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Tarot Reading

Psychics who profit by pretending to communicate with your loved ones take in vast amounts of money each year, preying on people's desire for reassurance. There are those of us in the skeptic community who are doing our best to make their lives uncomfortable. The last thing they want is attention from us.

Like fictional vampires, they fear sunlight; they don’t want it to illuminate their methods. We document. We lay out a trap. We expose them as the Grief Vampires they are.

Lemon Cake

Thomas John

Psychic medium with two television shows (Seatbelt Psychic, and The Thomas John Experience)

 

Dr. Todd Grande (Licensed Professional Counselor of Mental Health)  
Talking to the Dead or Searching Facebook? - Thomas John Case Analysis

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Operation Pizza Roll

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What is "hot reading"?

A technique used when giving a psychic reading in a stage magic performance. The reader uses information about members of the audience, usually from previous background research such as social media posts. It can be used for entertainment. Grief Vampires use it to deceive and gain your trust.

What is your goal?

That just depends, are we doing our own pre-show? Are we writing an article, filming a video? It’s possible that we are attending with a reporter. We might want to just shake up the psychic. It is important to have a clear goal before you put it into action. Also important to report back on what you learned, the good and the bad so other activists can learn.

Operation Lemon Meringue

Operation Onion Ring

Why the odd titles?

Ridiculous names are easy to remember, easy to spell and when you say the name, people smile and ask questions. Also, local skeptics groups might want to pick them up in their own activism.

Thomas John
Peaches

Stage psychic and reality show personality (Meet the Fraser's TV show) - best cold-reader Susan Gerbic has seen in person

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Matt Fraser

Operation Peach Pit

How do you pick the targets?

That just depends on our goal. If we are trying to catch a hot-reader, then we are looking for someone that is strong on social media and hungry. Sometimes we pick the target because of their location or because one of the team is in that area. Other times we pick them because they are making egregious claims (more than normal). Other times they are brought to our attention.

All are fair game.

Matt Fraser
Bee on a Daisy

Chip Coffey

TV psychic - Psychic Kids - Paranormal State - Kindred Spirits - Ghost hunter

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Operation Bumblebee

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Why not call out the psychic at the event?

Because our goal isn’t to convince or offend the audience. They have paid a bunch of money, some are really big fans. They don’t want to have someone tell them that everything they know is wrong. Besides if you are thrown out, you can’t be there to learn.

Chip Coffey
Pills on Spoons

New Zealand Psychic who channels healers - supplement retailer - anti-vax - anti 5G - ran for NZ parliament - photographs orbs, calls them ghosts

Jeanette Wilson

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How do you pay for these operations?

These do cost some money, if we are attending an event, we bring as many people as we can, and scatter them around the room to watch and record. In the past I usually have just paid out of pocket for everything, then ask for donations from Facebook friends. Now that About Time is involved, we can pull in more donations to use.

Jeanette Wilson
Ice Cream Cones

James Van Praagh & Tim Braun

Van Praagh - known for book "Talking to Heaven" had TV miniseries "Living with the Dead" - Braun is endorsed by Van Praagh as the real thing mainly does private online readings

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Operation Ice Cream Cone

  • Operation Ice Cream Cone - Second sting by the Guerilla Skeptics - used fake Facebook pages - featured Heather Henderson proving she can act! (February 2015)
James Van Praagh & Tim Braun
Fried Potato

Tyler Henry 

Tyler Henry is a television psychic with an increasingly large television presence. He relies on interviews with celebrities to increase his own audience on E! Network and Netflix

Operation Tater Tot

How can I help?

We are always looking for more help, usually these operations run for a set amount of time. You can help us find the next target, do research, infiltrate their community. Also you can help maintain our social media “friends” that need to appear real all year-long. location isn’t an issue. Just raise your hand and let me know what you want to do, we will keep you busy.

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Tyler Henry
Susanne Wilson

Susanne Wilson

Susanne Wilson is known as the Carefree Medium as she lives in Carefree Arizona. She is active in the Helping Parents Heal community, speaking at their conferences and giving talks and readings to their membership. Susanne was brought to my attention in 2025 for being suspected of hot-reading during a HPH session. I reviewed the session and found she was hot-reading a woman whose last name was Reynolds (Susanne said she saw a box of Reynolds wrap) and then Susanne went on to hot-read another sitter. 

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Through further investigation it appears that Susanne will hot and cold read her clients. She has an inflated ego and boosts about her powers. Her confidence is probably what caused me (Susan) to over-estimate her fame and thus spook her when setting up the sting - Operation Banana Cream Pie. She acted like a big fish, but she was only a very tiny one and her having attention of the sort she was getting was suspicious to her and she called off the reading. 

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She says she has been tested, is associated with Schwartz and believes that Tesla and Einstein are working on the Soul Phone. She endorses Kimberly Meredith the human MRI machine. When Pretent Podcast released the series "They didn't see it coming" in January 2026, the HPH organization unlisted her videos off their channel, and came out with a coy announcement in support of Susanne (without mentioning her by name). Then Susanne cancelled a 6-person small group reading (losing $1,400) telling her clients that a skeptic group was trying to infiltrate her readings and release private information. All a lie as Operation Banana Cream Pie only had the "family" I put together and noone else. Also by cancelling her group reading, Susanne was saying that she would be unable to tell if one of the six women in the paid session was a skeptic from Susan Gerbic, or not. 

Playlist here

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Operation Banana Cream Pie Skeptical Inquirer article here

Kimberly Meredith

Kimberly Meredith

Kimberly Meredith calls herself a Human MRI machine. She says Spirit causes her blinking which she claims means that something something nonsense. Kimberly claims that she can see what is going on healthwise in her sitters. This is extremely dangerious as women who have had a sitting with Kimberly will think they have "received a health scan" and will possibly forgo, delay or avoid real health care. If Kimberly "views" the body and sees only a problem with a knee, then the sitter will not take the cough or fever seriously as it was just the knee that was a problem. 

Kimberly has been closely associated with Thomas John and Susanne Wilson and Cheryl Murphy as well as others. Kimberly sees religious figures and says she communicates with them all the time in her readings. 

Playlist here 

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Skeptical Inquirer Article here

Psychic Medium Dean

Psychic Medium Dean

Dean (last name unknown) is a British psychic hot-reader. Tickets are purchased for his shows though him directly which allows him to know who will be attending his pub or hotel conference room psychic shows. It's very obvious that he is hot-reading the sitters. Many critics exist (mainly on TikTok) who have been showing clips of him hot-reading. Dean has very thin skin and reacts badly to criticism. 

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His supporters say that he can not memorize all the details that he spews out. I call bullshit on that, he only has to memorize a few small items (using a good memory or memonics) and only a few people each show. It's pretty easy once you practice and have a financial reason to look like the real deal. 

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Playlist here

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Skeptical Inquirer article here

Tool Set

Other resources about grief vampires

Other resources about grief vampires
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