Psychic reading

A psychic reading is a session in which a psychic looks into a client's past and offers predictions about their future. The word psychic comes from the Greek psyche, meaning soul or spirit; psychics are given the name because they say they are in contact with the spiritual world and have unusual gifts of extrasensory perception and healing. Spiritualists treat psychic work as something different from mediumship: they see it as contact between two living minds, while mediumship is contact with people in the spirit world.

Description

What psychics say they do

A reference work on contemporary American religion describes a wide range of practice. Some psychics call themselves clairvoyant and say they can see the future. Others say they see and hear spirits and pass on what the spirits say, which is known as channelling. Some offer to diagnose and heal illness, usually through visualisation or meditation, sometimes without the client being present. Their beliefs differ a great deal, but most say their abilities come from a power beyond themselves, which they may understand as the Christian God, a pagan Goddess or an impersonal energy.

Many psychics say they first felt called to the work as children or teenagers, often during or after an illness. Some work in an altered state of consciousness, such as meditation or trance.

Where readings happen

Psychics may see clients at their own premises, where they look at the client's past and predict their future, and some read over the telephone. Information about psychics circulates through workshops, books, magazines, recordings, psychic fairs and healing circles.

Scope

What it includes

• Readings about a client's past and future
• Messages said to come from spirits (channelling)
• For some psychics, healing work using visualisation or meditation

What it is not

• In Spiritualist teaching, a psychic reading is not mediumship. Spiritualists say every medium is psychic, but not every psychic is a medium. See Within Spiritualism below for why the difference matters.
• It is not proven. Whether psychic phenomena exist at all is still disputed. Britannica notes that parapsychology, the field that studies them, has yet to give conclusive support for clairvoyance, and that scores clearly above chance in tests of telepathy are extremely rare, especially as testing has become more rigorous.

Research

Cold reading. A 1988 review in the journal Experientia described "cold reading": the reader makes calculated guesses about a client and builds on the client's reactions until the reading feels so personal that it seems to have a paranormal source. The author linked this to the Barnum effect, the tendency to accept general personality descriptions as fitting oneself in particular, and suggested that some cold readers may have convinced themselves that they really are psychic. An encyclopedia of American religions by J. Gordon Melton makes a related point: people in the psychic community say outright fraud is uncommon, and that the more usual fault is padding out a reading with bland generalities, which some blame on the constant demand for readings when psychic ability does not always work on request.

Testing mediums. Readings by mediums, who say they communicate with the dead, have been tested for more than a century, with mixed results and much debate about method. A 2005 study in the British Journal of Psychology, using a method designed to avoid earlier problems, tested several professional mediums and found no support for genuine mediumistic ability. A 2022 study by an Italian mediumship research group used a triple-blind protocol in which nine mediums were given only the name of a dead person. Sitters picked out the reading meant for them in 65.8% of cases, against 50% expected by chance, and the authors took this as evidence that some mediums can obtain accurate information.

Traditions and lineage

Belief in abilities of this kind goes back to the earliest recorded times. Scientific interest is more recent: it grew in the second half of the nineteenth century alongside the Spiritualist movement, and the Society for Psychical Research was founded in London in 1882.

Many present-day psychics are associated with the New Age movement. Its roots lie partly in New Thought, a nineteenth-century metaphysical tradition that stressed mental healing and grew from the teachings of Phineas P. Quimby. The American seer Edgar Cayce (1877–1945), known as the "sleeping prophet", gave his readings in a sleep-like trance, and the Association for Research and Enlightenment still spreads his teachings. J. B. Rhine of Duke University, who founded the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory, did much to bring scientific methods to psychic research.

Context

Within Spiritualism

Psychic work and mediumship. The most important idea for a student is the difference between the two. In Matt Tomlinson's account, Spiritualists see psychic work as communication between two living minds and mediumship as contact with people in the spirit world, and they teach that every medium is psychic but not every psychic is a medium. The difference matters because of what Spiritualist mediumship is for. The Spiritualists' National Union (SNU) in Britain says its purpose is proof of survival, not prediction, advice or counselling. Information drawn from a living person is not, in this view, evidence that anyone has survived death.

Not fortune-telling. Spiritualist bodies are firm that their mediums are not fortune-tellers. The National Spiritualist Association of Churches (NSAC) in the United States says so directly, calls the medium's work a sacred duty, and adds that the prediction of the future is "of very little importance", since the real value of Spiritualism lies elsewhere. It explains that messages often touch on everyday matters partly because sitters ask about them. The Spiritualist Association of Great Britain tells sitters that a medium's work is to try to give evidence of survival and not to foretell the future. The SNU's own leaflet on evidence makes the same point, and also accepts that mediumship cannot give empirical proof of life after death.

