The spiritual and emotional world of pub psychic nights

By Josh Bullock, Senior Lecturer Criminology and Social Sciences, Kingston University
Caroline Starkey, Associate Professor of Religion and Society, University of Leeds

At a Bristol social club, a psychic medium scans the room, inviting the spirit world into a space more often used for drinking and darts. The medium is talking to a small audience, mostly women.

She says she is giving them messages from their loved ones who have died. She says she is mentally communicating with a very young child in the spirit world. A teenager raises her hand – “Could it be my baby? I lost a baby last year” – and begins to sob.

A hush falls. Strangers cry. The medium comforts her and tells her that her lost baby is well, growing up in the spirit world…

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