The 19th century’s Spiritualism craze is making a trendy travel comeback.
Like today, there was quite a lot of rapid change in the America of the 1840s. The abolitionist movement was growing, setting the stage for what would unfold into the Civil War. The Second Great Awakening was underway, ushering in a focus on women’s liberation and direct connections with the world beyond. A wave of technological innovation had recently swept the nation, introducing marvels like the telegraph and camera photography.
It was in this era of breakneck change that three teenage sisters in New York—or perhaps their enterprising parents—made headlines for their ability to channel spirits and answer questions from beyond via a series of knocks and rapping. It took 40 years before the middle child and then world-famous medium Margaretta Fox confessed that their “spirit rapping” was, in fact, an unsettling combination of toe cracking and rotating ankle joints. But by then, the movement was far bigger than any one person, and the confession hardly slowed the trend. Medium performers and lecturers continued to sell out shows from NYC’s Carnegie Hall to San Francisco’s Dreamland Auditorium for decades to come.
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From the late 1800s to the 1940s, hundreds of thousands of spiritualists took advantage of the public, profiting off the widespread fascination with near-unbelievable new technology, the growing distaste for organized religion, and the expanding awareness of foreign cultures. First embraced by Civil War widows and later, high-society Victorian-era women looking to gently rebel against the shackles of the patriarchy, the Spiritualism movement swept across society, promising to connect the living to the deceased. Mediums offered services like “a first-class $3 reading” for the low, low price of 50 cents (or $1 for men).
Today, that level of direct connection with the spirits costs quite a bit more than half a buck, especially if you want to bring your friends along (which, in 1881, would cost you a hefty $5).
“I’m $150 for an hour or $100 for 30 mins,” says New Orleans psychic and medium Cari Roy. “If I go off-site, like for parties, it’s $200 for an hour. Reading several people at once is very taxing.”
Roy has been a professional medium and psychic since 1985; her mother and grandfather both dabbled in the art of prognostication or being able to predict the future. Roy says the supernatural is deeply rooted in the character of New Orleans, starting with enslaved Africans who merged traditional practices with Christian beliefs. “We’re very spiritual here,” she says. “That’s not a strange thing in this city.”
How Spiritualism Is Becoming a Trend
Despite the city’s long-held embrace of all things metaphysical and mystic, Roy says she’s seen recent changes and trends that mirror the turn-of-the-century Spiritualism movement—specifically, an increase in groups of women using her services as social events. “Events have become more commonplace now,” she says. “It used to be that the bulk of my career was one-on-one. But it’s probably a 60-40 split now.” She estimates that travelers have grown to represent about half of her clientele.
In the mid-1800s, the services of Spiritualists were called on both by true believers and by groups of women using the chance to communicate with the dead as an excuse for a soiree, hovering just on the fringe of what was an acceptable way for reputable women of the time to socialize. And like back then, Roy says, she sees both clients seeking genuine spiritual insight and clients using seances and readings as pure entertainment. But instead of hosting seances in high-society Victorian homes with invites passed via whispered word of mouth, it mostly manifests as bachelorette parties and groups of women on vacation.
Instead of hosting seances in high-society Victorian homes with invites passed via whispered word of mouth, it mostly manifests as bachelorette parties and groups of women on vacation.
Los Angeles-based medium and spiritual teacher Colby Rebel says she’s noticed similar trends as she also runs group mediumship readings. “Most clients are female,” she says, “and there are many groups of women that come in for a fun event together.” Even among one-on-one clients, she says it’s common for them to bring a friend or family member for support. While some of her clients are there to find closure or seek guidance about pressing decisions in their lives, she finds that the audiences who book her for parties and private events tend to be more focused on entertainment value—though she does think there’s a “deeper level of awakening” among attendees in recent years.
That increased willingness to accept the idea of mediumship keeps psychics busier than ever, but it’s also eroded some of the mysticism and civil disobedience that defined the movement of the 1800s, Roy thinks. Then, Spiritualism gave women and people newly emancipated from slavery the same direct connection with spirits formerly reserved only for white men and church leaders. “Today, a bunch of women getting together for a weekend isn’t that unusual,” says Roy. “But back in the 1800s, it was like, ‘they can’t do that.’ That was a cool aspect of it. They’d have a seance and then an abolitionist conversation or a suffragette meeting.”
She thinks the host of recent paranormal, ghost-hunting, and psychic-related TV shows—The Travel Channel currently has no fewer than 20 shows focused on the unexplained and supernatural—have made travelers much more aware of psychics and medium as a service, pushing Spiritualism more into the mainstream for the average open-minded traveler.
