The Pioneer Journal

Changes to Pioneer for 2026

It is now almost twenty-one years ago since I took over the editorship of Psypioneer from its founder editor, historian Leslie Price. The final issue of Psypioneer was published in December 2016. Prior to this date, in 2013 I took up the editorship of the SNU Pioneer, which was launched at the Torquay AGM of 2013, replacing the SNU hardback magazine of the same title; a special edited edition of the first issue was published for the delegates.

Pioneer was originally set up as an informative aid to the SNU education courses, to give their students a factual, as far as possible, overview of the Union’s history of the early days of “National Spiritualism” and its Pioneers, together with the closely associated histories of key events in Spiritualist history, for example the importance of the Hydesville rappings with its referenced accounts, clearing away many of the myths which have been added to the story over the many decades, similarly regarding the importance of the historic facts surrounding our Seven Principles, etc.

However, Pioneer expanded from my original intentions, becoming far larger in its content than planned; the subscribers increased from the initial 400 at the start, reaching today over 4,200. A few years ago I put all the Pioneer articles under general headings, making it easier to find articles relating to set subjects, e.g. Healing & Healers, Psychic/Spirit Art, The Effects of the Vagrancy Act, SNU History, James Arthur Findlay, Physical & Mental Mediumship, etc.

This page holds all the issues, contents list and the pdf booklets under various subjects as referred to, and a link to Psypioneer archived issues held in America by historian Marc Demerest.

I am therefore proposing to stop the Pioneer journal in its present format of pdf issues being sent out by email and replace these by posting further articles onto the Pioneer website page, which can be downloaded. I will also be including short videos of our archives, etc., giving this page a comprehensive, informative, historic overview of the Union’s history from its earliest days and Spiritualist history generally.

Further updates will be given on the SNU Facebook page.

Pioneer has received overwhelming support over the years and, hopefully, this will continue in this new easier format.

Editor – Paul Gaunt