Long Island Medium coming to Fort Myers: Q&A on new tour, skeptics and talking to the dead

Theresa Caputo says she has been seeing and hearing dead people since she was 4 years old, but she didn't learn to actually communicate with spirits until she was in her 20s.

Since then, TV’s Long Island Medium has mastered her gift and become an international celebrity, channeling those skills into bestselling books, hit TV shows, a podcast and an ongoing series of tours ― including a stop Friday, April 14, for a sold-out show at Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall.

Caputo’s new spring tour started this week in St. Petersburg and involves Caputo chatting about her life and delivering messages from the dead to their loved ones in the audience. Mann Hall is the third stop on the tour.

Caputo says she’s eager to get back on the road again.

“Oh yeah, it’s always exciting, you know?” she says in her famous Long Island accent. “You need a little down time here and there, but it’s always great to get out.

“There’s nothing like being able to connect with everyone that supports what I do in person."

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Here’s what else Caputo had to say about talking to the dead (including pets), weird things that have happened on tour and what she says to skeptics.

The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

So what’s it like on tour? You’ve been out there interacting with people and doing ― is readings the right word? I’m not sure if that’s the right word.

Some people refer to it as a reading. I’m basically just channeling someone’s loved one, you know?

Have there been any interesting readings or channelings on the road?

Every single day (laughs)! … It’s just amazing to me how Spirit really works on delivering the gift of healing.

I was joking when I said every day, but it really is the truth. Because you can’t put a price on peace. So whether someone loses their pet or a grandparent or a parent or maybe a child, you’re bringing someone peace.

Crazy things happen in readings. For instance, recently I was doing a show and started to read this woman. She was one of the very first readings. She, unfortunately, lost her son. And she was just so broken.

She was not ready. Here she was walking into this venue in the hopes of hearing from her son. And when that moment happened, she was just so broken that she couldn’t hear these messages.

So I end up walking around the room and reading people spontaneously, and I get to this young man and I say, “Your brother has a message for your mom.” And the kid says to me, “My mom is in the front. She’s the woman that you started with.”

How crazy is that? She needed that time to kind of take it in and really kind of release her nervousness of what her son might say. It’s crazy things like that.

So what I do is so much more than communicating with people that have died. Spirit delivers messages of faith, hope and peace.

That woman you mentioned: Did you go back to her and was she able to receive the message?

Absolutely. Yep. I ended up bringing the son with me all the way back to the front of the theater, and they had this reading that was just incredible. They were able to embrace each other and ― look, parents aren’t supposed to bury their children. And I can’t even begin to imagine what that must be like.

But also, it doesn’t make things easy for that mother. But I think it makes it a little bit easier for her every day knowing that her son’s soul is safe and at peace and with God, even though he died very tragically.

You mentioned pets earlier. Do you get a lot of messages from pets?

Yeah. The way I communicate ― first of all, a soul is a soul. I have souls that channel and communicate that didn’t have the opportunity to walk here in the physical world. Someone had a miscarriage or a termination.

Because the way Spirit communicates with me is through feelings. It’s almost like they make me feel things. It’s just a knowing. I don’t know how I’m able to do it, but I just know things. They show me things with signs and symbols.

A lot of times, a dog might say, if someone had to put them down, that it was the right choice. I’ll talk about things that they kept or illnesses that the dog might have. Just little validations that they did the right thing.

I’m a journalist, so I’m skeptical by nature. And I know you either believe or you don’t believe. Is there anything you tell people who don’t believe what you do is real ― anything you would say to try to convince them?

Well, first of all, I get it. And I’m the first one to say that what I do is crazy. How can someone communicate with someone who has died? But I say things that there’s no way I could know about. And I feel things.

And I’ll never try to defend or prove my gift. It’s not about turning skeptics. I want people to believe in themselves. And I think that’s how Spirit is able to make someone kind of believe in the afterlife. Because you know what you’ve experienced. You know what you feel in these moments. I wouldn’t know these things.

I’ve also learned that no matter what I say or do, it’s not gonna make anyone understand or believe in what I do. It’s up to them to believe that and to know that.

To be clear, I don’t know if “skeptic” is the right word for me. I don’t believe or disbelieve. I guess I’m just kind of agnostic when it comes to this.

It’s hard to believe! It’s hard to believe. I sit back sometimes, and I literally say to people, “You bought your own ticket, right?” I get why people think I plant people in the audience, because the sh-- is so crazy (laughs)!

But I think it’s just, by nature, we fear what we don’t know, right? I just think it’s normal. I get it. I respect it.

But don’t try to take something from someone if it has helped them live their life in a more positive way ― and in a more peaceful way.

Connect with this reporter: Charles Runnells is an arts and entertainment reporter for The News-Press and the Naples Daily News. Email him at crunnells@gannett.com or connect on Facebook (facebook.com/charles.runnells.7), Twitter (@charlesrunnells) and Instagram (@crunnells1). You can also call at 239-335-0368.

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Theresa Caputo: Long Island Medium's new tour visits Fort Myers