roflanagan@guelphmercury.com
GUELPH — It’s not a trick, it’s not magic.
What The Amazing Kreskin does, and has been doing for 62 years, is not the result of sleight-of-hand, illusion or cheating, he says. In fact, he will pay you $1 million if you can prove that he uses any electronic devices, paid secret assistants or accomplices.
“I’ve become, in scientific circles, acknowledged for my work in experimentation in hypnotic phenomenon,” said Kreskin, 74, during a telephone interview from his home near Montclair, New Jersey. “I realize if I can arrest people’s attention, I can perceive their thoughts and I can also influence their thoughts.”
Be prepared to be amazed when the mentalist makes an appearance Sunday at 2 p.m. at Guelph’s River Run Centre. Tickets range from $20 to $30, and are available by calling the box office at 519-763-3000 or toll free, 877-520-2408.
Kreskin performs “mental effects or tests” through a heightened sensitivity to another person’s mental energy and by transferring his own mental energy into them through the power of suggestion. He can get audience members to do peculiar things while they are wide-awake.
“We have the ability to absorb thoughts, and people who are skilful can influence us to a remarkable degree,” he said. “You will see in my show that I can get people to forget their names for many minutes or be unable to move. These are people who are truly, legitimately responding to suggestion.”
Kreskin made 198 appearances last year around the world, and his star has recently burned more brightly as a result of mind-boggling appearances on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and CBC-TV’s The Hour, and after the release of the film The Great Buck Howard, a fictional account of his career, starring John Malkovich.
Kreskin said the miserable, cantankerous character Malkovich portrayed is nothing like him, but the great actor did nail his mannerisms, particularly his vigorous method of shaking hands.
In May, Kreskin induced Fallon to become so rigid that he was able to place the talk show host across a pair of chairs and stand on him. Fallon remembered nothing.
“We don’t listen to each other anymore,” said Kreskin, decrying the trend of western societies to become increasingly impersonal and desensitized.
“We are becoming in the western world a socially dysfunctional society. We are on boxes, we are on digital things, and we are not talking to each other. We don’t know how to sit with someone we are close to and not speak. People can say a lot, even when they’re not speaking.”
One of Kreskin’s most renowned tests is having his audiences hide his performing fee at the end of every performance. He has failed to find it only nine in about 6,000 tries. One of those failures, he said, cost him $51,000 — money for a gig in New Zealand that was turned over to a hospital for disabled children.
He once found his cheque hidden inside a stuffed turkey, and another time tucked inside a man’s mouth under his dentures.
Some of his greatest achievements are explored in his new book Kreskin Confidential, in which the mentalist invites readers behind the scenes of his performing life.
Kreskin got his start in television in the early 1970s with the show The Amazing World of Kreskin, which was an international hit produced in Ottawa.
Canada, he said, is like a second home.
“My career really started in live television, where there was no turning back,” he said, adding that television today has lost its credibility because there is no way of telling what is authentic or what is contrived.
Kreskin said he has maintained his integrity by not employing any tricks, gadgetry or technology in his shows. He has lasted in show business because the secret to his craft is not tricks, but rather a mysterious, innate ability that truly dazzles audiences.
“I have offered for years $50,000 to anyone who could prove I employed paid secret assistants or confederates,” he said. “When the movie The Great Buck Howard came out I dropped it and now, to anyone who can prove I use secret confederates, assistants and electronic devices, I will pay $1 million.”
The performer has logged more than three million showbiz miles worth of air travel.
“You have to be gypsy to be in this business. I love it. I love my audiences,” he said, adding that his powers have increased with age. “My life is an evolution, and for that reason I never tire of what I do.”
Renowned for his year-end predictions, Kreskin is beginning to get glimmers of what the future will hold. The current economic crisis, he said, could prove to be a great opportunity.
“We’ve become in some areas of our culture self-indulgent, with a sense of entitlement,” he said. “And I think this is going to start to change.”
He sees a trend toward less dependence on interaction through technology and a return to basic, face-to-face human interaction.
“I think we are going to shut down a little bit of the technology and start to touch each other and become closer,” he said.
The Amazing Kreskin will perform Sunday at the River Run Ce ...
