It’s hard to be too dismissive of Theresa Caputo but it’s easy not to be entirely accepting of her. While the price she charges for a reading is kind of spendy it apparently goes to charity so really, you can’t really fault her for this. But the it’s rather easy to be charitable when you’ve on on TV for so long and live pretty comfortably by convincing others that you can speak to spirits as well. There’s a general disdain for mediums, psychics, and the like among many people since if they can’t see it or hear then than a lot of folks will dismiss it out of hand. But while I tend to believe that there are things beyond our ken and many instances in life that can’t be easily explained, there are just as many hucksters and tricksters in the world looking to make a good deal of money off of this, and many of them are very, very good at what they do. As Pippa Raga of Distractify states the fact that Theresa’s starting price is around $50 for a reading and moves up to well over $100 is offset by the next fact, that you might spend a good amount of time on the waiting list since there are many people, including celebrities, that are ready and willing to get a reading from this woman.
Yes, you read that right, there are celebrities and enough people to fill a waiting list several times over to see Caputo and get a reading. Why my cynicism when it comes to mediums? It could have something to do with a lot of them being full of crap. As per Massimo Polidoro of the Skeptical Inquirer, Karen Stollznow has noted:
“During a live interview for Long Island radio station KJOY a line of eight “skeptics” are pitted against her. Visibly stressed at first she asks the group, “Who lost a sister?” A woman acknowledges this question, and the medium quickly finds her stride, achieving perceived “hits” with her staple “validations” about clothing and personal letters. Caputo had emotionally disarmed the woman who was taken in by what a real skeptic would readily recognize as a classic cold reading. Skillful editing seems to have ironed out any misses and genuine skeptics.”
This is unfortunately the way a lot of people do things, so that it seems as genuine as possible and so there’s no possible way that anyone could doubt. Some hold those lingering doubts deep inside but don’t want to believe them, while others will disregard them entirely. People that want to believe, that’s all well and good, but people that can’t see around the corners that these mediums know how to think around, they need to wake up occasionally and realize that in a modern world the work of the medium has been cut in half since guessing and reading people is no longer as necessary as it used to be. Looking for those that are easy marks is something a medium trains themselves to do, whether they want to admit it or not, and the act of giving a reading is, forgive my saying so, a vulgarity in some cases and little more than a sideshow when it becomes a reality show. The fact that people can and do go on Caputo’s website to sign up to wait on the list for however long it might take is proof of something that’s been attributed to P.T. Barnum, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” It might not sound flattering or even polite, but it’s rather true when noting that people continue to support those such as Caputo and believe in them wholeheartedly without thinking that it’s a thing of ease for her, and her people, to find out just about anything they need to thanks to technology and the internet. Unless someone is completely off the grid, she has access to them before and even during her show, meaning her people are running around finding out whatever they can to make the magic happen.
People are going to believe what they want to believe, there’s no stopping that and there shouldn’t be considering that they have this freedom and taking it away would be wrong. But giving them hope, false hope, or some sense of closure through a lie and manipulation is a tricky thing. On one hand Caputo is giving a lot of people what they want and perhaps even need to hear, but on the other she’s taking their vulnerabilities and profiting from it by using her ‘gift’ to tell them things that, if even half of them realized it, they could possibly remember to tell themselves in regards to loved ones that have been lost and memories of those that have passed on. In short, save your money and keep your memories well away from those that can use them to profit, just a bit of advice.Theresa Caputo
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