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1. What I learnt about this topic that surprised me the most is how much belief is behind Theresa Caputo. I myself don't necessarily BELIEVE in her, however, I am extremely fascinated by the way she is able to make connections with people, and using her "abilities" to help those who have lost people in their lives a sense of closure. It was extremely easy to find articles and videos where her abilities were put to question, but she has a way to steer people away from questioning her abilities and steers them towards believing in her.

2. This topic is interesting to me as I have grown up watching Theresa Caputo come to fame. Ever since her interview with Ellen DeGeneres back in 2014, I couldn't help but be obsessed with viewing clips from her show "Long Island Medium" as well as other interviews where coincidentally she would end up doing a reading for someone within the vicinity she was in. I had also gone through the first close death to me during that time period, and was very curious to know if psychic mediums were a reality or not.

3. I found all of them interesting, but the one that stuck out to me the most was Jimmy Kimmel's interview/reading with her. He, just like me, also has some skepticism around the whole topic of people being able to talk to those who have passed, and it was entertaining to see him go through a reading session with her. He tried to give pushback towards Theresa with humor, and she would find a way to somehow come right back at him. What I love is how even though he was skeptical, he was very much so open-minded to what she had to say, as well as how she was also presenting herself in a positive manner and not pushing back against anything he said. She was willing to accept the fact that he was not a believer, yet still stayed grounded in her beliefs and was determined to show that she was the real deal in a very punctual and humorous way.

4. Through this research, what I took away from this is that not everyone's beliefs are the same, and everyone will have their own way and version of doing the critical thinking process. It is important that even though one may not believe, that you must be respectful of someone else's opinion even though they are no where close to what you believe in.

5. The pseudoscience belief that I find to be the MOST HARMFUL would be the pseudoscience behind "all natural" products and services. I believe that this can be the most harmful as a lot of people these days are trying to go the "all natural" way, yet without proper research, it can lead to bodily harm as well as can cause a rise in health issues. The pseudoscience belief that I find to be the LEAST HARMFUL would probably be the belief behind mediums and psychics. Even though psychics and mediums tend to make money off of their "abilities and powers", most mediums at the very least tend to try to help people at least by giving them a sense of closure for those who have lost a loved one and can't seem to let go. It gives people a sense of relief and hope that the person who is deceased.

6. From the knowledge gained in this course, the information that I would pass on to family and friends is that no matter what topic or belief is being presented to you, you should always use the critical thinking process to evaluate whether or not it is something you believe or feel skeptical about. Ask the right questions, gather information about the topic, assess the evidence and then come to a conclusion based on the results you have formulated. In the end of the day, your belief is your belief, and no one can tell you otherwise.

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Here is a photo of Theresa Caputo  with Comedian Louie Anderson

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This picture of Theresa and Louie can be seen as an appeal to authority as we have someone in the entertainment field being photographed during a reading session. This candid picture can lead individuals to believe in psychic mediums as it is a picture where you can see Theresa showing comfort to Louie. It can lead to people having an emotional connection and make people believe after seeing the reading being portrayed the way it was.

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The following website is an article written by a reporter named Victor Fiorillo, who had written an article on his views and standpoint on psychic mediums after going to "Live! The Experience" show hosted by Theresa Caputo herself. In the article, he narrates his experience in detail, from things she said to perspectives of what brought others to come and see Theresa Caputo.

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Throughout this article, Victor portrays the critical thinking process through the way he goes into analyzing whether or not Theresa is the "real deal". He gathers small informative details from his experience where he observed things such as how she starts off by asking a very vague question instead of directly walking up to one specific individual. She waits for the audience to put up their hand if something that she says relates to them, and then "feels them out". As he observed, it all happens too quickly for anything such as a mistake in a reading takes place, so it makes it hard to keep track in those scenarios.

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A review of the strange, sad show at the Borgata in Atlantic City.

"Can I talk about the baby that died at birth?"

Of all of the shows that have taken place inside the Borgata's Event Center over the last decade-plus, I'm pretty sure no performer has ever uttered those words. But last Friday's performance was not your average show, by any measure. No, this was Theresa Caputo Live: The Experience.

