Last night I went see The Amazing Kreskin-- all
in research of more "amazing" brain of any variety. He was in town,
and
I thought it would be FUN.
It WAS fun- and it was AMAZING. He lives up to his name. Now, before any of you start with--"Oh come on! You don't actually believe any of that act is real, do you?!?!" read on.......
Kreskin claims that nothing he does is a trick, and is actually a
demonstration of his unique and real mental abilities. Reading a
in a
newspaper article prior to his show here, I learned
that he discovered his talent
as a young boy, spontaneously finding a penny hidden by his brother in
his house- he instantly found it inside the large house with no clues.
His parents immediately thought he had "the devil's eye" !
His name, by the way, is legally "The Amazing Kreskin", and is even
listed on his credit cards as "T.A. Kreskin".
The show started out with a mind over matter demonstration,
the only one he does- where he links three distinctive finger rings
This night, the
audience was about 98% beer drinking young adults in their 20's- the
show was sponsored by a local rock radio station. Kreskin was great
however- he handled the occassional slightly inebriated and rowdy loud
comments well, and with humor throughout. I guess that's how drunk
people show their appreciation- by yelling!
It appeared, both to logic, gut reaction, and to any appearance to be
completely genuine, as did everything else in the show. Nothing was
"flashy" at all in the sense of a magician's performance, but of a
different caliber altogether. It was rather spooky and unsettling in a
way.
Yes, I know what some of you are thinking---- trick.
Hang on.....
The show went on with all kinds of other "mentalist" telepathic feats,
and all the while Kreskin made jokes and kept us all laughing
throughout. He is a real showman in the Vegas or vaudeville tradition.
If you get a chance to see him- do it. Real fun, and a tradition that
in a few years you will likely never have the chance to experience
He moved on to a phase of the show where he then began to tell people
about themselves, a "psychic" reading would be a common description,
although he denies that he is a "psychic" or reads peoples minds, but
rather reflects on mental impressions he gets.
Kind of like talking to
the dead- only he was talking about the live folk who came to his
show. Of course, the line is "I've never met any of these people
before, and no one has discussed anything with anyone here." I can
imagine you are thinking "liar" and "hidden microphone" and "spies in
the lobby" and "good guesser".
I have to tell you, he was dead on just about every time, with
information that was so personal, and had everyone absolutely
flabbergasted. He would start out by asking the audience something
like "Does the number 4812 mean anything to anybody here?" Then that
person, usually only one would answer to his question, would stand up
and he would then begin to reveal startling personal information that
he should have absolutely no reason to know- except if he was
accessing the most deep innermost regions of a persons brain stores.
It was really, really incredible. But then of course, in the back of
everybody's mind they are asking "Now, how DOES he do that... how
many planted people are in this audience anyway?!" He did this more
than a dozen times. My mother in particular was skeptical, although
she really enjoyed the entertainment in any case.
THEN...
THEN...
As if he were responding to a little private inner request I had made
before coming to show (Oh, I hope he picks me for something, I want to
know if this is all REAL, or just a trick....)
He says "Does October 17 mean something to anyone
here?"
In the entire audience, I am the only one to respond, and it was
instant recognition, and I raise my hand...
He asks me to stand up, and say's "I'm getting the name Richard-- does
the name Richard mean anything to you?"
I think for a second, and think of a friend's father who is named
Richard. "Yeah.." But this is nothing impressive; most everybody
knows one Richard or another.
Then he says, "You injured your leg when you were young."
I am completely silent.
"Your knee, you damaged your knee, I think it was playing sports or a
sports activity."
My mother (sitting next to me that night) is about to have apoplexy...
"Yes. That's absolutely right."
He caps it off-- I have given no signals about any of this...
"It was your right knee."
My mouth drops open. I roll up my pants leg to show the audience-
I have a six inch scar on my right knee, which I damaged playing
football when I was 16, and had surgery.
Only when I get home do I remember that the first name of my
orthopedic surgeon was......
Richard.
Although Kreskin slowly eliminates those
participants with high suggestibility threshold during the process, he
is still left with about 18 people on stage. Despite their intentions
to the contrary, this remaining group keeps the audience in true
hysterics with their "involuntary" antics.
The show stopper, which he has done on TV many times, is where Kreskin
finds his hidden paycheck- which he forfeits his entire nights fee if
he is unable to locate. His record, by the way is not perfect- he's
failed 9 times, and once gave up $51,000 in a New Zealand
amphitheater (donated by the venue to charity, given to a hospital
which now has a wing named in Kreskins honor. Kreskin says they could
have offered him a room that night to recover!).
This committee of 6 then hides
his check for the night's performance somewhere in the very large
auditorium. There must be a million possible hiding places. Kreskin
comes back into the auditorium, and then drags one of the six people
around silently on the other end of a handkerchief-- he says he's
using it to pick up their thoughts as they mentally guide him to the
hiding place.
During this last feat, the audience suddenly became so quiet and so intently
focused, that you could hear a pin drop. I mean- real money at
stake here!
in that auditorium. It took about
another six minutes but eventually isolated two people out of
the audienceand found his check hidden inside the baseball cap of
one of them. This feat had it all- Drama! Suspense! Risk! Nothing like
money to get people's attention---
************************
By the way-- Kreskin mentions- although the telepathic part of his
brain is apparently strong-- it comes at a price to other brain
functions - he says he is terribly absent minded, and frequently can't
remember where he put his glasses......
A fun and mind expanding night for all- Viva The Amazing Kreskin-- one
fellow who seems to have a permanent connection to a number of
of his Frontal
Lobes Paranormal Circuits.
belonging to members of the audience. We had expected an older mature
audience who were familiar with Kreskin through 30 years of TV shows-
among them 80 tonight show appearances- the most of any guest. If
you are over 30 you will know who Kreskin is, a staple of late
night and daytime talk shows, as well as the night club and Vegas
circuit.
The show continued with some really astounding card "tricks", but
again, not tricks in any ordinary sense. He explained that he is
banned in every casino in the country because of his ability to know
the identification of cards, faces hidden. Imagine the value of this
in black jack. To prove it, he once did a demonstration with a
casino's approval, and won the record number of blackjack hands in a
row, 23 hands if I remember correctly.
In the show's demonstration, he had two audience members pick a PILE
of cards out of a deck newly opened and supplied by a third party. He
correctly identified about 20 cards successivly, and in the order and
position that they appeared in the audience member's hands,
completely hidden to all. He sat about 20 feet away in an isolated
view proof booth doing this. It was quite incredible.
"That's my father's
birthday."
I had not spoken to anyone ever about this in YEARS.
*****************
The show continued with some plain goofy and funny demonstrations of
suggestibility where Kreskin pokes fun at "hypnosis", which he says
does not even exist. For example, one person was unable to properly
count from 1 to
10, involuntarily obeying the command to omit the number 7 without catching the error. No matter how many times he tried-- he found to his dismay that he
had 11 fingers every time! (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11) It was something
to see the repeated frustration and incomprehension on this guy's face. 
He is led offstage and isolated out of hearing and sight range by
several officials. A group of six audience members are picked at
random-- they are picked by Kreskin throwing six playing cards into
the audience. Whoever the card lands on- they come up stage to assist.
I mean, he is throwing these cards way up into the air, at least 50 or
60 feet, and they land truly at complete random, impossible to set up.
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