Long Island Medium

Posted by Jessica Jewett No Comments »

OCTOBER 5, 2012 NOTE: I AM NO LONGER ACCEPTING COMMENTS ON THIS BLOG.

I originally posted this blog after the first couple of episodes of Long Island Medium in September of 2011 but I didn’t expect to receive over 2,000 readers every week. So I decided to rewrite the blog and clarify my opinions now that we have seen a lot more episodes of this show.

For me, the effect of Long Island Medium has shifted from, “Is Theresa Caputo fake?” to, “Are Theresa Caputo’s practices ethically acceptable?” That question arises in my mind whenever I see the show, although I don’t watch it very often because it elicits such a negative response in me. I have been doing various types of readings for many years (I was a child medium) but my instincts told me from a very early age not to read people without those people approaching me first. I just don’t do it. Observing Caputo go about her daily life on the show and approaching nearly everybody she meets with messages from their loved ones strikes me as so very wrong.

This is my problem with approaching strangers and trying to talk to them about their dead loved ones: a doctor or psychiatrist would never walk up to someone in a public setting and start talking about the health of the person or the health of their loved ones.  I personally believe that intuitives, psychics and mediums should hold themselves to the same ethical standards as doctors and psychiatrists.  There is a time and a place to talk about such personal things and it is not, in my opinion, in the middle of the produce section or in a dentist’s office.  The process of going through a reading with a medium is extremely personal when it’s done correctly.  It’s an exchange of energy.  It’s intimate.  Both parties have to open themselves to the exchange of energy, which means it should be done in a private setting, not because someone came up to you in the produce section and said something like, “I’m a medium and I have your Uncle Fred here.”  We only see people react positively to this on the show, for the most part, but I would like to know what happens when people don’t react well.  Not everybody wants to be read.  In fact, when I ask people about this, virtually everyone says they would never want to be read without their permission.  It’s an invasion of spiritual privacy.

Then the excuse becomes about Theresa not being able to control who comes through and when.  It’s just that – an excuse.  Mediums all over the world learn how to control the who, what, when, why and how of doing their work every single day and if she wanted to learn, she could.  There seems to be an enjoyment of the attention on her part that makes her reluctant to learn to control when and how she does her readings.  The vast majority of average mediums you will meet will tell you first and foremost that they are not in “medium mode” all the time.  If they were, they wouldn’t be able to function in their own daily life.  That’s exactly what’s happening here.  She does not appear to be in control of her daily life because she is always wandering off to read somebody new.  At least, that’s how the show portrays her.  When you are an intuitive, psychic or medium, you have to learn to control how and when and where you work, otherwise the work will control you.  There has to be work time and personal time.  In the way the show portrays Theresa, there are no lines dividing work from personal in her life and it does affect the rest of her family, not to mention herself.

At first I thought I was being a stickler about my own ethical practices, so I asked a few other intuitive colleagues who have many more years of experience on me. The responses were generally the same.

Me: What do you think of the way Theresa Caputo does things?
Colleagues: [exasperated sigh] Don’t get me started.

Discussions with other intuitives, psychics and mediums always lead to the same conclusion. It isn’t so much whether she has genuine abilities or not. The bigger issue is the way she conducts herself when she’s not “on the clock”, so to speak. Every intuitive, psychic and medium needs down time. The medium needs to learn as soon as possible after discovering such abilities to control them and develop a system of being in “normal mode” and “psychic mode” for lack of better terms. When you don’t learn to turn it on and off, the abilities begin to control your life. Before you know it, you can’t set foot outside of your home without being bombarded by psychic impressions and messages from the spirit world.  People who lived that way are on the fast track to forgetting to live for today and allowing their abilities to get in the way of personal relationships.  I see this happening with Theresa in the way that her family reacts when she starts reading people out of the blue.  When you can’t go to the dentist or go out to dinner with your family without approaching people to read them, you are letting the abilities control you too much, in my opinion.  Setting aside the emotional needs of your family and being largely absent even when you are physically present with them is a definite indicator that being a “medium” has completely taken over your life.  So my biggest concern about Theresa is that she’s not properly managing her abilities.  I’m playing devil’s advocate by assuming that her abilities are as genuine as she portrays, not saying that they actually are that genuine.

