The spiritual and emotional world of pub psychic nights

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 and looked after. The girl, though still sobbing quietly, seems relieved and grateful.

Through 16 interviews, a survey of 84 people and formal observations at psychic nights, we found that for attendees, these events blur boundaries between sacred and secular, grief and humour, scepticism and belief.

Measuring the popularity of pub psychic nights is difficult. Many are advertised locally, with little digital trace. There is no central record of how many take place, and few appear on national ticketing platforms. But proxies such as Google search data suggest these events are increasing in popularity: the past eight years have seen a +600% increase in Google searches for “psychic night near me” in the UK.

These nights, which often take place on weekday evenings in working men’s clubs, pubs and local function rooms, hold spiritual, social and emotional meaning. This is particularly the case for working-class and otherwise marginalised women.

In all the psychic nights we researched, audiences were at least 95% female, with people attending with friends or family, and ranging from teenagers to retirement age. A large number of those we interviewed identified as working-class. They told us that the pub was an accessible, welcoming, and safe venue. Many were repeat attendees – our survey data showed that the median number of events attended was ten.

What happens at a psychic night

A typical psychic night begins with the audience getting a drink and finding a seat (usually in small groups around pub tables), and the medium introducing themselves and their work.

Long gone are the days when physical mediumship (such as moving tables or glasses to communicate with spirit) dominated the scene, as in the Victorian era. Today, mental mediumship (mental communication between the medium and the spirit world) is most common.

There are usually one or two mediums working at each event, relaying poignant, and sometimes funny, messages from spirit to audience. A medium will ask an audience member, “Do you recognise someone in spirit who died of a heart complaint, could be a grandparent, they loved eating mints”, for example, in an attempt to connect the spirit to the living.

What follows is usually a message of hope, such as: “You’ve been through a difficult time, but brighter days are coming.” Often, messages are ended with the phrase, “I’ll leave their love with you”, before the medium moves to another audience member. Not everyone gets a reading at each event, but many will.

Psychic nights offer participants the chance to engage in spiritual experimentation without committing to institutional religion. There is no requirement to believe in a specific doctrine, to know ritual practices or to attend regularly. You buy a ticket (usually between £5 and £25), order a drink and listen.

Most people we surveyed were not affiliated with any institutional religion. Most actively distanced themselves from organised religion altogether, with 57% stating that religion was not so or not at all important in their lives.

Why people turn to psychic nights

While psychic nights can be entertaining, they are rarely “just entertainment”. Many who attend pub psychic nights are dealing with loss and grief. Others have questions about what happens when you die, and whether communication with the dead is possible. Some are just along for the laugh.

Many of our participants had longstanding interests in spirit communication and the paranormal (on the rise in Britain and globally), often dating back to childhood stories, family traditions or exposure to ghosts and spirits in popular culture. Some were introduced to psychic nights by friends or family and attended with them; others saw events advertised on social media or in their local pub and were curious. Most described the experience as meaningful, some described it as life-changing.

Mediums, often (although not exclusively) women, encourage audience members to take time for themselves, assert boundaries with partners or children or trust their instincts. In some cases, these messages provide a sense of agency, helping people make difficult life decisions or come to terms with loss. For working-class women especially, these nights offer a space where emotional labour is validated, grief is acknowledged and hope is offered.

Yet, there are risks. Psychic nights operate outside formal institutional frameworks. There is no standard safeguarding, no required aftercare for anyone who might be upset by a message, and limited regulation. Mediums and psychics that are connected to Spiritualist Churches are trained and accredited. They are not allowed to offer health advice or make predictions for the future, though in our observation, not all who operate in pubs or clubs follow this.

We witnessed distressing moments, such as the teenage girl crying over her lost baby, a sister informed that her brother who had violently taken his own life had a message for her, a male medium telling a woman she was being followed by a sex demon. The emotional intensity of these events can be profound, and the lack of support structures raises ethical questions about vulnerability and responsibility.

Still, many participants described feeling “hooked”, because the nights helped them manage grief and the uncertainty of modern life. Our findings suggest that pub psychic nights are becoming a meaningful feature of contemporary British spirituality.

At a time when established forms of Christian affiliation are in decline, these events create opportunities to ask existential questions – about life, death, love and the hereafter – outside the boundaries of formal religious institutions and long-term commitment.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Josh Bullock, Kingston University and Caroline Starkey, University of Leeds

Josh Bullock received funding from The International Research Network for the Study of Science and Belief in Society (INSBS) based at the University Of Birmingham to fund the study, “Weekday Worldviews: The Patrons, Promise and Payoff of Psychic Nights in England”.

Caroline Starkey received funding from The International Research Network for the Study of Science and Belief in Society (INSBS) based at the University Of Birmingham to fund the study, “Weekday Worldviews: The Patrons, Promise and Payoff of Psychic Nights in England”.