Radio Psychics
Radio Psychics

Author: John Benedict Buescher

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2021-08-24

Total Pages: 433

ISBN-13: 1476642354

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When radio broadcasting began in the early 1920s, the radio was a magic box aglow with the future, drawing humanity into a new age. Some thought it would dissolve the distance between time and place, others that human minds would become transparent, one tuned to another. Performers claiming psychic powers turned radio broadcasting into a fabulous money machine. These "mentalists," born from vaudeville, circuses, sideshows, and the Spiritualist and New Thought movements of the mid-late 19th century, used the language of wireless technology to explain their ability to see the past, present, and future. Casting their mystical knowledge as a scientifically honed craft, these mentalists persuaded millions to pay for dubious advice until governmental and public pressures forced them off the air. This book is a history of over 25 performers who practiced their art behind studio microphones during the early years of radio broadcasting, from about 1920 to 1940. Here, laid out for the first time, is the tale of how they made cash rain from the heavens and harnessed the sensation of the radio in search of wealth, health, love, and success.

Walter B. Gibson and The Shadow
Walter B. Gibson and The Shadow

Author: Thomas J. Shimeld

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2015-09-18

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 0786490055

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"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? . . . The Shadow knows!" And who knew The Shadow better than his creator, Walter B. Gibson. Relatively few people have heard of Gibson, but many more are familiar with The Shadow having heard the program on the Blue Coal Radio Program in the 1930s and read the Street & Smith Shadow novels. Walter B. Gibson's life and career come out from behind The Shadow in this biography. It covers his youth in Philadelphia, his development as a writer and magician, his wives, including the third, (Litzka, who was a harpist and magician in her own right), his time living in Maine and upstate New York, and his later years and death. In addition to being credited with creating The Shadow (he used the pseudonym Maxwell Grant), Gibson wrote 187 books, contributed 668 articles to periodicals, created 283 stories for The Shadow Magazine, wrote 48 separate syndicated feature columns, reported the adventures of The Shadow and Blackstone the magician in 394 comic books and newspaper strips, and helped develop 147 radio scripts and many other works under numerous pseudonyms. Gibson has invented many widely used magic tricks and traveled with and befriended Harry Houdini, Howard Thurston, Harry Blackstone, Sr., and Joseph Dunninger.