Medium James Van Praagh to hold event in Carlsbad

Through books, live events and a series of appearances on Larry King Live, psychic medium James Van Praagh has been connecting people all over the world with the spirit world.

“Everyone’s a medium because we’re souls in the body, they’re souls outside the body,” said Van Praagh, originally from New York City and now based in Encinitas.

Van Praagh, along with British medium Gordon Smith, will host “An Evening of Spirit Messages” on Aug. 25 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Aug. 26 from 9 a.m. to noon at the Harding Community Center in Carlsbad.

“It’s going to be a workshop helping people to open up to their intuitive selves, opening up to the awareness that is around us,” Van Praagh said. “Realms, energy, whatever you want to call the space around us, and tuning into those frequencies or levels of awareness and opening up your mind and receiving impressions, whether it’s through feelings, memories or thoughts.”

He added that his teachings on contacting the dead are based on his philosophy that “they’re sending thoughts, feelings, emotions from their minds to the living minds. Everybody can do that because we’re all souls, but it takes a bit of focus and practice and development of it.”

At 8 years old, Van Praagh said he had his first experience with the spirit world when a hand reached down from the ceiling in his bedroom while he was praying and demanded to see God. He grew up Catholic, but stopped identifying with any particular religion as he got older.

“I believe that love is our religion,” Van Praagh said. “And I believe that all religions have bits of the truth, but no religion has all the truth.”

He also said he has memories from childhood of encounters with family members who had died.

“I think life is a series of choices. And I think all choices are based on two things, either love or fear. And fear is a human concept, not a spiritual concept,” Van Praagh. “Love is the soul’s vibration, it’s the soul’s fabric. The spirit world doesn’t know fear, that’s a human belief system. So I try to teach that in these workshops, this philosophy and this understanding. The truth is really very simple. We as humans make it more complex than it needs to be.”

Van Praagh’s other feats include launching a School of Mystical Arts for students who want to hone their own spiritual abilities. He also said he’s working on a spiritual musical.

“If I die tomorrow, my life would be completely, perfectly complete,” Van Praagh said.

For more information, visit vanpraagh.com.