You might see psychic medium Deb Lantz sitting in a coffee shop or walking down a street. She may appear to be alone, but she says unseen spirits accompany her.
“I’m a weirdo,” laughs Lantz. “I talk to dead people.”
Lantz has appeared in several television documentaries, including on Lifetime, Discovery, and the Travel Channel. She is also writing a book. However, she was not always so open about what she describes as her gift.
Growing Up Psychic: Deb Lantz on Hiding Her Medium Abilities as a Child
“I was born with this,” Lantz says of her mediumship. “I used to call it my disability.”
Her feelings stemmed from a lack of information about her abilities. In addition, there was no one to turn to for help.
“So, as a child, I used to think—like watching Looney Tunes or something with a white truck in it—that men in white uniforms were going to come get me and throw me in it. That was a legitimate fear of mine. Because my mother was a teacher, and my father was in finance. It [my gift] just wasn’t something we ever talked about.”
Like most children who just want to be normal, Lantz adapted to keep her talents hidden.
“I learned to keep it buried and very secretive. As a child, I would have an experience and share it with someone, and they would say, ‘What, that creepy, blah blah blah?’” says Lantz. “So others did not receive it with the intention it was given, which was to help people.
“As children, we learn to adapt our behavior, so I was keeping all this stuff to myself.”
The Night Her Grandmother Returned: Deb Lantz’s Childhood Experience with a Spirit
However, there was one person who knew of and appreciated her abilities.
“Certain memories I have as a child are unexplainable. They’re directly linked to this innate ability that I was born with,” says Lantz. “One was when my grandmother died, [with whom] I was very close. Three days after her funeral, I was asleep in my bedroom. I felt something sit on the edge of my bed ‘cause I felt [a depression] where someone was sitting, I guess.
I sat up, and my grandmother was there. I remember saying to her—because this was not a dream—pinching myself, I said, ‘Grandma, what are you doing here? You can’t be here, you’re dead.’ She laughed and said, ‘Oh, you know better.’
“‘I just wanted to say goodbye, but I will always be with you,” she said.’ Then she just disappeared right in front of me. I looked out my window and the sun was coming up.”
There are many similar stories from Lantz’s childhood. Often, she says, she saw and spoke with people no one else could perceive. The significance of one such story from her childhood did not become clear to her until later in life.
A Warning in a Dream: Deb Lantz’s Angelic Vision of Her Brother’s Death
“When I was 8 or 9, I had a very vivid dream that woke me up,” recalls Lantz. “In this dream, I was standing next to a tall angel. I assumed she was an angel. I felt she was from heaven. She had big golden wings and golden hair.
In front of her was an old-fashioned garbage can with a metal lid. She lifted the lid. At the bottom of the can was a dead bird. She said, ‘This is your brother and he’s not going to be here for long.’ She shut the lid, and I woke up crying. My brother was about 4 or 5 then.”
Her brother would not live to see his 18th birthday.
“My brother was 17 when he passed. He was my only sibling. He was a big athlete and was being recruited by a university to play football,” says Lantz. “Super smart guy. Had a 4.5 average. Don’t even know how that’s possible.
I was a junior in college, and my brother was a junior in high school. He was sitting in history and just passed away. It was very devastating to my family. Later, we found out he had an enlarged heart and it had never been caught on his physicals.”
In retrospect, Lantz feels the angel in her dreams was delivering a clear message.
“Looking back, after my brother did pass, I felt like that was a warning for me to be ready,” says Lantz. “That was one of my earlier experiences I had of precognition of things.”
Even with forewarning, Lantz says her brother’s death knocked her off kilter. However, in addition to the loss of her only sibling, she felt burdened by her disability/gift.
“In college, I didn’t want to face that I had any extra ability,” says Lantz. “I drank a lot to drown it out. I was miserable.”
The Man Who Made Her Prove It: How Deb Lantz’s Husband Reacted to Her Psychic Abilities
Two things helped Lantz get her life back on track.
