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| This week, James further explores the life and career of Criswell. |
"Like other skeptics, I once made the mistake of underrating the cold readers."William Lindsay Gresham, Monster Midway
Note: The search for information about Jeron Charles Criswell King is complicated by the multiple names that he employed up through at least the age of 40. He variously used Charles Criswell, Charles Criswell King and C.C. King as his legal name, while using Charles Cris King, Jeron Criswell, J. K. Criswell, King Criswell, and simply Criswell as stage names (along with the dubious titles of Doctor and Reverend). Similarly, his wife Myrtle Louise Stonesifer used Louise Howard, Halo Meadows, and Halo Vanessa as stage names. I will simply refer to them as Criswell and Louise.
The dawn of the 20th century found Hollywood a quiet place of orchards, farm fields, and scattered homes [1, 2]. A decade later, Hollywood Boulevard had been transformed into a wealthy residential street of stately mansions and impressively manicured yards [3, 4, 5]. The early 1920s saw the arrival of the film industry with a large number of movie studios, theaters, and shopping centers along Hollywood and Sunset Boulevards [6, 7]. The legion of workers needed to support the rapidly expanding industry drove an ever-growing need for dense residential development. By 1930 rural Hollywood and most of the stately mansions were a distant memory – replaced by bungalow courts, duplexes, and multi‐story apartment buildings [8]. Hollywood was not unique in this regard but mirrored development throughout the region. From 1900 to 1940, the population of Los Angeles skyrocketed from 103,000 to 1.5 million as it progressed from being the 36th to the 4th largest city in the nation.
The new arrivals brought with them an unprecedented diversity of beliefs reflective of a trend away from traditional religion that had been spreading across America since the mid-1800s. Among the new faiths to be found in Los Angeles were charismatic and esoteric Christian sects, spiritualism, New Thought ministries, Theosophy with its national headquarters [9], Guy Ballard's I Am Movement, ceremonial magic orders such as the Golden Dawn and Ordo Templi Orientis, as well as a host of lesser occult and metaphysical lights. The film industry, with its seductive subtext that all things are possible, multiplied the effect by attracting individuals dissatisfied with tradition and seeking to create a new life on the West Coast. Newspaper reports revealed 1930s Los Angeles to be "a seething mass of spiritual guides, mystics, fortune tellers, palm readers, and invented sects, with classified ads promising answers for seekers of love, fortune, a salve to their pain, or the access to a higher truth." Many movie stars immersed themselves in metaphysical practices and paid seers handsomely to warn them of astrological changes that might adversely affect their careers.
The reaction by Los Angeles officialdom to this increasingly influential subculture was anything but positive. Newspapers warned readers of charlatanry run amuck with cautionary tales of crooked gypsies and mediums [10]. City leaders suggested that fortune tellers should have to publicly demonstrate their powers or lose their licenses. Police investigated criminal gangs of psychics who extorted, blackmailed, and even sexually assaulted their followers. To the cynic, Los Angeles had become a "haven for psychopaths and confidence-workers of every stripe and degree… Its most elaborate commercial structures are mortuaries… the native Angeleno, who qualifies for such after a six-month residence, is a superior braggart, annoyingly boastful over what turns out to be nonexistent."
If independent accounts by Criswell and Louise are accurate, sometime in January 1940 they formed a small touring troupe of five actors and headed west from New York City. Along the way throughout the Mid-West, they performed Criswell's Dorian Gray at colleges and universities. The couple also sold the books they had written together to defray expenses. They most likely arrived in Hollywood in February and hit the ground running [11]. On March 9th Louise was cast in the Alhambra Civic Players production of Larry Johnson's farce Her Step-Husband presented at the Mark Keppel High School Auditorium (501 East Hellman Ave, Alhambra; still exists).
The couple garnered further press coverage when Criswell's play Love Life of Dorian Gray ran at the Footlights Theater (1455 Laurel Ave; redeveloped) from May 18th – July 7th [12]. Contemporaries recall that it contained shockingly overt homosexual implications for the time. The play's program contained a biography of Criswell that was the usual stew of facts, exaggerations, and falsehoods that seem to be the norm whenever he is concerned. Late in the play's run, Louise made a promotional appearance on the May 28th KMPC radio program With the Lamplighter After Dark [13].
