EPISODE 114: Psychic Nights in Pubs: First-Ever Study on Mediumship, Grief & Spiritual Beliefs

What really happens at psychic nights in pubs? Are they just entertainment, or do they offer something deeper? Groundbreaking research reveals how these events help people process grief, connect with something beyond, and even resonate with sceptics. 

For the first time ever, researchers have studied psychic nights in pubs and clubs across England, gathering real experiences, interviews, and data. What they found might surprise you!

Whether you're a believer, a sceptic, or just curious, this conversation will challenge what you think about mediumship, grief, and the search for meaning.

  

Episode 114 Resources
Here are some resources which you may find helpful.

The Twitter page for the research project is @PubPsychic. 

Dr Caroline Starkey is on Twitter @caro_starkey and her profile on the University of Leeds website is here: https://leeds.academia.edu/CarolineStarkey

Dr Josh Bullock is on Twitter @JoshBullock and his profile on Kingston University’s website is here: https://www.kingston.ac.uk/staff/profile/dr-josh-bullock-1052/

 

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About Psychic Matters Podcasts

Ann Théato, CSNUt, Psychic, Medium and Spiritual Tutor, investigates psychic development, mediumship techniques, and paranormal science, so that you can come to understand your own innate psychic ability and expand your knowledge, whilst learning to develop a curious mind.

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EPISODE 114

You’ll Learn:

• The surprising reasons people attend psychic nights in pubs and clubs
• How these events help individuals process grief and loss
• What research reveals about sceptics who still find meaning in psychic nights
• The cultural significance of mediumship in modern society
• Insights from the first-ever academic study on public psychic events
• How personal experiences at these events shape spiritual beliefs
• What this research suggests about the evolving search for meaning and connection

Transcript

 

VO: Psychic Matters with Ann Théato. The top ranked spirituality podcast. 

 

Ann: Today, I'm delighted to welcome back Dr. Josh Bullock from Kingston University and Dr. Caroline Starkey from the University of Leeds. They are two distinguished researchers who are here to share the results of their groundbreaking 18-month study into psychic nights held in pubs and working men's clubs across England.  

Together with their colleague, Dr. Adam Powell from Durham University, they've conducted the first ever academic research into this phenomena, gathering survey data, conducting interviews, and observing events to uncover why people attend, how these gatherings ease grief, and what this reveals about our shifting cultural beliefs. Now, whether you are a believer, a sceptic, or maybe somewhere in between, this conversation promises to challenge assumptions and offer fresh insights into the modern search for meaning and connection. And this research addresses some profound questions. How do Psychic Nights help people process grief? Why do these events resonate so deeply, even for sceptics, and what do they reveal about how we find meaning and connection in today's world? Dr. Josh Bullock and Dr. Caroline Starkey, it's a pleasure to welcome you both back to Psychic Matters.  

 

Josh: Good to be back.  

 

Ann: Great. Fabulous to have you both here, josh and Caroline, it's just great. When we last spoke, you were just beginning your research into psychic nights. And now that study is complete maybe you could start by giving us, well, an overview of the key findings. 

 

Josh: Yeah, sure, Ann. I mean, the first thing that we found was that psychic nights in the UK are providing a very unique space for people who are dealing with grief after losing a loved one. 

 I mean, unique in the sense that they're not going to organised religion to seek answers and seemingly, they're getting support from these events. So, one participant said, that they felt like these psychic nights could be scratching an itch that religion is just not doing and actually some of them found religion to be quite offensive and therefore going to these events was providing the unique space. 

 

 From our survey results. We found that 56 percent of people, so more than half, said that attending a psychic night eased their grief from the loss of a loved one, 10 percent were uncertain or so, but for most people it was helping them deal with the death or loss of a loved one. and the second point that we can discuss more as we go through, but this was far from an entertaining space. Sometimes people get the assumption that psychic nights are fun, entertaining, and while they can be that they're certainly more profound experiences that are taking place in your local pub, rather than just the assumptions that we were met when we started with these projects. I don't know, Caroline, if you want to talk about the, these assumptions, by academics, by members of the public, by, by our friends, that people thought that these were just a bit of a jolly, you know, just going down the local pub, it's just a bit of something fun to do. 

 

Caroline: Absolutely. I mean, I think when we, when we first started, and I think we might have touched on this a little bit, in the last pod, was the, yeah, when we said we were doing this project, and I'd been to a large number of psychic nights in pubs and working men's clubs prior to starting the project. But when we started, and we were trying to get participants, and you know, we advertised, we advertised really widely on social media, we advertised amongst people we knew, and we faced quite a significant amount of backlash from people saying, why are you studying this, it's simply entertainment, it's fluff, it's fairground stuff, this is of no relevance, either the only important way to do this is through a spiritualist church or through recognised spiritualist churches, or it's really just silly, isn't it? I had a number of people that said to me, you can't possibly believe that this is valid. You can't possibly believe in, in psychics. And I thought that was strange because in all my years of studying Buddhism, not one person has said to me, not one academic or other has said to me, you can't possibly believe in that in order to study it. That really troubled me because that shows the kind of gatekeeping about what we consider to be legitimate spiritual experience or expression or maybe a legitimate place for it, that the only place for legitimate spiritual experience is in, is in an institutional setting. And I found that really troubling because then, you know, what are we allowing to be legitimate? And what are we saying is absolutely not legitimate? You know, and this was, you know, I was having these comments from, from other academics, so I actually generally thought a bit better off, to make those kinds of offhand really judgmental comments about something that I found to be pretty meaningful amongst my friends, but also meaningful when you do a robust study as well.  We met a number of assumptions when we started doing this project. and this was from, other academics. It was from, members of the public. When we were advertising for participants and we advertised for participants pretty widely on social media and a variety of different channels and discussing with academics and that hasn't been my experience at all.  