With tickets priced from $65 to $125, more than 2,000 people turned out to see the woman known as the Long Island Medium, whose TV show on TLC finished its ninth season earlier this year.

In case you haven't seen the TLC show, the premise is simple: Caputo purportedly connects people with lost loved ones. Of course, that's TV, where you can make anything happen, or, perhaps more accurately, where you can make anything seem to happen.

This was live and in-person.

I wound up at Caputo's Borgata show on a lark. I've never seen her on TV. I'm not the kind of person who goes to psychics or mediums. I had absolutely zero interest in hearing from any dead people.

But that's exactly why the woman sitting next to me was at the Borgata, why she paid top dollar for a single ticket close to the stage, why she drove from her home in South Philadelphia to be at the show.

The 70-something widow, who didn't want me to use her name, had recently lost her husband of more than 40 years to cancer.

"When he died, it's like he took all of my bodily organs with me," she told me just before the show started, both of our eyes welling up. "I don't know what to think about her. I'm basically an atheist. But if she brings him through for me, I guess I will have to question my beliefs."

Our conversation was interrupted by an oversized security guard, who told me to turn my phone off and put it away or he'd eject me from the theater immediately. They were very vigilant about this point. According to a recorded announcement that played in the theater, the cell phone restriction was in place so that the phone signals did not interfere with the wireless microphones being used during the event. But I'm not buying it. More on that later.

After everyone was asked to stand for the National Anthem - again, I've never seen that at the Borgata before - Caputo appeared from behind a screen wearing a sparkly, sleeveless multi-colored striped dress and a giant emerald ring.

She thanked the veterans in the audience, asking them to stand and be recognized, she encouraged folks to sign up for her $19.99 fan club (not because she wants their money, she explained, but because she wanted them to have access to pre-sales and such so as not to have to pay scalper prices), and she did a stand-up routine, of sorts.

To wit:

"My favorite part of this is when I look at a woman and say, 'Did you lose your husband?' and she replies, 'Um, actually it was another woman's husband I lost.'"

and...

"I curse a lot, and I'm Catholic. People say, 'She's going to hell because she curses like a sailor.' That's right, I like to curse. I'm from Long Island. I'm pretty sure I'm going to hell for talking to dead people - not for cursing."

The crowd laughs. Caputo is genuinely funny, a bit self-deprecating, and charming in a way where you'd want to have her at your next dinner party.

But the laughter shifts quickly to tears. And lots of them.

She walks out into the audience, trailed by two high-definition cameras that feed the action onto three screens, switching back and forth to whichever camera has the most effective angle. Meanwhile, staffers run around as she works the room, getting wireless mics into the hands of her subjects-of-the-moment.

As she strolls through the room, she says generally vague things that she's getting from the beyond - an older man who has passed, a young man who died violently, someone who committed suicide, the number seven, etc. - and waits for someone to nod their head or raise their hand affirming the connection. In other words, she doesn't walk up to a particular person, look at them and say, "Your father died three weeks ago of cancer."

Sometimes she gets two or three unrelated people standing up regarding a particular communication. She feels them out, asking questions, looking at objects in their hands (photos, a necklace, a stuffed animal) and then focuses on one or the other depending on the responses, depending on what she's getting from them. The other people don't sit down, and she'll bounce back to them if they start nodding when the person she's currently on is shaking her head.

And when she just can't get a yes, she doesn't let that stop her.

"Did he write you a note shortly before he died saying I'm sorry?" she asks one woman.

There's silence. Caputo asks again. More silence. Then a simple "no." A head shake.

Caputo is quick to recover:

"The next time you're in a card store and you see a card that says, 'I'm sorry,' know that this is from him to you."

That's how it all goes. Vague things turn more specific based on body language or verbal clues. Mistakes are deflected. It all happens so quickly, so it's hard to keep track, to keep score.

It's what's known as cold reading in magic circles, as opposed to hot reading, in which the magician or medium has secretly obtained information about their target in advance. (See: Peter Popoff.)