With the run of Dorian Gray ended, on July 7th the couple took out a one-year lease on the Hollytown Theater (1743 North New Hampshire Avenue; opened in 1933 by Ginger Rogers' mother [14]; redeveloped). Criswell and Louise resided at the theater and began working on a busy schedule of productions including standards such as Camille, the Passion Flower, Romeo and Juliet, Joan of Arc, Hoosier Schoolmaster, Rip van Winkle; Louise's works: Women's Hotel, City Pace, Live Again, Clouded Pane; Criswell's works: Look to Heaven, Angel Breath, Sunrise, Span, The Indiana Venus; and their joint project Dancing Ladies. There is no newspaper confirmation that any of these productions ever made it to the stage.
Setting aside the couple's wish list of future performances, we can say the following for certain. Their joint production of Hamlet ran from July 10th – July 16th. The following day Criswell's Love Life of Dorian Gray reopened for a limited engagement with the original cast members. On July 29th the couple announced that they were planning a future drama festival to be held in Sunbury, PA (Hamlet, Love Life of Dorian Gray). There is no evidence this festival took place despite the local newspaper regularly reporting on such events.
Autumn 1940 brought repeated press notices of other people's work being presented at the Hollytown Theater. September 9th saw Leon Matevosian directing Maxwell Anderon's Winterset. Criswell and Louise took a break from managing the theater and traveled to Yuma, AZ where they applied for a marriage license on September 20th [15]. In October, casting calls were held for Beauty and the Beast and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. December saw Robert Johnson directing Marguerite Pearson's Into Each Hour and a production of Knight Comes to Hollywood by Isabella Vara and John Leslie Hamilton.
The beginning of 1941 provided a hint of financial problems at the Hollytown Theater. On January 2nd Criswell ran newspaper advertisements stating that the theater was available for rent. Although hidden from view, the couple's interest in metaphysics clearly had not waned. From January 8th – 11th they held a free Psychic Festival at the theater [16]. It featured two female seers who predicted that the Second World War would end on November 6th that year with the death of one of the dictators. Well, not quite. Although by that day it was becoming clear that Germany's "roll-of-the-dice" attack on the Soviet Union had stalled and a brutal winter was bearing down on the inadequately clothed invaders. Stalin also gave a radio address that day pointing toward a future coalition of the U.S., Britain and the USSR that would prove to be Hitler's undoing.
The cavalcade of non-Criswell/Louise productions at the Hollytown Theater continued into 1941. January 28th saw the opening of Heartbreak Avenue, a comedy written and directed by Ward Jonte. On April 16th it was Here Today by George Oppenheimer which ran into mid-June. June 16th saw the opening of the Hollywood Players' Guild in Legal Injustice. Criswell and Louise's lease on the theater expired in early July; it was apparently picked up by the Hollywood Players' Guild. The only other activity noted for the couple in 1941 was the start of a series of Letters to the Editor written by Louise and sent to The Los Angeles Evening Citizen News. Her missives generally covered social issues such as animal rights and expressed a metaphysical outlook on life. The newspaper would publish Louise's letters regularly until 1945.
The start of 1942 found Criswell and Louise living at 2017 Argyle Avenue (current-day Argyle Building) [17]. They resided there through at least 1950. The couple's metaphysical activities since hosting the previous year's psychic festival are not known. On January 11th Criswell appeared as a speaker at Reverend Mae Taylor's Spiritualist Science Church (1904 Argyle Avenue; redeveloped). A week later, the Rev. Taylor's group held another gathering at which Louise gave a reading and performed a piano solo.
On May 22nd the suddenly Reverend and Mrs. Jeron King Criswell entertained thirty members of the English Psychic Society at their Argyle Avenue apartment. The guest of honor was the "acclaimed" London medium Mrs. Stella Heaton-Barnes. (Stella Barnes was the 66-year-old wife of British machinist Heaton Barnes. In the British Isles, hyphenated surnames have traditionally indicated pedigree and social standing, as the nobility and gentry used this mechanism to preserve aristocratic family names which had died out in their mainline. Accordingly, hyphenated surnames were often falsely adopted by poseurs in an attempt to gain social respectability.) The next day, the Society announced that it would hold all future meetings at the Hollywood-Roosevelt Hotel (7000 Hollywood Blvd, still exists) [18]. By the end of May, Criswell suddenly credited himself with a Doctor of Divinity degree and was primed to begin making his mark on the Los Angeles metaphysical scene.
