Ghosts Among Us - James Van Praagh [0]
Uncovering the Truth About the Other Side
James Van Praagh
Dedication
To Patricia Ford Bodine
My very first mentor, who taught me that a good ghost story is
not just one that you read, but one that you live.
Contents
Dedication
Introduction
Chapter One
Growing Up with Ghosts
Chapter Two
Leaving the Body
Chapter Three
Ghosts 101
Chapter Four
The Undead
Chapter Five
The Spirit World
Chapter Six
Everything Is Energy
Chapter Seven
How Ghosts Communicate
Chapter Eight
Some Go Haunting
Chapter Nine
Making Contact
Chapter Ten
Protection
Chapter Eleven
An Enlightened Life
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Introduction
You are reading this book right now because you have a curiosity about ghosts, spirit communication, or the afterlife. Never before has there been such an overwhelming curiosity in all things ghostly. More and more people share a deep desire for such knowledge and a sincere interest in developing their expertise in the field. I believe that as a society we have evolved spiritually to abandon preconceived notions and step away from the back parlor séance rooms and gauze matted forms and open our minds to the truth about the misunderstood and elusive world of ghosts.
Today ghosts are in the same position that mediumship and spirit communication held over ten years ago. When my first book, Talking to Heaven, became number one on the New York Times best-seller list in 1997, it was touted as the “book that took the publishing world by storm.” From its initial modest printing of 6,000 copies, it quickly climbed to 600,000 copies in the following two months. I believe that the book’s success was a direct result of my appearance on Larry King Live on December 13, 1997. It was the first time a medium had ever appeared as a guest on Larry’s show, and the first time spiritual messages from the dead were relayed to an international audience. I was told that the phone lines were jammed while I was on the show and that people continued to call for days after the broadcast aired. After such a response, the producers of the show asked me back, and two weeks later I appeared on Larry King Live again. I was subsequently asked to appear on every major daytime TV and radio show.
Obviously, I had struck a chord. Everywhere I went, people wanted to know if their deceased relatives were around them, if I knew what they were doing, and if I could see dead people all the time. It seemed that the public could not get their fill of talking to the dead. In turn, many people shared with me their own experiences of spirit communication. It was as if the book gave people the right to embrace an issue that had been considered taboo, and almost overnight the subject of speaking to the dead became the latest fad. Mediums began popping up like crazy. More books were written, more television shows were produced, and more movies were filmed depicting the world of mediums.
This same trend is occurring today with ghosts.
Ghosts are now part of the mainstream. One can no longer ignore the fact that people have an ongoing phantasm love affair with ghosts. A multitude of shows all over the globe are taking up real estate on the television airwaves. One can go ghost-busting, experience a haunting, and witness a spirit possession all in a single afternoon. While the world enjoys this newly popular ghostly entertainment, ghosts can be mischievous and cause major havoc to an unsuspecting aspirant who ignorantly ventures into their unseen world.
When I was developing my show The Ghost Whisperer in 2004, I felt a strong sense of responsibility to portray the world of ghosts as accurately as possible, because television is not only a means to entertain but also a tool to educate. After receiving six hundred e-mails asking whether everything in The Ghost Whisperer was true, I felt a sense of obligation to set the record straight about the complexities and simplicities of the ghostly side of life. In writing this book, my hope was to give you, the