By April MacIntyre Aug 2, 2008, 19:02 GMT
The Amazing Kreskin is developing a reality TV show where he helps police with unsolved investigations.
Amazing Kreskin - POI Persons of Interest the latest mentalist adventure... © Janet Mayer / PR Photos
The project is titled, “POI: Persons of Interest,” and follows the work of Kreskin as he assists law enforcement in gathering information that may solve open missing-persons or criminal cases.
Once Kreskin was a staple on late-night television with the late Tonight Show host, Johnny Carson, whose character "Carnac" was a caricature of Kreskin.
Kreskin is best known for his ability to read people’s minds. He possesses a showman's flair laced with wit, and for over four decades he has dramatized facets of the human mind to skeptics and believers alike.
The Amazing Kreskin is touted by some to be the Nostradamus of the 21st Century.
Kreskin has previously credited the childhood influences of Mandrake the Magician comic books, radio/television pioneer Arthur Godfrey and magnetic televangelist Bishop Sheen for his career trajectory.
Born in Montclair, New Jersey, by age five he was besotted by magic, performing for the neighborhood children. He was just a teenager when he was nationally recognized as “The World’s Youngest Hypnotist,” allowing him to collaborate in psychological clinical studies existing in Parapsychology and the Power of Suggestion.
With a lifetime performing on stage, television and authoring books, the still hard-working Kreskin makes over 300 appearances worldwide annually.
Kreskin and his partner on the show, producer Katy Wallin, are shopping the half-hour series to cable networks and completed a pilot in which the mentalist helps solve a case involving Scott Javins, a college student from Indiana who disappeared in 2002.
Wallin, who said “POI” has been in development for more than a year, noted the similarities with CBS’ new police procedural drama “The Mentalist,” which joins the network’s schedule in the fall at 9 p.m. Tuesdays.
That series stars Simon Baker as a celebrity psychic who puts his observational skills to use working for law enforcement after the murder of his wife.
“There’s an uncanny similarity between our pilot and the forthcoming CBS series ‘The Mentalist,”‘ Wallin said. “There is one basic and major difference: ‘POI’ is not fiction and stars the real mentalist.”
Kreskin, who recently has been serving as a consultant to law enforcement and security personnel, created the project with Indiana state investigator John Kleiman. Kreskin said the project is “a great chance to bring closure to families who need it.”
Monsters and Critics had a moment yesterday with The Amazing Kreskin and asked him about the upcoming pilot.
You preceded the CBS' fictionalized "The Mentalist." Is your show truly reality or is there illusion and staged moments mixed in the action?
Kreskn: Regarding my TV Pilot POI Person's of Interest, it certainly did precede the CBS fictionalized "The Mentalist".
In fact, there's a strange irony to it, because as far back as more than a year, to be specific July of last year, there were a number of communications with the key person in programming at CBS regarding my series and a number of requests for clarification, as they were interested in finding out more and more about what my show dealt with, including requests to see parts of the pilot, some of which had been completed.
I will be the last person to suggest that they got the idea for their series from the pilot, which had been well constructed and worked on for over almost 2 years.
As a matter of fact having seen the CBS pilot some months ago, I would say it is more similar to the (USA) cable series 'Psych,' although I do think the cable series had far more humor than the CBS piece.
As far as the nature of the program, I don’t even want to call it a reality show, because as we know today so many reality shows are scripted, and you really can’t script the happenings as serious as crime without interfering with the judgment of those involved.
Naturally, interviews are formal in the sense that you are not taking people off guard, but as far as there being illusion in the program, there is none at all.
There is no trick photography, no illusion of any kind, and I would not have staged moments. That’s not the way the program works, which by the way suggests that many investigations could result in no solution or something of a solution…those are the facts of life and that’s the way real criminal work takes place.
I have a great concern about contaminating witnesses or people who come forth with information. I’ve said this for many years, before a variety of audiences, including legal programs, and that is some of the worst evidence that you can have in a criminal investigation and in a trial is eyewitness reports.
Such reports can be changed, contaminated and altered and only be delays in the crime investigation coming to fruition but also in the barrage of questioning done by the press and the media, since under those conditions the person is in a highly sensitive frame of mind and is highly impressionable.
What we need to analyze today, and I intend to teach about this, is that more than ever before in history public examination of criminal investigations has become a three-ring circus.
We now have mothers and grandmothers of missing children and kidnapped people showcasing themselves on TV, fathers appearing night after night on TV shows, and in the end the difficulty is for the investigator to sift through the public testimony and the private testimonial.
Because interviewers, especially on television, are seeking certain kinds of answers, as similar questions are asked day after day the person responding is giving their own now re-rehearsed answers, and the answers they give may in time become more their truth than the true answers they would have in a private interrogating situation.
I can show in a very dramatic demonstration, as I have in performances, how I can alter the memory of people from my audience whom I’ve never met before. So the testimony of human beings, honest and sincere, is still in question.
Now does anyone wonder why defense attorneys try to drag on and delay a trial as long as they possibly can? How did you come to consult law enforcement? Why were you called to this kind of work so late in your career?
Kreskin: My involvement as a consultant in law enforcement goes back 30-40 years.
I just kept this a secret because as a personal entertainer who spent my life reading the thoughts of members of my audience and appearing on television... I felt that this other life of mine was not to be part of my performing area or show business.
For years, police investigators have come to me inquiring as to whether I could further heighten recall of details by witnesses of crimes to get a clearer picture of what is going on.
But understand it had to be made clear by me when the initial inquiries came about that I am not a psychic, and I don’t talk to the dead, and so on.
