Packed with juicy details and sprinkled with famous names!
Edmonton Journal
Colorful ... vitriolic ... an eye-opener!
Publishers Weekly
What is it that compels a person, past all reason, to believe the unbelievable? How can an otherwise sane individual become so enamored of a fantasy, an importure, that even after it's exposed in the bright light of day, he still clings to it - indeed, clings to it all the harder?
M. Lamar Keene, who came to be known as the "Prince of the Spiritualists", enjoyed the riches and fame that accompany a life of a sought-after medium. He claimed to be clairvoyant and to produce objects out of thin air. He conducted séances in which participants talked with and even touched the dead.
Yet every miracle Keene performed was a fraud, a lie and a trick played on willing, gullible victims. In this powerful and brutally honest book, Keene exposes the secrets of the séance room, including ghostly apparitions, floating trumpets, "spirit sex", and other tricks used by mediums to exploit believers.
Originally published in 1976 and long out of print, this classic work is a fast-paced autobiographical account of a confessed charlatan who was one of the first mediums to admit his deception. The Psychic Mafia offers an incredible look inside the world of fraudulent spiritualists by a man who rose to the top of a tawdry and lucrative business before he chose to renounce it all.
M. Lamar Keene is now an import/export employee living in seclusion. Allen Spraggett is the author of nine books, including Kathryn Kuhlman: The Woman Who Believes in Miracles and Arthur Ford: The Man Who Talked with the Dead.