"The Psychic Mafia" available as FREE pdf file.

by Nathan Natas 4 Replies latest jw friends

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  Nathan Natas

  The excellent book "THE PSYCHIC MAFIA" has long been out of print but is now available as a FREE Adobe ACROBAT pdf file. This book may be of interest to any rationalist or persons working against cult mentality. Highly reccomended.

  Who was M. Lamar Keene?

  (source: wikipedia) M. Lamar Keene was born about 1938 and is reported as deceased. He was a spirit medium in Florida and was known as the "Prince of the Spiritualists".

  In his book The Psychic Mafia (1976), Keene admitted that all of his psychic activities were done by fraudulent means. He revealed how he got rich by tricking thousands of people in séances. He described how the victims fell for the most transparent ruses. He coined the term True-believer syndrome in the book.

  Keene's book caused a storm in spiritualist circles. He left the psychic business after his book was published, and went into the business of importing antiques. There were threats on his life. One night while leaving his store, a car drove up and a shot was fired from a rifle. Afterward he changed his name, moved to another state, and dropped out of sight.

  In M. Lamar Keene's book, The Psychic Mafia, he explicitly professed a belief in God, life after death, psychic phenomena and ESP, even after making his case against true believers and renouncing his trade as a phony medium.

  What is "TRUE BELIEVER SYNDROME"?

  (source: wikipedia) True-believer syndrome is a term coined by M. Lamar Keene in his 1976 book The Psychic Mafia. Keene used the term to refer to people who continued to believe in a paranormal event or phenomenon even after it had been proven to have been staged. It has since been applied, more loosely, to refer to any belief without empirical or logical foundations.

  Keene considered it to be a cognitive disorder, and regarded it as being a key factor in the success of many mediums. The term "true believer syndrome" is not used professionally by psychologists, psychiatrists or medical professionals and is not recognised as a form of psychopathology or psychological impairment.

  DOWNLOAD your copy of "The Psychic Mafia" from BADONGO:
  http://www.badongo.com/file/8353168
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  Rapunzel

  Eric Hoffer first published The True Believer: Thoughts On Mass Movements in 1951. Hoffer was a social psychologist. His book concerned mainly political movements, but some of his theoroies could also be applied to the realm of religion.
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  Atlantis

  Nathan Natas:

  Thank you Nathan! We appreciate your posting this for us!

  N. & A.
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  garybuss

  Good one! Thanks!
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  Nathan Natas

  Eric Hoffer first published The True Believer: Thoughts On Mass Movements in 1951. Hoffer was a social psychologist. His book concerned mainly political movements, but some of his theories could also be applied to the realm of religion.

  Yes, Eric Hoffer certainly was a remarkable person, and he probably was the first person in the history of the English language who used the phrase "true believer" in a sentence. So perhaps Mr. Keene owes Eric a few bucks for appropriating his term without license. Or not, since poor Eric missed the opportunity to add the word "syndrome" to the phase. This important issue shall be debated for millennia yet to come, I have no doubt. Mr. Hoffer, however, never operated a fraudulent "religious" scam, never repented of such fraudulent behavior, and never revealed the lengths to which that religion's adherents were willing to go to deny the truth of the deception played upon them, even rejecting the testimony of the deceiver and physical evidence. Mr. Keene did these things, and that is why this thread is about him and his book.