An odd video including footage of Lamar Keene

This is an oddity which takes a biased anti view until the last few minutes. It has incorrect information but includes rare footage of Lamar Keene who wrote the Pyschic Mafia including his method to fake the trumpet.

You can always borrw his ebook Psychic Mafia from Archive .org https://archive.org/details/psychicmafia00keen

A good article on Lama Keene here.


https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/feb/01/m-lamar-keene-fake-psychic-florida

That was interesting and shocking in equal measure, Jim. I'm pleased to see 'spiritualism' used with a lower-case letter s as in my mind it creates separation between it and our movement/religion/philosophy of Modern Spiritualism. Whether that has resonance for many others, though, I have much doubt.

The treatment by certain individuals of anyone they can con or scam never fails to live down to my expectations. Such conning and scanning takes place every minute or second. Never give a sucker an even break.....

Hi Mac,

Yes we have a;ways agreed about this, it is sad that not one of our so called Physical Mediums ever took up the Psychic News challenege (but not surprising).

The reality is the more I reseatch he more I have to discount the vast majority of past claims for physical mediums. Despite the huge wrap on the Bangs Sisters my own thoughts, after considerable research of their activities tend to agree with those of the The Religio-Philosophical Journal and its editor John Bundy who was a total dis believer. http://iapsop.com/spirithistory/bangs_sisters_return.html
http://iapsop.com/spirithistory/bangs_sisters.html. Ther is also a huge item in Light http://www.iapsop.com/archive/materials/light/light_v19_n958_may_20_1899.pdf on p223 I have always intended to write about them albeit it may make me hated, given the love of their precipitated art and Hegarty's book supporting them.

Ah on happier (or maybe not) matters teh archive of the Psychic Observer is now available up to 1957. Sadly the Camp Chesterfield Snooperscope exposure is not amongst the issues, albeit the choice of Spiritualists to continue supporting the materialisers despite teh clear proof of fraud was teh issue that closed the paper..

It's disappointing to hear all this, Jim.  It must be very dispiriting for yourself, an historian and researcher, to find what you have.  

I confess I haven't before heard of the Psychic Observer or the Camp Chesterfield Snooperscope.  It's the biggest wonder that one of my most keen critics has never mentioned it.  He loved to ignore almost everything I wrote but always found delight in lecturing me about Spiritualism even though he isn't a Spiritualist and would find everything from online searches.  He missed his opportunity here though!  

https://www.spiritualismlink.com/t507-camp-chesterfield-in-the-news-pre-lamar-keene There you go Mac that is the article. Fascinating

Here is the link to the 1943 to 1957 copies of the Psychic Observer, it is a really good production. It was serious and worth reading. Additionally the number of centres in teh USA at that time is hard to believe


https://www.psychicobserverarchive.org


Thye have also published the Noahs Ark Magazines now online https://noahsarksocietyarchive.org

It can be disheartening but I never have seem physical mediumship as the best evidence and teh Fox Sistres wer not critical to Hydesville. My own experiences in receiving and giving messages, teh table turning and other things leave me convinced as do the great Mental Mediums. Fraud seems to go hand in hand with darkness, many should just be magicians but they just awe you; fraudulanent physical mediums pretend they bring your loved ones to you so they break hearts by their misdeeds.

Just writing to say thanks, Jim..... I'm on holiday near Cardiff and the web connection is dreadful so I'm having to peck at the screen of my phone instead of using a proper keyboard - what a faff! I'll try those links when I get back home Thursday.

Back home and I've just read the thread whose link you supplied, Jim. What an awful event! I thought I might not have been a member here in 2009 when that thread posted but I was so it's down to my poor memory that I don't recall the discussion - or maybe I just didn't follow it at that time. Those were the days, eh, with George a contributor. I remember how knowledgeable he was about so many issues. Wonder how he sees the Spiritualism / mediumship scene now he's 'over there'?

I'd seen a few months back on a Facebook page that the NAS newsletters had been archived. That must have been quite a time-consuming task. I still have PDF copies of all the newsletters along with a full index and dates etc. I had offered to organise them for George but he wound up the NAS before I could get started. Not a happy time with upset members asking searching questions but things fizzled out and the NAS was no more.

Admin wrote:https://www.spiritualismlink.com/t507-camp-chesterfield-in-the-news-pre-lamar-keene There you go Mac that is the article. Fascinating

Here is the link to the 1943 to 1957 copies of the Psychic Observer, it is a really good production. It was serious and worth reading. Additionally the number of centres in teh USA at that time is hard to believe


https://www.psychicobserverarchive.org


Thye have also published the Noahs Ark Magazines now online   https://noahsarksocietyarchive.org

It can be disheartening but I never have seem physical mediumship as the best evidence and teh Fox Sistres wer not critical to Hydesville. My own experiences in receiving and giving messages, teh table turning and other things leave me convinced as do the great Mental Mediums. Fraud seems to go hand in hand with darkness, many should just be magicians but they just awe you; fraudulanent physical mediums pretend they bring your loved ones to you so they break hearts by their misdeeds.

Unlike yourself I'm not a medium but my persuasion about survival et al came about in various ways.  I quickly became disinterested in seeking out mediumship and my last significant encounter with physical mediumship was via the reports of the many phenomena produced by the Scole Experimental Group's activities.  

I attended one of the public sessions and enjoyed what I experienced there but I was greatly dismayed over how their activities eventually went down the pan.  I don't know if the expectations of a resumption of mediumship activities - as Robin Foy told me he was expecting - ever truly happened and I don't know if the centre in Spain that he planned ever came to fruition. But now he is no longer with us so I guess that branch of physical mediumship is also gone.

As a neutral but fairly knowledgeable observer I have never been that interested by the phenomena of physical mediumship, always concerned that the production of those phenomena might attract folk more than the understanding about survival did. I sometimes wonder if that concern was justified?