Validation, Comfort, and Syncretic Belief in the Afterlife: U.S. Viewers' Perceptions of Long Island Medium

On the reality TV program Long Island Medium and in public performances, professional spirit medium Theresa Caputo interprets messages she says she receives from the spirits of the deceased. Based on interviews with people who have seen her on television or in a live stage performance, I sought to l...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: White, Cassandra (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: American Anthropological Association [2019]
In: Anthropology of consciousness
Year: 2019, Volume: 30, Issue: 1, Pages: 90-112
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Caputo, Theresa 1967- / Long Island medium / USA / Reality television programs / Medium / Reception / Audience / Belief in the hereafter / Syncretism
RelBib Classification:AE Psychology of religion
AZ New religious movements
KBQ North America
Further subjects:B nonempirical experience
B United States
B Media
B Religion
B spirit mediumship
Online Access: Volltext (Resolving-System)
Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:On the reality TV program Long Island Medium and in public performances, professional spirit medium Theresa Caputo interprets messages she says she receives from the spirits of the deceased. Based on interviews with people who have seen her on television or in a live stage performance, I sought to learn more about how viewers experience, interpret, and are affected by these readings and by her presentation of life after death. For viewers who believed in this television medium's abilities, I was interested in how her interpretation of the spirit world corresponded with theirs. While some viewers were quite skeptical, for others the program provided a level of comfort about lost relatives and/or offered a means of validating or further understanding their own personal experiences with nonempirical phenomena. In this article, I explore how Long Island Medium may offer a cultural framework for interpreting perceptions of spirit entities that is in mainstream U.S. culture or religion.
ISSN:1556-3537
Contains:Enthalten in: Anthropology of consciousness
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1111/anoc.12108