From April through mid-August, Criswell appeared weekly at English Psychic Society meetings held at the Hollywood Hotel [19]. A wide variety of mystical demonstrations occurred at these meetings. Stella Barnes went into a trance and relayed messages from a deceased Chinese spiritual master. Eva Mayer performed jewelry psychometry – a form of ESP whereby the seer gains facts or impressions about a person or thing through contact with an object associated with them. Child medium Nancy Dekker (8-year-old Nancy Rae Dekker from Roswell, NM) and Frederic Vernier (California-native Frederic Louis Vernier) gave psychic readings. Dr. Mag Mekka – a Chicago native who travelled across North America performing mental and physical feats including hypnotism, walking over broken glass, and plunging his hands into molten lead – performed a spirit bell demonstration (a stage magic routine dating from the mid-1800s). Mercia Montagu (San Francisco native Marcia Doyle who was listed on voter rolls as a metefician, i.e. metaphysician) answered direct questions with psychic insight. Louise played piano interludes and gave psychic vocational guidance.
Criswell was the most versatile of all of the alleged mystics at these meetings. He was described as a "Preter-Natural Prophet" (beyond what is normal or natural) and his performances included one or more of the following demonstrations:
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| Professor Marvel: master of cold reading. |
1. Audience and Proving Readings: In an audience reading, the seer relates facts about an audience member (subject) that they could not know by normal means. In a proving reading, the seer demonstrates either proof of reincarnation or survival after death by providing the subject with seemingly confirmatory information or messages from a deceased loved one. Such performances are forms of "cold reading" (a magic trade term for fortune-telling on a subject the seer knows nothing about ahead of time). Through observation and deduction of the subject's appearance, body language, ethnicity, apparent educational level, manner of speech, etc., the seer provides a formulaic reading to them that is tailored to cause the subject to unwittingly supply personal details which are fed back to them in the form of an apparent mindreading. This method can be shockingly convincing in the hands of a skilled practitioner exploiting confirmation bias and the Barnum Effect (the tendency for people to give high accuracy ratings to vague, generalized statements).
2. Flower Readings (aka flower psychometry): The subject is asked to select a flower that they feel drawn to from a vase or a deck of cards featuring pictures of flowers. The seer then employs symbolism, observations about the flower's appearance, and cold reading techniques to craft a message which provides apparent insight into the subject's current life situation.
3. Prophecy for the Upcoming Month: Predictions about disasters, political events, societal turmoil, events in the lives of the rich and famous, etc.
4. Sand Divination: An ancient form of divination based on patterns seen in sand that has been randomly scattered onto a flat surface. Symbols or pictures in the sand are interpreted to inform future events.
5. Reading sealed ballots/billets: Blank slips of paper are distributed to audience members who are asked to write a question they would like answered on the paper and to sign it. The slips are then either folded up or sealed in a provided envelope, and then mixed up. Pulling one slip at a time, the seer psychically divines its question, the name of the questioner, and provides an answer. This is a well-known stage magic routine going back to the mid-1800s for which there are many documented techniques (one-ahead method, palming/switches, etc.).
In mid-August 1942 Criswell suddenly broke with the English Psychic Society and formed his own National Psychic Society. His new group met at the Hollywood Hotel while the English Psychic Society shifted its meetings to the Canterbury Hotel (1746 North Cherokee Avenue, still exists). Dueling advertisements for the two groups began appearing in local newspapers [20, 21]. During the latter half of the year, Criswell's group increasingly drew away members and performers from the English Psychic Society despite the apparent health of the metaphysical scene as evidenced by the profusion of weekly newspaper ads [22]. Stella Barnes' group dwindled down to the point where she held meetings in her home at 1622 ½ North Vista Street (still exists). Barnes and her English Psychic Society disappeared entirely after the New Year.
