Medium offers to help put spirits at ease

The split-level house nestled along the quiet, tree-lined Bolingbrook street doesn't look all that unusual.

But each night spirits crowd into a bedroom there to talk to Cindi Muntz.

Muntz, a medium who reserves part of every evening for conversations with "ghosts," said she sometimes flips the television on at bedtime to drown out their voices.

Even after she tells the group she needs to sleep, they stick around to chat with each other for a while, she said.

Saving her nights for spirits doesn't stop them from finding her all day, she said.

Muntz, 41, says she has always seen and heard dead people -- everywhere.

As a 5-year-old, too short to reach the telephone, Muntz said she remembers incessantly asking her mother to call a complete stranger to impart seemingly random information: check inside a mattress.

Her mother eventually made the call, largely to get Muntz off her back, she said.

It turned out that the family she called was cleaning a recently deceased relative's house. The deceased relative, who Muntz said had been urging her to call the family, said there was money and the deed for the house stuffed in her mattress.

Sure enough, the family found money and the deed inside the mattress, which they had just put out with the trash.

The fact that Muntz knew that information didn't sit well with her Roman Catholic family, Muntz said.

It still doesn't sit well with some of her family members and friends. They found out she was psychic a few years ago -- if they didn't already have a hunch -- when she "came out of the closet," she said.

Muntz said she has always been religious and that religious beliefs are important.

"It's hard not to be religious, in a weird way," she said.

While she graduated from a Catholic high school and college, and taught Catholic education classes for years, Muntz said she pulls her beliefs from multiple religions that fit into what she has experienced in life.

"Obviously, I know there's life after death. For those who (don't believe there is), they'll be pleasantly surprised one day," she said.

In addition to offering her personal services, which are detailed on her Web site at www.cindimuntz.com , Muntz and her husband of eight years, Brian, 40, run Researchers Investigating the Paranormal Midwest, an organization that conducts investigations of "haunted" places in the Midwest.

They have conducted 56 investigations in about two years. Right now the organization is investigating five haunted places, she said.

Their services have been a great help in situations where building occupants -- residents or business employees -- have had it with ghostly shenanigans.

Often they are called as a family is preparing to move out of a house in desperation, she said. Sometimes it's a business where employees refuse to show up for work because of paranormal activity.

The organization owes its success in large part to Cindi's ability, Brian said.

"Most groups don't have someone like that," he said. "She's able to see spirits, she's able to communicate."

Brian said he became convinced of his wife's ability when she would predict the fate of people involved in accidents or missing when their cases were reported on the evening news.

Brian would check her predictions in follow-up stories in the newspaper. She was always right, he said.

"That convinced me then that she knows what she's doing. She's not the type of person who'd say something to try to impress somebody," he said. "She'd know what happened to people before the cops or the person's family. It's kind of mind-boggling."

Despite her accuracy, Muntz often questions her own findings.

"We're quite the skeptics," she said of the paranormal investigation team. "I always look for proof. I dismiss things," she said.

Television shows such as "Medium," about a medium who works with a district attorney to solve crimes, and "The Ghost Whisperer," about a medium who helps spirits resolve lingering issues in the land of the living, are fairly accurate, she said. The recent movie "Ghost Town" is as well.

The horror movies featuring evil ghosts tormenting innocent mortals? Not so much.

There is evil in the world, she said, but those cases are not common.

Sometimes, spirits trying to communicate with people who cannot see or hear them will move objects around to get their attention, she said.

The intent is not to frighten anybody, but people get scared because they don't know the rest of the story, she said.

Sometimes spirits want to pass along a message. Sometimes they need help finding their way to the afterlife. Sometimes they just want to say hello.

Muntz said she can help them accomplish those things.

"It's a real rewarding thing to do something that most people can't do," she said. "It's hard to explain, but it touches you in a deep way."

Not everyone who advertises psychic ability is legit, of course.

"It's a hard business, from the consumer point of view," she said. "How can you tell the difference between someone who's fake and who's real?"

One giveaway, she said, is someone offering to teach you how to be psychic.

You can't learn how to be psychic any more than you can learn to have brown eyes. Either you have it or you don't, she said.

"You can learn to be more aware of the energy around you, and also how to raise the energy around you," Muntz said. "But you can't learn to be psychic."

Muntz said she doesn't try to prove what she's saying is true.

"My goal isn't to prove myself or make someone believe," she said. "People come to their own conclusions."

In preparation for a reading, she tells clients to look through old photos and reminisce. She also suggests they put out an actual invitation with the date and time of the reading, so the spirits can plan to be there.

"We're never alone when we're here," Muntz said, adding that spirits are around everyone, all the time.

She will only read a client every eight to 12 months.

"(Readings) can be very addictive," she said. "But it can also be something that keeps people from moving on."

Muntz may soon post her evening interactions with spirits on her Web site, in hopes the messages will reach their intended recipients.

Besides psychic readings, Muntz conducts seances, energy healings and is a reiki master.

She has worked with police to successfully find missing people, and is still helping on one active case. Avoiding news reports improves her accuracy, she said.

She has not been contacted by police on two high-profile missing person cases -- Stacy Peterson and Lisa Stebic -- but said she would like to help.

"I don't solicit my services," she said. "But I feel like I would be able to give some information on (those cases)."

This time of year isn't busier than others for Muntz, despite Halloween's focus on the ghoulish.

Requests for seances pick up in October, she said. Oddly, some businesses use them as employee team-building activities.

But Muntz never works on Halloween. Oct. 30 and 31 are two days the couple always sets aside to relax.