This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/30/2021
Keene, Lamar. Lamar Keene’s Carved Séance Chair. Carved antique hardwood armchair with tapestry-like back and seat finished in fringe, used by fraudulent spirit medium Lamar Keene as the chair in his séances. With a note of provenance in the hand of Keene’s secretary. Height 52". Well-worn fabric, especially at the seat, but intact. As pictured on the rear jacket of Keene’s well-known work on his career as a fraudulent medium, The Psychic Mafia. Known by his peers as “The Prince of Spiritualists,” Morris Lamar Keene (1936 – 1996) practiced mediumship in Tampa, Florida and at Camp Chesterfield in central Indiana, crudely applying conjuring techniques in the séance rooms to apparently contact the dead. The publication of his exposé of the underworld of fake mediumship has become a well-known text in the field since its original release in 1976. After leaving spiritualism, Keene became successful in other business pursuits, but escaped at least two attempts on his life by what may have been disgruntled former spiritualist colleagues.