|
The Zancigs
Julius and Agnes Zancig were stage magicians and authors on occultism who performed a spectacularly successful two-person mentalism act during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Julius Zancig (1857–1929) – born Julius Jörgensen in Copenhagen, Denmark – and his wife Agnes Claussen Jörgensen (c.1850s −1916) – also born in Copenhagen, and known as Agnes Zancig – were the originators of the routine. The Zancigs managed to fool many spiritualists into believing they had genuine psychic powers. Julius later confessed that their mentalist acts were based on a complex code that they had utilized. Career Julius Zancig in his early career worked in iron smelting. Julius and Agnes had been childhood sweethearts in Denmark but grew apart, then met and fell in love again after both had emigrated to the United States. They were married in 1886. Julius later became interested in mentalism and with Agnes, took a mind reading act to the stage. From their first professional a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mentalism
Mentalism is a performing art in which its practitioners, known as mentalists, appear to demonstrate highly developed mental or intuitive abilities. Performances may appear to include hypnosis, telepathy, clairvoyance, divination, precognition, psychokinesis, mediumship, mind control, memory feats, deduction, and rapid mathematics. Mentalists perform a theatrical act that includes special effects that may appear to employ psychic or supernatural forces but that are actually achieved by "ordinary conjuring means", natural human abilities (i.e. reading body language, refined intuition, subliminal communication, emotional intelligence), and an in-depth understanding of key principles from human psychology or other behavioral sciences. Mentalism is commonly classified as a subcategory of magic and, when performed by a stage magician, may also be referred to as ''mental magic''. However, many professional mentalists today may generally distinguish themselves from magicians, insistin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north toward the East China Sea, Philippine Sea, and Taiwan in the south. Japan is a part of the Ring of Fire, and spans Japanese archipelago, an archipelago of List of islands of Japan, 6852 islands covering ; the five main islands are Hokkaido, Honshu (the "mainland"), Shikoku, Kyushu, and Okinawa Island, Okinawa. Tokyo is the Capital of Japan, nation's capital and largest city, followed by Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Kobe, and Kyoto. Japan is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eleventh most populous country in the world, as well as one of the List of countries and dependencies by population density, most densely populated and Urbanization by country, urbanized. About three-fourths of Geography of Japan, the c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Astrology
Astrology is a range of Divination, divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of Celestial objects in astrology, celestial objects. Different cultures have employed forms of astrology since at least the 2nd millennium BCE, these practices having originated in Calendrical calculation, calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications. Most, if not all, cultures have attached importance to what they observed in the sky, and some—such as the Hindu astrology, Hindus, Chinese astrology, Chinese, and the Maya civilization, Maya—developed elaborate systems for predicting terrestrial events from celestial observations. Western astrology, one of the oldest astrological systems still in use, can trace its roots to 19th–17th century BCE Mesopotamia, from where it spr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tobias Bamberg
Tobias "Theo" Leendert Bamberg (1875–1963) was a professional magician. Born in the Netherlands, Bamberg performed under the name ''Okito'' which is an anagram of Tokio (Tokyo). His father had been court magician to King William III of the Netherlands, making ''Okito'' the sixth generation in a family of outstanding magicians known as the Bamberg Magical Dynasty. Early life Bamberg was the son of Judic Simon Delden and David Tobias Bamberg. His family were Dutch Jews. As a young boy, Theo Bamberg nearly drowned while ice skating. The accident left him almost completely deaf and as a result, he performed entirely in pantomime. As a young man, inspired by a performance of the great French magician, shadowist and mimic Felecien Trewey, Bamberg developed a shadowgraphy routine which he performed professionally, beginning in his early teens. Early career In 1893, Bamberg created his first Japanese-style act in Berlin at the age of eighteen. Success was virtually immediate, but h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David (Fu Manchu) Bamberg
David Tobias "Theodore" Bamberg (aka Fu Manchu) (19 February 190419 August 1974) was an itinerant magician who traveled with his full evening magic show from the early to mid part of the 20th century. In Bamberg's autobiography, Robert Parrish wrote in the introduction that no other great illusionist could match Bamberg's skill.Bamberg, David. (1991). ''Illusion Show: A Life in Magic''. David Meyer Magic Books. The Fu Manchu show was known for its comedy, drama, and color.Tarbell Course in Magic Volume 5: Lesson 68, ''Magic of the Bambergs'', Harlan Tarbell. Bamberg was the sixth and final member of the Bamberg Magical Dynasty, a Dutch family of conjurers whose magical lineage was passed from each of the first-born sons. Early life Bamberg was born in Derby, the eldest son of Tobias Bamberg, who performed as "Okito", and his wife Lillian Poole, daughter of Charles William Poole, one of the brothers who ran the famous Poole's Myriorama traveling Diaroma show in England. His fath ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fighting occurring throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific, and parts of Asia. An estimated 9 million soldiers were killed in combat, plus another 23 million wounded, while 5 million civilians died as a result of military action, hunger, and disease. Millions more died in genocides within the Ottoman Empire and in the 1918 influenza pandemic, which was exacerbated by the movement of combatants during the war. Prior to 1914, the European great powers were divided between the Triple Entente (comprising France, Russia, and Britain) and the Triple Alliance (containing Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy). Tensions in the Balkans came to a head on 28 June 1914, following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brooklyn, New York