Why the line was drawn. The caution has a history. In the United States, local Spiritualist associations licensed their mediums, ministers and lecturers partly to protect them from local laws against fortune-telling.

Psychic skills still have a place. None of this means psychic ability is dismissed. The SNU's Arthur Findlay College advertises tutors in "psychic development". In American Spiritualist churches, members may receive short readings at the close of the Sunday service, usually called "spirit greetings", and Melton notes that events with readings draw the biggest attendance.

In Australian Spiritualism

In Sydney in the late 1970s, Paul Gillen found that psychics who gave readings were not necessarily Spiritualists; most identified more closely with movements such as witchcraft, astrology or palmistry. He also found Spiritualists sensitive to the charge of "fortune telling" because of its history of legal persecution.

Australian Spiritualist churches today keep the two kinds of work distinct while offering both. The Victorian Spiritualists' Union offers paid private readings, and its beginners' course teaches students to tell working "on a psychic level" from working with spirit. The Spiritual Mission of Noarlunga in South Australia lists mediumship readings and psychic readings as separate services. St John's Spiritual Church in Adelaide says its Sunday service includes "a demonstration of mediumship or psychic readings". The Canberra Spiritualist Association lists training in "psychic awareness" among its goals, though one of its leaders has worried that mediums working for profit at psychic fairs may let the wish to entertain weaken their work.

A Spiritualist perspective

Spiritualists draw a careful line here. Psychic work is understood as one living mind reaching another; mediumship is contact with someone in the spirit world. Every medium is said to be psychic, but not every psychic is a medium. Psychic ability is not looked down on, but on its own it is not evidence of survival, which is what Spiritualist mediumship sets out to give. A good teacher helps students notice which way they are working, and say so honestly, rather than mistake one for the other.

Spiritualists have also been wary of fortune telling, and with good reason. A message about what will happen next year proves nothing about whether a sitter's mother lives on, and it can leave a vulnerable person anxious or dependent on further readings. The aim of a sitting is comfort grounded in evidence, not a forecast. A responsible reader explains what they do and what they charge, makes no frightening predictions, never tells anyone they are cursed or in danger, and never offers to fix such things for money. People who come in grief or distress deserve gentleness and honesty, and encouragement to seek other help where they need it.

Psychic reading in Australia

Consumer protection

Scamwatch, the scam information website of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), warns about psychic scams. It says scammers posing as psychics or clairvoyants may contact people by post, email, phone or in person, predicting good fortune or claiming the person is in trouble, and then offering a solution. An earlier Scamwatch page explained that the "solution" might be lottery numbers, a lucky charm, removal of a curse, or protection in return for ongoing payments, and that some scammers threaten bad luck if the person won't pay. It also warned that a scammer may try to seem genuine by saying something general that could be true of anyone, or by repeating details the person has shared before or posted online.

The law

Section 40 of South Australia's Summary Offences Act 1953 makes it an offence for a person, intending to defraud, to claim to act as a spiritualist or medium, or to claim to use telepathy, clairvoyance or similar powers. The maximum penalty is a $10,000 fine or two years' imprisonment. The offence requires an intent to defraud.

Safety and good practice

Advice for clients

Scamwatch advises:

• never to send money, credit card details or other personal details to people who approach you claiming psychic powers
• to be very cautious if a psychic or clairvoyant says you are in danger, unlucky or cursed, as their solution is likely to be a scam
• if you do choose to use a psychic or clairvoyant, to find out the total cost and exactly what you'll receive, and to ask about any conditions and ongoing or hidden costs first.

It also helps to know what a Spiritualist sitting can and cannot offer. The Spiritualist Association of Great Britain tells sitters that every sitting is an experiment whose success cannot be guaranteed, and that no medium can produce the particular evidence a sitter hopes for.

Standards for readers

Spiritualist organisations set standards for their own workers. The NSAC's Code of Ethics, which covers its mediums and healers, asks them to discuss fees at the start, make only realistic statements about the outcome of their work, including mediumship, and not exploit the trust and dependency of the people they serve.

Related modalities

• Clairvoyance
• Telepathy
• Psychometry
• Channelling

Further reading

• Britannica Editors. "Parapsychological phenomenon". Encyclopaedia Britannica.
• Dutton, D. L. "The cold reading technique". Experientia, 1988.
• O'Keeffe, C. and R. Wiseman. "Testing alleged mediumship: methods and results". British Journal of Psychology, 2005.
• Pike, Sarah M. "Psychic". Contemporary American Religion.
• Scamwatch. "Buying and selling scams". Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.