If Caputo really had any special powers - or if she were employing hot reading techniques - her information would be a lot more specific and clear, and she wouldn't be wrong so often. And if they permitted people to take video of the performance with their phones, allowing the show to be dissected in great detail after the fact, it really wouldn't impress anyone.

Aside from this whole cold reading routine, Caputo attempts to act as a therapist or grief counselor for the suffering.

She engages a family whose son died violently two weeks ago and says he's telling her that there's nothing they could have done, that they shouldn't feel guilty, that they should move on with their lives and that he's in a better place. The mother can't control her tears, and much of the audience cries right along with her.

Caputo tells a tearful young widow that her husband says she looks pretty.

She says there's someone near her - she can't quite locate the right person in the back section of the room - whose son died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. It wasn't, she insists. It was an accident.

She tells an older man that his dead wife wants him to start dating and that she really wishes he'd finally learn how to make the bed.

She consoles a beyond-distraught woman who tells Caputo that her mom jumped in front of a train because her boyfriend told her to do so.

Caputo speaks with a young boy - he was so cute, maybe six or seven - whose daddy had passed. Not a dry eye in the house.

There's so much raw grief in the room, so many unanswered questions, and Caputo does her best during the two hour-plus show to "help" those in need.

But she never quite got around to the South Philly woman seated to my left, who pulled out a photo of her and her husband from a cruise some years ago.

"Wasn't he handsome?" she asks me.

"No, he's not handsome," I tell her. "He's very handsome."

She smiles.

I ask her if she wants her money back. She shakes her head no.

"She did manage to help some people," she says, before a pause. "I guess."
Follow @VictorFiorillo on Twitter

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I Went to See Long Island Medium Theresa Caputo on Friday Night

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A review of the strange, sad show at the Borgata in Atlantic City. "Can I talk about the baby that died at birth?" Of all of the shows that have taken place inside the Borgata's Event Center over the last decade-plus, I'm pretty sure no performer has ever uttered those words.

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In the following video, Theresa Caputo sits down with Late Night Show host Jimmy Kimmel and Guillermo, and does a reading for them. Jimmy Kimmel starts off the video with him explaining how he's "skeptical but open-minded" and invites the audience to see what went down during the reading.

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Jimmy Kimmel starts off the video with stating his skepticism about these things, yet emphasizes his open-minded. Throughout the reading, he continues to be skeptical about the idea of it all, and continuously adds humor to the entire experience. Even Theresa mentions how "Guillermo seems more into it then Jimmy" which can result that Jimmy already went through the critical thinking process and came to the best alternative for his belief.

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Jimmy Kimmel & Guillermo Get a Reading From the Long Island Medium

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In the following picture, we see Theresa Caputo posing with reality star Kim Kardashian West

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in this image, appeal to authority is very visible here as having a high profile celebrity such as Kim Kardashian West being photographed with Theresa Caputo makes viewers want to believe. This red flag makes those who idolize celebrities believe in certain things just because people like Kim say its believable. If they believe then it must be true.

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In this video, Theresa Caputo sits down with  “Extra’s” Billy Bush, who opened up about her hit show and living the single life, which then ended up being a reading on someone from the "Extra" staff.

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As the video starts, interviewer Billy Bush begins with expressing to the viewers the type of positive energy that Theresa Caputo brings into the room, describing her as being cool, her energy being incredible, and continuously complements her smile while throwing flirtatious remarks towards her. This can be a connection to the "mystical energy" red flag as he uses words connected to mystical energy to divert people into believing more in her.  There's already a sense of emotional connection that has been established with the interviewer and Theresa, as she addresses the fact that the two have "been friends for awhile" before going into an in depth reading of a staff member who was on set.