“My mother told me once that time’s going to go by no matter what”, recalled Lantz. “You can either stay stuck where you are now or you can move on to where you want to be. That circled my head for a long time.”
Her mother’s sage advice helped Lantz deal with her loss. Then she met her future husband. He was skeptical of her abilities, but something clicked, and they have been married for 35 years now.
“He is very logic-oriented and very supportive of me,” Lantz says of her husband. He said, ‘I’d like you to prove it to me.’ I said, ‘Alright, what do you want to know?’ So he said, ‘Can you tell me what I used to get in trouble for playing with when I would stay with my grandparents?’
I took a few minutes and closed my eyes as I called upon his grandparents in my mind. They showed me a box. Inside was a white smoking pipe.
I said. ‘I see this white-colored or white smoking pipe. It’s strange,’ and my husband said, ‘No, no, that’s not it.’ I said, ‘Really?’ and he said, ‘Nope.’ I said, ‘Ok, but that’s all they showed me. It’s very prominent in my mind's eye, and they won’t let that go.’ He said, ‘Actually, it was an ivory smoking pipe in a box I used to get in trouble with. ’ I said, ‘Oh, for crying out loud!’ He was that detailed.”
Opening Up to the Public: Deb Lantz on Psychic Readings, Burnout, and Setting Boundaries
That slightly irritating conversation led Lantz to come closer to accepting herself. Word got around that she had psychic ability, and people began asking for readings. To help a friend whose mother was undergoing expensive cancer treatment, Lantz set up in a small shop and started seeing clients. Soon she was doing 20 readings a day.
After a while, the heavy workload began to take its toll. She stopped formal readings after her friend’s mother died.
“I don’t feel really comfortable doing readings with people for money,” says Lantz. “ So I just started telling people if there is a message for you, I’ll just share it. I don’t want the pressure of earning money for the gift. It just didn’t feel good to me.”
Still, “to exercise that muscle”, Lantz continued to do readings. Her intention was to do a couple of sessions a week, but demand for her services upset those plans.
“The more readings I did, the more it drained me,” says Lantz, “and I would get physically sick. My husband said, ‘You just have to quit. You’re getting colds that last for two weeks, you get the flu.’”
Consequently, Lantz “switched gears.”
Communicating with the Dead: Lantz’s Paranormal Work on TV and Ghost Tours
“I’ve always been fascinated, since a child, with the supernatural, paranormal, ghosts, like that,” says Lantz. “I feel like that’s where my strength lies, is communicating with the dead... So I started doing that, and that’s where my career really took off.
“Haunted Hospitals was recently filmed. I just did an episode for Haunted Discoveries. So that’s primarily what I do, I don’t do personal readings anymore.”
Now, Lantz is regularly called in to assist in paranormal investigations. However, the only ongoing gig she currently has is with Franklin’s Walking Tours, which she participates in several times a month. Franklin is a picturesque historical town just south of Nashville, Tennessee.
Lantz’s contributions to the tours are not planned and may only pertain to specific tour participants.
A vision of a man in a hospital bed came to Lantz at the end of a recent Franklin Walking Tour.
“Do you have any messages for anyone?” guide and tour owner Alicia King Marshall asked Lantz. She relayed the vision and said the man told her he died from complications related to diabetes.
“I know who you’re talking about,” a woman told Lantz as the gathering was dispersing.
Lantz was immediately hit with a wave of nausea and began to feel faint. She sat down, sweating profusely.
“It was my fiancé,” the woman explained. “He died three months ago. He didn’t want to go. He was very much in love with me.”
As soon as the nausea had come, it left.
“I was perfectly fine once she acknowledged that spirit,” says Lantz.
Luckily, most of Lantz’s experiences are not so taxing.
Three Roses and a Message from Beyond: A Comforting Encounter on a Ghost Tour
A different Franklin Walking Tour ended with a romantic connection.
Lantz’s mother loved roses, and this is why Lantz brought a light pink rose bush to Tennessee when her family moved there.