As a matter of fact regarding talking to the dead, Houdini never did answer the telephone! But all kidding aside, all I was able to do was to offer my services as an alternate investigative tool.
There are a number of cases where I was able to help witnesses recall a license plate more clearly. The details of the situation that they couldn’t face up to much more dramatically.
In a case very recently of a prominent professional medical man here in New Jersey who tragically…and I stress tragically….was suspected of a robbery of a considerable amount of jewelry, I was brought in.
The family requested such, and I ended up in a home where all the witnesses were there. What is tragic is that the medical man was already considered guilty by the investigator, a very fine young man who was a police officer in the town for a number of years, but the “certainty” of guilt was because this medical man had failed a polygraph test.
I was outraged, partially because I could teach people to beat a polygraph test, furthermore because such is simply not reliable. The serious situation was, as I talked to all the people involved, the elderly couple who lived there, family of the elderly couple, girlfriends and so on.
I met with the officer at the end of the evening and insisted that none of them had any conscious memory of stealing jewelry, but that I was absolutely certain this professional man was innocent, in fact I would stake my reputation on it; a remark I rarely make as I am only 90 percent accurate in my work.
There was a screaming argument, and the gentleman left. I will not go into the details, but the suspect was not charged.
Talk about justice catching up.
Some time later when the heated battle was passed, the jewelry was found in a laundry chute in the very house in which we were. The elderly couple, whose memory had begun to deteriorate, had inadvertently thrown packages of the jewelry down the chute, covered by debris and unused sheets and blankets for over a year. They had no memory of it, but the bottom line is everyone was really innocent, especially the suspect.
Sometimes my public persona and appearances have resulted in dramatic turning points in crimes, turning points that are so bizarre that they sound like science fiction and certainly are not the rule of thumb, even in my investigatory work.
A few years ago an incident happened in Canada that was well publicized for days. I was appearing for the umpteenth time on a very successful nighttime show on the CTV network out of Toronto.
It starred Mike Bullard - and he and I built a strong bond because he was so conscious and believed very much of the legitimacy of what I do.
When I came to the studios, like any nighttime-type show, I sat in the green room talking to the staff and they pointed out that Mike was very preoccupied and upset; his car had been stolen a day or so before.
I said, get me the director during a commercial break. I explained to him that when I go on the air I am not going to perform…I know you expect me to read people’s thoughts, but be prepared for the first segment to be simply a conversation, not about my live performances or where I’ve been, but about something very serious. I went on the show, we had our usual meet and greet, and I brought up the stolen car.
He said Kreskin, I wish you could resolve this.
I turned to the camera, having cued the director earlier to get a close up, and looked directly into it instead of talking to the person who stole the car. Didn’t know who he was or where he was, but was willing to bet that he was watching the show.
How could he not watch the show of a man who was seen nightly by millions of people?
In the couple of minutes that I spoke to him I said, “Listen to me. You can’t resist what I’m saying. You’re going to return that car. It’s going to be on Friday (which was 2-3 days after we were doing the show), it’s going to be between the hours of 4:00 and 6:00, and it’s going to be at this location.”
And I said there is no way on the face of the earth you can turn down what I’ve just said to you.
That was the end of my comments. Needless to say, the electricity in the studio was extraordinary. The press the next day was questioning me whatever made me do this, but I refused to discuss it further.
I went back to the states and on Friday had just returned back from a performance when I started to receive calls from the press.
Yes, you guessed it. The car was found exactly where I said it must be found, and it was found within the 2 hour time frame I mentioned.
The first case shot, Scott Javins, a college student from Indiana who disappeared in 2002. How has the show's result affected his family, the police who were assigned this case?
Kreskin: Regarding the case of Scott Javins, the student who was found in a car after a few years of aimless lack of success in any searches that may have taken place, the show itself has had no real affect on the family, since, of course, the show has not been seen on the air.
But it helped the family in my bringing forth some kind of closure, if anything can be closure, by helping bring out from an individual who was in my theatre audience during a performance a memory that left him convinced he knew where the car was, where he’d last seen it in an area of water.
Incidentally, the follow-up is, as the family will relate, that is where the car was found.
- continued
As for how I feel about the police showing little or no interest in my being involved with the case, I can’t criticize them.
They probably are inundated with hundreds upon hundreds of so-called psychic calls. The family itself has been upbeat and hoping in a truly spiritual way that this will cause more and more people to come forward, people who may have been possible witnesses to crimes but are not certain if they were, or what they saw, or what they can remember.
I need to give a foot note to these remarks.
My life is that of an entertainer, appearing before banquets, corporate events, theaters from Carnegie Hall to State Fairs of some 20,000 people. My work in investigation of crimes is a contribution of my abilities that can perhaps some of society, but it would be very, very difficult indeed for me to do this day in and day out.
The impact of the tragedy that families and loved ones have gone through is just, at times, overwhelming.
Define what a mentalist is, versus an illusionist or a magician.
Kreskin: I have been called a mentalist, and now people are stressing that it be made clear that I be called a legitimate mentalist.
I have offered for years $50,000 to anyone who can prove I employ paid secret assistants or confederates in any area of my work.
My ability is that of tuning in and perceiving the thoughts of others, what they’re thinking of if they concentrate.
I am not foretelling their future. I also, as part of my framework of my work, demonstrate the power of suggestion and how I could influence people by what I’m thinking and what I’m saying, without producing a trance hypnotic condition or what have you.
The people are wide awake. I also make dramatic predictions, more worldwide and social nature, but not dealing with people’s lives, basically because I find that traveling as much as I do I’m able to tune in on the feelings of society and the direction society is going in.
http://www.therealmentalist.com/
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