Psychic World.
An Independent Magazine.
1946--1951
London, England.
Editor: Maurice Barbanell.
Succeeded by: Psychic World (1993; 1995)
1/1, September 1946-January 1951.
16 pp., 6d. an issue, 7s. a year ($1.50 in North America).

Barbanell (1902-1981) was the most prominent controversialist for spiritualism in the first half of the twentieth century. He edited Two Worlds for a time and founded and edited Psychic News until 1946 when he started this practically unknown journal (a recent dissertation on Barbanell fails even to mention it). He had been converted to spiritualism in 1920 and mediated Silver Birch, an Indian Guide, whose messages appeared regularly in this journal. It carried articles like "Materialised Spirit Plays Piano" and "Spirit Rappings Follow the Fox Family" (with a photo of Leah Fox in her old age wearing a bonnett), and reports of spiritualist news like Lord Dowding’s lecture at the Tunbridge Wells Opera House ("We have a telephone line up and through the gates of death") which concluded with his proclamation that he "had never yet come across a fraudulent medium." Barbanell continued in this journal the rabidly anti-religious tone that had characterized Psychic News, opining that "Religious fascism rules the air" and leading to counter-attacks criticizing his "Yiddish editing." This is said to have led to the demise of the journal, although others attribute it to the current rationing of paper. Simon Forsyth attempted to revive the journal in 1993, although it lasted only 12 issues, and Ray F. Taylor relaunched it again in January 1995.

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