“Before we went to the event, I clipped a couple of roses and wrapped them in a wet paper towel. I said, ‘Someone is going to need these.’
“So again, this is after the event, and I’m getting ready to walk out the door. A young girl and her mother walk up to me and say, ‘I just wonder if you could tell me anything, my father passed.’
“I’m like, ‘I don’t know,’ then it clicked in my brain. ‘When you were a baby, he used to call you peanut.’
“She burst into tears and said, ‘Yes, that was my dad’s nickname for me.’ I said, ‘Well, he’s still around you.’ I said, ‘Oh wait, he wants me to give these roses to you.’
“I reached into my Kroger bag and I had clipped two budded roses and one in full bloom. I handed them to her, and her mother burst into tears and ran out. I’m like ‘Here I go again making people cry.’ ”
The daughter explained her mother’s reaction.
“She said, ‘The reason she flipped out is because [when] my dad [was dating] my mother, every time he would pick her up with two budding pink roses and one in full bloom.’
“This is how this works for me, I just get these strong nudges, so to speak, and I just learned to go with these nudges ‘cause they always wind up meaning something for someone.”
A Quick Back Story on The Ridges
Not all of Lantz’s paranormal experiences have been so pleasant. One such instance is the investigation of The Ridges, a section of the Ohio University campus with a troubling history.
The Ridges began life in 1874 as the Athens Lunatic Asylum. The university acquired ownership in 1993. Famous patients include Margaret Schilling and serial killer Billy Milligan.
Schilling was a patient who disappeared in December 1978. Her body was found about a month later in an attic. A permanent stain was left on the floor where she died.
A 2008 case report in the Journal of Forensic Sciences determined that there had been failed attempts to remove the stain. The report stated that "The chemical etching appears to have been restricted to an area resembling the shape of a human body, which is consistent with deliberate adulteration of the appearance of the stain.”
A Haunting in the Attic: A Medium’s Paranormal Experience at The Ridges Asylum
Lantz’s son, Nick, was a student at the school working on a book about ghosts in the area. He accompanied her and a small crew on an investigation.
“My son wanted to take us up to the attic. There’s a story that someone was locked in there and just died. There was a body stain and [a] blood stain on the floor. I sat down and grabbed my sketchpad. I just started jotting things down.
“I sensed the patient [who] was locked in there was deceased and mentally ill. I feel like she was playing a game and accidentally got locked in here. Like she just gave up, lay down, and passed away. She showed me pictures of her dog.
“Throughout the whole investigation, you would occasionally hear doors slam or keys jingling. It wasn’t anyone from our team ‘cause we were all together.
“I asked this deceased person (I don’t remember her name) if she was scared, and she said, ‘No.’ I asked if we should be scared, and she said, ‘Yes.’ Again, the whole time we were there, someone was slamming doors aggressively. Someone didn’t want us there and was trying to intimidate us and get us out.”
Into the Basement of The Ridges: A Psychic Encounter with Energy Linked to Billy Milligan
Loud, hostile noises began well before Lantz entered the attic. Just after the investigative team was setting up, Lantz, her son, and a couple of crew members stepped into a hallway.
“We heard this blood-curdling scream and my son said, ‘Well, I guess we’re getting started, ’" says Lantz.
“The Ridges was one of my top ten haunted places. Also very scary. There were parts of the building I refused to go in. We started off in the basement. This energy was pulling me, and it was really creepy ‘cause I knew the history of The Ridges.
“Walking around the basement of this building, you’d see patient uniforms wadded up in a corner that had been there for decades. I was pulled into this room energetically, and my son was there with his video camera. I said, ‘I can’t be in here anymore,’ and immediately walked out. It turned out it was a room for Billy Milligan.”
In 1977, when Milligan was 22 years old, the police arrested him for the rape and robbery of three women near the Ohio State University campus.
During pretrial psychological evaluations, Mulligan was found to have 10 personalities, and that number was later extended to 24. As a result, he became the first person acquitted of a felony due to what is today called dissociative identity disorder.
