Submitted by Glorious Bastard on
For decades, the famous medium William Roy astounded sitters at seances with 'spirit voices', materializations and information that, it was believed, he could have gained by paranormal means.
When William Roy died in August 1977, Psychic News said of him, " In Spiritalism's long history there has never been a greater villian. He is now in a world where he cannot cheat." Yet there were many who would not accept that verdict, for over the years Roy had so raised false hopes among his victims that a great number of them could never face the fact that he was a fraud. And the people duped were not always simple, ill-educated types - far from it.
William Roy, was the cleverest fake of all and the medium whose tricks are still used by fakes and frauds today. Born William Plowright at Surrey England in 1911, and always interested in conjuring, he married Mary Castle a nightclub owner, and watching back stage, he learned tricks such as mind reading and slight of hand, from those appearing. He also studied Spiritualism, and felt the bereaved would give him an easy living, and set up his office from home.
When people rang for an appointment, he would research who they were, in the newspapers, births marriages and deaths section, and notes kept from graves at local cemeteries, and an accomplice would call at their house on a pretext, and elicit information, and when they called at his home, an accomplice would take their bags and coat and ask them to empty their pockets, saying the contents would influence the medium.
The waiting room contained another accomplice who would chat to those inside, while a peep hole and ear piece, gave more info. He had a small microphone behind his ear, covered by ear long hair, and a copper rod glued to the bottom of his shoe, and when he stood on a rod inserted between the floorboards, contact would be made, and the accomplice would read from the bags wallets and coats, the personal information straight into his ear. He would scour the papers each day, and was bang up to date with the news.
When he appeared at public meetings, he worked even more baffling stunts. In 1947, at Kingsway Hall, London, his hands were tied to the arms of a chair; his mouth was filled with sticking plaster - yet he still produced 'spirit voices.' And after the plaster was removed his mouth was found still full of colored water - so fakery was ruled out. But Roy was responsible for all the voices, even with his mouth full and sealed. For him it was just a minor inconvenience. In the darkness it was easy for him to bend his head down and loosen the plaster with one hand tied - then the water was ejected through a rubber tube into a small container in his breast pocket. At th end of the evening the water was sucked back up again, the plaster was smoothed back into place, and everyone was duly overawed at his astonishing display of psychic powers.
The private seances were a different matter. Most of the voices were produced by Roy but some were provided by his assistant while others were tape recordings. In that way Roy was to produce more than one voice at a time. And the methods he used apart from the tape recordings were all drawn from an enlighteneing book titled Behind the scenes with mediums written in 1907 by David Abbott. By the time Roy had set himself as a medium, he had mastered most of the tricks in the book; he even worked out a few refinements.
His clients innocently walked into a trap everytime they entered his home: they were expected to leave all coat and bags in a special cloakroom, and this gave his accomplice a chance to search through their belongings for bits of useful information. Moreover thet were kept waiting before each seance began. And as they chatted to pass the time away, hidden microphones picked up their words. By these means Roy always knew more about his clients than they even dreamed.
Among those duped were Winston Churchill, Canadian Premier Mackenzie King, leaders of show business and industry, and scores of the vulnerable and bereaved. Roy was first exposed in 1952 when he fell out with his assistant who promptly aid a visit to the offices of Psychic News. The training of a medium takes many years and fake mediums are usually exposed by other mediums themselves. However old habits die hard and within a few years Roy was organizing seances in South Africa. But he had the supreme cheek to return to Britain and start up again.
Maurice Barbanell in 1955, with a dramatic front page article in the Two Worlds magazine, broke the news of his fakery that many had long suspected, but it was his confessions in the Sunday Pictorial, sold for big money in 1958, which brought out so much appalling detail, one of his ploys with widows, was to pretend he was speaking as the dead husband, and asked them to give him money to continue gods work for the bereaved, in one case he was given 15,000 pounds as a gift. The suicide of his second wife Dorothy, left him free for another prosperous marriage. Dramatic scenes followed this newspaper report. Roy's wife attacked the paper's editor with a riding crop and Roy himself started a lawsuit against the editor. Roy's wife was fined 3 pounds for the assault and Roy could afford to pay the fine with a smilefor he knew that, in effect his lawsuit meant he could continue milking his clients because his ation ahd discouraged any further newspaper comment on the case until after the court hearing.
He set up again in another area as “Bill Silver, talks with god for you “ and again conned many consumed with grief from their savings. His death in 1977, meant that the Scotland Yard took possession of all his trickery, his memory cards, tickets, miniature microphones etc for their museum and training center, Many of the American T V evangelists use these same tricks today, to trick many out of millions.
Resources:
The Unexplained pgs. 2481-2483
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