Contacting the Dead? It’s Become a Lively Business

After 12 years of not hearing from my dad, I was starting to get worried. I mean, just because he’s been dead the whole time doesn’t mean he can’t stay in touch. With so many talented psychics running around, including several who have their own TV shows, the lines of communication should be wide open.

Unfortunately, even though my job as a journalist has required me to interview psychic dogs, psychic humans and the occasional Magic 8 Ball, my father’s spirit has never materialized. Until now.

The breakthrough happened earlier this month at a summit of “after-death communicators.” Actually, the summit was a flop. At the last minute, well-known medium James Van Praagh backed out because “Entertainment Tonight” needed him to contact actor Robert Blake’s slain wife. And a University of Arizona professor who researches psychic phenomena was too ill to fly from Tucson.

Hmm. Guess the spirits didn’t see that coming.

But that still left Judy Guggenheim, co-author of “Hello From Heaven!,” and George Dalzell, a psychiatric social worker from the L.A. County Department of Mental Health. By day, Dalzell tries to help homeless people get the voices out of their heads, but at night, he tunes into such voices--from the spirit realm.

Dalzell has written a book, “Messages,” outlining a string of bizarre encounters with the ghost of his dead lover Michael Keller, who apparently is quite a prankster in the hereafter. Keller’s friends and relatives say his ghost disrupts phone calls, flicks lights on and off, arranges rose petals into patterns and sets off alarm clocks at odd hours. About the only thing his spirit hasn’t done is phone next-of-kin to ask if their refrigerator is running.

On a recent Friday, I visited Dalzell and Guggenheim at Dalzell’s apartment in Larchmont. The purpose of the summit, they said, was to urge scientific research into the possibility of life after death.

Now is the time, they said, noting a harmonic convergence of TV shows and books on the topic, including Arizona professor Gary E. Schwartz’s controversial research into the paranormal.

“We have the technology to settle this question once and for all,” Guggenheim said. “Let’s go to the lab with it.”

OK, but first, let’s run a little experiment in Larchmont. “Will you give me a reading?” I asked Dalzell. Although caught off guard, he was a good sport and agreed to try his skills on a skeptical reporter.

I used to believe in all of this stuff. Growing up, I was entranced by reports of psychic phenomena. Then, in high school, somebody gave me “Dunninger’s Complete Encyclopedia of Magic,” which explained how magicians perform similar feats. Some of the stunts were incredibly elaborate, but they were tricks, nonetheless.

That doesn’t mean I reject the idea of life after death. Quite the opposite. I just don’t think it’s possible to chat with someone after they’re gone. The few psychics and mediums who’ve been brave enough to undergo scientific testing have invariably flunked. And the rest probably would flunk.

On a St. Louis radio show a few years ago, a caller asked Van Praagh about a dead brother. After the mustachioed medium conjured up a hospital scene and described how “the cancer came quickly over his body,” the caller revealed there was no dead brother. Even when callers aren’t setting traps, transcripts of readings by Van Praagh, John Edward and other mediums show a staggering number of misses.

In 1990, I wrote about Harmony Grove, a spiritualist village north of San Diego. A hundred years ago, spiritualist mediums enjoyed a wide following. Then, after prominent practitioners were exposed as fakes, the church fell from grace, but it never died out completely. Today’s spiritualists acknowledge some shenanigans in the past, but insist contact with the dead is real.

So I went to a seance. It was a few weeks after my father died and I figured if this stuff were legit, someone would pick up on my dad’s departure. Nope. My other journalistic encounters with psychics--both human and canine--have been equally unpersuasive. Therefore, I wasn’t expecting much as Dalzell began my reading:

I’m getting a Janice or Janet that you’re close to.

No, sorry.

There’s a J name.

Hey, that narrows it down: John, Joe, Jennifer, Jim, Jessica, Jean, Jeff, Jill, Jane, Jerry. (Ever notice how talking with the dead is like watching “Wheel of Fortune”? The spirits can only speak in consonants until it’s time to deliver the final message and then suddenly they’re able to blurt out entire paragraphs: “Your grandmother says she loves you, she’s proud of you, she likes your new wallpaper and she’s enjoying heaven with your grandpa and your dog Spot.”)

