Former medium Lamar Keene described, in 1976, a mental disorder characterized by the fact that the person who suffers from it continues to believe in some type of paranormal event, even when it has been conclusively proven that the event is false. The so-called "true believer syndrome" can explain the success of fake healers, televangelists, flat-earthers, anti-vaccine advocates, and other pseudoscientists.
The Story of Lamar Keene
Lamar Keene was born in 1938. For many years he worked as a medium in Florida (USA), where he came to be known as the "Prince of the Spiritualists". But at some point his life changed, and he dedicated himself to fighting pseudoscience, a discipline he certainly knew well.
In 1976 he published a book called "The Psychic Mafia", in which he admitted that his spiritualist practices were, in reality, a scam. He exposed the way he enriched himself by deceiving thousands of people and explained how his victims fell into his networks. But the most important thing was that, in that text, he first presented his idea of the "true believer syndrome", which would become the nightmare of all the "fake scam artists" in the world.
As expected, Keene's book stirred up a storm among his former colleagues. The concept behind the "true believer syndrome" can, among other things, explain why we believe in supernatural beings, gods, psychic phenomena, and extrasensory perceptions. According to Keene, the "magical thinking" behind pseudosciences is based on faith in what another person says, while ignoring (or directly and intentionally misinterpreting) the basic laws of nature. This often occurs because the belief system itself comes from an era when humanity did not know physics, chemistry, anatomy, physiology, or biology.
Those who adopt this type of thinking, natural victims of those who know how to exploit the business behind pseudoscience, are generally people who, instead of believing in an objective reality, base their lives on a special perception of reality. It is also highly likely that they defend their points of view with tenacity, despite having no basis whatsoever. And what is more serious, they continue to do so even when confronted with indisputable evidence to the contrary.
Phrases like "Science can't explain it but it works!" are part of the discourse of those who suffer from the true believer syndrome. If one argues that the matter has been dismissed by researchers and proven to be untrue, they will surely say "It can't be, I've seen it", "It has happened to me", "It works for me", or something like that. The person is incapable of accepting what reality shows them, and insists on magical thinking. This shows that the need to believe in (false) miracles sometimes not only defies logic but can compromise mental health.
For a "healthy" person, it is difficult to understand how an apparently balanced individual can defend a fantasy with such determination even after being exposed to the light of day. However, for the one who suffers from this syndrome, the opposite situation occurs: he cannot understand why his interlocutor does not believe in his ideas. And sometimes, this very situation causes him to cling to his beliefs even more firmly, seeing conspiracies against him where all there is is plain and simple reality.
Keene declares that "the believer syndrome is the most powerful weapon that fake mediums have in their favor. Not all the logic in the world can destroy a faith that is consciously based on a lie." However, medical evidence seems to indicate that it is very unlikely that those who suffer from this syndrome are truly aware that they are lying to themselves.
One possibility is that these people are able to recognize one part of reality but not another. For example, they can admit that a medium is a fraud based on the evidence presented, but still remain convinced that paranormal events really happen. This is favored by the fact that, logically, it is materially impossible for science to prove that absolutely all "paranormal miracles" are frauds. This always allows the believer to keep hope alive. That thought is not completely illogical, but it can be evidence of some type of pathology.
The examples that Keene exposes are, for the most part, cases of people who are so desperate to communicate with the dead that no unmasking of the medium involved can shake their faith in spiritualism. For these people, the desire to believe sometimes surpasses the ability to think critically about the existing evidence in favor of and against their own beliefs.
