Spirited defence: Psychic News magazine battles to ward off closure

The editor of Psychic News has to admit that, no, he did not see his magazine’s financial crisis coming: “We didn’t have to consult a clairvoyant to know that times were tough. What we didn’t foresee coming was that the charity that has funded us was going to withdraw its subsidy.”

Tony Ortzen has spent much of his working life at the house journal of British spiritualism, which he joined as a junior reporter when it was a weekly newspaper in 1972.

Now 72, Ortzen is still working six-day weeks with a skeleton staff while trying to save a publication that has been hit by the same issues that have plagued the rest of the news industry: declining print circulations; soaring cost inflation; competition from the internet; and a slow recovery from the Covid lockdown.

“When people are hard up, they’ll cut back on things like newspapers and magazines and going out for meals,” he said. “It’s combination of unfortunate circumstances.”

Spiritualism is, as Ortzen put it, the belief that there is life after death and the “so-called dead” can make contact via a medium. It also promotes the highly disputed theory that people can be healed by spiritual healers transferring energy from the dead to the living.

Ortzen, who was trained as a reporter by the National Council for the Training of Journalists, said his magazine existed to promote this belief – but it took a “professional” approach towards journalism thatwas lacking in other online spiritualist outlets and influencers.

“Over the years no one has been more forceful in exposing fake mediums than Psychic News. I want to stress the majority of mediums are painfully honest people who will go to a spiritualist church and demonstrate on a soaking wet Friday night for £15 and don’t even get their petrol money. But as in all walks of life there’s the odd rogue and vagabond,” he said.

Ortzen said the publication, which is now a monthly 64-page glossy magazine, reported without fear or favour on people who faked their ability to speak to the “so-called dead”. “In the 80s I was very impressed by a medium who is still alive but who was ‘exposed’ by the News of the World,” he said. “We reported their story straight down by the middle. I still don’t know whether the medium cheated or not.”

He suggested there was a problem with people failing to check the credentials of those claiming to be able to talk to those on the other side: “The problem is, anyone can say: ‘I am a medium.’”

Ortzen declined to give exact circulation numbers of Psychic News, saying his outlet was “bumping along”, but added that the magazine had been hit by the long-term decline in attendance at spiritualist churches in the UK.

He politely bemoaned the way that many people shared a single copy with their neighbours and family, something that did not help sale figures. In an attempt to increase its readership, the magazine has branched out into “mind, body, and spirit in its broadest sense” by pivoting to coverage of water dowsing and complementary medicine.

The latest edition contains a feature on potential evidence for UFOs in the Vatican archives, alongside updates on the legal regulation of witches and a straight news report on a clinical scientist criticising NHS hospitals that offer complementary therapies for cancer treatment.

One of Ortzen’s favourite stories during his time on Psychic News was about a Brazilian medium called Luiz Antônio Gasparetto who would go into trance with his eyes closed and paint replicas of paintings by long-dead artists. “Any famous artist you can think of had returned through him. He could start and finish a picture in minutes, one with his left hand and one with his right hand. He was living in a down-at-heel bedsit in Pimlico [London] and I had a private sitting with him and he painted with his feet,” Ortzen said.

Until recently, Psychic News received a subsidy from the spiritualist charity JV Trust to cover losses. But it was recently informed that this funding be wound down over the coming months, leaving Ortzen to resort to a GoFundMe appeal in an attempt to raise £30,000 to keep the publication going as it approached the centenary of its founding in 1932.

“If we can struggle on for a further 18 months, we can hopefully become self-sufficient,” Ortzen said.

He is assisted by Paul Brett, who holds the roles of assistant editor, advertising boss, circulation mand marketing manager – along with a number of part-time staff. All are now at risk of redundancy.

Ortzen said he had no time for people who mocked his faith: “If you’re going to criticise something, you should have some experience of what you’re trying to debunk.

“Spiritualists are quite normal people. Most of my neighbours know what I do. They probably think I’m dotty. But without sounding big-headed, I think: ‘When you pass, you’ll find out.’

“I have no doubt whatsoever that when they pass on – and this applies to believer and sceptic – they will find out the reality of life after death. I shall be very spiritual and won’t say: ‘I told you so.’ I will give them a big hug and say: ‘How lovely to see you again.’”