Dr. Karen Frances McCarthy

Dr. Karen Frances McCarthy is an Irish Spiritualist medium, writer and academic, based between New York and Dublin. She began as a political journalist and war correspondent, reporting from Iraq and on American politics, and wrote a history of the Scots-Irish in America. After the sudden death of her partner in 2011 she turned to Spiritualism, training for several years at the Arthur Findlay College and gaining awards from the Spiritualists' National Union. She later completed a doctorate at the University of Birmingham on ghosts and re-enchantment in contemporary American fiction, and teaches spectral and speculative fiction as an adjunct at New York University.

Her teaching centres on evidential and trance mediumship, intuition, continuing bonds with loved ones in spirit, and the myths of the Tuatha Dé Danann. She offers self-paced masterclasses in mediumship, trance channelling, intuitive tarot and psychic investigation, live online demonstrations and small-group mentorships, and two courses on The Shift Network on the mystical medium and Irish sacred tradition. Her memoir Till Death Don't Us Part tells the story of her move from scepticism to mediumship, and her academic study The Re-Enchanted Ghost in Contemporary American Fiction was published by Routledge in 2026.