Talk:William Roy (medium)

M. Lamar Keene in his book The Psychic Mafia. (1997). Prometheus Books. p. 67 writes:

"One of the slickest recent operators in British spiritualism was a character named William Roy who in 1958, when his exposure as a fraud was imminent, sold his confessions to the London Sunday Pictorial for a tidy sum. (It should be noted that in this case the exposure was instigated by sincere spiritualists, chiefly Maurice Barbanell, then editor of the periodical Two Worlds.) Roy was a cunning customer who, judging by the accounts, might have made a good partner for me in my heyday. He specialized in “direct voice,” by which the spirits spoke with or without a trumpet. He also went in for materializations on a grand scale, including those of such personages as Gandhi, Napoleon, and apparently even Christ. Like me, he majored in evidential messages which stunned with their accuracy.

And like me, Roy, as revealed in his confessions, kept card index files on sitters, went through their purses and billfolds to get useful information, and bugged pre-séance conversations to pick up juicy tidbits. In addition, he used the standard gimmicks of the physical medium: the chiffon ectoplasm, the reaching-rods to manipulate the trumpets in the dark, and the black-garbed confederates in the séance room.

The sequel to Roy’s story is significant. And depressing. After a period of exile abroad, this self confessed fraud returned to Britain and, according to reports, resumed his mediumship under another name, Some of those who frequent his séances apparently know his past but prefer to believe that he once had genuine powers, lost them through faking, but now has recovered them."

This is a useful source and could be used on the article. 82.1.154.153 (talk) 19:52, 27 June 2013 (UTC)