At a glance…
- Psychics and mediums are becoming increasingly popular, with more people turning to them for guidance and reassurance.
- Women are more likely to seek out psychics, particularly during times of uncertainty or major life changes.
- While there’s no scientific evidence that psychics can predict the future or communicate with the dead, many people find comfort in readings.
I did not expect to cry during my first psychic reading.
I’ll happily read my horoscope, blame Mercury retrograde for a bad day and join a tarot reading at a girls’ night for fun – but I’m not exactly a believer.
Yet here I am, one Friday morning, nervously waiting for psychic medium Jessica Lynne to appear on Zoom. If, like me, you’ve never been entirely sure of the difference, psychics claim they can read your past, present or future, while mediums say they can communicate with the dead. Jessica does both.
A blonde woman pops up on screen, smiling, and asks who I hope to connect with. “No one really,” I admit. I haven’t lost many people close to me.
Jessica closes her eyes and grows quiet. “You have a woman that’s stepping forward for you.” She describes a maternal figure who died before knowing me as an adult. I think of my nanna – my adopted Aussie nanna, who helped raise me.
Jessica sees me at my nanna’s house, pulling drawings and schoolwork from my bag. “You could have just drawn a little dot and she would have been like, ‘It’s Picasso.’”
For half an hour, she moves between my past and future. Some of it could apply to any woman my age. But a few moments catch me off guard.
She tells me Nanna is sorry she never got to say goodbye. “I feel like you just found out that she died rather than being there,” observes Jessica. She’s right. It was sudden. I was at university when my mum called. Now I’m apologising for crying to a woman I’ve only just met.
When the screen goes blank, I exhale. I’m still unsure what I believe. So why has the reading affected me so much – and what are women really hoping to find?
The psychic boom
Seeing a psychic used to be something you kept to yourself – or only admitted to a close friend afterwards. Now tarot readings fill social media feeds, astrology apps attract millions of users and psychics have found a new audience online. You can consult the spirit world from your couch.
Psychic medium John Edward, of Crossing Over with John Edward fame, has seen that shift unfold over three decades. “Social media was the match to the gasoline,” he says. “It’s great that people can have conversations openly about energy and spirituality and metaphysics.”
Still, bring up psychics around a dinner table and the room quickly divides – it’s either bogus or miraculous. But belief in the supernatural is far from fringe. A 2019 Australian Community Survey found 37 per cent of Australians had experienced something mystical or supernatural, or knew someone who had. Another 30 per cent believed such experiences were possible. Women were more likely than men to report a firsthand experience.
And plenty of people are willing to pay for it. Australia’s online psychic market was worth an estimated US$4.5 million in 2023 and is forecast to reach almost US$8 million by 2032.
So why now? Journalist Gary Nunn, who immersed himself in the world of psychics, mediums and astrologers while researching his book The Psychic Tests, thinks it has a lot to do with how uncertain life has become. “The dream of home ownership and the idea that you will stay with one partner for life or in one job for life, it’s just gone,” he says. “That level of stability our parents and grandparents enjoyed has evaporated.”
Dr Ken Drinkwater, a senior lecturer and researcher in cognitive and parapsychology at Manchester Metropolitan University, agrees. “When there’s an increase in uncertainty and a perceived lack of control, more people adopt this paranormal way of thinking,” he explains. “It gives them more meaning and creates more order and certainty.”
A little reassurance
When Brielle first called a psychic 15 years ago, she used a fake name, determined not to give him anything to work with.
A friend who’d gone “for s**ts and giggles” had been told she was pregnant before she knew it herself. “I’m sceptical but I’m also curious,” Brielle tells The Weekly. She was in her early 30s and unsure whether the things she hoped for would happen. “There was a little part of me that wanted reassurance. Were they going to happen?”
Some predictions were oddly specific: he heard “water in the walls”, said a planned move to Canada would fall through, and gave her the name and personality of a man she would meet. A month later, a pipe burst inside her wall. A new job kept her in Australia. Then she met a man who matched the description. “This is just bizarre,” she remembers thinking. “I almost want to break up with you just so I can prove this psychic wrong.”
Since then, the Tweed Heads-based social media adviser has seen a psychic every two or three years, asking about relationships, work and family. “Some have been absolutely correct two to five years later,” she says. “Some are just all wrong.”
Now 46, Brielle hasn’t had a reading in four years, but she’s open to going back. “I guess, ultimately, it’s about reassurance,” she reflects. “It comes back to feeling mentally prepared for certain things and having that sense of safety and security. In a way, it’s a dance with the uncertainty of life. I don’t do the dance very well so I keep seeking out psychics, but others probably do it better and don’t need them as much.”
