About Paul Fenton-Smith   [click here to view the pdf]

About the Academy of Psychic Sciences

The Academy of Psychic Sciences was founded in Sydney 1985 by Paul Fenton-Smith, who aimed to teach the psychic sciences in a clear and simple manner. Courses were initially in ten week terms with introductory tarot lasting ten weeks and psychic development courses lasting 30 weeks in three ten week terms.

Paul Fenton-Smith taught tarot and palmistry, having studied these since 1978 and Ricky Gorham taught psychic development classes. Ricky was also a teacher at a Spiritualist church in Sydney. Other teachers were engaged to teach a variety of courses but in time Paul found that he was too bogged down with administration to run classes, so he simplified the process by trimming back the courses offered.

Hiring only one other teacher, Paul set out doing what he loved to do; teaching. Over the years students requested notes for each course and these notes became Paul’s books The Tarot Revealed (1995), Palmistry Revealed (1996) and Astrology Revealed (1998). The advanced tarot course notes became Mastering the Tarot which was released in 2000.

Each of Paul’s books is taken through a ‘test run’ as a course to test the concepts in a live environment. In this way the students’ questions can be incorporated into the final book.

Paul continued his studies in London in 1988 and in London and Greece in 1991 and these spiritual studies were chronicled in his book A Secret Door to the Universe (1999).

The course format was changed to fit each course into three full days and they were run on three consecutive Sundays. This format has proved a winner, especially since we introduced the repeat offer. Students are encouraged to repeat any course they have attended if they feel that they need to ‘brush up’ on the course content. Initially the repeat offer was free but we found that students treated the repeat course as entertainment, to while away a few rainy Sundays so we set a fee. The initial $50. repeat fee was still resulting in students turning up for a few hours before heading off for a picnic etc., so the fee was increased. Now at 1/3 of the full price fee and with the commitment required that each repeating student attend all sessions of the course, only serious students repeat our courses.

The repeat fee has enabled many mature students who have not undertaken studies for years to gain a solid grounding in their chosen subject, and some have gone on to become successful professionals in the psychic industry.

 A telephone tarot service was offered to Paul in 1995 and he accepted the responsibility for training the readers and maintaining the standards. Telephone tarot reading courses were set up and training was ‘hands on’ involving giving free readings to strangers using a speaker phone. In this way students were able to hear both sides of the conversation. Paul gave up the service at the end of 1996.

One day interstate courses were introduced in the late 1990's to enable those far from Sydney to attend our courses. We plan to train teachers for each state in Australia to teach our courses according to the current format in the coming years. We also plan to introduce a weekend course for interstate students in January each year, starting in 2002.

These days the academy offers introductory and advanced courses, one day workshops and Paul offers private lessons. We are training our students to become readers aiming for HOPE. Its meaning is outline below. It suggests that readers aim to give their clients.

H ealing
O ffering
P ositive
E ncouragement

as we believe that where there is hope, there can be growth and improvement.