Caterina Ligato says she has a special ability – she can see dead people.
She says that, when she was a teen, she unearthed her unique gift to not just communicate and guide deceased human spirits but also banish paranormal demons.
WATCH IN THE VIDEO ABOVE: Caterina describe how she sees spirits
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Now in her 50s, the Sydney psychic says she has performed thousands of exorcisms, ‘crossed over’ numerous lost spirits and cleansed a huge number of homes from unwanted souls.
She hasn’t always viewed her talent as a gift.
“As a teenager I wanted my connection to the spiritual world to go away,” she tells 7Life.
“It was frightening … I didn’t want to see spirits all the time.”
During Caterina’s time of denial, she claims she would often be confronted with disturbing paranormal activity.
From entering a friend’s home to find the place haunted with lost souls or demons, to ‘stuck spirits’ roaming the streets in agony, the psychic says she couldn’t escape.
It was a lonely, daunting place for the teen, who wanted to run from the spirits that she says would appear to her anywhere.
She says that, later in life, spirits would sometimes try to block her from going to certain locations.
“Sometimes I would be driving to a friend’s and my GPS would change my destination and I would get lost,” she explains.
“I would have spirits appear and tell me to not go there. They would almost do anything to stop me from visiting.”
However, Caterina’s negative feelings towards her special ability changed as she began to help family and friends with their own losses.
She says she started connecting with the spirit realm and speaking with people who had died, putting them in touch with the people missing them on earth.
“I would tap into people’s energy and prove their loved ones still existed,” Caterina says.
The deceased person – or pet – would appear to the woman and pass a message on to the family, she says.
The reading would often begin with Caterina revealing a moment known only to the spirit and the client, to provide evidence the spirit is communicating.
She says those who have been most cynical of her work are now often her biggest clients – after she revealed some personal truths between past and present.
“It’s tragic to lose someone and it is comforting to know they are in a happy place,” she says.
“That is what the spirit realm is – it is pure love.
“And when we die, we will be connected with our loved ones again in this place.”
Caterina soon became known for her ability, and requests for ‘readings’ snowballed.
And as she matured, she came to accept her circumstance.
Sitting down with what she calls her “spirit guides”, the psychic began delving deeper into the paranormal world.
“I realised this was my calling to help people,” she says.
Guided by spirits
She says she then began to help “clear homes” of trapped spirits and move them on.
These earth-bound spirits are often people who have attached themselves to their last home and are frightened to pass “into the light”, she says.
Home owners or occupiers would often call Caterina after feeling general discomfort and uneasiness in their abode.
“These are spirits who I help heal their trauma or wound and calm them,” she says.
“They are stuck in the physical reality but without a body and are just scared to move on.”
Caterina claims she would free the home by guiding the spirit into the light.
Haunted houses
However, dealing with haunted homes is a very different experience, she says.
People in the home could encounter items moving on their own or could have heightened feelings of discomfort, while some reported other unexplained events, she says.
“These are entities that are not something God created,” Caterina says.
During these experiences, Caterina says she drowns the entity in light by creating a peaceful and sacred space in the home.
She arms herself with a wand crafted from unique healing crystals and a ‘sacred spray’ she makes herself and nicknames “holy water” – a delicate mix of prayers and energy from crystals.
Using these tools, she says she bombards the demon and it implodes away from the physical.
Exorcisms
She performs exorcisms in a similar manner.
“I trained for 20 years with my spirit guides to be able to draw negative spirits and entities out of people’s chakras and souls,” Caterina says.
“These people who are possessed feel like they are not in their body, they can’t sleep, they are hearing things, feel like a weight is pressing on their chest.”
At times, she says the demonic possession can be so extreme that the body it is bewitching can contort inhumanly and even hover in mid-air.
“Hollywood movies are dramatised but sometimes they aren’t that far off,” she says.
However, one thing she claims pop culture has promoted incorrectly is sage burning.
“Sage burnings are a New Age gimmick,” Caterina says.
“Blowing smoke at a spirit that is lost won’t do a thing.”
It’s not uncommon for the psychic to enter a home whose owners have attempted to move the spirit on themselves with the smell of sage.
“Sometimes it can make the situation worse,” she says.
‘I just can’t go there’
One day, Caterina would love to visit some of the most haunted places in Australia and help the spirits move on.
She isn’t afraid of confronting the paranormal but – when it comes to hospitals – she tends to avoid them altogether.
“I see dead people who don’t know they are dead,” she says.
“And hospitals are filled with death and illness … I just can’t go there.”
Overwhelmed by how many spirits are trapped, Caterina jokes that she doesn’t think her spirit guides will let her retire.
But she claims we can each do our part to help our loved ones move on to the spirit realm when they pass.
“People need to get in touch with their spiritual side,” she says.
“Our world is in need of such healing at the moment.
“We need to create unity and add light, love and peace.”
Hear more from Caterina in her podcast The Australian Ghost Whisperer available on Spotify.
