It's almost Halloween -- the spookiest time of the year -- so it should not come as a big surprise that interest is at a fever pitch for people like world-renowned spiritual medium James Van Praagh.

"Halloween brings out the whole subject matter and people want interviews and so forth," Van Praagh told me in a recent interview. "But it's also the time when the veils between both worlds -- the dimensions -- are the thinnest. At this time of the year, the messages are so crystal clear."

But Van Praagh's gig is hardly seasonal. In fact, the clairvoyant has been busy year round for the past 22 years.

The author of such bestsellers as "Talking to Heaven" and most recently, "Heaven and Earth: Making the Psychic Connection," Van Praagh has been featured as a guest on countless radio and television shows, including "Oprah," "The View" and "Larry King Live," and has taught others about their psychic abilities at seminars and on his own syndicated show "Beyond."

And since 2005, Van Praagh has gone Hollywood, as an executive producer on the hit television series "The Ghost Whisperer." But in an industry where the exec producer title amounts to nothing more than a vanity credit, Van Praagh said that he's far more than, well, a ghost writer and producer on the show.

"I created the series, and while I didn't get the credit for it -- I didn't write the pilot so the Writers Guild doesn't give you credit for it -- I came up with the idea," Van Praagh told me in a recent interview.

"The Ghost Whisperer" follows medium Melinda Gordon (Jennifer Love Hewitt) who battles skepticism as she encounters earthbound spirits who need help communicating with loved ones before crossing over to the other side. The first season of the show is new on DVD Tuesday (Paramount Home Entertainment).

Given Van Praagh's bevy of commitments, he's not as involved in the show as he would like to be. And while on the day we talked he was in the middle of penning a new "Ghost Whisperer" episode, he often finds himself in the tough position of letting his baby go.

"I try to be hands-on with the show. I assembled all of the producers and the show-runners, and I still meet with some of the writers," Van Praagh explained. "I try to give them ideas, and then I have to give it away. That's very difficult for me, being the control freak that I am, but you just have let the writers do their own thing."

That is, Van Praagh said, until a writer comes back to him with an idea that simply doesn't make sense -- sixth sense or otherwise.

"One girl came to me last week and told me that she wanted to do a story on reincarnation -- which is fine -- but her whole idea about reincarnation was completely different than years of history and the culture of it," Van Praagh said, laughing. "You cannot rewrite a belief system."

Thankfully, all of the stories featured on "The Ghost Whisperer" are not rooted in his personal experiences. Otherwise, Van Praagh would likely go crazy. That's because the New York-born medium realizes that the show isn't always about the stories, but business decisions to cater to the audience demographic -- and certain liberties have to be taken.

"You have to hit the right demographics -- males 18 to 34 -- because that's where the revenue comes in, from the advertisers who buy the show," Van Praagh said. "Those are the people you have to answer to. Without them there would be no show so you have to give in a little bit, which is why (Hewitt) wears very low-cut tops and the whole thing. I find that for me to do this work, I have to give in to the Hollywood way of doing things because I'm really in their world."

But, Van Praagh added, it's a small sacrifice considering the exposure his world --- the world of life after death -- is getting.

"It's getting the message out, which is what I'm about as a teacher. That's the most important thing," Van Praagh said. "I have to look at the bigger picture, which is that a lot of people are being affected around the world because of this show, who have never had experienced this before.

"My books have reached a lot of people, as did my TV show during the day, but this is a primetime television audience. That's millions and millions of people since we're all over the world with it," he continued. "Imagine all of the people being touched by this awareness. Even if they don't believe, maybe they can now question if there are ghosts and life after death. In the way we portray it, I think it helps people understand it pretty well."

Recalling The Sixth Sense
Recently released in paperback, "Heaven and Earth" not only chronicles parts of Van Praagh's life, it serves as a guide to help people develop their own psychic abilities.

Although he didn't start cultivating his psychic gifts until he was 24, Van Praagh learned that he had abilities at a very young age. And while the connection is technically unofficial, Van Praagh is convinced that actor Haley Joel Osment's character in the supernatural blockbuster "The Sixth Sense" -- immortalized for whispering the line, "I see dead people" -- is based on his own childhood experiences.

"A lot of people would debate it, but yes, I would say a lot of it was based on my book 'Talking to Heaven,'" Van Praagh said. "It's exactly my story, but I used to see positive visions, not negative visions, as portrayed in the movie."

The interesting thing is, Van Praagh said he's far from being alone as a person with a sixth sense. He said we're all born with it, but begin to lose it anywhere from 8 to 10 years old.

"Kids become closed down to that sixth sense because they are forced to live society's rules, where they go to school to develop mentally -- and forgetting about the emotional and intuitive part of themselves," Van Praagh said. "We repress that in our society. I wrote a book called 'Looking Beyond for Teenagers,' which really embraces the feelings that kids get and validating those feelings."

But just because those senses are closed down, doesn't mean they exist on some sort of level in adulthood. It's called intuition, and Van Praagh believes we should trust it. The tricky part is, sometimes it involves distinguishing between your intuition and such destructive afflictions as paranoia.

"Paranoia will destroy you, so you have to be careful," Van Praagh said with a cautious laugh. "It's really a matter of listening to the inner voice, and trusting and testing it. 'What am I feeling here? Does it make sense? Let me test how this feels. Does the feeling inside me or the sense that I have -- does it play out?'"

Van Praagh doesn't expect people to learn about trusting their intuition and being confident about it in one shot: much in the way you develop other skills, it takes time. "It's like a muscle," Van Praagh said. "The more you exercise it, the more it develops."

"You really have to test it over and over and over again," Van Praagh said. "Your intuition – your gut – is your seed of knowingness. The centeredness of your being is right there in your solar plexus. That is your Geiger Counter to reality, as to what's going to happen.

"The more that you become aware of the feeling that you have, and the more that you use that particular feeling, the more right you'll be," Van Praagh added. "When you don't use that and you use the rational mindset, then you are going to cloud your truth."