KRESKIN’S E.S.P.
The Amazing Kreskin is a world-renowned mentalist from America (see
FT162:20). He was huge in the 1960s and 1970s, appearing on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson
many times. In 1967, he worked with Milton Bradley to create the board game
ESP, which came complete with a swinging pendulum and also had an accompanying vinyl album from International Records. I asked Kreskin about the game and its impact...
“I’d been designing a game that I felt could tap into the unconscious, and yet make use of an item that has found its way through decades in various scenarios, including occult situations, and that was the pendulum. This was not meant to be a fortune telling device, and while the package appeared as a game, it became expanded remarkably for many people as a tool. It soon became a device that businessmen would use to tap into questions they had in mind. For this reason, the game expanded as a powerful part of my career.”
How involved was he in the creation and design of ESP?
“In designing the game over a period of many months, I had the opportunity of privately testing it in a variety of settings, including an office which I had for eight years with a clinical psychologist, Dr Harold Hansen. His quarters were in the Essex County area of New Jersey, and I would see sometimes as many as 30 of his patients a week and would use certain areas of the pendulum for therapeutic purposes. It became clear to me that a certain percentage were using the device for personal and business reasons to tap into their inner thoughts.
Having been involved in over 86 crime cases as a consultant for law enforcement, I used the game as a convenient tool in investigating a crime. The version designed for businessmen sold thousands.”
Kreskin’s high profile on TV was a big help in promoting the game, which, he recalled, “ended up being played on almost every major television talk show, around the world, even when I went to Japan. It was played in languages I didn’t even speak, and this fascinated Johnny Carson.”
Kreskin clearly still has a soft spot for the game. “I own copies of the various versions. I have used it hundreds of times as a demonstration. One of the dramatic moments, both publicly and privately, took place when the Milton Bradley company gifted me with a handmade wooden, one-of-a-kind version of the game, which I have on display in my office. It was made for me in celebration of the over one million copies of the game being sold in a little over a year.”
It’s now more than half a century since the game’s creation, and I wondered when was the last time Kreskin had actually played it.
“That was probably only weeks ago, but I did not play it as a game. I used it as a demonstration. I suspect each year that I probably demonstrate this version of the game on dozens and dozens of occasions. Understand that the game was never promoted by yours truly as an occult piece, but the fact that it dealt with tapping into the unconscious gave it tremendous appeal… an appeal that at times became special in individuals’ lives that were searching for other avenues of solutions and communication. Don’t you know that some of the seminars I’ve presented though the years brought the game into a setting in which as many as 700 people sat in an auditorium, each participating with a game in their laps? I’ve done scenarios on the Internet with private programmes in which people purchased tickets to be involved with the game.”