In January 2012, the term “find a medium” had an online search volume of a piddly 28 inquiries per month. In October 2015, it was 90, with relatively no competing web pages or medium-focused advertising. But by April 2021, the search volume had tripled to 240.
In December 2022, the New York Times profiled a psychic and tarot card reader hired for bachelorette party entertainment; it was followed by similar recommendations from Brides Magazine and Refinery29 in 2023. Yelp lists 149 mediums in the greater Chicago area, 184 in San Francisco, 129 in Philadelphia, and 136 in Miami. And destinations like Salem, Massachusetts, and Sedona, Arizona, have official tourism pages dedicated to helping travelers find psychic healers and readers. Lifestyle brand Goop has a guide to psychics and mediums approved by actress Gwyneth Paltrow, and trend-minded hosts on Airbnb and Vrbo are beckoning travelers with amenities like “spirit parlors” and bookable rooms for seances and paranormal investigations.
Conversing with the deceased or having a predilection for prophecy is big business in the 21st century. In major cities, top readers like Rebel have found a market for $400 an hour for sessions. Since 2005, the value of the U.S. psychic industry has grown by more than 50% and is expected to rake in a projected $2.4 billion in 2024 as believers, offbeat travelers, and psychic hopefuls shell out for everything from tarot card readers and spiritualism workshops to ESP retreats and books and events from celebrity mediums. With Spiritualism’s first wave, public figures, including Sojourner Truth, Mark Twain, and even Queen Victoria, all flirted with the practice; Mary Todd Lincoln even hosted seances in the White House. Today, it’s A-listers like Kim Kardashian and Lizzo who have gone on the record about using mediums to connect with deceased family members.
For Roy, it’s obvious why interest in the supernatural and spiritual world is once again on the rise: we live in uncertain times, much as people did in the mid-to-late 1800s. “After the Civil War, people were losing a lot of people at one time and looking for answers. And with the Industrial Revolution, life was changing pretty fast,” she says. “And now, we just went through COVID. It sets the stage for this.”
How and Where to Travel for a Psychic Experience
It’s no surprise that the cities with the most psychics, aura readers, mediums, and ESP practitioners are those with a long history of being associated with the supernatural. That includes destinations like New Orleans, Louisiana; Salem, Massachusetts; and Cassadega, Florida—a town founded by a practitioner of the original Spiritualism movement in the late 1800s, now sometimes called the “Psychic Capital of the World.”
There’s nothing wrong with planning to visit a destination that embraces its reputation for the supernatural, but professionals advise caution when choosing your conduit to the spirit world. “There are places in the world known a bit more for their tourism readings,” says Rebel. “But there are reputable psychics and mediums everywhere. One just has to research properly before walking into a random place for a reading.”
In Los Angeles, says Rebel, the city’s reputation for embracing new-age and non-traditional ideas has made it a hub for Spiritualism-minded travelers. “Spiritualism is very much a travel trend,” she says. “Los Angeles has so many mediums and light workers, and, of course, it is a hub for many mediums in other areas and parts of the world to come and share their gifts.”
In New Orleans, a city where tourist-focused entertainment readings are common, Roy recommends doing a bit of research before choosing a psychic, even if you’re among those prioritizing entertainment above life guidance. She says to look for psychics with good online reviews and to not give away too much when you first come in to weed out charlatans. “It’s the work of the medium to know who’s around them,” she says. “And if someone is in crisis mode, you can bet their loved one is going to be right next to them, anyway.”
For anyone planning to tip their toes into the world of seances and psychic talents, a good place to start is by searching for local psychic fairs. They’re surprisingly common around the United States, with no less than 29 in California, 17 in New York, and 9 in Florida.
Of course, the best way to determine if you’re in the company of a talented healer or medium is just to sit in on a session. Roy says it’s important to feel comfortable with the provider, to be suspicious of anyone who offers easy answers, and to not return to anyone who implies they’re the only one who can provide help. A quick search for “medium” or “psychic” on websites like Eventbrite or Facebook Events will show page after page of scheduled public seances and group live readings, as well as mediums willing to travel to private events and parties.
But both Roy of New Orleans and Rebel of Los Angeles offered the same specific piece of advice to curious travelers and those dipping their toes into the psychic waters: walk out on anyone who says you’re cursed. “When you connect to someone’s loved one or offer psychic guidance, there is a massive responsibility to do it ethically,” says Rebel. “If psychics or mediums work to create fear or instill a sense of needing additional funds to ‘remove curses’, then I would absolutely warn the client to beware.”
Rebel adds, “This is not being a true lightworker. Pure Spiritualism is very different from ‘dark energy.’ There are no taboos, curses, etc. It’s much more of love and connection.”