Criswell ran weekly ads in newspapers such as the Daily News, Los Angeles Times, and Los Angeles Evening Citizen News. He headlined some of his group's earliest meetings with Norvell, a well-established Los Angeles psychic since the 1930s [23]. Norvell was actually New York native Anthony Trupo, a stage actor who came to Hollywood and practiced his soothsaying skills on fellow thespians. By the early 1940s he was a well-known "astrologer to the stars" and president of the World Astrology Association. Other regular performers with Criswell and Louise that autumn were the mediums Maryverne Jones (a Fresno native who departed the psychic scene after 1942) and Lora Elza/Lorenza Oelze (Lorenza Magdelina Lovan [1895-1982]; a well-educated and well-known local aviator who was the owner/manager of San Diego Airport) [24], Eva Mayer (the jewelry psychometrist they met through the Barnes group), Anna E. Bear (an 85-year-old "spirit painter"), and Cherry Jensen (N. Cherry Jensen, 1835 American Avenue).
At the end of August, several changes in Criswell's National Psychic Society were apparent. From this point on, it would primarily be known as the Church of the Inner Voice [25]. It's leading members now bore titles that seemingly sprang into existence overnight like mushrooms following a rainstorm. The Rev. or Rev. Dr. Jeron King Criswell [26] was the group's Pastor and his wife Rev. Louise [27] was the Associate Pastor. Newspaper ads heralded Criswell as "America's Foremost Medium" and stressed that the group's meetings were an "All Message Service. Everyone will be reached with a spirit message." Private readings were also available for a fee.
By the beginning of October 1942, meetings were being held three nights a week: Sunday (Robed Ceremonial Service), Wednesday (Psychic Society and display of spirit paintings), and Friday (Celestial Message Circle). Among the groups activities were discussion forums on reincarnation, demonstrations on how to use your inner voice, and lectures on all manner of metaphysical topics such as astral travel, the kabbalah, and preternatural perception. It's unclear what parts of Criswell's earlier stage performances survived into this period. He was certainly still making psychic predictions, providing personal readings, and demonstrating survival after death. Increasingly however, Criswell delivered lectures with titles such as "God Has No Dimout," "The Divine Sales Tax," "Economic Prophecy," and "World Prophecy 1943." Starting October 31st all meetings were held in the afternoon due to wartime blackout regulations.
Norvell made a public reappearance in the couple's life in mid-October. He was running a Wheel O' Fortune astrology contest in the Los Angeles Times and by "sheer coincidence" his previous acquaintances Louise [28] and Criswell [29] were declared among the winners on October 18th and November 30th, respectively. Meanwhile, the couple had embarked on a relaunch of The Sins of Dorian Gray. As a result, the Church of the Inner Voice's activities were temporarily suspended from November 12th through December 12th. When the group resumed operations on December 13th, meetings were shifted to the Temple of Divine Light (5017 Sunset Blvd; redeveloped).
Criswell closed out the year on December 26th by speaking on "Your New Era" at the Progressive Spiritualist Church (5400 Hollywood Blvd; redeveloped). On that same day, newspapers reported that Norvell was cast in The Sins of Dorian Gray to be staged at the Trouper's Playhouse (1642 N. Las Palmas Ave; current-day Sound Nightclub) [30]. In reporting this development, newspapers repeated the claim that Norvell was reprising a role that he had played in summer 1935 at the Greenkill Theater in Kingston, NY. (See Part 1 of this article for a discussion of why this date is not possible.)
January 1, 1943 saw the opening of The Sins of Dorian Gray at the Trouper's Playhouse [31, 32]. It was Criswell's fourth bite of this particular apple, but nothing had changed. The reviews were savage. Nevertheless, Sins was performed until at least February 10th. Through late January Criswell hosted several meetings at the Temple of Divine Light, at one point lecturing on "The Inner Utopia" and channeling messages from beyond.
On February 20th Criswell spoke about "Universal Prophecy" during a Universalism meeting held at the Hollywood Hotel. Other speakers included author Frank Scully (who later earned fame for his UFO writings) and David Sturgis (founder of the Universalism Cooperative System). Five weeks later Criswell appeared on-stage as a chain-gang fugitive in a production of Vincent Godfrey Burns' I Am My Brother's Keeper staged by the Universal Theater at the Hollywood Hotel. On April 17th Criswell spoke on the "Universal Revue" at another Universalism meeting.