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'Long Island Medium' Theresa Caputo Talks Dating After Divorce

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In the following article, entertainment writer Lauren Weiler dives into analyzing whether or not Theresa Caputo's psychic abilities are real or not

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The article has a strong connection in the author using a lot of the critical thinking process. She starts off her article by addressing the problem "

Is Theresa Caputo From ‘Long Island Medium’ Actually Psychic?". Lauren then dives right in and gathers information, and evaluates the evidence. In her analysis, she came to conclude that the evidence states that this could all be merely the technique of "cold reading" - where psychics, mediums, and fortune tellers convince audience members that what they’re saying is truth

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When it comes to reality TV stars who are endearing, open, and very Italian, we all think of Theresa Caputo. And as the star of Long Island Medium, not only do we get to see the ins and outs of her daily life, but we also get to experience her incredible gift - and that's that she can connect with spirits from the deceased. On her TLC show, we've seen her approach total strangers and celebrities alike about loved ones they've lost. And we've also seen the powerful impact she's had on just about everyone she talks to.

From the looks of the show, there's no way Theresa could be leading people astray. But is she really psychic? Here's why many doubt her abilities.

Theresa has a powerful tale of when she knew about her powers

Psychic abilities aside, Theresa seems like any other mom living in Long Island - and that's part of the reason so many people love her. According to her website, she's been "seeing, feeling, and sensing Spirit" since she was just 4 years old. And after dealing with crippling anxiety for years, her mother introduced her to a spiritual healer who was able to bring out her real potential. The healer helped Theresa "channel Spirit" through her chakras.

Since then, Theresa has never looked back. She's been a practicing medium for over a decade in order "to deliver healing messages that would help people learn, grow, and embrace life." Not only does she have her show, but she's also a bestselling author and tours the world with her live show.

One writer saw her live and doubts her authenticity

Theresa certainly seems authentic on her show - but writer Victor Fiorillo saw her live show in Atlantic City and wrote to Philadelphia Magazine about his own experience. And after witnessing Theresa's "gifts," he has his doubts.

Victor mentioned that he'd actually never seen Theresa on her show, nor did he necessarily believe in dead spirits, but he went with an open mind. "Caputo is genuinely funny, a bit self-deprecating, and charming in a way where you'd want to have her at your next dinner party," Victor added. But when it came to the actual psychic matter, Victor mentioned that what she said regarding the dead was quite vague. Instead of walking up to anyone in particular, she announced her messages from the beyond to the entire crowd. After nods or hand raises of affirmation, only then would she zero-in.

When she had a few folks in the audience who seemed to be following her storyline, she'd ask them more specific questions. But even then, Victor said she didn't get much about the deceased loved one correct. "That's how it all goes. Vague things turn more specific based on body language or verbal clues. Mistakes are deflected. It all happens so quickly, so it's hard to keep track, to keep score," he added.

Inside Edition even sent a reporter to one of her readings to investigate

Victor isn't the first one to go see Theresa live and investigate her authenticity. Distractify notes Inside Edition sent a reporter to one of her shows in 2012 and also found some flaws in her accuracy. As the reporter said, "On TV, she's almost always dead right, but at her live shows, we watched her strike out time and again."

Not everyone thinks she's a scam, however. One woman who went to see Theresa in 2014 said that Theresa was able to hit on subject matter that she would have no way of knowing otherwise. The client continued, "There were things she predicted that I couldn't match to my situation right away, but months went by and I'd be like holy &%^$ that's what she meant."

Some think she uses a technique known as 'cold reading' - but she denies

For mediums, psychics, and fortune tellers, "cold reading" is a technique often used to convince audience members that what they're saying is truth. In Theresa's situation, she may be cold reading when she dishes out general questions to a large audience. Someone in that audience is likely to relate to what Theresa's saying - and from there, she can continue to narrow down her queries to fit the audience member's situation perfectly, appearing psychic.

Theresa denies her doubters, however. As she told Paper Magazine during an interview, "Look, I'm the first one to say what I do is crazy. How could someone communicate with someone that is dead?" But she maintains that what she does is completely real. "I always say 'This has nothing to do with me, I am just the vessel spirit is using,'" she said. "It is up to you to take these messages and place them in your life, see how they fit, and how they can improve your life in a positive way."
Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook!

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Is Theresa Caputo From 'Long Island Medium' Actually Psychic?

