 A few days ago, on Facebook, one of my mentalist friends asked, “what do you find is the hardest part of writing a book for other performers”.
I pondered that question for a while before I decided the most difficult part for me is wording what makes perfect sense in my own head, in such a way that it makes sense to others. However sometimes, when it comes to certain aspects of Mentalism that I am particularly passionate about, I am often guilty of the assumption that other people are as enthusiastic as I am. This was brought home quite recently with the release of my latest DVD ‘Hanussen’s Demise’ when someone who had watched the promotional trailer and read the supporting information, emailed me to ask “what is the actual effect”? After re-reading the information I’d included on my website it became obvious that he was correct, without an insight into the life of Erik Jan Hanussen you wouldn’t know what his Telepathic Events routine consisted of, how it helped to catapult him to stardom and how it inspired my own ‘Hanussen’s Demise’ routine. Erik Jan Hanussen was a fascinating man and any mentalist would do well to read about his life. Born Hermann Steinschneider in Vienna in 1889 he was an Austrian, Jewish, hypnotist, mentalist, occultist, astrologer, clairvoyant performer and charlatan, who in his role as the man who predicted the rise and fall of Adolf Hitler, became known as the prophet of the Third Reich. He predicted the Reichstag fire, the event that allowed recently appointed Chancellor of Germany, Adolf Hitler, to seize absolute power in 1933, this was probably his most famous feat of clairvoyance, but also possibly the biggest mistake of his life, one which ultimately led to his assassination at the hands of the Nazi SA. But it is doubtful that Hanussen (a Jewish music hall performer) would have ever found himself with such influential and dangerous acquaintances within the Nazi party, or that he would have had the ear of the superstitious Führer, if he hadn’t risen to fame and fortune as a result of a court case where he was on trial for misrepresentation and fraud. During what had already proved to be a long drawn out case Erik decided the only way to break the judicial stalemate, was for him to recreate his psychic experiments live in the court room. On the 27th of May 1930 after various psychic readings Hanussen presented a routine which would dramatically change the remainder of his life. He called the routine ‘Telepathic Events’ The basic routine consisted of an experiment in which various members of the prosecution submitted dates and places to Erik, and while in trance he was able to provide details of what events occurred on the given dates. A simple idea you may say but Erik was now fighting for his freedom and his knowledge of human psychology coupled with acting and performance skills honed over a life time of thinking on his feet, left the court dumbfounded. The magistrate judging the case was convinced of Hanussen’s psychic ability and absolved him of all charges. The press then seized the story and catapulted him to fame and fortune as sensational headlines appeared in all the major European newspapers, headlines which read “Miracle in Leitmeritz. Hanussen acquitted, clairvoyance exists, legally confirmed, Hanussen can peer into the future”. It seems feasible to me that if Hanussen hadn’t performed his telepathic events routine on that day in 1930, which convinced the judge he had a legitimate psychic gift, Erik could well have ended up in a Czech prison cell, the European newspaper headlines would most likely have reported ‘Fraudulent Medium Convicted’, Hanussen would never have risen to stardom and come to the attention of some very dangerous people and history as we know it may have been very different. Such is the power of Mentalism when presented correctly. If you'd like to learn the version of Hanussen's 'Telepathic Events' I designed and have been performing since I first read the account of his famous court case, then please take a look at 'Hanussen's Demise'. Comments are closed.
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