Messages from beyond the grave… and the chilling coincidences that just can’t be explained: Inside the revival of Victorian ‘psychic nights’ and why experts fear the surge in ‘visitations’ from the other side

A regular evening at your local pub or club these days may well involve an event starring someone with ‘psychic powers’ who gives people in the audience messages from beyond the grave.

Psychic nights are a rapidly growing form of entertainment, according to researchers at the universities of Leeds and Kingston.

Local Facebook pages teem with adverts for such events at community centres and bars and there has been a 550 per cent increase in Google UK searches for ‘psychic night near me’ over the past seven years.

While some regard these events as just light-hearted entertainment, researchers and health professionals warn of their potential to harm, with people being left deeply traumatised after receiving ‘messages from the other side’.

What’s more, a slew of recent UK court cases suggests clairvoyance can also disguise predators seeking vulnerable people whom they manipulate and abuse for sex or money.

The Victorians were ‘hugely’ into psychic mediumship, ‘but while in the past it was more about predicting the future, now it is about people’s personal and private lives’, says Caroline Starkey, an associate professor of religion and society at the University of Leeds who co‑authored a study into British psychic nights, published in the journal Implicit Religion.

She and her team visited more than 14 psychic events countrywide, interviewing people who’d been to at least one event in the past 18 months.

Many brought issues such as grieving and loss to the nights.

‘They can definitely get positive things out of the events,’ says Dr Starkey. ‘We see nights that are full of emotion: lots of tears, lots of sadness, lots of happiness.

‘It feels deeply personalised – signs that your family care for you and that you matter. Such messages are psychologically very strong for people who are told in life that they don’t matter.’

However, ‘we also witnessed distressing moments’, she says.

‘At one pub psychic night, the psychic said they had a message for someone. On a large table of women a teenage girl raised her hand and asked in a trembling voice: “Could it be a baby?” She began to sob and explained that she’d had a miscarriage.’

The researchers also witnessed a woman being told that her brother who had violently taken his own life had a message for her.

A male medium even told a woman that she was being followed by a sex demon.

Such encounters can leave customers traumatised: ‘The emotional intensity of these events can be profound and the lack of support structures raises ethical questions about vulnerability and responsibility,’ the study warned.

Dr Starkey points out that, ‘There is self-regulation among mediums around things such as not giving upsetting messages.’

Some belong to the Spiritualists’ National Union which has a safeguarding system it says ‘to ensure we are doing everything we can to minimise, identify and report any possibilities of mistreatment or abuse’.

However, not all mediums agree that they should not give distressing messages.

One psychic medium from Stockport says on his online blog: ‘On seven occasions I received messages from people who had abused a customer when they were a child. The messages were always trying to apologise to the person. Sometimes the customer’s friends or family challenge me and say I should only tell them good things.

‘I work for a spirit, and as long as they are coming on a loving vibration, I feel I need to pass the message on. I believe the message is to help the person heal.’

Significant numbers of people are, however, left seriously disturbed by messages they receive from psychic entertainers, according to the Church of England, whose clergy are often left to pick up the pieces, says spokesperson Nick Edmonds. ‘Our experience is that encounters with mediums can sometimes leave individuals feeling more distressed, frightened or confused rather than reassured,’ he told Good Health.

Dr Louise Goddard-Crawley, a counselling psychologist based in London, adds that people in emotional pain who seek comfort may be particularly vulnerable.

‘When such people hear something that feels personal or significant, they can take it in quickly and hold on to it – sometimes without much room to question or process it. So, if what’s introduced is unsettling or distressing – especially around sensitive areas such as grief or trauma – it can be very hard to unhear or make sense of.’

She adds that unlike in professional therapy, ‘psychic consultations are often one-off encounters where powerful messages can be delivered without any support around what happens next’.

And she warns: ‘Worse still can happen when a person’s vulnerability is actively exploited. Cases where individuals are being manipulated into giving money or engaging in relationships are particularly concerning.’

A number of such cases have gone before UK courts over the past few years. In March, for example, John Starkey, 74, pleaded guilty to three charges that involved sexually assaulting two women to whom he offered psychic readings. He is awaiting sentence; the trial judge told him to expect to be jailed.

In another case in 2013, Michael Ireland, a ‘clairvoyant’, was jailed for 16 years after being found guilty of a campaign of sexual abuse against women and young girls, telling his victims that they were ‘carrying around demons’ and ‘needed to be cleansed’ from ‘emotional blockages’.

However, most pub psychics have benign intentions, says Chris French, an emeritus professor of psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London, who has studied the mentality of psychics. ‘After all, if you are a pub psychic trying to make a living, then it’s best to tell customers the sort of things that they want to hear.

‘Most people who set themselves up as psychics sincerely believe that they have a gift,’ he explains, but adds: ‘Very often they are hearing voices because they are prone to experiencing auditory hallucinations.’

Auditory hallucinations – hearing voices and sounds that aren’t there – are common, with around a third of people experiencing them in the past month, according to survey evidence, says the British Psychological Society. People who believe they are psychic may experience more than the general population, a 2021 study in the journal Mental Health, Religion & Culture, found.

Professor French advises anyone receiving ‘communications’ via a psychic to put safety first.

‘If you are recently bereaved and need an emotional crutch, then a psychic giving you positive messages from the “other side” is surely not a problem.

‘But if a psychic is trying to tell you that you are surrounded by demons and need to pay them money to lift a curse, then clearly you should run a mile.’