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, behind New York County (Manhattan). Brooklyn is also New York City's most populous borough,2010 Gazetteer for New York State . Retrieved September 18, 2016. with 2,736,074 residents in 2020. Named after the Dutch village of Breukelen, Brooklyn is located on the w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crystal Ball
A crystal ball, also known as an orbuculum or crystal sphere, is a crystal or glass ball and common fortune-telling object. It is generally associated with the performance of clairvoyance and scrying in particular. In more recent times, the crystal ball has been used for creative photography with the term lensball commonly used to describe a crystal ball used as a photography prop. History In the first century CE, Pliny the Elder describes use of crystal balls by soothsayers (''"crystallum orbis"'', later written in Medieval Latin by scribes as ''orbuculum''). By the fifth century CE, scrying was widespread within the Roman Empire and was condemned by the early medieval Christian Church as heretical. Dr. John Dee was a noted British mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I. He devoted much of his life to alchemy, divination, and Hermetic philosophy, of which the use of crystal balls was often included. Crystal gazing was a popu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scrying
Scrying, also known by various names such as "seeing" or "peeping", is the practice of looking into a suitable medium in the hope of detecting significant messages or visions. The objective might be personal guidance, prophecy, revelation, or inspiration, but down the ages, scrying in various forms also has been a means of divination or fortune-telling. It remains popular in occult circles, discussed in many media, both modern and centuries old. Definitions and terminology There is no definitive distinction between scrying and other aids to clairvoyance, augury, or divination, but roughly speaking, scrying depends on fancied impressions of visions in the medium of choice. Ideally in this respect it differs from augury, which relies on interpretations of objectively observable objects or events (such as flight of birds); from divination, which depends on standardized processes or rituals; from oneiromancy, which depends on the interpretation of dreams; from the physiological ef ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palmistry
Palmistry is the Pseudoscience, pseudoscientific practice of fortune-telling through the study of the Hand#Areas, palm. Also known as palm reading, chiromancy, chirology or cheirology, the practice is found all over the world, with numerous cultural variations. Those who practice palmistry are generally called ''palmists'', ''hand readers'', ''hand analysts'', or ''chirologists''. There are many—and often conflicting—interpretations of various lines and palmar features across various teachings of palmistry. Palmistry is practiced by the Hindus, Hindu Brahmins, and is also indirectly referenced in the Book of Job. The contradictions between different interpretations, as well as the lack of evidence for palmistry's predictions, have caused palmistry to be viewed as a pseudoscience by academics. History Ancient palmistry Palmistry is a practice common to many different places on the Eurasian landmass; it has been practiced in the cultures of Sumeria, Babylonia, Arabia, Canaan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cartomancy
Cartomancy is fortune-telling or divination using a deck of cards. Forms of cartomancy appeared soon after playing cards were first introduced into Europe in the 14th century. Huson, Paul (2004). ''Mystical Origins of the Tarot: From Ancient Roots to Modern Usage''. Vermont: Destiny Books. Practitioners of cartomancy are generally known as ''cartomancers'', ''card readers'', or simply ''readers''. Cartomancy using standard playing cards was the most popular form of providing fortune-telling card readings in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. The standard 52-card deck is often augmented with jokers or even with the blank card found in many packaged decks. In France, the 32-card piquet stripped deck is most typically used in cartomantic readings, although the 52 card deck can also be used. (A piquet deck can be a 52-card deck with all of the 2s through the 6s removed. This leaves all of the 7s through the 10s, the face cards, and the aces.) In English-speaking countries, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fortune Telling
Fortune telling is the practice of predicting information about a person's life. Melton, J. Gordon. (2008). ''The Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena''. Visible Ink Press. pp. 115-116. The scope of fortune telling is in principle identical with the practice of divination. The difference is that divination is the term used for predictions considered part of a religious ritual, invoking deities or spirits, while the term fortune telling implies a less serious or formal setting, even one of popular culture, where belief in occult workings behind the prediction is less prominent than the concept of suggestion, spiritual or practical advisory or affirmation. Historically, Pliny the Elder describes use of the crystal ball in the 1st century CE by soothsayers (''"crystallum orbis"'', later written in Medieval Latin by scribes as ''orbuculum''). Contemporary Western images of fortune telling grow out of folkloristic reception of Renaissance magic, specifically associated with Ro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