 

Ann: I think it's the way we have been educated. We have had Christianity here in England placed upon us for the last 2,000 years, let's face it. And we're coming out of that a little bit now. We're becoming a little bit more open minded because we're allowed to be so. We have more education. We have access to books and the internet has opened out our minds as well. And I'm surprised at your academic colleagues saying things like this when they haven't studied quantum science.  

 

Caroline: Yeah, possibly. I mean, it is, it has just been a surprise to me. I think people's reactions to, to the project and to spiritualism in general. And I'm talking about spiritualism, not just associated with modern spiritualism, or not just associated with spiritualist churches. But the idea of spirit communication in general that it's something that's of the past, there was something of a particular era, particularly a Victorian, Edwardian, and it was a particular era and it's nothing to do with our modern world and, or if it is that's only in another context outside of Britain so it becomes an anthropologist purview and not someone who's interested in religion and modern Britain's purview. 

And we've always thought that to be missing a trick, haven't we Josh?  

 

Josh: Yeah, I mean I had an email from a member of public who went to a spiritualist church and they said something like, if you go to a pub psychic night, you know, whatever happens then, you get what you deserve because you're not going to a legitimate source. 

You might as well go to a fairground and, you know, you get what you deserve because it's full of charlatans. But yet, that person's spiritual church was obviously the, the real home of spiritualism, right? Because they couldn't see that spirit communication could take place out of any other context other than their context, you know? And that seems to be the problem that Caroline's talking about is with, with, with legitimacy, everybody has their own version of things, right? Or what's considered religion, not religion, etc.  

 

Ann: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I agree and I think, I think the difference is, from where I stand as a psychic and a medium and a spiritualist and, um, part of the spiritualist, um, community uh, and religion, that with psychic nights in England, they can be entertaining, they absolutely can be. Um, but spiritualism and mediumship and spirit communication should never be entertainment. And there's a big difference between the two. Psychic nights have a variety of people who work within them. Anybody as a psychic or a medium can say they're a psychic and a medium, can book a table at a psychic night and go and do their psychic readings and earn their money. There's no qualification to go there and there's no regulation. So, from that sense, you don't really know what you're walking into when you go to a psychic night. Some have got excellent reputations, excellent psychics, mediums, spiritualists, um, do work at these events and do a fantastic job. And then there are, of course, others who perhaps are doing, um, a less good job. Um, and that's, kind of how it is at a psychic night. Of course, if you go to a spiritualist church that's run by the Spiritualists' National Union, you're going to have a very, very different experience.  

 

Caroline: I think, I think that that is true. Absolutely. And one of the things that I want to get across, so whilst in our, in our study, what we really want to explain is that studying psychic nights is relevant to understanding changing religious practices, changing spiritual practices in contemporary Britain, that they're not just sources of entertainment, they're a legitimate venue for people's spiritual expression and experience, because that's what we found. 

But equally, you have the dark side to that as well. Like you're saying, there's, there's, there's very little regulation. From my perspective, there's also very little follow up. So, if somebody gets terrifically upset at a psychic night, which we have seen on multiple occasions, terrifically upset because the psychic has said something to them, um, and given them some evidence, um, given them an experience that that has shaken them, there's no kind of support or follow up afterwards, or there can be limited support or follow up. Often the psychic will, I've seen psychics speak to people individually afterwards. Psychics and mediums speak to them individually afterwards, but there's very little follow up. And I, you know, I have sat in a psychic um, event in a working men's club where the psychic said, the psychic medium said to a young, a female participant, you're being followed by a sex demon. 

 

Ann: Oh, for heaven's sake.  

 

Caroline: Yeah. And it was, it was, you know, that's really when the kind of safeguarding alarm bells went off in my head because, you know, he, and it was he did choose the youngest looking member of the audience to do that, the youngest looking female member of the audience to. And that, that's a, that's a great concern. Of course, that would never, in my experience, happen in a spiritualist church. And I've been to many, many, many.  

 

Ann: I want to be totally clear. It would never, ever, ever happen in a spiritualist church because we have training and we have an ethics and we have a moral code of ethics that we work to. 

 

Caroline: Absolutely. I mean, I've been, I've probably been to, I'm writing a book about spiritualism at the moment, modern spiritualism in Britain, and I've probably been to a spiritualist church two or three times a week for a year. Nothing like that has ever happened there. There's, it's much more, it's much more of a controlled environment. Um, and there's, there's issues around prediction as well. So, there'll be no prediction within the spiritualist church. And sometimes I've seen psychics in psychic nights doing predictions. You know, much more on the fortune telling side. So, you have the really, the, the positive side and the negative side that you have to help, we can hold complex things together. Things don't just have to be one or the other. There can be a mixture of both. Um, and with any kind of religious or spiritual practice, there is always vulnerability, there's always entertainment, there's always vulnerability, all of those things mixed together. So, it's, it's not a very straightforward answer, but what we're really keen to showcase and what we're speaking from, we didn't interview mediums or psychics, or certainly people who were practicing as such. We interviewed participants. We also didn't interview spiritualists. We interviewed people who would go along to the pub who weren't affiliated. And we wanted to know what their experiences were. And that was really important because in studies that have been done so far about contemporary mediumship, it's focused on the medium, and it's focused on the medium's message, it's focused on their psychology or sociology, but it really hasn't focused on the audience of mediums. And so, we were really keen and certainly not focused on the pub setting either, or how that might happen with people who aren't affiliated. So, to think about why people wanted to go and why they continued to go in some cases, why they wouldn't go again, it was really innovative and it really innovative approach and led to some really interesting results. 

 

Ann: Well, it certainly made me prick my ears up with some of the things that you've been hearing at these psychic nights. I think I need to be clear, maybe for my listeners as well, that there is a great difference between psychic and mediumship. So, being psychic means you read the energy you use, use your energy to read the energy of your recipient or client in front of you. And you pick up on things that are going on in their physical life and you give them some guidance and advice around that from your intuition. That's what being psychic is. Mediumship is where you use your energy to connect to the eternal consciousness of a spirit communicator and they allow thoughts to move into your awareness and therefore you translate what they're saying to the recipient. You give them information and the recipient will tell you if it's evidence for them. We can't provide evidence; we can just provide information and then it's up to the recipient to say whether that is evidential. But of course, within psychic you've got all kinds of different skills, crystal ball, divination, um, using pendulums, all kinds of different things, reading wax, reading this, reading that. 