He was later suspected of murder after he escaped from another institution, although authorities never filed charges.
Psychic Readings vs. Paranormal Investigations: Deb Lantz Explains the Difference Between Spirits
“Spirits on investigations are different than me just reading for someone,” says Lantz. “If I were reading for you or a friend, for example, the spirits have already crossed into the light. That means they’ve shed their physical bodies, they’re at peace, they’re on a different plane of existence.”
Spirits haunting a location are in a different situation, according to Lantz. Those spirits may be angry or negative in nature. However, most are simply confused.
“So my job as a psychic medium or investigator is to let them know what is happening. It’s their free will, their choice if they’re going to stay or move on to the next plane of existence.”
Dark Spirits and Energy Drain: Protecting Oneself During Paranormal Investigations
Most entities Lantz meets in the spirit world are pleasant. However, there are exceptions.
“As far as horrible, menacing, dark spirits, there are very few of those, and those are usually male spirits,” says Lantz. “They just piss me off, and I handle them pretty well.”
Spirits have poked, shoved, scratched, and even thrown things at her, according to Lantz.
“I won’t go into the super scary stuff 'cause I don’t want to acknowledge negative energy.”
Spirits can have a big impact on a medium’s energy, notes Lantz.
“They can drain you of your life force, so to speak. More often, it’s unintentional,” says Lantz. “If a spirit attaches itself to you, which I call hitchhikers, they can pull out your life energy, your life forces, which lowers your immune system. So, through decades of doing paranormal investigations, I've learned very effective protection techniques, so I don’t suffer from that anymore like I did when I was younger.”
Preparing to Speak with the Dead: Lantz on Her Psychic Medium Rituals and Practices
Communicating with the dead is not a matter of happenstance, states Lantz. It takes preparation, and that preparation begins days before an investigation or a Franklin Walking Tour. Lantz limits her diet to fresh fruits, salads, lemon juice, and lots of water.
Lantz also retreats to her patio, a place she calls her refuge, on the day of an event. She sits there quietly waiting for communication.
“It’s a process and I don’t know how to explain it biologically or through science,” says Lantz. “But it’s a matter of me taking a deep breath and releasing all my stressors. Focusing on the light, which to me is representative of love. Filling myself up with this white light love energy and asking if there are any messages that want to come through, please do so now. So that’s just how it works.”
Helping a Lost Spirit Cross Over: The Moment Deb Lantz Embraced Her Psychic Gift
“I can tell you some wonderful experiences I have had. I was on an investigation. I think this was my second show of A Haunting. A lady had contacted a friend of mine in Pennsylvania, and she liked doing paranormal investigations. I went with her to this home that was full of beautiful antiques. There was a child spirit there that was stuck. A young girl. I was communicating with her and said, ’You know you don’t have to be here anymore.’
“She didn’t know what had happened to her. She didn’t know where her mother was. I called on the universal force. God, whoever you want to believe in or not believe in—the love force. I said, ‘Go into the light, your father and mother are waiting for you there.’ I watched this spirit go up. It wasn’t in the shape of a door. It was an oval shape.
“The light was so bright, and I watched this hand pull this girl into the light. She turned and said to me, ‘Thank you, Debra.’ That made me cry. I always remember that. It really stuck with me. That was the moment I knew my gift wasn’t a disability, it was a gift. I’m going to use it to help people as long as I am here.”
Psychic medium Debra Lantz can be reached through her website: deblantz.com.
Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Lantz has appeared in:
Ghost Inside My Child on Lifetime Movie Network (LMN) and A&E International (Season 2 Episode 5)
The Knickerbocker Hotel: A Paranormal Documentary
Haunted Stories (Series) on TV-24 Middletown
A Haunting "Haunted Past" (Season 11 Episode 4) and "Ghosts of War" (Season 8 Episode 9)Ghost Detectives TV-Investigation at the historic and haunted Edison Hotel in Sunbury, PA