People coming to this blog do so largely because they have searched the phrase “Theresa Caputo fake” and that clearly means people are looking for me or anyone else to provide some magic answer as to whether she is genuine or fake.  I don’t have that answer.  I personally don’t believe in declaring someone fake or real when I have never met them.  I have friends in the paranormal television industry and the fact of the matter is the way the shows turn out are not in the control of the people in front of the camera unless they are directing or editing the particular episode.  A television show can be edited in a million different ways depending on who is in control and any television show can be edited to show a person as being genuine or dishonest.  This television show does portray Theresa as a genuine medium but I have seen enough shows edited to death that I can’t say for sure if she is real or not.  We are only seeing twenty-two minutes of Theresa’s life every week.  Nobody can accurately judge the reality of her world from twenty-two minutes of a seven day period, especially when there are production crews and editors in control of how she is portrayed.

That being said, I have seen some red flags in the way she does things on the show.

My primary concern is that she has a habit of asking a lot of questions of her clients.  In a lot of readings, she starts with broad topics and, depending on the answers provided by the client, she will narrow it down from there.  That is a classic example of a cold reading.  Anybody can do a cold reading if they know how to look at body language and understand the subtle responses by the other person.  This is an example from one of her early episodes.

Theresa: What’s going on with his head?
Client: He was shot in the head.
Theresa: Because I feel like bam right in the head.

Of course, playing devil’s advocate, I will have to say that it simply could be her reading style and the way she conducts conversations in other settings as well.  I don’t know.  I do know that asking so many questions during readings is a red flag for me that perhaps there is cold reading afoot.

My educated guess based on strictly watching the television show is that Theresa Caputo probably does have some kind of intuitive ability but I truthfully don’t think it’s as amazing as the show portrays.  Very few mediums have such an accuracy rate as what is being portrayed on her show.  I’m much more concerned about the fact that she’s approaching strangers in public places trying to talk to them about extremely personal things.  One day it’s not going to go very well for her and she could get hurt.  It’s also impossible to measure her accuracy rate when she is being edited by a production crew.  I have seen it happen before in paranormal television where the talent will feel so much pressure to provide results that the original reason why they began the work no longer exists and it all becomes about producing results that shock and stun their audiences.  The pressure will make otherwise intelligent, honest people do things that would ordinarily be called shady and greedy.  Alleged mediums who put themselves on television or in the public eye are under a lot of pressure to produce shocking results, which will inevitably push them to exaggerate their abilities.  Theresa may be headed down that road if she’s not careful.

In short, do I think Theresa Caputo is real?  I think she does care about the people who come to her and who she approaches.  I think she has some kind of intuition.  Do I think she’s a full-blown medium with shocking and amazing results every single time as portrayed on her show?  No.  I don’t believe that just because I know how the shows are edited and also because all of the mediums I work with every day don’t have such amazing and stunning results like that every single time.  Mediums, like anyone else, are fallible people who will misinterpret things.  Do I think television shows are an accurate portrayal of any paranormal subject?  Absolutely not.  Television shows should be rated as entertainment only and should never be something to teach people.

Whether or not you choose to get a reading from any person claiming to be an intuitive, psychic or medium really has to be up to you.  Use your best judgment.  If the person you’re considering getting a reading from makes you uncomfortable in any way, that’s probably your intuition telling you not to do it.  Also, consider why you want the reading in the first place before you go into it.  If the fees the reader charges seem excessive, listen to your instincts.  Don’t wait around for someone like me or anyone else with a blog to tell you if someone is real or not.  You are very capable of deciding that for yourselves.  My only cautionary reminder is that you can’t possibly reach an entirely complete conclusion about any person just based on watching them on television.  That’s why I’m not going to say whether Theresa is absolutely real or absolutely fake.  I’ve never met her, so I don’t know.  I only know what is being conveyed to me through her television show and that is the only evidence I have to go on at this point.  I have drawn my conclusions based on the television show but it is possible that if I met her in the future, my opinion could change.  I don’t know.  I do know that we are very different in our practices.  I also know that her television show has opened up a dialogue about standards and practices among other mediums.  I consider those to be good things.

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Do ghosts have sex?

Posted by Jessica Jewett 46 Comments »
This is one of the most common questions I get asked, whether there is sex in the afterlife or not.

Short answer: yes.