And there's a variety of ways that you can read and you can do prediction as well. In a spiritualist church, which is where you will only find mediumship, which is speaking to spirit communicators and loved ones who are in the spirit realm, we work by a very, very, very strict code of ethics. There is never any alcohol served while mediumship is going on, unlike in a psychic night, that we are not allowed to predict as a medium, we're not allowed to give medical advice from the platform, we have to be very clear and make sure that nobody is getting upset. We have to use our own integrity, et cetera, et cetera. So, there's a whole load of, ethics that go alongside and it's a very structured, beautiful, safe space within the spiritualist religion. So, I just want to make that incredibly clear, that mediums who work in spiritualist churches have a very strict code of ethic to work by. Now, having said that, people who work in psychic nights will also, even though they're outside of the Spiritualists' National Union religion, will also have their own code of ethics that they work to. 

So, I think it's few people who would act in this bizarre and awful way of telling people things like the demon, etc, etc, which is ridiculous. Um, so I just wanted to be very, very clear about where I stand on all of this and where, you know, the Spiritualists' National Union will stand on all of this too.  

 

Caroline: Yeah, I think as researchers, I think we stand in the same place, and nothing that we have said in this study would kind of override what you've said, you know, what we're interested in is why people might attend. What are they getting out of it? What does it mean? Does it hold meaning? You know, starting off with does it hold meaning for people? Um, but also, we're allowed as researchers, I think, to have those concerns about vulnerability and about dysregulation and what that might happen.  

 

Ann: Absolutely.  

 

Caroline: I don't for one minute think that pub psychic nights should be regulated. I actually think that is not how it works. Um, and also there is some crossover between mediums who would operate in the spiritualist church setting and operate in the pub setting as well, I know because I've seen it.  

 

Josh: Yeah, my local pub, the local pub, 200 yards down the road, has the psychic night that I think I mentioned in the first podcast, but that's also run by the local spiritualist church right, union, so there is crossover. Um, can I just pick up on something you said about alcohol, Ann, because I had the assumption before going to these events that they'd be quite boozy and they'd be quite fun. And actually, it's not a boozy event at all, like when I did my observation, maybe only half of people were drinking and they probably only consume one drink because you get your drink before you sit down and there wasn't a break in the one that I went to. And therefore, you just consume the one alcoholic drink a glass of wine or a gin or whatever it might be. Because I thought that there were people people going up to the bar, it'd be quite a bit of a, a bit of an event in that sense, and it wasn't at all people sat down, they stayed still, they didn't speak, you know, it was very silent, solemn, and it certainly wasn't boozy in my experience.  

 

Ann: And in the one that you attended, Josh, out of interest, did you watch a demonstration of mediumship? Or were people sitting at stalls and tables where you could go up and speak to different psychics and mediums? 

 

Josh: No, I watched it. So, when, when I entered. It was in a working men's club in Bristol. There was one on one readings happening at the front before the psychic medium came out, but then there was lots of tables. And then the medium would float between and give messages. 

 

Ann: Yeah. I mean, mediums are allowed to work where there is alcohol served. Of course we are, but we wouldn't use our qualifications from the Spiritualists' National Union because it's outside of what their code of conduct allows when you're working and representing them. So, I wouldn't use my awards, let's say. I've got the letters CSNUt after my name. I wouldn't use that if I went to a psychic night where alcohol was being served and worked as a medium, but I would still work as a medium, but not under the banner of the Spiritualists' National Union for that evening. 

 

Josh: Sure. I mean, we can talk about vulnerabilities on the other side, because I think the one I went to, the medium was quite protecting of certain people, there was a quite difficult experience where a message was coming through, and a young teenage girl, and I can only estimate probably around 15 or 16, kind of blurted out, I think this is for me, this is a message for me, and said, is it about a baby? 

So, she said to the room that she'd had a miscarriage. Um, and at which point the kind of room broke and lots of people were crying around her, etc. Um, but the medium sensed her vulnerabilities and rather than running with it was kind of comforting her rather than going with any other messages and uh was saying afterwards that you know, we could talk privately, but I think this is too raw, too much emotion for a shared setting, so provided some support afterwards, rather than I guess using that grief to  

 

Ann: Yes.  

 

Josh: You know, for the room. 

 

Ann: Yes. So that's good. And I think, so that was a good thing for that medium to have done for that girl as well. But I think what you're saying about vulnerabilities, there's nothing more vulnerable than people when they're grieving. And I think it's a massively important thing that we're talking about here. So, say more about what you've found vulnerability wise while you've been doing your research.  

 

Josh: I mean, it's, it's an odd experience, isn't it? Because you're opening yourself up to strangers, not just to the medium, but also to people around you from your local community or town city, right? So, if they share a message that's very deeply private about somebody who's died and then you have to kind of open up and say yes or no, et cetera. And often it's yes. In these settings. Um, I think the people I've spoken to for found it quite unsettling or uncomfortable at times, even though they've got a lot out of the message, just being honed in on maybe in a large setting. I mean, I would, I would certainly find it quite unnerving. 

Um, cause one, you're the centre of attention and lots of people don't like being the centre of attention. Some do, of course, but many don't. And you're not just the centre of attention because it's like your birthday or something. But, but, but somebody is giving you very deep, sometimes troubling, comforting, private messages in front of a large room of people. 

