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Friday, Jul 10, 2009
James Van Praagh and John Edward are the Spears and Aguilera of psychic readings. After seeing them, I'm not so skeptical.
Jun 13, 2002 | It is a Sunday evening and I am in a line that winds up stairs, around corners and nearly out the other side of a Scottsdale, Ariz., resort hotel. The indoor temperature is rising and some of us wish we had water bottles for the two-hour wait before the event begins.
The following Saturday night, I am shivering with hundreds of others in a church parking lot in Tucson. A 16-passenger van that will transport us three miles to a resort is delayed in traffic.
"Some of us paid hundreds of dollars for these tickets," a middle-aged woman snaps.
"No one is worth this kind of wait," grumbles a gray-haired man.
Thousands of people who flock to similar sold-out events across the country nearly every weekend would beg to differ. They endure crowds, traffic jams and scalpers' prices for a chance to chat with dead people. More specifically, for an opportunity to be in the same room with someone who might help them do that.
James Van Praagh and John Edward -- the two psychics who went to Scottsdale and Tucson, respectively -- are appealing to a burgeoning population of fans. Public opinion polls show a dramatic increase in the number of Americans who think it's possible to communicate with the dead. And it's easier than ever to become a believer.
No longer the stuff of gauzy curtains and Ouija boards, chatting with the dead has become mainstream. You can learn about it from a host of hot-selling books, you can grab your remote to surf for new shows on the topic, or you can dig into your wallet and fight the crowds to see a real-life pop medium in person. Van Praagh says none of this would have been possible five or 10 years ago.
"Now, talking to the dead is the in thing," he says.
Los Angeles-based Van Praagh, 43, is the author of four books, which together have sold more than a million copies. Having given up individual readings, he concentrates on maintaining his interactive Web site (featuring live prayer sessions every Tuesday), conducting seminars, and co-hosting psychic tropical cruises he calls "voyages of enlightenment."
Edward, 32, a white-hot New York medium with a hit TV show ("Crossing Over With John Edward") and bestselling books of his own ("One Last Time" and "Crossing Over: The Stories Behind the Stories"), might be even bigger than Van Praagh. Edward's groundbreaking psychic talk show (on the Sci Fi channel and in daytime syndication) has received rave reviews and impressive ratings. "Crossing Over" reaches more than 3 million viewers each weekday. The show has been spoofed on "Saturday Night Live," it earned Edward a designation as one of People magazine's "Most Intriguing People of 2001," and it is spawning a number of copycat shows. Edward is also developing a dramatic television series -- based loosely on his life -- scheduled for release this fall.
Van Praagh's own hour-long daytime talk show, "Beyond With James Van Praagh," will begin in September on the WB network. "Living With the Dead," a two-part miniseries based on Van Praagh's life, aired on CBS in April -- it was the network's most successful Sunday in months.
Fueling the interest in after-death communication these days is a new book called "The Afterlife Experiments: Breakthrough Scientific Evidence of Life After Death," in which University of Arizona professor Gary Schwartz recaps scientific studies of a "dream team" of mediums (including Edward) to see whether they can really do what they claim. The answer, according to the book, is yes.
Schwartz, a Harvard-educated former Yale professor, says some colleagues think he's crazy for studying such a taboo topic. "But I remind myself that we used to think the Earth was flat, the sun revolved around the Earth, and all objects were solid," he says.
He says mediums provided consistently accurate information in his tests with minimal or no contact with the person they were asked to "read." Lucky guesses? Unlikely. After one exercise in which all the mediums in separate settings got similar, specific information about a woman's dead son and his dog, Schwartz calculated the probability of getting such results: less than 1 in 2.5 billion. Schwartz, who has been appearing before standing-room-only bookstore crowds, says people today are receptive to the possibility that consciousness survives death.
"There is a theoretical, conceptual openness that hasn't existed at any other time in history," he says.
