T A B L E__T A L K

Has Molly Ivins lost her bite? Discuss her columns in the Media area of Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y

The curse of the Pulitzer?
By Dwight Garner
Will the New York Times put book critic Michiko Kakutani out to pasture now that she's won the big prize?
(04/15/98)

Greener pastures
By Jenn Shreve
Out of the growing glut of finance mags, one zine is poised to capture the expanding market of young investors
(04/15/98)

Under the Covers
By James Poniewozik
What kind of man
reads ...
(04/14/98)

Extra! Extra! Homeless papers duel for street supremacy
By Carol Lloyd
A slick new British newspaper causes a ruckus in the homeless newsrooms of America
(04/13/98)

Hollywoodland
By Catherine Seipp
Of party poopers, colo-rectal gerbils and other tales from darkest Tinseltown
(04/10/98)

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BROWSE THE
BESTSELLER HELL
ARCHIVE

BROWSE THE
MEDIA CIRCUS
ARCHIVE

James Van Praagh's friendly ghosts

THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR IS SURROUNDED BY THE MOST COMFORTING SPECTERS AROUND.

BY JON CARROLL | James Van Praagh has the comforting, slightly fey affect of a small-town drama teacher. He looks his clients in the eye and speaks softly, insistently. He seems unaware of the cameras and the audience. He starts with a prayer. He says he is sensing something.

I have seen him on three different television programs, and he is always sensing something. The dead are always around Van Praagh, always chatty, always as comforting as he is.

"I am sensing a female," he says. The woman in the chair facing tries to look neutral, but the audience sighs -- they know the woman is trying to contact her sister, dead of ovarian cancer three years now. James Van Praagh has been offstage in a sound-proofed booth, lest he use his considerable powers to, well, make up stuff. It's like a game show -- Guess the Ghost. Van Praagh is both the contestant and the expert.

In the 19th century, when talking to heaven was considered somewhat problematical, mediums were required to prove the presence of the supernatural. They often did this by ostentatiously having their assistants lock them in cabinets, bound and gagged. The lights would dim, and then all manner of ectoplasmic hell would break loose. Dishes would crash, trumpets would sound, lights would flash -- the extent and nature of the fireworks often depended on the expected financial return. It was stage magic, of course, frequently exposed but just as frequently believed. Faith is the evidence of things not seen, including the belief that real spirits may make reasonable men commit what appears to be fraud.

"She's talking ..." he says, and the woman smiles in spite of herself. "She's very talkative, isn't she?" says James Van Praagh, and the woman laughs. He's doing what's called a "cold reading"; he's picking up cues, using common sense and empathy to build a portrait of the deceased, or, more precisely, a simulacrum of the portrait the client has of the deceased. You've done cold readings yourself -- consider your last lunch with someone who had substantial economic power over you. "Yes, sailing really makes a person at peace with nature," you might say, despite your terrible and continuing problems with seasickness. Van Praagh may also be getting messages from the beyond -- I am by nature skeptical of everything, including claims that the supernatural does not exist -- but his basic technique is at least as old as English music hall mentalist acts.

He would certainly deny that. His bestselling book, "Talking To Heaven," contains no chapters on the long history of spiritualist charlatans and their varied techniques. It discusses ectoplasm as though it were a real thing, like whooping cough or fog. Conveniently for his audience, the heaven that Van Praagh talks to is relentlessly non-sectarian. "I must give appreciation," he writes in his book, "to the 'Creative Expression' identified under various titles such as God, Allah, Yahweh, Divine Being, and Great Light. I will refer to this Power as the 'Source,' the Source of All."

His book is a thrown-together pastiche of biography, anecdotes, philosophy, aphorisms, theories about the nature of the afterlife and tips for recognizing when the dead are trying to get your attention. ("The sprits have been known to scramble pictures on the TV set.") The biography has flashes of amusement -- he describes an early spiritual crisis in one italicized sentence, "Should I stay with my new job in the contract department at Paramount Studios, or should I practice the gift I had been given on a full time basis?"

He chooses the latter option, gets a T-1 line to paradise, and becomes the ubiquitous bestselling author we see today. His book is worthless in any sense that a reviewer could discuss, and yet it is sprinting off the shelves in remarkable numbers. Why him and not some other psychic? Why now?

A lot of it is luck, good timing and a well-supported publicity campaign. But Van Praagh's carefully structured message is in tune with the times. Like "Simple Abundance," its essential message is: Your narcissism is a spiritual practice. Van Praagh goes a step further: The Dead (that is, the great invisible community of the formerly living) think you're doing a fine job. They've been trying to tell you that, but you just won't listen. So take some time for yourself. Love yourself. Be at peace.

Still, there is real comfort there. "She was in such pain, wasn't she, dear?" says James Van Praagh on television. The woman beside him is openly weeping. You can think: Well, good guess, Jimmy. Or you can think: I bet that woman needed to cry. "Well, she's not in pain anymore. Look at me, dear: She's not in pain anymore. She wants me to tell you that. She's keeps talking to me, saying that. Do you believe me, dear?"

The woman nods. She is unable to speak. She is reassured. Is it a parlor trick? Probably. Did it relieve pain? Probably. If we're going to legalize marijuana, I imagine we should let this stuff alone too. Literature ain't life, and bad books are useful too.
SALON | April 17, 1998

Jon Carroll's Bestseller Hell appears whenever it feels like it.

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B O O K+I N F O R M A T I O N

TALKING TO HEAVEN: A MEDIUM'S MESSAGE OF LIFE AFTER DEATH | BY JAMES VAN PRAAGH | 194 PAGES, E.P. DUTTON