Picture yourself making your way to the “opening circle” of a rural wellness retreat. As you enter the pillow-peppered room, you see 11 chairs arranged in a circle around a candlelit shrine. “But there are only 10 of us?” you wonder, before the host explains that they haven’t miscounted: the extra chair has been placed there intentionally for “the spirits”. Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of psychic retreats.
Throughout the UK and beyond, an increasing number of people are opting to join psychic retreats which are, in essence, wellness retreats that focus on the development and exploration of psychic abilities. Retreats can include activities such as meditation, energy work, divination practices and spiritual guidance. Their general goal is for attendees to foster a greater connection with their intuition and gain a deeper understanding of themselves and their lives, past, present and future.
If you’re au fait with wellness, this may come as little surprise. From in-house spa psychics, to celebrities revealing how big life decisions are made in conjunction with their psychic advisor, spiritual health is firmly on the rise. Browsing TikTok several days ago, I was served a livestream where a psychic medium was working through a chunky list of people who had all paid £10 a pop to get their “spiritual forecast” for the year, all watched over by over 3,000 viewers.
In recent years, we’ve seen an increasingly holistic approach to wellness. For many people, psychic readings – from tarot cards and palm readings, to afterlife mediumship – are seen as an extension of their overall wellness and self-care routines. And for a minority elite, spiritual guides are deemed as essential as personal trainers and private chefs. Consequently, it stands to reason that this has been accompanied a surge in the popularity of psychic retreats.
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While “psychic retreats” is a catch-all term, there is great nuance within the label, with specialist focuses including intuition development retreats aimed at honing skills such as clairvoyance and involving exercises like meditation, energy work and guided visualisations; mediumship development retreats where guests develop their ability to connect with the spirit world and communicate with loved ones who have passed on through practices like mediumship and spirit communication exercises; and divination retreats where the focus is on developing skills in practices such as tarot reading, astrology and numerology.
For the naturally non-believing, the above explanation might be greeted with a degree of cynicism, but for psychic retreat facilitator and psychic medium TJ Higgins, the essence of these types of experiences feel universal.
“At the core, the purpose of running [psychic] retreats is to provide individuals with a safe space to deepen their understanding of themselves and explore their spiritual paths in a supportive and serene environment,” she says. “These retreats are designed to help participants disconnect from their hectic everyday lives and reconnect with their inner selves.”
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Higgins believes that the increased popularity of such retreats is an interplay of several factors. “In an age often characterised by rapid technological advancement and constant digital connectivity, many people feel a disconnect from deeper meaning and purpose in life,” she explains. “Psychic retreats offer an opportunity to step away from everyday stresses and focus on personal growth, spiritual connection, and self-discovery.”
She also points to activities such as yoga, meditation and mindfulness entering the mainstream and acting as a stepping stone toward greater openness to exploring other spiritual and metaphysical practices, including psychic development.
“As people seek comprehensive approaches to wellbeing, the appeal of psychic retreats increases because they address multiple aspects of health and personal development,” Higgins adds.
This was certainly the case for Elaine Warren, founder and CEO of The Family Cruise Companion, who attended her first psychic retreat during a trip to Sedona in Arizona. “It wasn’t what I expected,” she says, describing the half-day retreat. “They weren’t trying to ‘read my mind’ or predict anything. Instead, it was about exercises to tune into your intuition – things like guided visualisation and journaling. It wasn’t overly complicated or abstract, and by the end, I felt strangely calm, like I’d hit a mental reset button.”
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She was a convert. “We tried one in the Cotswolds last year, which was tailored for all ages. The kids loved the creative exercises, which were basically fun ways to help them reflect on their thoughts and feelings without even realising it,” she continues. “The thing about these retreats is that they’re not all as far out as they sound, which is why I think they’re gaining traction. It’s not about whether you believe in psychics or not, it’s about whether you’re open to stepping away from the chaos and thinking about what you really need.”
If you’re someone in search of “the far out”, however, the surge in psychic retreats caters for that too. Gemma* attended her first psychic retreat at the end of last year following the death of her mother. “I was looking for solace but I was also attracted to the idea that I might be able to find another form of connection with my mum that wasn’t dependent on her being physically in my life,” she explains. “I booked onto a psychic retreat specifically designed for those experiencing grief and it was a bit of a crazy mix of womb therapy (a holistic abdominal massage, aimed at promoting physical and emotional well-being by addressing potential imbalances or tensions related to the uterus and pelvic region), somatic healing (which refers to the practice of using vibrational frequencies to promote healing and balance through playing instruments such as gongs, drums and Tibetan singing bowls), astrology, tarot card reading and spiritual mediumship.”
