Getting in the Spirit
Theresa Caputo, star of TLC’s Long Island Medium, heads to New Orleans for Theresa Caputo Live! The Experience at the Saenger Theatre.
Theresa Caputo, like many Long Island natives, is a doting mother of two; she lives next door to her parents; she loves to shop; and she happens to be capable of talking to the dead. A popular practicing medium and the star of TLC’s hit reality television series Long Island Medium, Caputo is touring the country to share her gift of communicating with departed souls in Heaven to deliver their messages to grieving loved ones here on Earth. This summer, Caputo is bringing her interactive live show, Theresa Caputo Live! The Experience to New Orleans July 1, where the demand is so high for her to appear that a second show at the Saenger Theatre was added for July 2 at 7:30 p.m. Caputo will also bring her show to nearby Biloxi at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum June 30. Through her live shows, Caputo divulges how she communicates with her sixth sense she calls “Spirit;” she shares her personal life stories; and she delivers healing messages of comfort and joy to her audiences through their deceased loved ones, who are guiding and encouraging them from the “other side.”
“I always say to people that what they can expect from the show is that it’s like watching Long Island Medium live but without the shopping,” Caputo says. “I’m so proud of my live show. It’s really an amazing experience. I come out on the stage and give a little speech on how I communicate in a large venue; I give the answers to the most frequently asked questions that I get; and then we get straight down to Spirit communication. I’m not on the stage; I am down in the crowd right in front of people delivering messages from their loved ones. There are cameras that follow me around, and we have a big screen that is set up so that everyone can feel and be a part of this amazing experience.”
Caputo promises that her live show is still a very intimate experience, even if an audience member doesn’t wind up getting a personal reading with the messenger of the dead. “People say all the time that they didn’t know what to expect when they walked into that theater, and, even if they didn’t personally get read, they’ll say that what they did witness was absolutely life-changing,” Caputo says. “Because what happens is that it might be something in my speech that touches them, or they hear something through someone else’s reading, or it may be something that they feel or experience during the show themselves that touches them, and that is really the main thing of why I do what I do. It doesn’t matter to me if people believe in what I do — I want people to know that there truly is more to life than just here in the physical world, but more importantly that their loved ones are with them. I want them to know that the things that go on around them that they think are odd or weird or a coincidence — I want them to know that is their loved ones. They are not crazy. I refer to them as little ‘hellos’ from Heaven.”
In a profoundly spiritual place like New Orleans, Caputo’s gift of receiving messages from the dead can become quite stimulated. “I have to say there is a different feel in New Orleans,” Caputo says. “Every time I come to New Orleans the energy seems to be stronger, and what I mean by that is the first time that I went down there, I took this picture of me standing on a corner, and there was nothing around but there was this beam of golden light. We don’t know where this light came from. And it went from the top of my head through my body! And I said, ‘That’s God saying, ‘Yes, you belong here.’’ The next time we were in New Orleans, Spirit was very interactive with my camera crew and things were flying off of the camera! Lots of little odd things were happening, but what I find is that because it is a very spiritual place they’re able to choose me a little bit more — I can’t explain it. I think people who are from New Orleans will understand what I’m saying. If I say that to someone in New Jersey, they’d be like, ‘What are you talking about?’ But people in New Orleans get it because there is just something about that energy, and it’s such a collective, different type of energy as well, and it’s very interesting. I always have beautiful experiences with Spirit when I’m in New Orleans.
“And I just love the happiness of New Orleans,” Caputo adds. “Look, death is all around us. And there has been a lot of devastation in New Orleans and Louisiana, and to be in a place where there is happiness and joy, that’s the main thing Spirit also wants to do. What they’re going to do is deliver messages and talk about the things that we are holding on to that are not giving us the ability to heal and be able to embrace life with as much happiness and joy. What better place to do that but in New Orleans? It might get a little crazy down there — I’m not gonna lie! The shows are going to be super exciting in New Orleans. I always tell people, ‘It’s going to be a life-changing experience, you know, to come down and reconnect with the souls of the departed and have an amazing, healing night.’”
At the age of four, Caputo began to first sense Spirit but didn’t learn to communicate with souls in Heaven until she was in her 20s. Not surprisingly, Caputo experienced anxiety while she was first trying to reconcile her special gift of receiving messages from the dead with her heavy Catholicism. “People ask me about that all the time, and I say this with no disrespect, ‘I’m a practicing Catholic — even though they don’t agree with what I do, they take my money every week!’ That’s a different show, right? But a lot of the anxiety was because I would feel the souls of the departed and I feel how they died. They would bring me through their passing, so if someone died through the chest I feel like I can’t breathe. So that’s scary when you’re out shopping or driving and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to breathe.”
The latest season of Long Island Medium is in full swing on TLC after debuting in April, and Caputo says there’s a lot to look forward to in this new season. “There’s always crazy things happening at the Caputo house,” says Caputo, whose current separation from her husband Larry after 28 years of marriage is a main topic this season. “You know, beautiful readings and life-changing experiences with people, and as much as everyone else’s life changes, so does mine, so we will experience some changes in my life and with my family and things like that this season. And no, my son little Larry and Leah did not get engaged yet, since everyone is always asking!”
Caputo’s beloved dogs will also continue to make appearances on Long Island Medium. “My dogs don’t always behave so well, but yeah, the dogs will be around,” Caputo says. “Our dog Louie, the Yorkie, has been in our family for 12 years, and, after we lost Petey (an American Bulldog), who was 12, my daughter Victoria got Bubba, the French Bulldog, who was on the show. I don’t know if people realize it but Victoria decided that Bubba needed a playmate so we got Bentley, another French Bulldog. And for me it’s not Spirit; it’s the dogs that really stir things up in the Caputo house!”
According to Caputo, Spirit can also be a deceased pet dog or an animal that delivers messages to loved ones. “I talk about this one story of a woman I read many years ago because what people don’t realize is that a soul is a soul and no matter who they lose, it’s somebody that we love,” Caputo says. “I asked this woman if she lost her daughter and she said to me, ‘No, I could never have children.’ And I said to her, ‘Well there is a daughter soul standing next to you giving validations,’ and she said, ‘Oh my God, that’s my cat!’ And she had literally come to the show to connect with her cat, and she pulled the cat’s cremains out of her purse that she brought to the show, and it was such a validation for her that she made the right decisions with her cat, because for her the cat was like a daughter! Caputo supports animal welfare and has donated two VIP tickets to Theresa Caputo Live! The Experience at the Saenger Theatre for a fundraiser for the Louisiana SPCA.
As a bestselling author for The New York Times, Caputo also reaches people and touches their lives in meaningful ways through her books, including her latest, Good Grief: Heal Your Soul, Honor Your Loved Ones and Learn to Live Again ($26, Atria Books). “I consider it such an honor and a privilege to be able to channel the souls of the departed, I truly do,” Caputo says. “Whether people say it or not, I can see it on their face; I can feel it in their soul. When I meet someone and I can just see and feel the sadness, and then just speaking to them for a few moments and they’re smiling — they have this glimmer of hope in their eye, and they’ll say, ‘You know, I feel good’ — it’s easier for me to get up in the morning. I’m celebrating my loved one. Life is still tough, but I’m celebrating who they were and it’s a little bit easier now knowing that they are okay and that they are with me. To be able to give people that peace, that is absolutely amazing!” theresacaputo.com; saengernola.com; la-spca.org