Perhaps the most significant event of 1943 for Criswell was his shift toward some ill-defined form of metaphysical Christianity. By late April, his group had morphed into the Liberal Church/Liberal Methodist Church and was meeting under Pastor Reverend King at 5417 Hollywood Blvd (redeveloped) [33]. His lectures were now being called sermons. On June 24th it was reported that writer Rex Elgin (known for his script and continuity work on the 1936 exploitation film Marihuana) had sent a female doll named Jomo on a goodwill tour of the United Nations. When the doll returned to Los Angeles, Pastor Criswell would use ESP to recount her experiences. There was no follow-up newspaper coverage of this curious undertaking.
August through October 1943 was a period of intense activity for Criswell's church as it held a series of weekly revivals with events almost every night [34]. Criswell and Louise were described as mediums and spiritual-evangelists. Criswell again performed various forms of stage magic including prophecy under trance, healing prayers, ballot and flower readings, as well as giving lectures with messages like "Let us Share the Light of the Gentle Christ Together." Lora Elza and child-medium Nancy Dekker returned to ply their craft. They were joined by Dr. Alice Snitzer (evangelist), Dr. Granville Forbes Sturgis (Christian author, actor, psychiatrist), Lady Muriel Cordeaux (Canadian author, journalist, world traveler) [35], Victoria Scott, and Cristina Lillie. Perhaps the most curious participant in Criswell's revivals was Ditra Flam(m)e, a self-proclaimed psychic and "teacher of Theban culture" who performed an Egyptian fire ritual [36]. The Ontario (CA) native was an adoptee born Princess Orvella Wilson, aka Ditra Helena Mefford. She was an evangelist, vaudeville dancer, and violinist who was most famously known since 1927 as the mysterious "Lady in Black" who visited the grave of film legend Rudolph Valentino each year on the anniversary of his death [37, 38].
Amidst this flurry of activity, The Hollywood Reporter on August 16th observed that Val Lewton's production of the movie The Ghost Ship was employing "Dr. Jared Criswell, former pastor of the Fifth Avenue Spiritualist Church, NYC" as technical consultant on the topics of psychic phenomena and ESP. Criswell was expected to apply his theories on cast members. I have been unable to find any trace of a "Fifth Avenue Spiritualist Church" during the time that Criswell spent in New York City (September 1929 – December 1939).
From November 1943 through September 1944 advertisements for all metaphysical organizations largely disappeared from Los Angeles newspapers for reasons which remain unclear. Perhaps it reflected a need to devote more space for war reporting. When advertising returned on September 23, 1944, the Christian veneer was gone from Criswell's group and it was back to calling itself the Church of the Inner Voice. Meetings were now held twice a week at the Alladin Studio (5440 Hollywood Boulevard; redeveloped) [39]. Criswell lectured on such topics as "The Secret Law of Dismissal" and demonstrated reincarnation through audience readings. On October 29th he conducted memorial services for his cousin, Pfc. Harold A. Criswell, who was killed in France the previous month. At the start of November Criswell lectured on the "Conquest of Pain" and "Youth Reclamation."
Another large gap in newspaper records exists from early November 1944 through late April 1945 as few copies of the Daily News in particular have been digitized from this time period. Access to physical newspapers is required to close this gap in the future. By April 27, 1945 at the latest, Criswell's events were taking place twice a week in a meeting room at the Garden Courts Apartments (7021 Hollywood Blvd.; redeveloped). Criswell lectured and provided the usual "Trance Message Service" [40].
1946 saw a continuation of meetings at the Garden Courts Apartments as well as the birth of the Criswell Religious Foundation, a group with some 150 local members. In the latter half of the year Criswell conducted small seances at the Hollywood Wilshire YMCA (1553 North Schrader Blvd; still exists) and the Long Beach YMCA (330 West Ocean Blvd, Long Beach; current-day Blackstone Apartments). Criswell's schedule for the Church of Inner Voice varied from two to three meetings per week. His lectures and predictions were increasingly high-level and impersonal such as "The Prophetic Pyramid of Gizah," "Coming World Events in 1947," and "The Prophecies of St. Odile, Lord Chesterfield and Davis."
