Theresa Caputo: The Truth and Nothing But the Truth

Theresa Caputo, the woman people know as the Long Island Medium, is no fraud. What I saw was genuine. The reason comes down to one thing: she speaks plainly and truthfully. I caught her presentation at the Ford Center in Evansville, Indiana, along with two friends, and all three of us came away struck by her presence and by the kind of crowd she drew.

Up close, she looked different from the TV version: her hair was longer, she wore a striking blue dress and heels that caught the light. (I kept wondering how she managed to walk across the floor in them.) Right away she laid out what she would and would not do, and how her fan club fit into the evening. That candor let me take in every word, helped along by cameras and microphones that trailed her through the room. The footage was used only during the show and erased afterward. Because of it, we could watch her expressions change and see how the people she read responded.

The cases that came through seemed to be the ones that mattered most. These were the people who would have walked out of that theater still carrying the weight of a sudden loss, or several losses at once, with their guilt unresolved. I was not read myself, but the night gave me some understanding of the deaths I have lived through and of my own sense for the metaphysical.

She is exactly who she appears to be. When someone in the audience had a message or a photograph that the cameras might pick up, she declined to read them. Her reasoning was simple: if she read those people, she could later be accused of pulling details from the objects rather than from spirit.

The atmosphere in that room ran deep, and the audience stayed attentive and respectful throughout. (Worth mentioning too: staff from the Ford Center and from her own team were on hand to help, and they managed it without ever getting in the way of what was happening.)

There was warmth in how she carried herself. After the show she brought two audience members, picked at random, backstage. No crowd swarmed her for autographs afterward, and no books were put up for sale. While she was still in the auditorium, though, she walked among us without any barrier.

I could tell she stayed fully present the entire evening. Nothing felt rehearsed, and there was no filler stretched in to pad the time. People came for Theresa, and Theresa is what they got, with no handlers standing between her and the room. All I could think was, thank God. She talked openly about what she believes, and the thing that caught me off guard most was this: she does not think hell exists.

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