Max Maven
Encyclopedia
Max Maven is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 magician
Magic (illusion)
Magic is a performing art that entertains audiences by staging tricks or creating illusions of seemingly impossible or supernatural feats using natural means...

 and mentalist
Mentalism
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 telepathy, clairvoyance, divination, precognition, psychokinesis, mediumship, mind control, memory feats and rapid...

. He often appears on television magic shows to perform "interactive" mind reading tricks that work for the television audience.

While his public persona and performances fall squarely within the genre of mentalism
Mentalism
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 telepathy, clairvoyance, divination, precognition, psychokinesis, mediumship, mind control, memory feats and rapid...

, Maven's contributions to the magic community span far wider. He is respected within the industry for being a prolific author and innovating many of the magical and mentalist effects that are used by other magicians. He has been a magic consultant for such performers as David Copperfield
David Copperfield (illusionist)
David Copperfield is an Emmy Award-winning American illusionist, and was described by Forbes as the most commercially successful magician in history. Copperfield's network specials have been nominated for 38 Emmy Awards and won a total of 21 Emmys...

, Penn & Teller
Penn & Teller
Penn & Teller are Las Vegas headliners whose act is an amalgam of illusion and comedy. Penn Jillette is a raconteur; Teller generally uses mime while performing, although his voice can occasionally be heard during their performance...

, Siegfried & Roy
Siegfried & Roy
Siegfried & Roy are two German-American former entertainers who became known for their appearances with white lions and white tigers....

, and Doug Henning
Doug Henning
Douglas James Henning was a Canadian magician, illusionist, escape artist and politician.-Early life:...

, and he is a frequent contributor to industry journals such as Genii
Genii (magazine)
Genii, The Conjurors' Magazine is the longest-running independent magazine devoted to magic and magicians in the history of the art. It was founded by William Larsen, Sr. in 1936, and run by his descendents until 1998, when it was sold to The Genii Corporation, headed by well-known magic author...

, The Linking Ring
The Linking Ring
The Linking Ring is a monthly print magazine, published by the International Brotherhood of Magicians. It is also available in electronic form to members of the IBM. All members of the IBM are entitled to receive this periodical. It was first published in 1923...

, and M-U-M. He has also been the featured magician at the annual conventions of both the Society of American Magicians
Society of American Magicians
The Society of American Magicians is the oldest fraternal magic organization in the world. Its purpose is "to advance, elevate, and preserve magic as a performing art, to promote harmonious fellowship throughout the world of magic, and to maintain and improve ethical standards in the field of...

 and the International Brotherhood of Magicians
International Brotherhood of Magicians
International Brotherhood of Magicians is the world's largest organization for professional and amateur magicians, with approximately 15,000 members worldwide. The headquarters is in St...

.

He hosted a 12-part series for England's HTV, "Something Strange with Max Maven", a talk-show exploring all aspects of the paranormal. The show set a ratings record, and led to a second series the following year. He also starred as the title role in FOX
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...

's 1994 Halloween special Count DeClues' Mystery Castle.

Maven occasionally plays a magician character (often as himself) on various television series, such as, "Magic", "The Art of Magic", "Something Strange with Max Maven", "Fresh Prince of Bel Air", and "The MAXimum Dimension".

His father, Phil Goldstein, was a professor of Astrophysics at Brandeis University. The finance blogger Emma Needleman is his cousin.

Having performed often in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, he is "quite functional" in Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

, although by his own admission his literacy in the language isn't as proficient.

Maven also appears as a part of the traveling science exhibit "Magic: The Science of Illusion" in the "Magic of the Mind Illusion," which has toured in science museums such as Los Angeles and Boston.
His name has been changed legally to Max Maven but he still uses "Phil Goldstein" as a pen name for technical writings.

In 2007, he won The Magic Woods Award for Best Teaching Video for his mentalism DVD "Nothing".

Selected works

  • Max Maven's Book of Fortunetelling, 1992, Prentice Hall General. ISBN 0-13-564121-7
  • Max Maven's Mindgames (video)
  • The Art of Magic (book co-written with James Randi
    James Randi
    James Randi is a Canadian-American stage magician and scientific skeptic best known as a challenger of paranormal claims and pseudoscience. Randi is the founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation...

    )
  • VideoMind - Phases 1-3: Mentalism (3 volume DVD)

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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