 

Caroline: It's what, you know, because you didn't get a message Josh did you, but I have on several occasions in a pub or working men's club setting, and it is, it feels like you know, when when the medium comes to you and it's, you know, it's almost I felt, you know, I don't really like sharing an awful lot of things in public, but when the medium comes to you and it's like you're being a spotlight is shining on you. And they're starting to talk about things you know and you can't help yourself feeling and your heart starts beating really fast, or for me, you know, I was feeling nervous, and then really quite tearful and I often couldn't stop the tears from coming, even if I didn't feel particularly sad, I couldn't really stop the tears from coming. And I think that that, you know, you do feel quite vulnerable and many of the people that we interviewed and we interviewed 16 people, many of the people we interviewed were well aware that they, they felt emotional about things, or if they haven't had that experience they recognise that other people felt emotional and then there was a kind of sacredness I suppose about that space to, it's like Josh was saying, the medium held those kind of emotions and in many ways the pub and psychic nights also hold those kinds of emotions. It's a strange space because at once, it's a familiar space right, so many of us have spent time in the pub before, not, not making a pre judgment about any of your listeners, Ann, but Josh and I have spent time in the pub before and, uh, you know, you know, that kind of familiar setting that you go in, you order a drink, stand at the bar, you sit down, there could be some footy on there, these are quite familiar environments generally. And yet it's, it's, it's a, it's an odd space because although nothing has changed in the physical space, the pub looks the same. Sometimes it's a separate room. Sometimes there's some people kind of flow through between rooms. Um, but it's like when the medium begins and if, if the audience is with the medium, then it does something to the space that changes it from, from how it has been in the past when you just go and watch the footy or have a drink with your mates. It's like the air shifts in the space and the energy changes in the space. And I think for many of our participants um, kind of speak to that idea that, you know, it is just a normal setting. And one of our participants said, I expected there to be a bit more glitter. I'm not sure what they were wanting glitter. I think what they meant, they expected it to be a bit more kind of sparkly or a different environment. It's just a working men's club. Often the lights aren't even off or dimmed or, you know, there's no kind of, you know, Victorian seance, uh, you know, scarves over the lamps type situation. It's not like that. It hasn't been in my experience. Um, and you know, people are, but it, but there is something that shifted in there. And that's what a number of our participants said in qualitative interview, that there's something that shifted in the space. And none of them really want, we mentioned spiritualist churches to our interviewees and very few of them had heard of spiritualist churches or, um. 

 

Josh: Considered it, right? They hadn't even  

 

Caroline: considered it. They wanted to go somewhere that was accessible, that was a levelling social space, that you didn't have a lot of initial outlay either, sometimes financially, but mostly like cultural outlay, you know, you didn't really have to commit to anything. Um, and I recognise you don't have spiritualist church either, but these are, these are people's, you know, assumptions that are made about religious institutions. Um, and, and then you just kind of go along and there was no. your expectation or a lower expectation from you, um, about knowing how to behave because we know how to behave in a pub generally. Um, we know what's expected. So, it's a kind of what Josh was saying about it being a unique kind of space and it kind of is a unique space because it's rare that you mix that kind of mundane, uh, spiritual, some things going on, you know, it's an odd kind of space to be part of. 

And I think what we're trying to do in our study and what we'll hope to do in our publications afterwards is try to articulate the kind of oddness and uniqueness of the space and what that might mean for people.  

 

Josh: There's something unique about the sharing of grief as well because I remember it wasn't just the mediums who were kind of holding that grief but other people were as well, so you'd have the tables comforting um the person getting the reading you know they would say you know that was lovely or wasn't that nice but then you'd also get other people around you know kind of leaning over or putting a hand on a shoulder or something or going to the bathroom afterwards and saying you know that's so nice that you had that message so it was a shared experience as well even though it's a one to one message other people kind of come in on it and feel that as well,  

 

Ann: But I think we've lost that haven't we within our communities, where people understand how you feel after you've lost somebody and I'll give you an example. When my father died He lived in Ireland in a in a small town over there and my mother died as well recently And of course she lived in the same town in Ireland but when when they both died the whole neighbourhood would come out, the whole neighbourhood went to, well not the whole neighbourhood, but their friends and people they knew from the town would first of all go and file into the funeral director's parlour, where my mother and father were in their coffins on separate occasions, and they would shake hands with the family, they would say they were very sorry, a month later, after the funeral they'd all be there. The town would walk behind the coffin as it walks down the street to honour the person within. And then a month after this is the Roman Catholic religion, by the way, a month after the funeral, there will be what they call it a Month's Mind mass. So, we gather again in the name of that person and others who have died that month. And we remember them. And then when you're walking around the town, people say, how are you feeling? How are you doing? Your father was such a lovely man. Your mother was such a generous soul and very funny. When I came home to London. I walked down the street. There was nothing. Nobody knew what I'd just been through. Nobody cared. Nobody knew my parents. There was nothing said. And there was no one to hold me in that space. Whereas there was back there. And that was so important. I think we don't have the communities anymore that hold us in this way.  

 

Josh: Yeah. I mean, I think you're right. We don't have the communities, but we're also losing or lacking rituals, because if, if the more the United Kingdom or in particular England and Wales moves towards this kind of post Christian identity, the more that some of these rituals are lost or hollowed out. And actually, despite what people think about religion, they might have mixed views, but a lot of the ritualistic stuff is quite good for communities and identity and sense of belonging and life as well, right. And, yes, so, there's lots of projects on this actually as well, like non-religious rituals and etc. 

But everything you said I think is really important in having discussions around death, but also having places to go, people to talk to, um, that was certainly lacking in COVID but might just be lacking generally, you know.  

