Counterfeit mediumship?

An article just came out about Theresa Caputo, who is known for her show the Long Island Medium, stating that she is refuting claims that she is a fake. Apparently, there is at least one web site that claims to have inside information that she’s a fake. And of course, there’s always the skeptic/cynic sites that claim everyone is a fake. I won’t bother with the question of whether she’s fake or not. But how mediumship gets dragged into the mud, whether the medium is genuine or not, is a conversation worth having.

I think that the common human desire to make something better, to jazz things up a bit, leads to a lot of trouble, especially when it comes to mediumship. I think show producers are prime examples. The risk of an episode being less than stellar makes them want to jazz it up and put the “odds” of success on their side. When it’s discovered for the fakery and manipulation that it is, the medium is usually the victim, even if the medium didn’t knowingly/willingly participate in it.

I think mediums have the capacity to jazz it up too, albeit in a different way. Fairly frequently, they use poor form in their message work, which I call message casting. It’s not a manipulation by the medium to make things more successful. It’s more like the medium allows the spirits to be sloppy in identifying who the recipient of the message actually is. It looks like the medium is jazzing it up, even when the content is legitimate and lands on the correct recipient. Message casting is primarily the medium’s fault, because the medium can set rules for how they want to work with the spirits to avoid it. I don’t do much message work these days, but I’ve always been a stickler for “no slop” message work. My policy is that if you don’t know where the message should go, you shouldn’t give it out. If you don’t know, it’s the spirit’s fault because they haven’t shown you where the message goes. If you let the spirits fish around the audience for a recipient, it’s your fault for letting them. Despite my policy, I’ve had a time or two when the spirits did it to me anyway. I was very pissed off, and I let them know, in no uncertain terms. Mediums who do message casting are giving the skeptics/cynics a big opportunity to damage the medium’s credibility, whether it’s deserved, or not.

Fortunately, fake or less-than-credible mediumship doesn’t invalidate mediumship any more than counterfeit money invalidates all money.

 

Trying to be legit

Making a business out of providing readings on a mass-produced level via a call center has met with many problems, the biggest of which is fakery. Years ago in the US, we had Miss Cleo. I remember not being able to watch tv without seeing her commercials popping up on nearly every channel, and then sometime later, heard that she was discovered to be fake, right down to the Jamaican accent. Undoubtedly, other countries have their share of deceptive/fake/deceitful “psychics” too.

In my conversations with the spirit folks over the years, I’ve learned that they especially detest those who use mediumship and/or psychic abilities to lie, cheat, deceive, hurt, or otherwise take advantage of people. During the conversation, they showed me something that conveyed “hunt down and kill” very succinctly. They never do stuff like that, so I know that yes-indeed, they’re very serious about it.

In Scotland, a medium who has had enough of people faking it and exploiting others for money is trying to build a legitimate call center business for  message work/readings. He puts candidates through a number of tests to be sure that they have a good connection to the spirits. So far, he has ten folks.

I’m not a fan of such endeavors, but I’d say he has a positive attitude, and based on that, I hope he succeeds. It would bring a candlelight of legitimacy to an area that has been pitch black with lies and deceit.