know, and we'll find somebody who can really translate over there. 
J: So I have your address? You leave me your address.

T:Yes.What do you think about long-distance travel, like Brazil?
J: On leaving your body? Out-of-body experiences, do you mean? Is that what you're talking about?

T: No, if you make long-distance travel to Brazil, to Estonia, to Hungary, or whatever country, it gives you a feeling of expansion.
J: Definitely. You learn. You learn from traveling. No doubt about it. You definitely learn from your travels. No doubt about it. Oh, sure. And it's a very humbling experience when you go out. They humble you. They make you realize--things about yourself, and about the world we live in. Yes, definitely.

T: What do you think about past lives?
J: Ah! Past lives, yes. Well, I do believe in reincarnation. I do believe that we are a sum of all that we've been. And I do believe we come back, and we learn, and learn, and learn--some lessons over and over and over again, until we fully get as much around it in a knowledge of this experience as we can, because then, of course, it rounds out the soul. And if you want to put it this way, it puts like a lightbulb in the soul. It makes it lighter, and more rounded, more full, so we have to go through these experiences. And I do believe we go through these lifetimes to work out these experiences with people and situations, to perfect them, to make them perfect. I do believe it.

T: I believe you must have had some artistic incarnations, because you can handle such huge audiences. You didn't learn it in this lifetime, this theatrical skill, you learned it--
J: Yes. I think that I've been lifetimes and lifetimes--I've been involved with theater for many, many lifetimes. Oh, yes, easily, easily. I've been a minstrel in one lifetime, I was a fool and jester in a court in one lifetime. Michael Tamura told me this. And it makes so much sense.

T: Absolutely!
J: He told me some past lives made absolute sense. And there are others where I was a monk and I was a nun, and that put the spiritual part into my soul. So this time I came back using both those talents, and perfected a way to help mankind, humankind.

T: When you see a big audience, and they're seated at the back, how do you recognize who is going to receive a message?
J: Ah, there we go…What I do is, I have to--everyone is pulling at me, everyone in the audience is thinking of themselves. So if you noticed, the first thing I did was, I have to stop that immediately. I have to stop that energy of self, of thinking of ego, of me-me-me-me-me. And I have to open the energy up for it to be unison--like the whole--to unite the entire energy, so it kind of makes it open, very open. And then, I just kind of--I don't know how I--I do it so much, I just--I don't even think of how I do it. But I just kind of drift away. I'm losing--I'm there, but yet, another part of me, my spirit part of me, is way out there. My soul self, I guess. And then the spirits speak to me, and I will go to the first person that they are talking about, or they give me information about someone.

T: In the audience the energy level is increasing. You let the energy go so high, yes? It happens in the second part of the demonstration. How do you do that?
J: Yes, I know. I don't know how it works. They just give me the information and I say, "Is someone here who has a chain in their bag with a picture on it?" And sure enough--because they've given that information. Sometimes I'll see a spirit standing behind someone, but not always. Not always. It depends on who they want me to go to. They work at it--my guides help to show me who they want me to go to. I don't just pick people.

T: It is absolutely true, and this is fantastic. Thank you. I don't want to keep you any longer from your duties, because it is really fantastic. 
J: My presskit also has my bio, and there's a question interview with me from someone else who's done this. And it might help you with some more. And there are newspaper articles that help. If you have any questions you want to ask me, feel free.

T: What do you do when you really have nothing to do--no demonstrations, no sittings, no calls?
J: I get bored. I look for something to do. I call people on the phone. I have some friends, I see friends. I'm writing my book right now. It keeps me busy. I started taking yoga. And I'm really starting to get back involved. I'm very human. I mean, I'm just like everyone else. I really am. I'm very much like everyone else. People do not realize that, but it is true. I'm very much a human being. And some people--I'm not a god, like some tend to think. I believe, though that everybody has a potential to be themselves, to get in contact with their God-self. If people would just close out the outside world, like I say, and go into the inside world--that's what I teach people in m y classes-I teach people to do that, to develop psychically. That's how you develop psychically, bringing in the inside, and then believing in it.