As Edwin Lee Canfield previously described in his 2023 Criswell biography, 1947 was the year that Criswell made significant inroads into local media with his broad predictions on world events, societal trends, and the personal lives of celebrities. Group meetings continued at the Garden Courts Apartments: Monday (Predictions, Healing), Wednesday (Mastership Class), and Thursday (Useful Metaphysics). Criswell Religious Foundation activities and open classes on ESP, psychometry, psychology testing, and self-purification rituals occurred at a steady pace. Criswell also offered private instruction for a fee centered on growing personal power through psychic means. The frequency of his lectures increased and they covered an array of personal ("God-Magnetism for Success and Happiness"), abstract ("Is Soul Travel Pagan?"), and historical ("The Great Mormon Prophecies") topics. On November 4th Criswell debuted his first radio show on KFWB 980AM with co-host Leo Guild [41]. The 15-minute program entitled The Wizard vs. Criswell would last until the end of 1948 by which time it had become Criswell Predicts.
Immediately on the heels of entering local radio, Criswell landed a magazine article commission that would serve as his first step into the wider entertainment industry. The January 1948 issue of nationally-distributed Motion Picture Magazine [42] carried a four-page article of Criswell's predictions for Hollywood in 1948 [43, 44, 45]. The article's introduction included unverifiable and inaccurate boosterism about Criswell's prior achievements. It also provided a list of allegedly accurate predictions that he made in 1947. No source was given and a diligent search has so far failed to turn up any published predictions by Criswell that predate the Motion Picture Magazine article. His 1948 Hollywood predictions themselves were a relatively tame affair akin to a gossip column. They were certainly nothing like the over-the-top prognostications that lay just over the horizon and would ultimately become Criswell's trademark. In a delicious synchronicity, that issue of Motion Picture Magazine also featured a capsule review of the film Nightmare Alley (1947) [46]. Based on William Lindsay Gresham's novel of the same name, it is the classic tale of a mentalist whose exploitation of others through the "spook racket" (messages from beyond; proving life after death) leads to his downfall.
The first national newspaper accounts of Criswell's Hollywood predictions began appearing in mid-January. He had broken out of the Los Angeles Basin and there was no looking back. Some columnists, when introducing Criswell to their readers, went so far as to credit him with successfully predicting the 1948 Academy Awards. He actually went 0 for 2, or 1 for 3 if you wish to be overly charitable (William Powell was nominated but did not win for Best Actor; Linda Darnell was not even nominated).
In March 1948, Criswell's prognostications ("Accurate Glimpses of the Future") were syndicated by Atlas Features and graced newspapers and magazines across the country [47]. Readers getting their first glimpse of his evolving style were treated to columns bearing a veritable torrent of predictions, some of which were strange, paranoid or downright hysterical [48]. As Criswell's media career took off, he devoted less time to holding classes, lectures, and providing personal readings. By 1949 local events featuring Criswell had all but vanished, along with the Church of the Inner Voice and the Criswell Religious Foundation. He now had a stable career as a local radio personality, as well as a nationally-syndicated columnist and feature writer. Soon enough, he would be making nationwide radio, film, and television appearances. The Amazing Criswell had arrived.
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Two nagging questions about Criswell remain unaddressed by this narrative. The very nature of these questions and a lack of primary documentation render them unresolvable in all likelihood.
What was the catalyst that caused Criswell to pursue a career as a psychic?
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| Houdini, the great debunker. |
Aside from what Criswell may have gleaned through his youthful experiences and prior attendance at a spiritualist church, there were plenty of opportunities to learn his future craft while in New York City. Manhattan had a vibrant nightclub scene featuring mentalists as entertainers. By his own account, Criswell was acquainted with the next step down – the gypsy tea shops. Always within easy reach were the well-known magic stores of Louis Tannen (45 West 34th Street) and Martinka (493 Sixth Avenue) to supply any required knowledge.