Aside from the need for procreation in the physical world, sex is the most intense expression of love that people can share. It’s healthy and nature’s way of relieving pain, improving moods, releasing endorphins, and so forth. The moment of orgasm is as close as we can get to exposing the soul and experiencing the level of bliss that souls experience in the afterlife. Sex is a gift from the universe, your higher power, God, whatever you want to call it, and should be enjoyed freely and safely.

Just as there are a million different types of sexual activity in the physical world, so too are there in the spirit world. Some are dangerous. Some are to express love. Some are recreation based on lust. Here is a basic rundown of the terminology.

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Spectrophilia – This is defined as sexual attraction and/or sexual activity with a ghost. This connection is between a living person and a disembodied soul. It’s an umbrella term that covers all types of sexual encounters that concern interaction between the living and the dead. Not to be confused, however, with necrophilia, which is sexual attraction to dead bodies. We are not talking about that.

Succubus – On the dark side of spectrophilia, an encounter with a succubus is a dangerous thing. Succubi (plural) are, according to longstanding mythology, demons that take the form of women and drain energy from living men by having sex with them. The Biblical figure, Lilith, is often described as a succubus and also as a vampire. She was Adam’s first wife but was cast out of Eden because she wanted to be on top, aka dominant, during sex. Her image became dominant after that and, depending on who you ask, she is now a succubus or a vampire taking out her anger on men and babies.

Incubus – Just as the succubus is a female demon controlling and draining men through sex, an incubus is the male demonic counterpart. He is known to lie upon a living woman, have sex with her, and according to some traditions, impregnate her as with Merlin.

While much of the incubi and succubi mythology is exaggerated and expanded upon over time, the basic concept is based in truth. There are a few known cases in the paranormal community of sexual assaults, sometimes rather violent, associated with hauntings. People who toy with the spirit world without really knowing what they’re doing often unknowingly welcome demonic activity and sometimes it takes the form of succubi or incubi. In many cases, people are quite embarrassed to speak of being sexually assaulted by something they can’t see, so many of such attacks remain unreported. It’s unclear how often this sort of thing happens due to the stigma attached to it.

Astral travel, astral projection, out-of-body experience – The majority of people are not aware of it consciously but we all can and do leave our bodies from time to time. Think of it like a vacation for your soul. Living in the restrictive confines of the body is like being stuck at work 24 hours a day and a break is necessary sometimes. While we sleep, we have the ability to leave the body and visit loved ones in spirit, see different places in the world, etc. Those who aware of leaving the body have reported merging with other souls at times.

Merging – Merging is the word most used to describe the sexual union between two souls outside of the confines of the physical body. We say merging because the act is quite literally two soul energies merging together. It causes the same euphoric release that people experience at the point of orgasm. It is possible to merge with a disembodied soul while outside of your body but it is rare. It takes an extremely strong emotional bond with the other soul and the right conditions. Usually the intensity of the act causes the person to retreat back into the body before they want to but they never forget the encounter.

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The need to express love in a physical and spiritual manner like sex does not go away when we die, as you can see. Death is not really the end. It’s just life taking on another form more comfortable for the soul. Sexual encounters with spirits don’t get talked about very much, but when they do, it’s generally with a snicker and juvenile giggling. It does seem a bit far-fetched until you’ve actually experienced it. However, those who have experienced it are quite serious and genuine in their claims.

I have heard several stories about spouses dying seemingly before their times and leaving widows and widowers behind. It appears that in cases of exceptionally close spouses very deeply in love, sexual encounters do still happen. Sometimes the person won’t see anything but goes through the entire sexual encounter feeling real sensations of hands, breath, lips, penetration, and so forth. The legitimate cases for me have a ring of truth when the person doesn’t know what to make of it and didn’t go seeking such a thing. While they feel love and physical bliss through these encounters, the legitimate cases tend to wonder why it’s happening and they become concerned that their loved ones aren’t moving on in death. Only when people seem overly excited about spectrophilia do I become suspicious about their claims. It is a romantic idea to think that your spouse loves you enough to continue making love to you in death, but the truth is, such activities should not be encouraged because it keeps people from fully living their lives. It is necessary for both parties to move on and continue their journeys when death parts them. Contact between spirits and the living should never be so constant or intense that it holds back the natural progression of life.

