So what could possibly go wrong with Grief Vampire, Thomas John speaking to dead family members of children ages five to twelve and charging their parent $400 apiece for the opportunity?

Maybe I’m suspious but I’m not sure this is such a great idea.

Well the Guerilla Skeptics have been following this Virtual Spirit Circle for Children since he announced it months ago. Here’s the archived link in case you don’t want to send more traffic to his website, but I assure you as of this writing, he is still going ahead with it.

Happening April 19, 2021, from 7–9pm Eastern time. Every child is guaranteed a reading and it’s up to the parents (who have to attend) to decide if they think their child is “mentally able to … have conversations about death, grief, spirits and afterlife.”

Good thing the parents are attending, otherwise it would be pretty hard to read the social media of a five-year-old, much easier to check on mom’s Facebook profile and see the loved ones she would like to talk to and just add the word “grand” to the dead person.

Only eight slots are available, and we have heard weeks ago from Thomas John himself that it is almost sold-out so not sure why it’s still on his website with openings. Eight people multiplied by $400 a child is $3,200. Not bad for two hours of readings and maybe an hour of hot-reading Facebook beforehand. Works out to about $1,066 an hour. Too bad most of us have a conscience otherwise this seems to be a pretty profitable business opportunity.

Dr. Steven Novella wrote this excellent article on February 3, 2021, called “Psychic Mediums and Grieving Children” where Novella calls Thomas John out for being “exploitative” and “tremendous potential for harm.” Novella zeros in on how Thomas John has laid the harm on the parent that might decide to go forward with this and then shows that what Thomas John is really interested in is the money: “All Sales are Final.” You would think that if a parent decided after paying up that their child wasn’t emotionally ready to discuss a dead great-grandma who died alone in a COVID-19 ward a few months ago, the parent could get their money back. No, I guess you are out of luck; better borrow another child or force this one to attend, because you aren’t getting your money back.

Thomas John seems to be aware of Novella’s condemnation as you can see in this twenty-second rant.

“Question – we had a couple people …. why are we doing something for children? Ahh, this is what I have to deal with, with the crazies in the world. Someone says, ‘Why are you doing something for children, you are taking advantage of children?’ No, we are not taking advantage of children, we are having an event for children. Children are spiritual too.”

Well I guess that answers that. The world has turned upside-down. Steven Novella is one of the crazies of the world and Thomas John is now an expert on children and grief.

Continuing with the bad news, we can now add his insight into COVID-19. He knows he has to be extra careful not to give out medical advice, so when a woman on a March 28, 2021, Facebook live event asked Thomas John if she would be shaking off her lingering COVID-19 symptoms, he was vague and careful. Here is the entire verbatim exchange:

Thomas John: I feel like either medical mystery about you, or medical confusion or misdiagnosis or medical mystery?

Samantha: Yes, I had COVID over a year ago and I have a rapid heart rate and I’ve been ill for a year and nobody can tell me what’s wrong and I just don’t hope that I’m like this for the remainder of my life. I had a very fun life and now it’s just I’m scared to do stuff.

Thomas John: Un-huh and tell me when did you get the when did you actually get diagnosed with COVID?

Samantha: April, I got infected the last week of March. (Note: this would be March 2020.)

Thomas John: Okay, so I just want to tell you, when I do readings I do them more from the spiritual perspective it’s not like medical diagnosis but I also know that our bodies are a part of our lives, so the spirit world tells us about this. As soon as I heard about COVID in December, you know last December, I went immediately into meditation about it because I thought it was weird it didn’t make sense to me. Started to pray about it and started to get psychic visions about it. Um and I know that they told me that I still stick with this that COVID takes a year to get out of your system. And so I feel like even though there is no scientific validity to that, that’s what I saw psychically, I feel like even if it is imprinted in your energy and stuff, they’re telling me you’re not going to be like this forever, you’re not going to have these symptoms so what are you are you more in the long-haul spectrum is that what they are kinda labeling you as?

Samantha: Yeah and this rapid heart rate that happens every day that drives me crazy.

Thomas John: Right. So like I said I feel like your body is still adjusting to this and um and and and purging itself about this it looks like by the summertime I feel like by June or July you will feel a lot better and I see you I really do see you starting to feel a lot better I see your energy back and stuff so I think your grandmother is saying you know right now to continue focusing on your health, your diet um you can focus on your art when you have time, I feel like you are a very creative person and just try to continue to get stronger. But in answer to your question NO I don’t think you will be like this permanently, but I feel like you will be dealing with this a few more months.

Bless your heart, that’s nice. Thomas John in December 2019, when he heard about this weird thing we know as COVID-19, prayed about it and got psychic visions. We know that he didn’t have any visions that told him that this was going to be serious, something to maybe warn people against, nothing helpful like that.

The Guerrilla Skeptics documented that Thomas John didn’t see any of this coming, in fact he continued selling tickets to his Las Vegas show, telling people that they would be selling tickets to the live show through July 2020. And the 2020 Afterlife Conference he was attending was cancelled and had to become an online event. Wonder why he didn’t see any of that coming and why people continue to spend money getting readings from Thomas John and all the other of his ilk when they could not predict over 550K dead Americans and counting?

 

It takes a year for COVID-19 to leave your system? And there it is “in your energy and stuff.” Thank you Dr. John for your medical help.

Predictably, it took no time at all for my team to find three public Facebook posts and a video of her talking about how horrible she feels, the shaking and heart issues that are continuing. My heart goes out to her as just carrying a small grocery basket sends her into bad shakes. Thomas John also brought up an Alice and Pat who Samantha acknowledged as her grandmother and mom.

We can confirm that—found the grandmother’s obituary by doing a search for Samantha’s unusual last name. Thomas John could have rattled off Samantha’s close family members as well as date of death if he wanted to, but this was just a quick reading over Facebook.

 

Update: I have had a conversation with Samantha. She believes that she is a psychic medium and that she discovered this when her grandmother died. Samantha told me that Thomas John “has been very accurate with readings on me before when I’ve seen him in public. He is one of the few mediums that are the real thing.”

So in that small exchange I had with her we learned quite a bit: she has had multiple readings in person with Thomas John, and he was highly accurate. When we watch them interact on the Facebook live event, they never mention that they know each other or that he has read for her before, multiple times. The interaction we are shown is two strangers meeting for the first time.

I assume if asked, Thomas John would say that he does thousands of readings and would never remember one specific person or their dead family members. True, but it’s not difficult for him or one of his employees to maintain a spreadsheet with this information that can be plucked out of thin air when she appears on a Zoom screen. The information relayed back to her as if he were hearing voices from her dead family members. I’m not saying this is how it is done, but having done a reading for someone before, not mentioning that fact, and then giving information is a form of hot-reading. This could have just as easily had been as I related it before, five-minutes on Facebook and Legacy will give the exact information that Thomas John gave to Samantha on this brief reading over Facebook.

Speaking of hot-readings from Thomas John: We have been keeping a close watch on Thomas John’s Yelp reviews, and when people post, I’m writing to the unhappy person and getting an earful.

Here are some recent Yelp posts, but you can find more here. We noticed that he had been responding to the negative reviews: sometimes acting as if it was just a misunderstanding over an appointment, other times he goes full-on attack. Lately we haven’t noticed him responding as much, probably he is finding that he just can’t keep up with all the negative press about him. Odd, as you would have thought that he would have seen this coming. Apparently he didn’t.