The Psychic Mafia

[Darat]

Older folk here will probably remember the 1970s book by M. Lamar Keene called "The Psychic Mafia" in which the claimed clairvoyant and medium exposed the fraud and fakery behind the USA psychic business back in the 1970s.

There is a new series of radio shows on Radio 4 delving into his background, the facts, people who knew him (he dies a while back), transcripts of interviews and so on.

I've only listened to the first episode which is a summary of his overall story.

Should be on the podcast apps and so on, UK BBC page: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0bk74xd

It's called Fake Psychic journalist is Vicky Baker.

 

[Michel H]

Wikipedia has an article on M. Lamar Keene: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._Lamar_Keene.

An except from the book (taken from wikipedia):

Extrasensory perception and psychic phenomena? I believe that the individual can have his or her own private psychic experience — that there is such a thing as ESP. But when it comes to paying a medium to do it for you — beware!… Find your own uncertainties of life. With God's help you can do it.

.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

The book itself is available as a free download here:

https://oiipdf.com/the-psychic-mafia

I've heard of it but never read it. So now I will.

The "as told to" author, Allen Spraggett^WP, is (or was) a bit of a name in Canada as a believer in psychocrap.

 

[Nova Land]

Older folk here will probably remember the 1970s book by M. Lamar Keene called "The Psychic Mafia" ...

Actually, one doesn't need to be particularly old to remember the discussion we had here about Keene's book "The Psychic Mafia" just a little over a year ago, in December 2020.

And as I recall there was mention in that thread about a previous discussion we'd had about the book, so the earlier thread should also be reasonably fresh in the memories of people who aren't particularly old.

Here's a link to a previous discussion of the book. It's not a very long thread, but I thought you might be interested in what people said about it 14 years ago...

 

[theprestige]

Actually, one doesn't need to be particularly old to remember the discussion we had here about Keene's book "The Psychic Mafia" just a little over a year ago, in December 2020.

And as I recall there was mention in that thread about a previous discussion we'd had about the book, so the earlier thread should also be reasonably fresh in the memories of people who aren't particularly old.

Maybe it's a thread aimed at older folk and their connection to history and current events?

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Actually, one doesn't need to be particularly old to remember the discussion we had here about Keene's book "The Psychic Mafia" just a little over a year ago, in December 2020.

And as I recall there was mention in that thread about a previous discussion we'd had about the book, so the earlier thread should also be reasonably fresh in the memories of people who aren't particularly old.

I see that I did not participate in the previous threads. No idea why or why not. But I did download the book and have just finished reading it. Some of it I had heard (Long John Nebel show on WOR) or read (Marin Gardener, Randi, et al) before but it is an excellent insight into the phony world of Spiritualism.