Entertainer and mentalist The Amazing Kreskin dead at 89

The Amazing Kreskin, a mentalist and entertainer who captivated generations of TV audiences, has died at age 89.

Kreskin’s friend and former road manager, Ryan Galway, told news outlets that Kreskin — born George Joseph Kresge Jr. — died Tuesday at his home in Caldwell, N.J.

Galway did not provide additional details, but wrote in a post on LinkedIn that he was “beyond heartbroken.”

“I know you know what I’m still thinking,” he wrote.  

Galway said Kreskin was known for his “extraordinary mind-reading abilities and captivating performances,” and his “uncanny” ability to predict complex events, including multiple Super Bowl outcomes and presidential election results. 

A post announcing Kreskin’s death on his official X page Tuesday evening read, “Performing for all of you brought immense joy to his life, and it was something he deeply cherished.” It followed with a reply saying, “As Kreskin always said at the close of his shows, ‘This is not goodbye, but to be continued.'”

In a later post, the X account said there are “10 more days until his retirement,” referencing mid-2010s interviews in which Kreskin said he will not retire until 10 days after he dies. 

Kreskin launched his television career in the 1960s and remained popular for decades, making regular guest appearances on talk shows hosted by everyone from Merv Griffin to Johnny Carson to Jimmy Fallon.

He spent much of his early career in Canada. His show The Amazing World of Kreskin was broadcast across Canada and syndicated in the U.S. in the 1970s.

Kreskin’s talents unsurpassed: mentalist

Daniel Paulin, a Canadian mentalist, magician and escape artist, remembers being inspired as a kid watching Kreskin on TV.

“When we grew up in the ’70s, we were locked on the TV. All of us were laying on our bellies with our fists under our chins staring at the television and we couldn’t believe what was happening,” he said. 

Paulin still has his old Kreskin’s ESP board game from childhood. It was a game made in the 1960s that was supposed to help players test and develop their own extra-sensory perception skills. 

Paulin said he always appreciated how Kreskin interacted with the audience, and how he referred to himself as an “entertainer” rather than implying he had talents that were unreachable for other people. 

Kreskin often stressed he was not a psychic, mind reader or hypnotist, but that he used body language cues and the power of suggestion to guide people’s actions.

“When we look at all the greats that are performing now, I think we would all agree that nobody has done it, or will ever do it, like Kreskin did,” Paulin said. 

Some of Kreskin’s favourite crowd-pleasing mind tricks included correctly guessing a playing card chosen at random, or — most famously — divining where his paycheque had been planted among the audience.

Sometimes, the cheques were found in absurd places like in the stuffing of a turkey or inside a man’s mouth. If he could not find his paycheque, he said he would forego payment for the show. 

Kreskin began offering $1 million US to anyone who could prove he used secret assistants or hidden devices.

He also gave live performances and wrote numerous books, including Secrets of the Amazing Kreskin and Mental Power Is Real. 

Kreskin’s act was about ‘capturing the mind’

“I use the term mentalist because what I do deals with how people think,” he said in a 2009 radio interview with CBC. “It isn’t a magic act. The essence of what I do is capturing the mind.”

Although he was a regular on talk shows, American radio personality Art Bell banned the performer from his show after a 2002 UFO stunt.

Kreskin claimed that a UFO would appear over Las Vegas on the night of June 2, and added that he would donate $50,000 US to charity if he was wrong. Hundreds of people gathered in the desert in vain.

Kreskin said he coaxed the crowd outside to make a point about how susceptible people are to manipulation, after the events unfolding since Sept. 11, 2001, made him realize that mind control could be used on the masses for nefarious purposes.

“I planted the seed,” he told The Las Vegas Sun. “Imagine how a person, especially today with mass communication, a person would cause people to talk about it and spread it. I am ready to go on national television to get a million people to act within 90 seconds. God forbid a person doing it for half an hour or an hour.”

Kreskin said in a video for online forum Big Think that it is still possible to perceive other people’s thoughts under the right conditions, with concentration.

But it was becoming more difficult in recent years as people got hooked on modern technology, he said, lamenting that people are distracted by their cellphones even when they are with other people.

“We need to listen to silence and not be afraid of silence,” he said. “And there are people who have reached a point where they are afraid of silence.”

A post on Kreskin’s Facebook page shared that Christmas was his favourite time of year, and that he loved decorating his house and hosting parties. 

In 2020, Kreskin spoke with CBC about his tradition of sending out 2,000 Christmas cards every year, including to reporters who had interviewed him years ago. 

When asked why he kept sending the cards, he told former CBC producer Kent Hoffman, “Because I love the holidays and the people who, in different ways, have touched my life, as you have. I don’t forget people. I really don’t.”