When he moved to Los Angeles, Criswell stumbled into an embarrassment of psychic riches. The region was home to an alternative spirituality scene dwarfing anything he had previously encountered in New York City. Add to that the presence of four different magicians' supply stores in the Los Angeles area including the Hollywood Magic Shop (6274 ½ Hollywood Blvd). Is it any wonder then that Criswell and Louise hosted a free Psychic Festival when they managed the Hollytown Theater?
Did Criswell believe that he had psychic powers?
Magicians Penn and Teller have observed that mentalism is "a kind of magic that can be used immorally and is mostly used immorally." Many performers have promoted themselves as genuine psychics while others have stated that their skills were the result of extensive study and practice. Regardless of exactly where lines are drawn, few would argue that it is ethical to knowingly claim false powers and then use that claim to exploit others. Yet, this has been the historically common practice among self-described psychics.
In the wake of the movie Ed Wood (1994), the received wisdom for many is that Criswell acknowledged himself to be a fake. ("Eddie, we're in show biz! It's all about razzle-dazzle. Appearances. If you dress nice and talk well, people will swallow anything.") [51]. According to Canfield (2023), Criswell admitted to close friends that he was a fraud and denied having any psychic abilities. Yet other friends disputed this and said that Criswell told them that he had a gift which was lost when he started taking money for it. A number of Criswell's friends and associates never wavered from their belief in his psychic powers. In a February 1948 interview, Criswell's mother claimed that her son was neither a psychic nor an astrologer but "just an apt student and a sponsor of Professor J.B. Rhine and his work in Extra Sensory Perception and Parapsychology." Once he had gained a national spotlight, Criswell altered course and never explicitly described himself as a medium or a psychic but stated that he made predictions based on "trend, precedent, pattern of habit, human behavior, and the unalterable law of cycle!"
It's hard to imagine that Criswell was not consciously putting on fraudulent performances from 1942 to 1945 (at least). He was presenting time-worn magic acts like billet reading and variants of cold reading to believers as something that they were not. When performed purely as entertainment for small sums of money, there are no ethical concerns. But when these same acts are used to manipulate undereducated or emotionally distraught individuals (e.g., offering psychic advice for a fee), then ethical lines are severely breached. This is not to deny the real skill involved in these unsavory deceptions. An astounding amount of applied psychology goes into the work of seemingly reading a subject's mind and plucking from it incidents that no one else could know about.
We don't know why Criswell shifted away from his crassly exploitative performance style toward making impersonal predictions that were unlikely to harm anyone. Perhaps he had suffered moral qualms all along. Or perhaps it was the realization that there were much richer fields to be harvested in the entertainment industry with the right kind of message. As his national career in print took off, Criswell increasingly stressed that he did not solicit money for advice nor would he make predictions on questions involving legal or medical matters. The Amazing Criswell was ultimately nothing like the Reverend Jeron Criswell. By the time he appeared on The Jack Parr Show and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in the 1960s, the Amazing Criswell had become a campy parody of a mentalist summoned on-stage merely to supply comic relief [52].
Sources:
- Daily News (Los Angeles)
- Evansville (IN) Courier and Press
- Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (Ontario, CA)
- Los Angeles Evening Citizen News
- Los Angeles Times
- Morristown (TN) Gazette Mail
- Press-Telegram (Long Beach, CA)
- Sherbrooke (Quebec) Daily Record
- South Pasadena (CA) Review
- The Daily Item (Sunbury, PA)
- London Forum (incorporating The Occult Review), volume 35, p. 307.
- Canfield, Edwin Lee, 2023, Fact, Fictions, and the Forbidden Predictions of the Amazing Criswell, Oxford (UK): Headpress.
- Criswell, 1968, Criswell Predicts From Now To The Year 2000!, Anderson (SC): Droke House Publishers.
- Gresham, William Lindsay, 1953, Monster Midway, New York: Rinehart & Company, Inc.
- Gurantz, Maya, n.d., "Mothers of Magic - Diving into Archives for Early Californian Spiritual Practice," Los Angeles Archivists Collective (web link)
- Lait, Jack and Mortimer, Lee, 1952, U.S.A. Confidential, New York: Crown Publishers.
- Penn & Teller, 2021, Arts and Entertainment: Mentalist or Crook (web link)