T: Do you teach classes?
J: Yes, I teach classes, "The Psychic Law." I'm teaching--yeah, next January, February, I'll be teaching some, starting again. I have two hundred people that want to have classes.

T: Do you have some vacancies?
J: Yes, for sure. I don't know how long you're going to be here, though.

T: No, I am here now, because I've run away from Russia. I moved here. [I show him my article about an Estonian film festival published in the International Documentary Association Magazine, Los Angeles.] I will stay here. How much do you charge for your classes?
J: I don't even know how much it was. It was like under a hundred dollars, for 5 or 6 weeks.

T: This I can afford.
J: Yes, you can afford that. It's like $15 for a class or something like that.

T: Thank you. I'll put my name down for the class. [Regrettably, it was not meant to happen, I did not attend his class.]
J: You know, once you read my press kit, you'll be able to fill it out. It's all about me. And my book called Talking to Heaven is coming out next year by Penguin Books. It's a three-part book. The first part is about mediumship, what is my mediumship, how you can learn about mediumship, and what I am--I'm a medium. And what kind of gift do I have, and how does this work and so forth. The second part of the book, it's about the sessions that I had. I break them down to car tragedies or accidents, like car accidents and motorcycles, people that passed away from suicide, people who passed with AIDS. And then I have another section, it's called "Love Reunions," where people come to me in different sessions; they want to contact someone, and it's a reunion. I have a man who had celebrated the fiftieth anniversary with me. He came here on his fiftieth anniversary and he talked to his wife. And she recalled how they were on the Eiffel Tower on their honeymoon back in 1940 something. And it was quite incredible, quite incredible.And the last part of the book is going to be about the impact. How people, now they realize they have this information, how they themselves can use this to help themselves to get over grief, by visualization, by meditations, by writing letters to loved ones who passed over--how they can help themselves. It gives them help.

T: It is good to know. We had so much problems, but when time comes, we forget--
J: Did your dad pass over? He's right behind you. And he's a nice man, gentleman. He's very much a gentleman. Was he ever in the army or military? 'Cause he's wearing a military uniform.

T: Yes. He was killed instantly in Estonia when the Russian army moved forward through Estonia toward Berlin.
J: Oh, that's what it was.

T: That was two weeks after he had visited us for a few days. We had hoped he would survive--
J: There's a birthday coming up around this family, he's telling us. Whose birthday?

T: [Laughing] Don't forget a birthday! [Both laughing].
J: So he loves you very much, and he's helping you with your work. Yes, he is helping you very much. Your mama passed over too, did she?

T: No, she's...
J: Probably sitting, somewhere?

T: Yeah, I left my apartment to her.
J: She says she sits all the time.

T: Yeah, she's--
J: She's sitting all the time. And she is too much overweight. She has a weight-gaining problem? Is she gaining weight?

T: I have a weight problem.
J: You have a weight problem.

T: She's [laughing] much better than me.
J: That's all right. A lot of love there, between you.

T: Thank you.

[Actually, my mother did not pass over, she has no weight problem, and she does not usually just sit motionlessly, on the contrary, she is very active and always busying herself with something. But a couple of days after that interview, we got a letter from Tallinn, Estonia, from Vladimir's biological mother, Galina, saying that her mother, Maria Kuzminishna, had just passed away in her sleep. The letter also said that at the very end she was sitting motionlessly looking hours and hours out of the window and gaining weight and gaining weight. Maria Kuzminishna was fond of Vladimir and took care of him up to the time when her daughter divorced my brother. So that part of James Van Praagh's message now made sense. Some months later, during my session with Van Praagh, Maria came through again. She tried to convince Vladimir to forgive his mother and resume communication with her. She also had something to tell me. In other words, James Van Praagh brought through forgotten issues of unfinished family business. And obviously, before the reading, Van Praagh had no way to learn about that forgotten grandma who had lived and died in Estonia.]

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