Most of Jessica’s clients are women who come to her when life is up in the air – during breakups, grief, career uncertainty, motherhood, fertility struggles or other major life changes. “A reading often becomes less about ‘predicting the future’ and more about feeling seen, heard and supported,” she explains.
Studies consistently find women are more likely than men to engage with spiritualism and psychic beliefs. Dr Drinkwater describes psychic practices as “a kind of shared emotional exploration”, adding, “for women specifically, what we’ve found is that there’s more value placed on healing and empathy and a kind of holistic wellbeing.”
Gary points to another reason –women’s exclusion from positions of authority in many organised religions. The psychic world, by contrast, is largely female – on both sides of the reading. “Here is a realm in which women can feel empowered, offer advice and find spiritual comfort and fulfilment,” he says.
What we want to hear
Less than a year after his father died, Gary heard a medium say the words he most wanted to hear: his dad was proud of him – and really sorry.
Gary started his investigation because he feared mediums were exploiting his grieving sister for money. Even though he described himself as a “hardcore sceptic”, the encounter still moved him. “They were triggering emotional words,” he recalls. “They’re the things you want to hear. It really got me in the feels.”
Grieving people think they want closure, says John, but “what they’re ultimately seeking is connection”.
“To bring closure to something means we’re bringing it to an end,” he continues. “We don’t want to put a period at the end of the sentence. We want to put a comma. We want to put an ellipsis. We want the conversation to continue.”
While the experience can feel very real, it isn’t the same as proof. There is no credible scientific evidence that psychics can predict the future or mediums can communicate with the dead. Australian Skeptics even offers a $100,000 prize to anyone who can prove their powers. So far, no one has.
You might think that would settle it. And yet, people keep seeing psychics and mediums. “People can believe in aspects of the paranormal even when they’re offered evidence to the contrary,” says Dr Drinkwater. “They’re not seeking truth. They’re actually looking for some reassurance.”
It doesn’t take much for a vague statement to feel eerily personal when we think it was meant just for us. There’s a name for that: the Barnum effect. “We endorse what we want to hear,” notes Dr Drinkwater. “People tell us things in a certain way that tick boxes and we go, ‘Oh yes, that’s me.’” Confirmation bias also leads people to “seek out things which reaffirm what they think”, he adds.
Annoyingly, I see both at work in my own reading. Some things Jessica said I didn’t connect with, but those aren’t the details I remember. I remember my nanna. “The 20 per cent feels so real to you that your mind kind of blanks out the rest,” explains Gary. “You only remember the bits that felt really, really real.”
When it stops helping
Money is the obvious risk, especially if someone keeps going back. A reading also “might reinforce false beliefs”, warns Dr Drinkwater. “People might become dependent on going to these places, and it can reduce the way they think critically.”
When the predictions began to “do [her] head in a bit”, Brielle stopped seeing psychics. She found herself second-guessing whether her choices were taking her towards – or away from – what she had been told. “I really overthought some of the readings,” she admits. “There’s a skill to going to them. You’ve got to be able to take it on in a healthy way, and then gracefully let it go.”
I expected to come away from my reading knowing whether I believed in psychics. I didn’t.
I had no proof Jessica had connected with my nanna or seen my future. But within minutes, I was texting my friends about what she had said. I felt more settled, even hopeful.
I don’t know if I’ll book another reading, but I understand why people do. Maybe I hadn’t wanted certainty about the future – just some reassurance that I’d be okay, whatever happened.
Thinking of seeing a psychic?
- Trust your judgement – “People should always trust their own intuition first,” advises Jessica Lynne. Gary Nunn adds: “You shouldn’t make any big decisions on the basis of a reading.”
- Be wary of certainty – John Edward recommends avoiding anyone who acts as “judge and jury” or insists their interpretation is the only one. “Scepticism is healthy,” he says. “Scepticism protects people.”
- Watch how often you go – Dr Ken Drinkwater cautions that repeated visits can create dependence, particularly when money is involved.
- Check the cost – Confirm the price upfront. Be wary of anyone who claims you’re cursed or in danger, then asks for more money to fix it. It’s a known scam tactic, according to Scamwatch.
John Edward is currently touring Australia. For tour dates and tickets, visit johnedward.net.
This feature was originally published in the October 2026 issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly. Subscribe so you never miss an issue.
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