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When it comes to reality TV stars who are endearing, open, and very Italian, we all think of Theresa Caputo. And as the star of Long Island Medium, not only do we get to see the ins and outs of her daily life, but we also get to experience her incredible gift - and that's that she can connect with spirits from the deceased.

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This picture is just a simple picture of Theresa Caputo herself.

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For many, putting a face to the name is necessary to make things a bit more believable when it comes to skepticism. Seeing this picture, we see a very charismatic and happy woman. She gives an aura where she seems to be very welcoming and warmhearted with that warm smile she gives in her picture. She shows to people that she is just your average looking woman, who doesn't have any crazy costume or such when identifying as a psychic medium. This can be a red herring red flag as her image may make people want to connect and feel more comfortable approaching her, as she doesn't look intimidating in any of her pictures whatsoever.

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In this video, we are presented with an interview by Yahoo Lifestyles in which was supposed to be an interview about herself that ended up turning into a reading on Yahoo Producer, Jacquie Crosgrove about her deceased grandmother.

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Off the bat Theresa begins the interview with her charismatic self not acknowledging the question that was supposedly asked, and instead she dives right into explaining her the different types of "feelings" she was currently feeling at that moment. She was describing the different types of mystical energy she was feeling at the time of the interview, rather then answering the question that was asked in the beginning of the interview, which the viewers don't even know what was asked. She refers to the different types of sensations that these "energies" were give her. The way that she is delivering herself throughout the interview can be viewed as a red herring red flag as she is distracting viewers with information that may potentially lead people to believe in her, as she is using the "seeing is believing" tactic to capture her audience.

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Long Island Medium Theresa Caputo's reading will give you the chills

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In the following link is an article written by a reporter named Jamie Franchi, who had the opportunity to go to one of Theresa Caputo's "LIVE: The Experience" tour back in December 2014. In the article, she shares her opinion and thoughts on the topic of psychic mediums, and then discusses her experience, observation, and opinions on the Live show she attended.

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This article connects to the red herring red flag as the reporter Jamie was aware to not let any generic descriptions distract her from analyzing and using her critical thinking skills to assess the best alternative to whether or not Theresa Caputo was the real deal or not.

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Long Island News from the Long Island Press

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After my father died suddenly five years ago, I found myself sitting in the upstairs alcove of a high ranch in Kings Park that was decorated in gaudy crucifixes and adorable cherubs. Across from me sat the medium a friend had sworn by. A medium who had told my husband the day before that she'd been visited by my father and that he wanted to talk to me.

She wasn't the first psychic medium I'd been to. And most certainly wasn't the last. She described my father as a veteran (he was), who liked to cook (he did). She gave details about how he died, and described how he'd lived. The message she said he wished to relay to me resonated, quite deeply, but it was what she said to me as we were talking about my budding writing career that turned me into a believer.

"She gets it from me," the medium told me my father had said. As a joke.

A wiseass even in the afterlife? That was what cemented the unbelievable truth to me that my dead father was right there in the room with me.

And so it was with an open mind that I attended Theresa Caputo Live! The Experience at the NYCB Theatre at Westbury on December 17. The packed house was rife with nervous laughter and quiet murmurs as the audience filed in an hour before she came onto Westbury's iconic round stage, set with a high table draped in white cloth, holding lit white candles and a white floral bouquet.

Caputo finally walked out in sky-high sparkly Christian Louboutins and a flouncy dress to thunderous applause. She briefed the audience about what to expect, counseling us to please accept anything we could connect to our lives as messages to us from our departed loved ones from "beyond the physical world." She said she couldn't stress it enough, and she was true to her word, as she continuously reminded the audience throughout the next two and a half hours to interpret her words as direct messages, especially if she failed to address each of us individually.

"It's so nice to be home," the Hicksville mom told the Westbury audience. "Everybody understands my accent!"

The audience laughed in recognition as she enunciated words like "feather' and "father" as "feath-ah" and "fath-ah."