 

Caroline: I agree. I mean, I think that, you know, we're so quick, I think, in our, in, in Britain, in England or whatever, to cover up after death. You know, death is increasingly sanitised. it's private. it's set away from the home. It's not domesticated. It's in hospital. It's kind of covered up and you have the funeral and then it's done and it's over. You know, despite a number of really interesting therapeutic grief work around how important continuing bonds are, and some of our participants really leaned into that as well. So, one of our participants said, the reading, or when they spoke with the medium in the pub gave me a sense of closure, I didn't realise I needed, whether it's real or not, it helped me deal with my grief in a way that nothing else has. And one of our other participants was also saying, they themselves didn't get a message on this occasion, but they were witnessing other people get messages. And they said, about the people in, in the working men's club, they were looking for hope, comfort, something that could take away what I don't think they could find anywhere else in the community. And I think those, those things are really powerful. and it is, and I think it does speak to. declining or changing patterns of institutional religious affiliation, particularly mainstream Anglican. It doesn't actually stop the, the very human desire and very human need to understand what's going on. What is this world about, what happens after we die, you know, is there anything more than this? These are fundamental questions about being human, but just because religious institutions change, doesn't mean those fundamental questions change, but people try and seek answers to them in a variety of different ways and that might be online, it might be in new newer religious movements, it might be individually, it might be in a pub, and that's kind of what we're trying to surface is that what we think these pub psychic nights, they're part of a longer trajectory of spiritualism with the small 's' in this country. You know, this, this isn't just, um, a response, although it's clearly reflecting of, um, modern spiritualism since 1848 and the Fox sisters, but actually this is a much longer tradition, of wise women and wise men and, and, and seeking out, answers to really big questions and, and it's just a different setting, the pub. 

There's lots of issues that we might have it with it. There's lots of potential concerns, but also this we think this is really speaking to people's quite deep need to get questions answered when they can't find them in other places. You know, when other places have been found wanting in the court of public opinion, essentially. 

 

Ann: Yes. Well, I think hope and comfort, we're desperate for it. We're so desperate for it when we've lost somebody, and they've died and they're not here anymore, which is why I believe that the training of mediums and the training of psychics is so vital so that they understand grief and understand how it can affect us, and affect your recipient so that when you do offer your psychic guidance, your psychic insights, you're going to do it from a place of ethics and morality where you're going to be very careful about how you give that information across. So, yeah, I think training is absolutely vital. And I was very interested in what you said there, Caroline. Or maybe it was you, Josh. You talked about, you interviewed 16 people so far in your survey, so that's not that many people to interview, it's only 16. But you said there were very few of them who had heard of a spiritualist church. So, when you say very few, how many, what was the percentage out of that 16?  

 

Caroline: I don't know, one or two maybe.  

 

Ann: Right. It's amazing, isn't it?  

 

Josh: I don't think any. Any of the ones I'd spoke to, I mean, maybe one or two had heard of it, but certainly didn't consider it. it wasn't even on their radar or something to attend. 

 

Caroline: I mean, some of them said afterwards, oh, maybe I will go actually. And so, I felt like, oh, I'm kind of a bit, been a bit of a conduit there and I didn't mean to.  

 

Ann: Yes.  

 

Caroline: You know, you know, that's not our role as researchers to do that.  

 

Ann: No, but your role was to go into these psychic nights and find out why people are going to them and and, um, work out what they're getting out of it. 

 

Caroline: It's part of a longer trajectory. So like I said, I'm not trying to give too much of a plug to my new book, but the, I'm writing a book about, about spiritualism in general, both inside and outside and I am doing some research on, a spiritualist, who, both, was connected to the Spiritualists' National Union and also not in periods of time, who operated in Bradford from kind of 1918 to where she died in 1975. And I'm working with her archive. Her name's Julia Mayshaw, she was quite prominent, although nobody's written about her yet. And I'm struck by the parallels between some of the things that our participants, were saying, you know, going to contemporary pubs or working men's clubs and what the significance of that mediumship reading was, and some of the things that she wrote in her diaries. And this one in 1924, she's talking about what spiritualism has given her, she had a breakdown after the First World War, she lost a large number of people and her husband was badly injured at Passchendaele. And she said, spiritualism has been my only beacon of light when my earthly friends failed me, giving me courage when in despair, bidding me hope, for comfort was promised when misery was nigh, and welcome as the rain after drought. And okay so maybe, so she was a, she was a poet, but, and maybe our participants are not quite saying that as poetically, but in many ways, they are, they're feeding into that what I'm saying that kind of very human need. that you need, that's probably outside of institution, but also happens within it too, but can happen in a variety of different ways. And so that she said that in 1924, and we're interviewing people in 2024.  

 

Josh: Yeah. I mean, for some of our participants, I think just getting a message was enough to ease that sense of grief, knowing that their loved one was okay. But for others, it had like the adverse effect. So that one message then wasn't enough because it opened up a line of channel of communication and that one reading from that one medium wasn't enough. And therefore, they almost went on a quest to seek as many mediums as they could find, because the next person might be able to channel something different or better. Um, so for some, well, I mean, one person likened it to a drug, and said they were trying to chase that first hit because they wanted that experience again and therefore were finding as many people as they could. So, I mean, one thing we did find, which was quite interesting is the average person in our survey had been to at least 10 of them. So, it wasn't something that you just do once. Most people go again, um, and it might be at different times in their life, right? Because some of our participants haven't considered it until somebody had died or, or a particular age, right? So, it might be something that they tap in and tap out of as needed. A bit like maybe a church as well.  

 

Ann: That's really interesting and I really understand that need to connect to your loved one again and again and again, but that's part of not having finished your grieving process, I feel. I feel you need to understand that person is no longer here. They are in the spirit world. They're not coming back. You have to get on with your life, which is why many mediums who carry their own code of ethics, whether they're spiritualists or whether outside of the religion, they have a very strict moral code and they will not continually see the same person time and time and time again, because we understand it is not good for their mental health, and we would in that case refer them to a grief counsellor or something like this, that they might be able to get better assistance for where they are in this vulnerable stage of their life. I mean, these are vital things that we're speaking about, I feel. And I also want to say, I mean, I have done psychic nights. myself or psychic fairs, uh, back in the day. And I don't feel that the mediums and the psychics are safeguarded either by the people that run them, because I've been requested to do many, many readings at these psychic fairs, um, back-to-back, um, you're expected to work long hours all day long, giving readings, as many as you possibly can fit in. And it's not possible to do that if you are working in your power with your psychic ability, or you're working on power with your mediumship. It's exhausting. You can do, I mean, you could probably do four readings back-to-back and then that would be, you would be done. So, if you continually as a medium or a psychic are working in this way, churning out your readings, churning out the readings, you're not going to be giving the depth of readings that you could do if you had time and less pressure on you. It's quite possible to still give good readings. You could give 20 readings, but they'd be quite light-hearted. They'd be quite light of information because it would be too tiring to use your psychic senses, repetitively all the time throughout a whole night. So that's one reason why I don't do psychic nights anymore because I find it far too tiring and it's not satisfying for me to not be able to work to the depth I want to work to. 