In addition to continuing sexual relationships in this lifetime, it also happens with souls from previous lives who are not incarnated at this moment. These incidences can be frightening for people who don’t have past life memories or the ability to really recognize a lover from a past life. Sometimes it can feel like violation or like something is wrong mentally if a person doesn’t understand it. Since nobody really talks about it out of embarrassment and fear, there isn’t really a fighting chance of figuring out the truth enough to resolve the situation one way or another. I have devoted my life to understanding the nature of the soul and even I didn’t know about these things until it happened to me and I worked up the nerve to ask my mentor. Luckily for me, I recognized the spirit involved by scent and overall feeling (my former husband, Joshua L. Chamberlain), so the potentially frightening situation was diffused quickly. His spiritual presence in my present life is as a background figure that sometimes makes more direct contact. Incidences this intense, however, are rare. I do not cling to the past like some people aware of previous lives and that is in large part because he keeps his distance enough for me to think of him lovingly but still desire new relationships and experiences.

I want to reiterate that incidences of spectrophilia are pretty rare. It takes a lot of energy for them to manifest in that way. They’re also not as wrapped up in earthly affairs as some might think, although the bond of love is not easily broken. Of course they miss us if we miss them. Sometimes love has to be expressed, even through the veil between spiritual and physical.

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All quiet on the spirit front…. mostly

Posted by Jessica Jewett No Comments »

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I haven’t really been talking about my activities as a medium of late. Sometimes I find it difficult to discuss at all, even with those closest to me who understand everything. I find myself reverting back to my old habits before I was “out of the closet” about being a medium, keeping it secretive and sometimes blocking it out when I should be working with it.

Part of the reason, I think, is because I have been funneling so much energy into doing readings for people that I’m basically collapsing of exhaustion every night. In fact, I took today off just to prevent myself from getting burnt out. My clients suffer when I get burnt out because they have to wait for me to muster more energy to carry on working for them. It’s especially true when I go through my cycle. I’ve never seen that discussed anywhere but I’m betting that other female intuitives, clairvoyants, mediums, etc., will note that working during their cycles is almost an impossible process if they really pay attention to it. The cycles of the moon and planets also seem to affect my spiritual abilities. Sometimes they become amplified and I will notice that the moon is either in the full phase or the new phase. Of course, going on and off medication changes my frequency, if you will, and it takes time for me to tune into everything again after such adjustments.

Recently, however, I have been going through a resurgence of my old habits of being secretive and hiding what I am because I haven’t wanted to deal with it. I find myself having thoughts like, “Why can’t I be normal?” or, “Why can’t I just turn it off when I need quiet?” Guilt set in when I would encounter a spirit and my first thought would become, “Just leave me alone!” I have always been such an advocate of helping spirits find peace and always found it rewarding work, so being in a mental space that allows those thoughts has been difficult. So I asked for a break. There are several spirits who hang around me off and on as helpers, protectors, interested parties, and those I’m still trying to help. Some of them were around so much that I was just too tired to cope. I suppose I can understand their point of view. I would stick to the one person who could communicate with me too, but I started feeling unhinged by it all. I put up spiritual walls and did my best to ask for a break. I craved silence.

A dream followed from one of my regulars that night. I was in his old apartment with him and he gave me a gift, saying he would be back after I rested and then we would continue our work. I woke up right away with the tingling sensation over my forehead that I feel after an encounter with a spirit. It feels like a limb waking up from lack of blood flow but right in the center of my forehead. I’ve been experiencing that sensation after spirit encounters for my whole life. I don’t know what it is exactly but I know it happens every single time. At least I knew one of them intended to honor my request to give me some space.

I have been enjoying the quiet for several weeks now. Part of me has been feeling guilty that I got so worn out that I completely disconnected myself from them, but I also know that I have to take care of myself first, otherwise I won’t be able to perform my duties well enough. It’s a duty to care for people’s spiritual needs whether they are presently alive or not. It’s something I take very seriously. Some people have encouraged me to increase my fees for my readings but I can’t do that and maintain my good conscience. Spiritual assistance is not based on those who can afford hundreds of dollars for a half an hour of time. It’s about striking a balance between providing for my living expenses and helping anyone who reaches out to me. Half the time, I end up doing the readings for free or discounted rates or trading other services. As much as I have tried to shift my life to a different path at different times, nothing ever works the way it should. This is my life’s purpose. I can’t fight it as much as I might wish for a normal life sometimes. I can only learn to manage it.