Caputo announced that she wasn't out to prove anything to anybody or to make anyone believe in mediums, echoing a sentiment she'd expressed when I'd interviewed her over the phone a few days earlier. She explained that she was there to validate for us all the feelings that, essentially, there was more to life than life. If we'd thought that maybe we'd seen the shadow of someone who'd died in the halls of our homes, we had. If we could have sworn we heard the voice of our dead mothers, or had been visited in our dreams by loved ones who'd passed, we weren't crazy.

"It's real," she reiterated, over and over, throughout the "experience."

And then she was ready to get started. A team with microphones and video cameras flanked her every move, anticipating to whom she would speak, and transmitting their faces on screens to the whole audience so that we could all watch the magic up-close. She approached a section in the front of the stage, asking, "Who connects with a brother figure?"

Two people immediately raised their hands. She told them that the fact that she was channeling the souls of their brothers meant that those souls were at peace.

"Do you understand that?" she asked, an oft-repeated refrain throughout the night.

They nodded.

Caputo moved on to a man who said he had lost his wife to Alzheimer's disease. She told him that she saw the woman jumping up and down, symbolizing that she was free in the afterlife, no longer bedridden.

"She doesn't have Alzheimer's anymore, do you understand?"

The man nodded.

Caputo asked a well-dressed woman wearing a pink button-down blouse how she could connect with the color mauve. She told the audience that she was seeing a woman in a mauve-colored suit or jacket. The woman nodded, saying that her mother had been an executive secretary. She was sure, she said, that she must have had a mauve suit at some point. But she wasn't sure.

It didn't seem certain that the mother's fashion sense matched that of her daughter.

Caputo moved on, peppering the audience with questions like, "Why am I connecting with a mother figure over here?" and "How does the number three connect?"

Hands shot up all over the theater and Caputo made busy work climbing the steep aisle ramps in her stiletto heels. Her husband Larry, easy to spot as a frequent co-star on her show Long Island Medium, lurked along the edges of the crowd, moving around.

Caputo made quite a few direct hits, like when she asked a man, "Did you mother work in fashion?" to which he replied, "She was a seamstress."

"Perfect!" was Caputo's reply when it seemed she made an exact match. It was her version of "Bingo!"

Clearly emboldened, Caputo continued, making some more specific claims, like, "I have a young woman who is telling me she was shot by her boyfriend or spouse."

Three audience members stood to claim that soul as their own, which perhaps says more about the issue of rampant gun violence than it does about psychic ability.

Caputo stood on the round stage, looking up into the audience. She walked over to a section she hadn't been in yet and started talking to a young woman who was sitting beside her mother. The woman had lost her uncle and had come for some closure.

"Why do I feel like he drowned?" she asked, clutching her chest. She relayed that she felt fluid rising in her chest, and that this was the spirit communicating how he'd died.

The niece shook her head no. That wasn't her uncle.

Caputo insisted, refusing to move, saying that the spirit was instructing her that the person he wanted to connect with was there. She questioned the surrounding people, asking again about a drowning.

Then she announced that she wanted to speak with the mother of a young child who had drowned in a backyard pool during a party.

The audience gasped in both horror and delight. This is what we had come to see.

Yet no one seemed to fit the bill. A woman said that she lost someone who had drowned in river runoff, in about seven feet of water, and she wondered how, as the deceased stood about 6-foot-4. Caputo shook her head. That wasn't who she was looking for.

She approached the woman with the dead uncle again.

"My uncle had a boat?" she offered.

That wasn't it.

"He built pools," the woman said, pointing to her mother. "He built her pool."

That wasn't it, either. Finally the mother told Caputo and the audience that when he had died (of pancreatic cancer), his lungs had filled up with fluid.

"Perfect!" Caputo declared.

The doubt that had started to creep into my mind early on in the show now made a full-court press. I wasn't buying it, any of it.

Caputo threw out more questions to the audience, asking specific questions that, when they weren't met with nods of agreement, became described as merely symbols of other, more general things.

For example, she asked a grieving mother who had lost her grown son, "Why do I feel like you are holding him when he died?"

When the woman shrugged, Caputo quickly covered by saying that that means he believes that she was always there for him.

