Van Praagh Out with a New Book

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Van Praagh at the Book Signing

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uploaded by Jose Matutina

I’ve known about this book signing weeks before by way of an ad in the bookstore. I remembered James van Praagh, the man on the poster as a world-famous medium and decided to set a date on my Blackberry on May 21 as my “see the guy who talks to the dead” day. I’m curious to meet the world-famous medium who I’ve seen only on TV on many occasions.

Fifty to seventy people filled the available space at the children’s book section of Barnes & Noble in South Coast, CA. Some of the attendees seemed to be familiar with the medium and had been to his previous book signings. There’s one particular old couple whose son had died and had been familiar with another medium’s work that Van Praagh knew.

I went to the book-signing because I knew that there will be some kind of discussion about spirit mediumship. Being fascinated with the occult, I was all ears. Van Praagh was engaging and funny at times while he talked about his book “Unfinished Business”. He also recounted some of his experiences in past book-signings and  his personal encounter with the afterlife which happened 3 years ago.  He particularly described an encounter with an audience member who had lost his son. The guy had a beard and looked like a biker type. He mentioned that he could see the man’s son standing beside the biker guy. Van Praagh delivered the message from the son that he was thankful of his father’s  chest tattoo in memory of him. The biker guy broke down, lifted his shirt and showed the tattoo to the audience.

I was skeptical regarding testimonies like this because this could have been staged. People who had lost loved ones grieve and want to hang on to any vestige of their departed’s existence and spirit. Anyway, I ended up buying the hard cover for $25.  After standing in line for almost an hour, he signed my book signed as follows:

To Joey,

When you read this book, feel the energy of  Lilibeth and Cesar with you because they are!

Love James van Praagh

Lilibeth and Cesar were my long departed siblings.