Last night, it occurred to me just how long it has been since any spirits have made direct contact with me. I absently wondered if I had blocked out the ability permanently and something felt very sad in me all of a sudden. As I went to sleep, I made a comment, “Hey guys, let me know if you’re still around.” During the night, I woke up to my cable box blaring blue lights in my face. I blinked in the darkness and wondered why the box was on because I always turn everything off when I go to bed. The lights are so bright that I have to turn everything off in order to sleep. I thought maybe I had bumped the remote control in my sleep but when I looked at it, the slide at the top was still set on TV mode. Even if I had bumped it, the cable box would not have turned on because the slide mode was not set to it. As I fumbled in the dark to turn everything off, I realized it was one of my guys answering my “let me know if you’re still around” request. They’re still with me. Either I’ve been tuning them out or they’ve been giving me space to recuperate. My heart filled with love.

Here are the last times I’ve heard from some of my regulars. I don’t talk about many of them in public, but I know you all are interested in these things.

The Neighborhood Ghosts

My neighborhood has a resident Confederate soldier who is earthbound but intelligent, meaning he refuses to move on and he interacts with some people. He is associated with the creek that runs behind my house. Whenever the creek rises, he becomes more active. I last heard him walking upstairs while my uncles were in Costa Rica a few weeks ago. My mother was at work. The only people at home were my grandmother and me, yet I periodically heard the stomping of hard-soled boots on the floor above me that sounded like old army boots. We have all experienced the Confederate ghost, even my hard-nosed skeptic uncle.

The other neighborhood ghost is a woman who does not acknowledge me much at all but is very intent upon letting my other relatives that she exists. I believe she comes from the great fire we had here in Atlanta in the early 1900s based on descriptions of her appearance. She throws objects and lures people to different parts of the house with her voice. The last we heard of her was about a month ago when she threw my grandmother’s eye drops bottle across the bedroom. It scared the living daylights out of her because she was just sitting at her table getting ready for bed.

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

I can tell you the exact date I saw him last because it startled me. Usually Lawrence is the first one to go away when I need space. It was the night that my friend, my mom and me went to the New Kids on the Block concert in June. It started raining after the concert and my friend brought us home. My mother went inside through the front door while my friend walked with me around to the back door where I live. I glanced up at the garden chairs and saw Lawrence sitting in one of them looking at me. We were approaching the house, so the motion light flicked on and he disappeared in that instant. It was a split second but I saw him sitting there leaning forward with his forearms resting on his knees and his hands folded together. He wore boots, dark trousers, a white button down shirt and suspenders.

I said to my friend, “Oh he was just sitting there in that chair,” and I smiled but she said, “Don’t tell me things like that until we’re inside the house.” I haven’t seen or felt him since that night. It’s not unusual for him. Sometimes months or years can go by before I see him again. I don’t need the validation of encountering him so much because my faith in our relationship cannot be shaken and I also need to continue living the new lessons in my life. He’s in my heart. I don’t have to see him to prove it.

John Wilkes Booth

If you’re a newcomer to my blog, this one is going to strike you as odd. It’s okay. If you search my blog, you will find the blogs about my previous encounters with him. I have been keeping notes on my impressions for him in order to carry out his wishes of publishing a novelized account of his last few years, which is intended to be part of his process of making amends and healing with the women he hurt. Several of them are reincarnated now, although I only know one personally. John used to be rather persistent and forceful when he wasn’t getting his way with me. I had to take control of the situation. He was one of the reasons why I needed a break and I made it very clear that if he did not begin to cooperate, I would not carry out his wishes at all. I need to get through a few other projects before I can really help him.

He has been passing through in the last month or so but not doing anything to attract attention, although he does play with my dog on the porch. It’s more of me going about my business and suddenly feeling movement in the energy field around my house. I don’t quite know how to explain it. Some spirit energies feel more prickly and electric, whereas John’s energy is warmer and velvety, hence one of the reasons why I call him Velvet as a nickname. He used his looks and charm in life to get his way. Without physical looks now, the pleasing aesthetics have become warm and velvety energy, which is very attractive to mediums like me. Sometimes I’ll find him on my couch. Other times I’ll find him on my porch swing mixed with the smell of old tobacco. He’s not communicating though, not since I made it clear that I need a break.

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