 

Caroline: I can well imagine that. And, you know, I've, also sat in psychic nights. I've never been to a psychic fair, but I've sat in psychic nights where the medium, hasn't really connected with the audience or the audience haven't connected, it just hasn't worked. It hasn't gelled, you know, been in a busy room every single time they've said something, someone's gone, no, no, no. 

And it's just, you know, they've just been met with like a, a wall of no's. and then of course then the sort of like the giggling might start or the kind of distraction might start from the audience and then people start to get up and that, you know, they start to have a bit more to drink. And then I think, oh gosh, you know, I've seen mostly female mediums as well. Of course, there are men, there are men, but I see mostly females, and you think, wow, this, this is really interesting, you know, when this is kicking out at 11 o'clock at night and people have had a bit of booze, you know, how, how safe is, is that person? Yeah. Yeah. I have these questions. I think as a woman, you might have those kinds of questions. Um, you know, when, when they're sat up there and, and it's just no, no, no, no, no, it must be absolutely exhausting. And you have to, Yeah, I mean, I couldn't, I couldn't possibly imagine doing it, how difficult it must be.  

 

Ann: It is, and that does happen Mediumship is not like you see on the television. When you watch it on television or YouTube, you see these wonderful mediums working, and it's cut together very cleverly, so all the highlights are put together, and it makes them look like they're accurate 100 percent of the time, always and quite often you will go into a venue, which has a very difficult energy to work in, or the audience are just, not as receptive perhaps, or maybe it's just the seating area that can, that can affect your mediumship. There's so many different things that can affect it. It could be your own mood. It could be your own, your own stuff. Uh, and, and it does happen whereby you can't sometimes work within a space and things are more difficult and you get more no's than you perhaps normally do. So, it does actually happen and it's, and it's difficult, but it's a thing. It's a thing that does happen. So, I know that a lot of the participants in your survey had contradictory beliefs. Josh, can you say a little bit more about that?  

 

Josh: Yes, I mean, lots of our participants weren't either what you would call, um, complete believers or nor were they science led sceptics. There was a big mix of beliefs. And interestingly, people held quite contradictory beliefs at times, which perhaps isn't that interesting, but it's only when you kind of prod at these beliefs you realise that people often hold contradictory beliefs. So, I think for lots of participants, there was a kind of want or need to believe this because it would certainly reinforce or help them in some ways. Like if they believe that this was true, then it would help provide them with a sense of closure or help them with their grief. But actually, was the case that people were going back and forth, even when they were talking to us about what they would believe in. So, we, we kind of coined this a bit of a pendulum belief. But we don't necessarily think it just goes one way or the other. It kind of spins around in all directions as, as they're kind of working this out. So, somebody said, for example, "I would say I'm, I'm a believer, but I'm quite sceptical," so there's a contradiction straight away, but I do think there's something in it. And another participant said, "I do believe. No, I think what I'm searching for is proof and that's why I'm going because I'm not 100 percent sure that I do believe, I'm trying to prove to myself that it's true. And that's why I'm going." So, so we kind of see this grappling as we were talking to people about wanting to believe or thinking that they believe, but then also kind of engaging a more sceptical approach as well. Do you want to add on to that Caroline? Yeah, sorry.  

 

Caroline: Yeah, I was going to say just that, you know, just, I think this is to do with, you know, very few of our participants had a religious affiliation. Some were brought up with some religion, but very few, it wasn't particularly strong in their childhood. So, they were kind of grappling with these questions. I want to believe, I think I believe, I'm not sure, I'm sceptical as well, because they're kind of doing this alone, really. And so, they're not, they don't have these kind of, you know, um, natal institutional, uh, doctrinal beliefs kind of enforced on them. They're kind of, I think Josh has called it in previous studies like a pick and mix spirituality or a patch and make do spirituality. They're those kinds of things and I think that's absolutely what we're seeing. Um, what we're seeing here kind of people just trying to figure it out and using the pub Psychic Night or the Working Men's Club Psychic Night as part of an episode on their journey of trying to work things out, outside of the structures of institution, which many people these days find themselves in, in Britain, outside the structures of religious institution. Um, and, and so it was, it was quite wild, you know, we, we were looking at the survey and there were some people, um, with a particular beliefs about reincarnation, and we were trying to fit that in with, uh, um, spirit communication and, and, and it, just really wasn't, nothing followed a particular pattern. And like Josh said, that might not be hugely unusual in the, in the, um, the post Christian landscape that we, that we, uh, arguably are in. Um, but what was interesting was them using the Psychic Nights to kind of help these questions get answered. And what I find really, what we had a chuckle about in some of the interviews with participants was that there was one person, I asked one of our participants, does your partner come with you? And they were like, no, no, no, absolutely, total non-believer, wouldn't like it, but wouldn't like to go, just because they might be a bit scared. And then I think, oh, that's, if you don't believe it, what are you scared about? What are you scared about? And it was like, oh, wouldn't want to go, because it doesn't, doesn't want to poke that, don't want to poke that hole in its nest, but definitely don't believe in it. And, and I kind of liked that, uh, that, that kind of strangeness, the wildness of the belief there. Or even, I mean, one of the things Josh and I were talking about throughout this whole thing is, is even belief the right category? We're having this imposition of you have to ask people about belief, what do you believe, because that's the most important thing about how we interpret, or how we analyse religion. And I just don't think it is. And Josh, I don't think Josh thinks is either we're kind of thinking constantly us harping on about belief being the most important thing. I kind of think we were, um, you know, going down an unnecessary rabbit hole, there.  

