For twenty-five years, Ralph and Juliette Pressing were at the heart of American mediumship. "Psychic Observers" is the story of the Pressings and their newspaper. The 1930s and 1940s were an age of unprecedented interest in mediumship and extraordinary claims to unique phenomena. Ralph and Juliette Pressing knew everyone who was anyone in the American Spiritualist movement and wrote about all the great mediums. Through the Psychic Observer, the medium's names acquired a star-like quality. A glamor was attached to the mediums' names, who became the 'must sit with;' sensation of the day. The author's research identified one hundred and sixty-four direct-voice and trumpet mediums. The sensational séance reports in the paper were consumed by an avid readership that made the Psychic Observer a national American newspaper.
The book " Psychic Observers " describes a movement in its heyday. The Psychic Observer and the American Spiritualist movement were assailed on all sides by controversy. Journalists, police, courts, and psychic researchers, hounded the Spiritualists, wrote scandalous articles, raided their séances, charged them with fortune-telling, and hauled them before the judges. The Psychic Observer were there, reporting, defending, going to law, engaging lawyers, and syndicating their articles worldwide. An extraordinary book, deeply researched, revealing fascinating new insight into the twentieth century American the Spiritualist movement