Theresa Caputo: The Medium Who Talks to the Dead (3 page)

You can’t just put a price or say what was the most valuable. It has helped someone’s pain and was life changing. They are all incredible.

Q:
What is the craziest thing a spirit has ever said to you in a reading?

The ones that flirt! That blows my mind. They will show a reel like “Ladies Man.” Really, you want to go there? They’re all crazy. Like one showed me goats in a road. I’m like, goats in a road?

What do I even say? So I ask if they were driving here through wildlife and they said no. So I just sat back and said I don’t know, but your parents and your sister are showing me a goat in a road and I have no idea what that means.

Well,
turns out their neighbor has goats and there are always goats in the road and they are always feeding the goats. Isn’t that crazy? So this is what I say to the skeptics: How would I get that from a cold reading? Who knows about goats?

Q:
What can people expect when they see you live on tour?

The only thing I can know for sure is that I will show up with my hair and nails done, in a great dress with fabulous shoes! Everything else is up to the spirits and we don’t know what the heck will happen.

I can guarantee it will be an experience. There will be laughter, there will be fun and there will be emotions.

Dr. Oz Segment

Theresa Caputo was a guest on Dr Oz’s show in May, 2013. The plan was to see what her brain looked like during a psychic reading, using a quantitative EEG.

Theresa Caputo agreed to have an EEG brain scan during a psychic reading on Dr Oz’s show. Dr Daniel Amen was also on the show, explaining that the test would evaluate her electrical activity. Theresa wore a cap over her head that was covered in electrodes.

Doctor Oz said that he was very curious about the Long Island Medium’s results. He said he used to be very skeptical, but he has seen the way Caputo connects with audiences during her visits to his show.

There are four types of brain waves in most circumstances, Dr Oz explained:

Beta Waves – Your brain is on high alert

Alpha Waves – Your brain is alert and focused

Theta Waves – You are daydreaming and unfocused

Delta Waves – Deep, dreamless sleep

Dr. Daniel Amen took a baseline reading of Theresa’s normal brain waves, and he found that she has very high alpha waves. She had to sit still during the test, which was hard for her because she typically moves around during her readings.

Amen’s theory was that there would be a major difference in Theresa’s brain waves during a reading as compared to her baseline test results. She was instructed to move just one finger when she felt a spirit communicating with her.

Rochelle, a woman from the audience, got a reading from Theresa Caputo that day.  She said the reading was emotional but gave her some closure. “If I ever doubted, I have no doubts that she’s real,” Rochelle said.  Caputo said that she thought spirits intended to give Rochelle a moment of healing and lift the weight of guilt off her shoulders.

Dr Daniel Amen explained that Caputo’s alpha waves decrease significantly during readings, and her temporal lobes
are activated. He went on to explain that temporal lobe activation also occurs during anxiety, seizures or religious experiences. Medical evidence can now tentatively conclude that psychic phenomena do physically occur in the brain.

“There’s a lot more that’s real than scientists believe that’s real,” Dr Amen said, adding that he believed Theresa was legit
imate because she told him something personal about himself that she could not have known.

Skeptics

Of course Theresa Caputo has many skeptics who don’t believe she really has any gift and is cashing in on people who desperately desire to be able to contact their loved ones.  During some of Theresa Caputo’s cold readings of stereotypical subjects - usually older ladies - are asked, “Did your mother/father pass?”

Obviously, she/he had, so Caputo proceeds to share a stock message, such as she “loves you”, he has “found peace” or he is telling you it’s time to “move on”. Alternatively, Caputo performs the same tricks for groups, like a kind of psychic Tupperware party. As believers, these people are pushovers, and with a larger pool of subjects she never fails to strike with questions like, “Did someone here lose a brother?”

Making her task even easier still, she never guesses the name or the initials of the deceased. To “validate” contact, Caputo makes vague references that have the appearance of being specific; special songs, handwritten letters, and items of clothing and jewelry. Those read are interviewed afterwards, gushing that they are indebted to Caputo for helping them come to terms with the death of their loves ones.

Caputo is best known for her exaggerated displays of emotion. There is rarely a scene where she isn’t in tears or claiming empathetic abilities, such as, “I could feel your tears running down my cheek.” In one episode she announces that the spirit of a deceased 6 year-old boy has become “attached” to her.

Convinced that the only way to free the spirit is to meet with his mother, she tracks down the woman whose details she happens to have in an appointment book. Caputo appears to be greatly distraught by the little boy’s constant presence, but she is strangely unavailable for a session until the following week.

She spent this week in apparent spiritual agony, yet still had time to have lunch with friends, all the while complaining about her invisible friend.

