Karen Frances McCarthy

Dr. Karen Frances McCarthy is an Irish Spiritualist medium, author and researcher. She brings to her mediumship a background in literature and writing, shaped by her Irish heritage and a long-standing Zen practice. Her style centres on story and character. She meets a loved one as the complex, unique person they were, with their voice, their habits and their way of being in the world, and identifying who has joined the sitting is the foundation of her work. She sees a sitting as a chance to spend time with someone you love again and to hear what they want you to know.

She trained at the Arthur Findlay College in England and holds three Certificates of Recognition from the Spiritualists' National Union, in mediumship, spiritual healing and public speaking. She names the late Glyn Edwards and Mavis Pittilla as her mentors. She has described her own path as one that began in political journalism and led to accredited mediumship.

Karen teaches mediumship, Irish mythology and inspirational writing with The Shift Network, the Spiritualist National Union International, the Edgar Cayce Center and Humanity's Team. She also offers masterclasses for serious students of mediumship, including trance channeling. She says she inherited her approach to teaching from her father, a high-performance Olympic coach, whose instinct was to meet people where they are and help them become the best they can be. She is an Adjunct Instructor at New York University School of Professional Studies, where she teaches contemporary spectral and speculative fiction.

Her doctoral research at the University of Birmingham explored contemporary ghost literature, evolving theories of consciousness, and the cultural forces that shape Western understanding of spirit and self. It led to her monograph The Re-enchanted Ghost in Contemporary American Fiction, published by Routledge. She is also the author of the memoir Till Death Don't Us Part (White Crow Books, 2020) and of other books on mediumship, grief and the continuity of consciousness. She is a member of the Society for Psychical Research and the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and presents papers on literature and theology, science and mediumship, and the cultural origins of belief about death and the afterlife.

She works between New York and Dublin, and with people worldwide by Zoom.