I’m getting another Roy.

Yes, there’s another Roy. (But that’s a pretty safe bet. Parents often name their kids after other people, and Roy is an uncommon first name.)

Are you a Roy Jr.?

Sort of. (My middle name is different, but close enough.)

They’re telling me about a potential drowning. I’m wondering if you have a younger brother who was in some kind of water accident?

I don’t have a brother.

A younger sibling in an accident?

No.

Were you in a potential drowning between ages 7 and 12?

No. And who is the “they” telling you this?

It’s whomever in the spirit world is trying to communicate with you.

(After Dalzell finds out my dad is deceased, the “they” suddenly becomes my dad).

Are there Baptists with your family? Was there a lot of zealotry in your upbringing?

Not unless you consider Episcopalians zealots.

Was your father a war veteran?

Yes.

He’s talking about a battlefield. Was he in the infantry?

No, he was in the Navy.

Do you have a dental appointment coming up?

No.

Did you have one within the last month?

No.

Is there anyone in your family with a dentist appointment?

Well, considering we all get checkups every six months, I’m sure someone is due.

Does your family have a connection to a hospital, perhaps the naming of a hospital wing?

No.

Did someone work in a hospital?

Yes.

Was your mom an R.N.?

Yes.

And so it went. A handful of hits, usually after a series of leading questions, and a multitude of misses.

Later, when Dalzell was preparing to give me the phone number of the Arizona professor who was too sick to attend the summit, I readied my pen and said, “OK, 520 area code.”

Dalzell blinked and asked: “You’re from Tucson?”

“I grew up there,” I said. “Didn’t my dad tell you?”

Dalzell insists his readings are usually more on target. He urged me to call Sheila Lowe, author of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Handwriting Analysis,” to ask about a session he did with her.

Lowe, whose 27-year-old daughter was killed two years ago, has visited six psychics since the slaying. “They were all very good,” she said. Dalzell’s hits included the name Eric (her son), the name Joseph (the last name of a man who had visited Lowe’s house the day of the reading), the style of shoes her daughter liked, and the presence of Spanish blood in the family. “I had just been researching my family’s genealogy and found a relative from Gibraltar,” Lowe recalled.

When asked why she has shelled out money for so many mediums, Lowe said, “Because you just want to hear more. It’s never enough, no matter how good it is.”

Based on notes she took during Dalzell’s reading, she rated him “at least 80% right.” But when Dalzell conducted a reading for Unfacts .org, a skeptics’ Web site, his accuracy plunged to 14%, roughly the same level he had with me.

Why the discrepancy? My theory is that it’s a twist on the old maxim “Seeing is believing.” Sometimes the reverse is true: “Believing is seeing.” If someone wants to contact a dead loved one badly enough, he’s going to look for--and probably find--evidence that such communication happened. Especially when a psychic spouts vague, fill-in-the-blank messages. Another factor: People tend to remember hits more than misses.

Nevertheless, I readily admit that some of the psychic tales I’ve heard over the years appear to defy explanation. But it seems whenever the principals are subjected to scientific scrutiny, their purported paranormal powers mysteriously vanish.

Magician James Randi has offered $1 million to anyone who can demonstrate supernatural abilities under cheat-proof conditions. Dalzell dismissed Randi’s challenge, saying the magician is untrustworthy. But Randi says a third party would run the experiment (under test conditions approved by both sides) and the results would be made public.

One area that might be difficult to verify is a description of the afterlife. For example, most mediums claim the hereafter doesn’t include a hell. I’m not so sure. Does anyone seriously believe that God would allow Hitler, Jeffrey Dahmer and the person who wrote the “Macarena” song to enter paradise?

Afterlife dining is another conundrum. In 1998, Newsweek noticed Van Praagh telling a TV audience that spirits don’t eat food, then moments later informing a woman that her dead mother was able to dine again in heaven and was cooking for other spirits.

Remarkably, no one in the “after-death community” seems troubled by such contradictions. Dalzell said he’s reluctant to challenge any of his colleagues’ veracity for fear of being sued. But would these people actually risk having their psychic powers tested in a court of law?

Wait, I’m getting a message. I don’t know if it’s my dad, but some sort of spirit is telling me: not a chance.