Let’s talk a little bit about being a professional medium. Why did you choose to become one?
JVP: Well, I don’t think I chose it, I think it chose me. I went out to Los Angeles to be a sitcom writer, because I thought I was funny and I thought that was going to be my career. But Spirit had other plans. I went to a medium when I was 24 years old, as a fluke.
My friend at the time, Carol, said, “Do you want to go see a medium.”
And I said, “What is a medium?”
She told me, and I told her I didn’t really believe that, because I was raised Catholic. But I didn’t really have a strong belief about it, so I went with her. When I walked into that room, the medium looked at me and said, “You’re a medium yourself. You’re a sensitive.” And I thought he was crazy because I had just moved from New York, and this very cynical New Yorker thought this guy was, you know, California fruits and nuts.
La-La Land.
JVP: Exactly. I thought, “Oh, this is crazy. You hear about this stuff, and here it is.”
He did a reading for me and this other lady, and he brought through details — evidential details — of people who had crossed over that just blew me away. I thought there’s got to be something to this. So it really just got my curiosity going. I started reading as many books as I could find on life after death and mediumship on psychic phenomenon. And as I was reading these books, it almost felt like I kind of knew this on some level, that this stuff made sense to me. I was just taking it in like a sponge. Throughout all these books there was a common theme that our soul is here to learn lessons on how to live life fully and have a successful life, and that meditation is a way to get there.
So I started meditating. I just concentrated on my breathing, on my inhalation and my exhalation, and then I visualized a rose or a beautiful scenery or a garden. Within two or three months, I started seeing lights around people, colors, like their auric field, and then I started seeing spirits around them. When I first started seeing the spirit forms, they were very diffused, but I noticed that the more I meditated, the sharper the images became. It was like, “Wow, this is pretty trippy,” and then it came back to me that when I was a kid I used to have visions like that.
I was working then at Paramount Studios. My first experience was when I saw a woman standing behind my co-worker. The woman was in spirit, and she said, “I’m her grandmother.” And I proceeded to give my co-worker a message from her grandmother from Idaho, who lived in a white house with yellow shutters. She talked about her needlepoint that she taught the girl and how they made a footstool cover together.
It all made sense to this woman, my co-worker, but I was freaking out. I ran out of Paramount, because I was like, “How can you look at life the same again?” I thought I was going nuts, I’ve got to get out of L.A., this is just insane. I didn’t know who to call to tell this to because people would think I was crazy. The only person I could think of calling was that medium that I went to see.
He said to me, “James, don’t you remember the prediction that was made.”
And I said, “Yes.”
He said, “James, that was two years ago today.”
Since having such an experience that changed my life, I couldn’t go back to the way I was believing and thinking. I went under that medium’s tutelage for a few years. I was becoming aware of energy and discernment and I was working with the energy centers. It was then that I met my guides who were working with me. One of my guides said, “We would like you to work with us. If you choose to work with us in this spiritual world, we will always take care of you. You will never be in need.” I knew then that the love that I was feeling for this energy that I worked with was so strong that there was nothing that could be stronger than that. So, I quit Paramount and worked with this medium, and that’s how it all started.
Do you advise people to be taught by established mediums, or can people be self-taught?
JVP: I advise people to work with mediums who have been doing it for a while and know the work. I’d very much like to say it’s like going through eight years of school to become a professional doctor. I think you need to go through many years of development in order to be a medium. The problem these days is that people take a class and they think they can go out and do readings. The problem is that they’re not even ripe. I have a big problem with that, I really do, because the quality of the mediumship is bad. It’s more of a psychic reading, it’s not at mediumship level. I have real trouble with people who jump into this and think they can go into it without taking any time to develop.
Who is an ideal candidate to become a medium?
JVP: Well, good question. A candidate to be a medium is someone who is humble, first of all — someone who is not in it to get wealthy. You don’t do it for money, because the money will find you. I think that’s true in any position in life. If you do something that you love to do, the money will come. That’s just abundance. I think you have to do it to be of service to human kind, to want to serve another person. And, of course, you must be a sensitive or empathic type of person. You do it for the upliftment of humankind. That’s the person I like to work with, not somebody who is of ego. If the ego gets in the way, then it’s all about them, it’s not about the spirit.
I work with a guy who must be now in his early sixties, and he works with families of murdered children and he is also a psychiatrist. But he does this completely out of service to others. He’s perfect for this type of work, and he has been taking classes with me for five or six years. He’s always trying to get better, always trying to better himself. I’m still taking classes. I’m still taking workshops to get better, to learn things. I think you have to in life.
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Very interesting and insightful – I really enjoyed the article