If you wanted to speak to the dead in 1960’s America, there was one man who was ready to help. A showman with big ambitions. A man who before your very eyes could bring back the dead.
Vicky Baker investigates the story of Lamar Keene, a renowned psychic who confessed to being part of an underground network that he called the "psychic mafia".
From the team who brought you Fake Heiress, this is a story about the art of the con, belief, retribution, and possibly atonement.
If you wanted to speak to the dead in 1960’s America, there was one man who was ready to help. A showman with big ambitions. A man who before your very eyes could bring back the dead.
Vicky Baker investigates the story of Lamar Keene, a renowned psychic who confessed to being part of an underground network that he called the "psychic mafia".
From the team who brought you Fake Heiress, this is a story about the art of the con, belief, retribution, and possibly atonement.
If you wanted to speak with the dead in 1960s America, there was one man who was ready to help. For more than a decade, Lamar Keene was at the top of his game, becoming known as the Prince of Spiritualists. Then, quite suddenly, he turned his back on it all.
But Lamar Keene didn't go quietly. He published a tell-all expose in which he confessed that he was little more than a conman, a psychic fraudster, who manipulated people in their most vulnerable moments. And in doing so, he catalogued the many physical and psychological tricks he used to separate his followers from their money.
It wasn’t just his own carefully-crafted reputation that Lamar Keene sought to destroy. He wanted to blow the whistle on the whole industry. He claimed that he had been part of a national underground network that included many other psychics, clairvoyants and mediums, who combined forces to fleece the unsuspecting public. He called it the “psychic mafia,” and said that his confession made him a marked man.
But how much can we trust the revelations of a self-confessed conman? How much of Lamar Keene’s extraordinary story is really true? And what can it tell us about how our emotions affect belief and our susceptibility to misinformation?
In a series that mixes documentary with drama, Vicky Baker (Fake Heiress) takes a deep dive into Lamar Keene’s stranger-than-fiction life story.
Episode 3 Cast:
Lamar . . . . . Edward Hogg Raoul . . . . . Tom Mothersdale Tom . . . . . Neil McCaul Andrija . . . . . Michael Begley Lona . . . . . Jasmine Hyde Warden . . . . . Chris Jack Mrs Moseley . . . . . Christine Kavanagh
Written and reported by Vicky Baker Drama written by Nick Perry Sound design by Peter Ringrose Produced by Sasha Yevtushenko A BBC Audio production for BBC Radio 4