{"id":2129,"date":"2008-07-25T12:23:26","date_gmt":"2008-07-25T12:23:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2008\/07\/james-van-praagh-catholic-medi.html"},"modified":"2008-07-25T12:23:26","modified_gmt":"2008-07-25T12:23:26","slug":"james-van-praagh-catholic-medi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/07\/james-van-praagh-catholic-medi.html","title":{"rendered":"James Van Praagh, Catholic Medium?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"vanpraaghforIC.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/import\/imgs\/vanpraaghforIC.jpg\" width=\"150\" height=\"180\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"float: right;margin: 0 0 20px 20px\" \/><\/span>James Van Praagh is America&#8217;s most famous medium. He regularly appears on talk shows to help people&#8211;famous and nonfamous alike&#8211;communicate with loved ones from beyond the grave. Cher once asked him to help her contact Sonny Bono. His new book, &#8220;Ghosts Among Us,&#8221; is a bona fide New York Times bestseller. And he has some interesting thoughts about celebrities and faith.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2008\/03\/watch-trailer-the-moses-code.html\">Van Praagh<\/a>, who still defines himself as a Catholic, went to a seance with a friend and claimed he was able to communicate with the dead. He began doing readings for friends and published his first book, &#8220;Talking to Heaven,&#8221; in 1988. The book sold poorly until Van Praagh got booked on &#8220;Larry King Live.&#8221; Now, he&#8217;s a TV chat show regular.<br \/>\n&#8220;Spirituality and Hollywood is like a train wreck,&#8221; he says when asked about the &#8216;unlikely&#8217; success of the show he created, &#8220;The Ghost Whisperer&#8221; (which stars Jennifer Love Hewitt). So how does he explain his success with stars?<br \/>\nClick here to read the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ocregister.com\/life\/he-talks-to-2102185-ghosts-and\">full interview with Van Praagh<\/a> in the Orange County (CA) Register.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.locatetv.com\/person\/james-van-praagh\/195740\" target=\"_top\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.locatetv.com\/person\/james-van-praagh\/195740\/351x85_standard.gif\" alt=\"James-Van-Praagh at LocateTV.com\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>James Van Praagh is America&#8217;s most famous medium. He regularly appears on talk shows to help people&#8211;famous and nonfamous alike&#8211;communicate with loved ones from beyond the grave. Cher once asked him to help her contact Sonny Bono. His new book, &#8220;Ghosts Among Us,&#8221; is a bona fide New York Times bestseller. And he has some&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebrities"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>James Van Praagh, Catholic Medium?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/07\/james-van-praagh-catholic-medi.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"James Van Praagh, Catholic Medium?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"James Van Praagh is America&#8217;s most famous medium. He regularly appears on talk shows to help people&#8211;famous and nonfamous alike&#8211;communicate with loved ones from beyond the grave. Cher once asked him to help her contact Sonny Bono. His new book, &#8220;Ghosts Among Us,&#8221; is a bona fide New York Times bestseller. And he has some&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/07\/james-van-praagh-catholic-medi.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-07-25T12:23:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/vanpraaghforIC.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"lmarcus\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"James Van Praagh, Catholic Medium?","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/07\/james-van-praagh-catholic-medi.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"James Van Praagh, Catholic Medium?","og_description":"James Van Praagh is America&#8217;s most famous medium. He regularly appears on talk shows to help people&#8211;famous and nonfamous alike&#8211;communicate with loved ones from beyond the grave. Cher once asked him to help her contact Sonny Bono. His new book, &#8220;Ghosts Among Us,&#8221; is a bona fide New York Times bestseller. And he has some&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/07\/james-van-praagh-catholic-medi.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2008-07-25T12:23:26+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/vanpraaghforIC.jpg"}],"author":"lmarcus","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/07\/james-van-praagh-catholic-medi.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/07\/james-van-praagh-catholic-medi.html","name":"James Van Praagh, Catholic Medium?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/07\/james-van-praagh-catholic-medi.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/07\/james-van-praagh-catholic-medi.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/vanpraaghforIC.jpg","datePublished":"2008-07-25T12:23:26+00:00","dateModified":"2008-07-25T12:23:26+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/d7bf376bcf14109aa40350398ee553e1"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/07\/james-van-praagh-catholic-medi.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/07\/james-van-praagh-catholic-medi.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/07\/james-van-praagh-catholic-medi.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/vanpraaghforIC.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/vanpraaghforIC.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/07\/james-van-praagh-catholic-medi.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"James Van Praagh, Catholic Medium?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/","name":"Idol Chatter","description":"Beliefnet Entertainment blog, TV blog, Movie blog, Religion in entertainment blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/d7bf376bcf14109aa40350398ee553e1","name":"lmarcus","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a40\/a4062a2b358ad0ecc6a71c67e60c5d39x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a40\/a4062a2b358ad0ecc6a71c67e60c5d39x96.jpg","caption":"lmarcus"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/lmarcus"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}