Over the course of four days she found herself “bawling” while swinging from a “womb pod” (a type of enclosed hammock), stomping around a room while making “guttural” animal sounds and asking questions like, “what is the most important lesson I need to learn right now?” during one-to-one tarot card readings. “It was an interesting mix of real practical advice for my future, which I would write down in a notepad, and immersive emotional experiences,” Gemma explains.
While she’d never done anything similar before, she found the entire experience “deeply grounding”.
“I just loved it all,” she says. “I threw myself in wholeheartedly and I came away feeling a real sense of safety and hope for a future without my mum. I truly believe she guided me there when I needed it – and the skills I learned have been instrumental in helping me cope with the grief.
“I ask ‘spirit’ for guidance on a daily basis now, in the same way that a religious person might ask God,” she adds.
I asked Dr Tracy King, a chartered clinical psychologist and spiritual emergence coach who runs online psychic retreats, whether Gemma is typical of many of the guests who sign up for such experiences.
“Many attendees are at pivotal moments in their lives, seeking clarity, healing and personal growth,” she tells me. “This crumbling of self is often a time that altered states of consciousness occur and a widening of abilities creeps in naturally, so some wish to find out who they are and what their potential in life is.”
“Some want a sense of being heard and validated for their experiences and others are looking to develop further in a career in spiritual and healing professions,” she adds.
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Dr King helps participants in her retreats do this by doing an Akashic Records reading for each participant, “a practice that accesses a metaphysical compendium of information about each soul’s past, present, and potential future.
“This reading helps identify how participants process information and provides a personalised profile to tailor the retreat experience,” she says. “It also looks at their natural channels for information processing, e.g. visual, touch, sound, smell or taste – and we can use this to build exercises for them to develop awareness.”
Throughout the day, participants engage in various practices to enhance their spiritual connection and wellbeing, from shamanic journeying (“shamanic journeying typically induces a predominance of theta waves – 4-8Hz – facilitating a trance-like state conducive to vivid imagery and deep meditative experiences”) to clinical hypnotherapy. “Through shamanic journeying [in particular], we connect with spirit guides and discover power animals (beings that bring the resources of their character to help us), aiding in the development of intuitive abilities such as clairvoyance (seeing), clairaudience (hearing), claicognizance (knowing) and clairsentience (feeling),” she says.
At a time when the world feels so uncertain, more of us than ever are willing to lift veils we’ve never peeked under before in search of greater connection, deeper insight and a way to finally make sense of it all. Because aren’t many of us yearning for a more meaningful understanding of the human experience and struggling to find that among the physical?
“For me, wellness retreats have always been about facing demons,” Gemma muses. “So why not face your ghosts too?”
The best psychic retreats in the UK for 2025
Gateway to Spirit, Shropshire
Dive in at the deep end with an immersive week-long retreat with the purpose of helping you develop your psychic and mediumship skills, no matter where you are on your journey. Throughout your stay, you’ll engage in a variety of dynamic activities in a peaceful environment designed to make it easier to turn inward. Whether you’re looking to make profound life changes, seek guidance or simply explore the depths of your spiritual gifts, this psychic “bootcamp” is designed to inspire, empower, and transform. “Join us for a unique experience where the veil thins, and the journey within begins,” says host, TJ Higgins.
2-7 June; £1,111 per person, including meals, accommodation, all workshops and personalised coaching, tjhiggs.com
The Psychic and the Witch at Ballingdon Hall, Suffolk
This two-day retreat is designed for those who want to explore their psychic intuition and understand how their ancestral past connects them to the earth and their surroundings. Attendees will learn from renowned psychic medium Lee Wyberd and “White Witch” Carly Rose to explore ways to connect with their higher self and ground themselves with an understanding of rituals, practices and wellbeing that can connect them with their inner being. Sessions include psychic intuition, deities, psychic readings, spell casting, tea and tarot reading and more.
Multiple dates throughout 2025; from £500pp, ballingdonhall.co.uk
Inner Vision Quest Virtual Psychic Awakening Retreat
If you’re not entirely set on a psychic retreat yet or are just feeling a bit shy, Dr Tracy King’s online one-day retreat encompasses a mix of personalised assessment and feedback, together with group sessions and follow-up coaching and is designed to help you overcome whatever obstacles you are currently facing in your life.
28 March 2025; from £350 (women only), drtracy.kartra.com
Discover Your Soul’s Purpose, Norfolk
A mix of yoga, wild swimming, sound baths and spiritual talks (with psychic readings and past life regression sessions available as add-ons), this psychic retreat from The Wellness Foundry brings together the best of wellness to offer myriad opportunities for “soul-changing” breakthroughs in a gentle, unpressurised environment. You’ll come away refreshed, restored and ready to fulfil your life’s unlimited potential.
Multiple dates across March; from £595pp, wellnessfoundry.co.uk
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