 

Josh: Yeah, I mean, interestingly, it didn't really matter to most of our participants if they believed in it or not. It was having some kind of impact and effect, right? So, belief isn't the kind of key motivator. You don't need to be 100 percent in. It's still having an impact on levels of grief and also, uh, people are taking away something from those events, right? Whether they believe it or not. So that's maybe belief isn't the right thing. Maybe it's gut feelings. It's intuition, it's something else. Um, it's not the level of belief that seems to be the most important thing.  

 

Ann: It's, it is interesting, isn't it? And I think being sceptical is really important when it comes to psychic and mediumship. Everybody should be 100 percent sceptical unless it's proven to them only, not, not their friends, but to them that it is something that they now truly believe in. And you can't get to that point of belief unless you've gone through all of the scepticism and understood life to be different to how you thought it was gonna be. And you can only get there through your own experiences and your own truths. And maybe it's not about belief. Maybe it's about faith, having faith in what is to come. Um, I don't know. Again, we go back to this beautiful umbrella of Christianity, which we are moving out of, unfortunately, or fortunately, I'm either way, either way, that's what's happening. But what are the figures saying about us moving out of Christianity? There's a percentage, isn't there, of people who are...  

 

Josh: Yeah, I mean, it's huge like, generationally, we are going through big changes. There's some surveys, like the one from the British Social Attitudes that puts the UK at now 53 percent non-religious, so having a majority of non-religion. And then if we compare that to our research findings, our survey, there was about 84 participants once we cleaned the data and only 15 percent of them said that religion was either very important or somewhat important in their lives. So, for the majority of people, um, at least in our study, religion wasn't important. And that kind of mirrors the changing nature for organised religion in the UK, but particularly Christianity.  

 

Ann: Why particularly? Because I don't want to upset people who are Christians who are listening to this podcast by picking out their religion. But why are we talking about Christianity specifically, do you think?  

 

Caroline: I mean, the Church of England in particular isn't having a very good time, nor is, um, Catholicism, um, there's stuff to do with like nominally picking Church of England, there's obviously big, um, uh, what's the word? Sorry. Scandals.  

 

Josh: Scandals, yeah, that's the correct word. There are, there are scandals within the Church of England that are coming out weekly, monthly, right, that are turning people away from religion. Um, so for Catholicism and the Church of England, their numbers are dropping rapidly, and I'll make a prediction now. I don't think they're going to recover, at least in my lifetime, because we're moving away from, from, from that to other forms of, um, non-religion, but also like this pick and mix, patch and make do spirituality, um, other religions, uh, big like, uh, Islam, but also, um, some minority kind of churches where it's non white, do particularly great, right? Their numbers aren't dwindling at all. So, I think it's more to do, at least within, um, kind of non-white churches, community aspects are particularly strong. Um, and yeah, like the black churches in London are thriving, right? The white churches are dwindling. They're not getting the new members. People are turning away. So, there's community aspects, which I think are really important. And that might also lend into other religions, right? Why Islam is, is continuing to grow. It will, it's predicted to grow in Europe slightly over the next 30 years, etc. Um, so, so when I use religion, you, you're right, you have to be quite careful that it's not all religion. Religion isn't disappearing parts of it, or some belief systems are dwindling, but not all, right?  

 

Caroline: There's particular types of kind of institutionalised, um, Christianity, particularly we talk about the Church of England because Church of England is our established church. We have a connected church and state, it's an established church, and what we can see is statistics and statistics absolutely are really, I hold my hands up and say statistics don't give the actual picture of on the ground, how people, you know, live and experience and you know, uh, embody some certain types of Christian or Anglican values or practices, it doesn't at all. But what the statistics do show about, uh, religious affiliation in England and Wales are pretty stark from an Anglican perspective. So, I think you can talk about that in a kind of cold, dispassionate, sociological way, can't you, that, you know, we have seen some, some significant changes, um, in numbers of Anglicans and they're aging as well. So, as Josh said, you know, this is, you know, coupled with aging populations, aging populations of people who, in relation to some forms of institutional Anglicanism and coupled with other social forces and the scandals and issues that are going on, you know, we're probably looking at patterns of this not necessarily changing, but people still having these, these existential questions. People that may have had to or chose chosen to fill Anglican pews, are now trying to find you know those kind of existential questions still are still in people's minds and they're finding new ways to answer them, to investigate them, to think about what it means. And I guess for us that's been at the heart of what we want to investigate is these new ways. And one of the things that we have to talk about, I think really importantly, is social class. Is that many of the people that we spoke to, um, affiliated themselves as working class. So, many of the participants that we, the survey was a little bit more mixed, but the...  

 

Josh: The survey was about 55%, I think, was it more than half of them would be what we call, um, traditionally working class.  

 

Caroline: Yep. So, we had, so about that in the survey, but I would say all but one or two in our interviewees were working class or, uh, you know, that they affiliated um, so, you know, we didn't investigate whether or not that it was self-identified. Um, and I think that that leads into the pub space as well. So, you've kind of got a class element here where people might think, well, I'm not sure if these kind of institutional religions are, are, are okay in class terms. Um, it kind of accepting me as who I am, but I know that the pub or the working men's club might be a space that I feel comfortable as it's in the centre of my community. I it's, it's a accessible space. and there's kind of class elements going on there as well, and many of the most successful mediums that we observed, I think, leaned into the location that they were. So yeah, Josh has experience of them using very, you know, Josh comes from Bristol, using very Bristolian type language and terms of phrase and certainly for me up in Yorkshire, you know, the most successful mediums I saw were broad Yorkshire women. Often strong Yorkshire women, no nonsense. Um, you know, I've lived up here a long time now. And my husband's family are Yorkshire people, strong women, don't take any nonsense, you know, absolutely tell it like it is. And those are the most successful mediums who really leaned or embodied that particular place or the people that they were with. 

