(AichG PR)

George Joseph Kresge was in third grade when he discovered his unusual talent, spurred by a game called Hot and Cold. His teacher sent one student outside the classroom—Kresge distinctly remembers it was young Jane Hamilton—while his classmates hid a beanbag. When Jane returned to the classroom to look for the beanbag, other students would call out “warm” if she got close, and “cold” if she wasn’t.

George was frustrated that he didn’t get his turn to play. On his way home from school that day he and his brother Joe went to their grandmother’s house. He asked Joe to hide a penny somewhere in the house. Without asking for any hints, George went to an upstairs bedroom, climbed up on a dark red chair and reached behind a curtain rod—and there was the penny. The Amazing Kreskin had found his calling.

The Amazing Kreskin is a magician, a mentalist, and an entertainer. He does card tricks, and has been banned from casinos around the world. He seems to read minds, but has never used confederates or assistants to suss out people. Don’t call him a psychic. He just reads people really well. Kreskin has been performing for 70 years. Even at 12 years old, he made what he considers big money—$5. He appeared on hundreds of talk shows, 88 times on The Tonight Show alone. Now 81, he shows no signs of slowing down. In 2014, his combined radio, television and concert appearances added up to 364.

“My career has been like an adventure, “ he says.

Kreskin just published his 20th book, In Real Time, which is his “reflection on how things are going to change in the months and years to come. A lot of what’s taking place now, the handwriting has been on the wall for years; we just have to pay attention to history.”

The veteran entertainer will be in Maryland this weekend for the next chapter of his adventure, appearing at the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention in Hunt Valley. Kreskin is also excited about his upcoming Off-Broadway appearance at the Producer’s Club in New York, where his show “Will the Real Kreskin Please Stand Up” Opens for a one-week run on September 26. He chatted with DCist, without reading its mind.

You might wonder how an old-school performer continues to pack audiences of all ages, including a University circuit that he’s been working for decades. Asked how younger audiences take to him, he happily answers, “They’re as responsive and as enthusiastic as ever.” He makes curious note of the current wave of interest in ghost stories and the supernatural, suggesting that such peaks also occurred before the Civil War and the World Wars. “This staggering interest in the paranormal seems to come before every great turmoil in history…people search for answers beyond what they’re hearing every day because none would expect that any political figure would have answers.”

Kreskin comes from a religious family. His mother was from Sicily, his father from Poland. “I want to tell you now I revere Polish jokes,” he explains. “I have a sign in my office that says, ‘If anybody ever calls me Politically Correct, kick me in the ass!’” Kreskin’s parents thought their son was going to be a priest. “That would have wreaked havoc in the church, let me tell you! But I always knew that I was going to be in the area of show business and dealing with the mind.”

(AichG PR)

Still, he studied the mind and the spirit. At Seton Hall, a Catholic University not far from his home in Montclair, New Jersey, he majored in psychology and minored in religious philosophy. One of his childhood heroes was Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, who had popular radio and television shows. “He had a tremendous sense of humor.” Kreskin says. “When he accepted his Emmy Award, he said. “I thank you and I thank my writers: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.” I got to know him later in life. My religion was very close to me.”

“Can you imagine if Kreskin had become a priest?” Kreskin recalls Bishop Sheen telling this story. “Imagine little Johnny going to the confessional. Johnny stutters and hesitates and says, to Father Kreskin, ‘Father, I lied to my mother six times.’ Father Kreskin would tell Johnny, ‘You lied to your mother 10 times, and you know it! ‘ “

At all of Kreskin’s public concerts, he runs the risk of not getting paid. He gathers strangers from the audience to hide his check, and if he can’t find it, he forfeits his payment. “You got to admit that’s a helluva way to make a living,” he says.

There’s no guarantee he’ll find his check. A few months ago, he forfeited payment for only the tenth time in about six thousand shows. Once he approached an elderly man in the audience who he thought was hiding his check. With some trepidation, he asked the man to open his mouth; no check. Kreskin walked away—“you could hear a pin drop”—but something stopped him, and he returned apologetically to the elderly man.

The check was under his false teeth.

Talk show host Regis Philbin, speaking of Kreskin’s energetic greeting, calls that handshake the dream of every chiropractor. Surprisingly—or perhaps not—Kreskin has recently been training young boxers. While he’s not a boxer himself, he helps athletes not with physical strength, but with mental acuity. After working with Heather “The Heat” Hardy, who currently holds the WBC International Female Super Bantamweight title, she was better able to anticipate her opponent’s movements in the ring.

“I can’t train people to read thoughts,” he says, “but I can train people to tap into their inner resources. It’s something we are losing in our culture today; we’re not really learning to tune in on our inner selves as we once did. We’re not learning to pay attention to others as we once did. We’re so enamored of the machine in front of us. We’re not communicating as thoroughly as we once did. “

The Amazing Kreskin will be at the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention at the Hunt Valley Wyndham in Hunt Valley, MD from September 15-17. Celebrity hours are Thursday and Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. $20; tickets available at the door. Kreskin’s Off-Broadway show, Will the Real Kreskin Please Stand Up, runs at The Producers Club – 358 West 44th Street, New York, NY 10036, from September 26-October 1.