There’s No Happy Medium Concerning Spiritual Contacts

As a mental-health professional for Los Angeles County and one who has met with James Van Praagh and Brian Hurst, I am intrigued by the fact that Paul Lieberman focuses on the same polemics as the usual critics of mediumship (“Medium of the Moment,” Jan. 24).

Has it occurred to anyone that these gentlemen may in fact be communicating with a real spirit world? And if that is the case, why on earth aren’t Van Praagh and Hurst afforded greater respect, even though they dare to make a living helping the bereaved?

Also, does anyone really believe that everyone who patronizes Hurst and Van Praagh is a “sucker”?

My own investigations have shown both Van Praagh and Hurst to be mediums of a unique quality unseen before now. The truth is that they’re not “pulling a fast one”; it’s that we don’t quite know what to do with them.

George Dalzell

Hollywood

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Why waste pages of the magazine on James Van Praagh’s phony nonsense?

The article asks who is going to quibble when books like “Talking to Heaven” land on the nonfiction list. I am. And so are the many rational people who object to New Age crap being presented as a legitimate topic.

I want to read an expose of these frauds, and I want to see warnings about their financial exploitation of the naive.

Gwen Roberts

Los Angeles