Maurice Jack Fogel (7 July 1911 – 30 October 1981) was a British magician and

mentalist 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, precogniti ...

. He described himself as "the world's greatest mind-reader". Lamont, Peter. (2013). ''Extraordinary Beliefs: A Historical Approach to a Psychological Problem''. Cambridge University Press. p. 220.

Career

In 1948, on the BBC radio Fogel made the claim that he could read peoples minds. This intrigued the journalist Arthur Helliwell who wanted to discover his methods. He found that Fogel's mind reading acts were all based on trickery, he relied on information about members of his audience before the show started. Helliwell exposed Fogel's methods in a newspaper article. Although Fogel managed to fool some people into believing he could perform genuine telepathy, the majority of his audience knew he was a showman. Fogel also became well known for performing the famous

bullet catch The bullet catch is a stage magic illusion in which a magician appears to catch a bullet fired directly at them ⁠— often in the mouth, sometimes in the hand or sometimes caught with other items such as a dinner plate. The bullet catch ma ...

. Six rifles were used in his routine. Five of these had genuine bullets and one had no bullet. The rifles were mixed up and one was selected to be fired directly at Fogel."Maurice Fogel. The master showman dodges the bullet!"
Remarkable Magic.

Publications

*''Fogelism'' (1949) *''Top Secret Series: No. 1 The Gambling Ghost'' (1961) *''Top Secret Series: No. 2 The Fortune Formula'' (1962) *''Maurice Fogel Gives Himself Away'' (1978)

References

External links

Maurice Fogel on the Bullet Catch
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fogel, Maurice 1911 births 1981 deaths British magicians Mentalists

Career

Publications

References

Further reading

External links