seven venues

Lisa Williams says she sees dead people.

Don't believe her? That's fine. She'll try to win you over when she showcases her abilities as a clairvoyant and psychic during her appearance Saturday at Ryman Auditorium.
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Well, that is if you will allow yourself to be won.

"I can help anyone who wants to be helped," said Williams, who helms the Lifetime Television Network show Lisa Williams: Life Among the Dead. "You may have seen the interview I did with the woman on (The Oprah Winfrey Show) who just completely did not believe. She was very cynical and even though I came out with a lot of facts about her father, she did not believe. In those cases, there are those cynical people in the world . . . I read for many of them and you would be surprised at how I change their mind."

During her show in Nashville as in other stops on her multicity tour, Williams will present her spirit guests to the audience. It's then up to the crowd to claim them.

"I'll basically say, 'I have Uncle Johnny here who died of cancer and he also had a heart problem,' " she said. "Then it's up to the audience to say, 'Oh, I can relate to that, that's me.' But the thing is, I can have three or four people (that applies to) and then I whittle it down to one person. Then I'll get them in a reading and the reading will last probably five or 10 minutes. That's how the evening goes. I'll do as many as I can."

If it sounds unbelievable, Williams said she understands. While she always thought she had some psychic abilities, it took years for her to understand the breadth of her skill. She says she thinks she was 3 or 4 years old when she saw her first dead person, and when she told her parents about it, they chalked it up to an overactive imagination.

"They were just playing with me," she said of the spirits. "I would have little kids come up and play with me. Then I had my grandfather, well my great-grandfather, came to talk to me. I came up with weird and wonderful stuff and told my parents, 'Well, such and such came to see me last night.' And they were like, 'Whatever Lisa.' Really, it wasn't anything special."
'It was pretty scary'

By the time she was 8, Williams says she was supremely perturbed with her supernatural friends, because, she said, "Everyone was telling me it was wrong."

"It was pretty scary," she said. "By then it was like, 'Go away. Leave me alone. You're not supposed to be here.' "

But they didn't, and she says her psychic abilities, which had been around as long as the ghosts, didn't wane either. She was 23 when she gave her first real "reading," and even that happened by accident. Williams was on the phone with a friend in another town who told her she was having issues with her mate.

"Out of nowhere I said, 'He's cheating on you.' And she said, 'What?' I said, 'He's cheating on you with a girl called Lisa, and it's not me because I'm hundreds of miles away. And he's met her in this pub that's called The Black Swan and he's known her for two. I had no idea what two was, (but) later she found out they had been dating for two weeks."

It was the same friend who got Williams her first real reading, and now 12 years later, Williams has her own television show and is touring the country. But Williams said her skill isn't all that different from most people's natural psychic ability, it's just more refined.

"Everyone realizes there is a level of unconsciousness we can tap into," she said. "We all know the phone will ring before it does, and we can all connect with the spirit world and the divine when we go to sleep. It's in that in-between stage of falling asleep and really going to sleep, that's when you get your closest to the spirit world and the same when you're waking up. We all have that ability, it's just some people are fine-tuned. I liken it to drawing. I always say some people can draw circles, some people can draw stick people and others can develop that into being a fine artist and that's exactly the same as me."

That said, Williams thinks the public is plagued with misconceptions about what she does. She does not read people's minds. Dead people are not constantly surrounding her or anyone else because, she said, "Let's face it. There are some things they don't want to see." And she can switch her "talent" off.

"I have a normal life," she said. "I'm a wife. I'm a mother. (People think) I'm a freak. It's just really weird, but I'm so used to it. And for me, I think this is the most rewarding job I have ever done. Personally, I've gained the fact I have helped people and given them closure."