Psychic News was a weekly British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 Spiritualist

Spiritualism

Spiritualism is a belief system or religion, postulating the belief that spirits of the dead residing in the spirit world have both the ability and the inclination to communicate with the living...

 newspaper

Newspaper

A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

 that was in publication from 1932 to 2010.

History, 1932-2010

The first issue of the paper was published on 28 May 1932. The name of the paper was devised by one of its founding editors, Maurice Barbanell, who said that he was told to use it by his spirit guide

Spirit guide

"Spirit guide" is a term used by the Western tradition of Spiritualist Churches, mediums, and psychics to describe an entity that remains a disincarnate spirit in order to act as a guide or protector to a living incarnated human being....

. Along with Barbanell, the founding members were Hannen Swaffer

Hannen Swaffer

Hannen Swaffer was a British journalist and drama critic.Swaffer was educated at Stroud Green Grammar School, Kent.He joined the Daily Mail in 1902. He was editor of Weekly Dispatch and helped develop the Daily Mirror into a popular newspaper. In 1913, he initiated "Mr Gossip" for the Daily Sketch...

, a Fleet Street journalist, and Arthur Findlay

Arthur Findlay

Arthur Findlay MBE JP was a writer, accountant, stockbroker and Essex magistrate, as well as a significant figure in the history of the religion of Spiritualism, being a partial founder of the newspaper Psychic News and also a founder of the International Institute for Psychical Research...

, a notable figure in the history of Spiritualism in Britain.

The original publisher of Psychic News, from 1932 to 1980 was Psychic Press Ltd. The newspaper was next supported by the Spiritual Truth Foundation (STF). In 1995, the Spiritualists National Union (SNU) acquired it, and both the publishing and bookshop departments were relocated to Stansted Hall

Stansted Hall

Stansted or Steanstead Hall was the country seat of the Earls of Essex during the reign of Henry VIII of England..It is now owned by the Spiritualist movement/religion http://www.arthurfindlaycollege.org/...

 — better known as The Arthur Findlay College.

With the rise of the internet, PN added a web site, which included a bookstore and back issue division for online sales.

Closure in 2010

In July, 2010, Psychic News abruptly ceased publication and both its print and web site divisions were obliterated. The SNU said that it had liquidated the publication due to financial losses, to the dismay of thousands of readers around the world who did not understand why Britain's oldest Spiritualist newspaper was terminated with almost no notice.

In November 2010, an online newspaper called Spirit of PN was established to take the place of Psychic News.

Re-establishment

On October 4, 2011, the J.V. Trust acquired Psychic News, along with all of it's assets, with the intention to re-establish the newspaper. The newspaper's staff hope to start publishing the paper "just before Christmas" in 2011.

Topics covered

Although the primary focus of the Psychic News was always Spiritualism, and it was strongly associated with the SNU even before that organization acquired ownership of it, it was the policy of PN to cover a wide variety of subjects of interest to its readers. For instance, in November 1947, the paper covered the fact that a committee of Anglican ministers had supported Spiritualism in 1936 and that the report had been suppressed by the Anglican Church. This investigative report by the Psychic News caused the Psychic News itself to become the topic of articles in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

.
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In the 1950s and 1960s, with the rise of the neopagan religion of Wicca

Wicca

Wicca , is a modern Pagan religious movement. Developing in England in the first half of the 20th century, Wicca was popularised in the 1950s and early 1960s by a Wiccan High Priest named Gerald Gardner, who at the time called it the "witch cult" and "witchcraft," and its adherents "the Wica."...

, several articles about Wicca and witchcraft

Witchcraft

Witchcraft, in historical, anthropological, religious, and mythological contexts, is the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft...

 were published in the magazine, including "Genuine Witchcraft Is Defended" by Robert Cochrane

Roy Bowers

Robert Cochrane , who was born as Roy Bowers, was an English Neopagan witch who founded the tradition known as Cochrane's Craft, which is seen by some to be a form of Wicca but is sometimes considered distinct from it due to Cochrane's opposition to both Gerald Gardner and Gardnerian Wicca.Born...

. From that time forward, the newspaper dealt not only with Spiritualism, but also with other paranormal

Paranormal

Paranormal is a general term that designates experiences that lie outside "the range of normal experience or scientific explanation" or that indicates phenomena understood to be outside of science's current ability to explain or measure...

, supernatural

Supernatural

The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...

 and New Age

New Age

The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...

topics.