In Real Time: The Amazing Kreskin Breaks his Silence about your Future and the Future of our World

The Amazing Kreskin is a mentalist who became popular on North American television in the 1970s. He was inspired to become a mentalist by Lee Falk's famous comic strip Mandrake the Magician, which features a crime-fighting stage magician. He has always presented himself as an "entertainer," never as a psychic, who operates on the basis of suggestion, not the paranormal or supernatural. From 1970 to 1975, Kreskin's television series The Amazing World of Kreskin was broadcast throughout Canada on CTV and distributed in syndication in the United States. The series was produced in Ottawa, Ontario at the CJOH-TV studios. An additional set of episodes was produced in 1975, billed as The New Kreskin Show. He appeared on The Tonight Show 61 times from 1970 to 1980. In the 1980s and '90s he came to prominence again through several appearances on Late Night with David Letterman. In 2009, he became the first guest to make three appearances on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Though Kreskin makes "predictions," he does not claim to have paranormal or clairvoyant powers, and does not like to be considered a "psychic." One of his best-known tricks is to find his own check for his current performance, if he doesn't find it, he doesn't get paid for that day. He instructs the audience to hide an envelope containing his paycheck, while he is escorted off stage and into seclusion by other members of the audience. He then re-emerges and hunts through the audience, almost always being able to ferret out the correct location. According to Kreskin, he has failed only nine times. Kreskin teaches classes for law enforcement groups, which "focuses on psychological methods such as jogging lost memories through relaxation techniques or detecting lies through body language and voice inflections." The 2008 movie The Great Buck Howard is based on the experiences of writer-director Sean McGinly, who worked briefly as Kreskin's road manager. He is still active as a live performer and appears regularly on WPIX in New York City, and annually on both the Fox News Channel and CNN to give his New Year's Day predictions for the coming year.