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        <title><![CDATA[Celebrity medium Thomas John dishes on new CBS show and naysayers]]></title>
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            <media:title type="html">Celebrity medium Thomas John dishes on new CBS show and naysayers</media:title>
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        <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Thomas John, who bills himself as a psychic medium, is getting his closeup in a new series.</p><p>“The Thomas John Experience,” premiering Thursday on CBS All Access, follows John (born Thomas John Flanagan) as he travels around the country, meets strangers and puts them &#8220;in touch&#8221; with deceases loved ones.</p><p>“The show is really about my work as a medium,” says John, 35, on the phone from Las Vegas, where he does a live show from Caesar&#8217;s Palace (which is still closed due to the <strong>pandemic</strong>).</p><p>“I travel quite a bit for my work, and so in normal circumstances, I do a lot of on-the-road events,&#8221; he says. &#8220;The show is really about me traveling to new cities, meeting new people &#8230; and really kind of connecting with them and asking if they believe in the afterlife. I&#8217;ll give them a reading if they’re open to [that].”</p><p>John filmed “The Thomas John Experience” last fall, visiting LA, New Orleans, Chicago, and Boston &#8212; where he meets drag queens and Civil War reenactors with whom he discusses the afterlife.</p><p>In his previous show, Lifetime&#8217;s &#8220;Seatbelt Psychic&#8221; (2018), he gave surprise readings while posing as a ride-share driver &#8212; think “Cash Cab” with a driver who communes with the dead instead of hosting a game show. He&#8217;s also worked with celebrities including Goldie Hawn, Stevie Nicks and Jennifer Lopez.</p><figure id="attachment_15769217"  class="wp-caption aligncenter"><strong><noscript><img data- data-src="/uploads/2020/06/thomas-john.jpeg" class="lazyload" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" /><noscript><img  data-src="/uploads/2020/06/thomas-john.jpeg" /></noscript></noscript><img class="lazyload" src='data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22%20viewBox=%220%200%20210%20140%22%3E%3C/svg%3E' data- data-src="/uploads/2020/06/thomas-john.jpeg" /></strong><figcaption class="wp-caption-text"><span>“The Thomas John Experience” premieres Thursday on CBS All Access.</span><span class="credit">CBS</span></figcaption></figure><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s more guidance and them wanting to connect with their loved ones,&#8221; he says. &#8220;Just like anybody else.&#8221;</p><p>While John claims he saw his first ghost at the age of 4 (it was his grandfather), his family wasn&#8217;t so sure about his &#8220;abilities&#8221; while he was growing up in Plainville, Mass.</p><p>“I had these [supernatural] experiences and my family really turned me off from that,&#8221; he says. &#8220;They were negative about that type of stuff and they didn’t want me to talk about it. So I ended up just kind of going about my life.</p><p>&#8220;I still had these different experiences, but I didn’t share or talk about them.”</p><p>That changed after he became more comfortable in the field living in Chicago in his 20s, leading to what he&#8217;s doing now. He also had a stint as a drag queen named Lady Vera Parker during this time.</p><p>“There was an episode [of &#8216;The Thomas John Experience] that we did where I was able to help a woman connect with her deceased son, and that was very meaningful,&#8221; he says. &#8220;And there was an episode in New Orleans where I connected a drag queen and I was able to bring through a message from their grandfather &#8212; they didn’t have a good relationship with him, so that was helpful,” he says.</p><p>John has also sparked controversy; critics, including HBO host John Oliver (&#8220;Last Week Tonight&#8221;), say that he and fellow psychics use information gleaned online to dupe people.</p><p>&#8220;When you’re in the field that I’m in, it kind of goes with the territory that people are skeptical [and] negative,&#8221; he says. &#8220;I did a reading for a man who wanted to connect with his wife. He said, &#8216;I don&#8217;t really believe in this, but I want you to tell me things that only she would know.’ Not things that I could find out [by] researching him, because that’s not the way true mediumship works.</p><p>&#8220;I’ve actually been scientifically tested by Gary Schwartz, a PhD-level psychologist who studies afterlife communication,&#8221; he says. &#8220;What he’s found is that there is a certain subset of the population who can connect with the non-physical elements of somebody who has died. He was fascinated with my work.</p><p>&#8220;I tend to go more with that [opinion] than with somebody who is a naysayer.”</p>]]></content:encoded>
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