 

Ann: It's fascinating. Of course, I could speak to you both all day long, but I know that I'm mindful of time here. We're getting to the end of our interview, but just before we finish, seemingly we've spoken about the importance... this seems to have come to the forefront, the importance of ritual, the importance of community and being there for each other as a brotherhood. And we talked about different religions being this beautiful brotherhood and this beautiful community, which is why they're thriving. And perhaps the Church of England isn't quite there at this point in time. Hopefully it will get back there. Um, looking to the future of psychic events then, do you think or anticipate there'll be a growing trend in psychic nights, psychic events of this type, psychic fairs as society continues to secularize? What do you think?  

 

Josh: It's a really good question and it's really difficult to measure because we have the hunch and we think that we're right that these events are growing because we're seeing them more visibly but that also could be because we're researching and therefore you know we're seeing it more often but we're certainly seeing it online more. So, I did a google trend search so you can see what other people UK. Um, and terms like psychic night and pub psychic and psychic event over the last seven years are showing a rising query of 600%. So, 600 percent more searches for them. And when you look at 'psychic nights near me' on Google, there's a 550 percent increase. So, people are certainly searching for these events more, whether they're going to increase in terms of people going, I don't know. The events that I've been to are typically packed, and I know that's the same in Yorkshire, that these are kind of sellout events, or tickets on the doors, and that they're full. But what I do think that we will see over the next decade or two, as, um, Christianity dwindles more in the UK, that people will be searching and seeking alternative spiritual experiences. And I think we can see some of this already. I don't have TikTok, but I know that spiritualism is abundant on TikTok, right? And, and social media more generally with people just searching for other forms of spiritualism and, mediumship, but also things like tarot, right? Or divination. These things are growing, particularly with young people. So, so if you look at, as a sociologist, where trends go, the young people are the answer, I think, because that's going to be what they're going to be practicing over the next decade. Um, I don't know what Caroline thinks.  

 

Caroline: No, I completely agree. I do have TikTok and Instagram and I like all stuff like that. And I'm constantly, um, seeing and being recommended, you know, this is the algorithm that recommends things that I searched for, but it is, there are so many ways that you kind of can engage with this. I mean, many of our, one of the things we were interested in asking, was whether or not we thought COVID had had an impact, an increase in the amount of people going to psychic nights. And both Josh and I, and Adam, we all thought it would have done. So, with spiritualism peaking at times of, you know, national crisis, if you think sort of post First World War, post Second World War, during, uh, during Second World War um, national crisis, national grief, that's typically been the, the, the, um, numerical peak. Um, we thought COVID might have had an impact and we certainly saw some, um, literature, popular literature thinking that COVID had. None of our participants thought that it did. All of them said no I've been interested in this for a long time. Um, I don't really think COVID's had much of an impact. Some people said, oh, maybe a bit of grief might have led people. And, but actually I guess that was one of the surprising findings is that COVID hadn't really been the thing that people, um, you know, made people want to go. In fact, very few people reference COVID even when we asked, which I think was possibly a bit of a surprise to us, eh?  

 

Josh: Yeah, just a final point perhaps is, I think what we will see, I quite like predictions because it's nice to be wrong but it's nice to, you know, to have a go. Is at least what I'm seeing is that spiritualism will generally, is becoming a lot more mainstream, and not just on social media, but I guess less stigma around it. And I think a really good example of this, is just going on ASOS, which is a, you know, a big shopping market space, but even on ASOS now you can buy crystals, you can buy sage, you can buy incense protecting sticks, right? I don't think you would have seen that maybe on these big marketplaces a decade or so ago. And I think if that's something of a trend, we'll see more of this becoming mainstream.  

 

Caroline: Absolutely. It's what I'm going to call in my book of quiet resilience, spiritualism is quietly resilient. and I think for all of the reasons that we said, both inside and outside institution, and we're talking about spiritualism with a, with a, with a small 's' I think here, um, it's quietly resilient amongst a population who remain consistently interested, um, despite assumptions. 

 

Ann: It's fascinating. It's been such a great conversation. Where will people be able to buy your book, Caroline?  

 

Caroline: Well, I have to write it.  

 

Ann: When will it be out? 

 

Caroline: I'll finish it in January 2026.  

 

Ann: Oh, fine. Good. So, come back to us when it's out.  

 

Caroline: But we will be having, we are writing, um, two, maybe three publications from our Weekday Worldview projects. We've nearly finished one already. We are hoping to send the publication really shortly and the next two will probably follow fairly rapidly after that. So, there'll be at least, we're hoping, at least two or three publications in peer reviewed academic journals about about the Weekday Worldview projects, about different aspects. One, it will be an overview, one we're hoping talking about these ideas of belief and the other one talking maybe about the more spatial aspects of the pub setting and what that might mean and, and the kind of, uh, you know, embodied feelings about that around the pub. So, all these things we're hoping will be, um, published within this year, Josh, aren't we?  

 

Josh: Yeah. And then just to add, they will be open access, which means they won't be behind a paywall just for academics. It means everyone can hopefully read them towards the end of 2025.  

 

Ann: Oh, fantastic. Well, do let us know and I can add it to the show notes for this episode. Uh, going into the rest of 2025, is that the end of your research now for psychic nights and you're writing up your findings or is there more to be done?  

 

Josh: I think there's always more. I mean, we've got some ideas in the pipeline. We'd really like to see what's going on in other places because I think the psychic night seems to be quite unusual in particular to the UK. It's a very unique, uh, British experience, but there's other things happening in other countries that when might not be aware of, but people who live there will be like, oh, you know, that's normal. This is it. So, if we could build up a bit of a, uh, what's the word? Oh, library, a bit of a kind of. a global understanding of spiritualism in different places, that would be really nice, but I think it would require quite a big project. So, we're thinking about how this might work.  

 

Ann: Wonderful. Dr. Josh Bullock, Dr. Caroline Starkey, thank you so much for joining us on Psychic Matters. It's been wonderful talking to both of you.  

 

Josh: Thank you so much for having us. We really, really appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you very much.  

 

 

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