"Do you smell him?" Caputo questioned another.

When there was no response, she immediately clarified that this meant that it seemed as if that person was still there, even though he had passed some time ago.

Caputo told a woman who was mourning her mother that she was seeing "red spots all over her body." But the woman stated that her mother had had ALS. When Caputo said, "I don't know," the woman clarified, "Lou Gehrig's disease."

Caputo nodded. A debilitating disease all over the body. Perfect, she said.

Caputo told a woman who seemed quite obviously gay that her father approved of her lifestyle, did she understand?

We all understood.

She seemed annoyed when a woman answered the question about a "father-figure" with the fact that he was her uncle.

"It's your uncle. That's a father-figure," Caputo dismissed. "Same thing."

She approached a mother and son and began to talk with them about the man's brother. She hit on a few questions, like when she asked if he wore a religious medallion in honor of the brother and the man produced it right there, from under his shirt. Then she asked what the number three meant to him, and he responded that he had a 3-year-old daughter.

"I Googled that!" she wise-cracked to the crowd in self-congratulation, a wink and a nod to allegations that she and her staff research details about audience members in anticipation of her shows, only to produce them later as part of the psychic act.

As the session wound down, Caputo continued in the same vein, joking with the audience, her signature Lawn Guyland-ese carrying over NYCB Theatre. The people seated around us, and up onscreen, dotted their red-rimmed eyes with tissues fished out of pocketbooks, while still others exited the theater before the performance ended. The reviews, it seemed, were mixed.

After the show, Caputo announced that two lucky audience members had been randomly chosen to meet her backstage. I had been lucky enough to have been given meet-and-greet passes as well, so I waited along with perhaps 20 or so other people after the show ended for the chance to meet Caputo in person.

She emerged from backstage, her outfit changed from the dress to a black jumpsuit, the Louboutins mercifully gone. She chatted with small groups as her staff brought them to her, one by one.

When it was our turn to meet her, I introduced myself as a reporter from the Press, and reminded her that we had spoken a few days before.

"I hope you enjoyed the experience," she told me. "It was a lovely article, I appreciate it very much."

I took the opportunity to ask if she ever came into contact with spirits who were not at peace and that if the souls she encountered were in Heaven, did she ever speak to those who were in the opposing resting place?

"I don't channel those souls," she said, flat-out. "I only channel souls that walk in God's white light."

Then she said to me something oddly curious.

"You know, the first two people that just came? The one girl-it was a mother and daughter-and she said the kid that drowned in the backyard at the pool party? She said, 'That was my son, I just couldn't even speak.'"

"She says, 'I want to thank you because he died many years ago at a pool party.' She left, she's like, 'You have no idea. You changed my life.' It's amazing," continued Caputo.

Amazing coincidence indeed that this particular woman had possessed one of the few backstage passes. Perhaps even more so-and pretty convenient, too, I'd say-that Caputo was able to relay this conversation to a reporter who'd witnessed what had seemed to be a pretty big miss earlier.

Was this an incredible coincidence or merely an attempt at damage control?

For me, this unbelievable experience was simply that: not to be believed. In my humble opinion, Caputo is a damn good performer, and she's got undeniably likeable sass and charisma.

I just don't think she speaks with the dead. Or she didn't the night that I saw her.

But my father probably could have told you that.

Jaime Franchi is the Executive Editor of Morey Publishing. She covers education and contributes news and entertainment pieces for the Long Island Press, along with occasional op-eds when she's in the mood for some hate mail. Her work can also be found on Salon.com, Milieu Magazine, Huffington Post and The New York Times.

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My Not-So-Psychic Experience With 'Long Island Medium' Theresa Caputo

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After my father died suddenly five years ago, I found myself sitting in the upstairs alcove of a high ranch in Kings Park that was decorated in gaudy crucifixes and adorable cherubs. Across from me sat the medium a friend had sworn by.

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Post # 1 Assignment # 2 - Theresa Caputo 

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Post # 1 Assignment # 2 - Theresa Caputo 

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Made by Rebecca Gnanasingam, working individually