I’m generally not so keen on contacting the dead, and I’m bothered when TV psychics and mediums say things like, “I’m seeing a girl. Do you have a sister? A daughter? Oh, of course, your niece!” I essentially agree with Beliefnet.com writer Sarvananda Bluestone: The dead have a lot of work to do, and it’s best to leave them alone.

But at the Omega “Being Fearless” conference, I sat in on a Q & A session with medium James Van Praagh, and he struck me as a wonderful friend, the sort of person you could talk to for hours. He wasn’t cheesy at all. Here are some of his best lines from my notes.

“We all wash our physical bodies every day, but I think it’s important to wash internally as well. When I shower in the morning, I visualize gold light coming down, going inside me, cleansing me internally, then I seal it all off with white light, and I’m ready for anything.”

“Prayers are pearls of unconditional love.”

“We all have lessons to learn from suffering.”

“The easiest way to communicate with the dead is through dreams at night.”

“If you want to talk to a lost love one too much, if you’re saying, “Come to me, come to me, come to me”; if you’re trying to control it, then you’re blocking it. And the person won’t come through. It’s like pinching a garden hose.”

“Hell is the mind.”

“The surest way to be reincarnated with a group of people is to hate those people.”

“We are on this earth to learn.”

“We have the energy of love all around us, and yet we choose not to use it.”

“We are receiving signs of the spirit every day, but we’re just not paying attention.”