Caputo is celebrated for confronting and converting the skeptics. During a live interview fo
r a Long Island radio station, a line of eight “skeptics” are pitted against her. Visibly stressed at first she asks the group, “Who lost a sister?”

A woman acknowledges this question, and the medium quickly finds her stride, achieving perceived “hits” with her staple “validations” about clothing and personal letters. Caputo had emotionally disarmed the woman who was taken in by what a real skeptic would readily recognize as a classic cold reading. Skil
lful editing seems to have ironed out any misses and genuine skeptics.

Theresa with Mario Lopez and Courtney
Mazza

There is also the potential for Caputo to perform hot readings. For example, she ‘converts’ several ‘skeptics’ in a motorcycle shop. However, these are her husband’s friends at his place of work and she could easily have inside information about them.

She does a reading for the woman who grooms her dogs, but she has been a customer for years. Then there are the too-specific private readings with clients at their homes. Of course, she has all of their personal information and comments provided at the time of booking.

Then there are the other signs around their homes including photographs and other possessions that tell a story. Much of the show seems scripted too. Caputo offers a commentary throughout, but always wearing the same clothes, suggesting that the ‘running’ commentary is filmed post events, and that she’s just acting.

In many instances, people who hire Theresa Caputo are hopeful that they will receive messages and get closure, but some are skeptical and feel that they might be getting scammed at the same time. According to Caputo, it usually only takes one session to realize that mediums are truly communicating with spirits.

As far as Theresa is concerned, she is very honest about telling people that she does not care if they are skeptics or not, as spirits are usually good at relaying enough information to turn people into believers.

Acquaintance of Caputo says – “It’s a hoax”

Yet, there are skeptics.  Many don’t believe Theresa Caputo actually has the gifts she espouses to have.  One person who wishes not to be identified
(we’ll call her “Mary” says she has known Theresa Caputo for a very long time).

When Mary
was recently asked if Theresa Caputo had any psychic abilities or could speak with the dead, Mary’s response was, “
No way. I know for a fact she doesn't. I know one hundred percent she doesn't. She's like you and me. She can't hear voices or see anything. She doesn't receive any special information from beyond. Spirits don't talk to her. Nothing. She is completely fake, it's a hoax.
When she's talking and seems to be receiving information from the afterlife, that's all made up. I know. I've seen how she does it. And yes, she has told me herself, that it's fake. I've had interactions with her, at a time when she felt she could trust me, and I was made aware of things. I was made aware of things that I believe the world needs to know about. I know she's going to do everything she can to destroy me once she finds out who I am, so I'm being careful with this. She has a lot more money than I do.”

Mary’s
answer to how Theresa Caputo then is able to appear to do readings for people she responds, “
It's variations of cold reading and having background intel on subjects being read. Let me tell you, though, Theresa Caputo is one of the best there is. A lot of people don't know that she has a very, very high IQ. I do not know the exact number. I was told by someone who would have knowledge of that. She is much brighter than the sort of goofy woman she comes across as on the show. 

She also says that money is Caputo’s motivation:  “
It's all about money for her. And now fame. She's been doing this a long time. Her husband doesn't even have to work anymore she makes such a ridiculous amount of money. You can see on the show he's just around the house, poking around most of the time, doing nothing.”

“She justifies it. I've talked to her about it. I know she justifies it. She also feels she's helping people. If you watch how she conducts her readings, she always ends them on a positive note. She almost never says anything negative to a grieving person. She is trying to impart a positive message. But it's still all a ruse. I don't agree with it.
Especially when she messes with kids.”

Finally,
Mary states Caputo does research on people and Google searches.  Also she has assistants that have to sign non-disclosure agreements: 
She has even better resources than you or I. She has access to databases. She pays for services that look up personal information. She has private investigators who work for her. Every time she produces a theatrical performance that convinces a subject or customer, she builds her brand and business! She has a great incentive to be accurate and to have all the information she can get for each subject. It's not a game. It's not a joke for these people. They are thorough. This is an addiction for her, the power, the money. She justifies all of it, of course.

Summary

To the devoted believer, Caputo can do no wrong. If there was an error, it wasn't her fault. What may appear to be an error may not really be an error. It's possible Theresa Caputo got her wires crossed and mistook one spirit for another. And so on. And, as Van Praagh and Sylvia Browne have often said - they're not gods and not infallible. When you're validated you're right and when you're wrong your fallibility is validated. For Caputo it is always a win-win with her devoted followers.

As with all psychic mediums, Theresa Caputo certainly has her detractors, and there are people who will never believe ANY of this is real, simply because they refuse to believe in spiritual realities outside of the physical. One famous skeptic recently said, "even if the spirit of my very own mother showed up and spoke to me for 30 minutes, I still wouldn't believe it was real."