Over dinner, Las Vegas medium connects guests with loved ones who’ve passed

It’s obvious from the start this will not be a typical dinner. As guests take in their surroundings and await their celebrity host, most can’t help but be impressed by the Foundation Room prayer enclave where they’re gathered.

The dimly lit room atop Mandalay Bay boasts sweeping views and a carefully curated collection of antiques from the Far East. Hand-carved wood panels, delicate tapestries and stunning statues of Hindu deities Ganesha and Shiva set an exotic, spiritual scene. The environs almost command conversations be limited to hushed tones.

It’s the evening’s mysterious guests, however, who have no intention of keeping quiet. They’ve been waiting since their deaths to get in a few last words.

Welcome to Dinner with the Dead, a gathering launched in January and hosted by New York medium and author Thomas John.

“After they die, they are able to speak to, feel and communicate about things that have happened since they passed,” John says.

The medium, who has read tarot cards on “Real Housewives of New York City” and given a reading to Aisha Tyler on “The Talk,” believes he’s found the perfect home for this dinner series, because it “kind of brings together all things Las Vegas — that anything goes mentality, and a fun over-the-top event.”

With the guests seated, John takes to the head of the antique table. Although several seats are reserved for the bearded, soft-spoken medium, he’ll stand or move about the room the entire evening.

SEEKING ANSWERS

After an introductory Champagne toast, he addresses a pair of women directly to his right, with statements and questions a skeptic would refer to as cold-reading techniques — broadly worded and largely innocuous, aimed at eliciting any response from the subject or others in the room.

Just a few minutes later, at about the time a waiter is quietly asking guests to choose an entree, John takes nearly everyone in the room aback. He tells one woman her deceased sister is showing him an image, which might be a tattoo, of a “bird and a ribbon.”

“Shut up!” the subject exclaims. She’s recently gotten exactly that tattoo on her back, in memory of that sister. Suddenly nobody is thinking about whether they want chicken or fish. That, nearly everyone agrees, was too specific to explain away.

As the evening progresses, John closes his eyes periodically, using a series of questions and answers to try to identify those who’ve “crossed over” and are speaking to him, which dinner guest they want to address and what they have to say.

Broad questions — “Did your dad have a sense of humor?” “Did somebody have two marriages?” and “Who is B?” — sometimes lead to more specific inquiries and statements, such as “Did he miss your wedding? Because he’s telling me he walked you down the aisle.”

Gasps, laughter and tears are frequent reactions from dinner guests who realize a connection between John and a relative or loved one. More than half the dinner guests cry at some point during the evening, and outbursts of laughter are common.

MESSAGES RECEIVED

John speaks directly to everyone at the meal. But as there are in every family, some pesky spirits are insistent to be heard on their own time lines. To keep these spirits in line, John quickly raises his hand, palm facing over his shoulder, and makes a brief dismissive comment, as if to “shush” one who might try to interrupt.

Yet he still often finds himself confusing a barrage of messages aimed at different diners. As a result, eavesdropping on intimate conversation is not only tolerated, it is almost expected — fostering a sense of intimacy between former strangers.

And some of these conversations are quite personal.

A guest’s deceased husband affirms his approval of her current husband. A guilt-ridden woman wants to make sure her father understands his poor medical care wasn’t her fault. And a long-deceased father indicates he’s with a young child who has recently died.

Most dinner guests are eager to share the proof that what’s happening is real. “Yes, she had lung cancer,” one woman exclaims loudly of her aunt almost before the word “lung” exits our host’s lips. This becomes one of many moments when John diffuses tragedy with gallows humor, imitating the deceased’s confusion over getting the disease when she had never smoked — another fact that’s quickly confirmed.

While the offers of proof range from spectacular to mundane, the folks who had crossed over rarely do more than establish their presence. Guests don’t report any mysteries solved or dire warnings given.

John says that’s typical.

“Dinner with the Dead” is not as intimate as a one-person reading,” he says. “And the spirits understand that. So they’re not going to air someone’s dirty laundry in front of 20 people.”

At the end of the meal, many guests admit to having arrived as hopeful skeptics, wanting to contact someone but knowing that in this era, their lives are open books. Eileen Lorraine, who has come hoping to speak to her fiance, but instead hears from her father and niece, says she is satisfied that John is legit.

“There were some specifics that I don’t think you could research on the internet.”

Whether there are spirits in the Foundation Room on this night will remain a personal question to be answered by everyone at the table individually. But nearly all of them leave smiling — most saying they’ve experienced something. For an evening obsessed with death, the audience’s spirits are remarkably high.

Contact Al Mancini at amancini@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlManciniVegas on Twitter.