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Jon Racherbaumer

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Jon Racherbaumer
BornJanuary 22, 1940
Oak Park, Illinois
DiedOctober 22, 2024 (age 84)
CategoriesBooks by Jon Racherbaumer

Jon Racherbaumer (b.1940-d.2024) spent his early years in Elmhurst, Illinois (Harlan Tarbell’s hometown), a western suburb of Chicago. His interest in magic was sparked by seeing Dr. Tarbell perform in 1950. Tarbell’s daughter, Marian, was involved in community theater with Jon’s mother at the time. Soon thereafter, he received his first magic book, Tarbell Course in Magic – Volume 1, on his eleventh birthday. After discovering that Dr. Tarbell had donated his entire course to the local library, Jon spent many hours diligently studied each volume along with other magic books in the library.

Biography

Jon joined the Mazda Mystics Club (Juniors) in 1953, a club started by Russell Shaw and his wife in Oak Park, Illinois. Meetings were held in the basement of the Mazda Magic Shop. He maintained his interest throughout his schooling and thereafter when he moved to New Orleans in 1963. The Big Easy, home of the Mardi Gras, jazz music, and voodoo, is often called the Dream State, an ideal place for all things magical to ferment. From 1957 to 1965, Jon attended four universities and worked at various jobs: radio programmer, disk-jockey, promotion man, salesman, restaurant manager, male model, tree-trimmer, blackjack dealer, construction worker, warehouseman, program consultant (voluntary health agency), institutional house-father, social worker, gym instructor, bartender, ambulance driver (at a race track), and finally he went to work for Eastern Airlines from 1965-1990 as an airlines business person.

He eventually joined the International Brotherhood of Magicians and the Society of American Magicians in 1966, is a member of the Order of Merlin, and is a Lifetime Member of the Magic Castle in Hollywood, California. He worked as an Associate Editor at Richard Kaufman’s Genii magazine and currently writes "On the Slant," a monthly column. He was a columnist and contributing editor to Stan Allen’s MAGIC Magazine for six years and has been the Parade Editor for the Linking Ring since 1991. He writes a regular column ("THe Artful Ledger") in Antimony magazine, a quarterly. Additionally, he was an active columnist for Joe Steven’s Gemini Magic Network. He has contributed columns to M-U-M (“At The Table”) and scores of tricks and articles to various magazines: Genii, The New Tops, M-U-M, Linking Ring, The New Pentagram, Blue Print, Precursor, The Looking Glass, The Conjuror, and Apocalypse. He has published over 60 books and is a recipient of a Literary Fellowship from the Academy of Magical Arts and Sciences and the Milbourne Christopher Literary Award.

Jon’s mentors were Ed Marlo and Eddie Fields; however, at different times he was inspired by Channing Pollock, Cardini, Don Alan, Albert Goshman, Chan Canasta, Tony Slydini, Finn Jon, Lennart Green, Tommy Wonder and Juan Tamariz. His (magic) literary influences are Martin Gardner, John Northern Hilliard, Walter Gibson, Ted Annemann, Bruce Elliott, P. Howard Lyons, and Victor Farelli.

His other interests were: body-building, literature, book-collecting, martial arts, philosophy, poetry, film, theater (theory), cosmology, painting, and mathematical recreations.

He had seven children (Karen, Michael, Jona, Jonathan, Erika, Robynn, and Ry) and ten grandchildren (Lindsey, Matthew, Thomas, Sasha, Autumn, Ben, Adam, Allyssa, Sophina, and Koko).

Bibliography

Publications

  1. The Artful Dodges of Eddie Fields (1968)
  2. On the Clock Effect (1971)
  3. The Universal Card (1972)
  4. Further Flight (1973)
  5. Hyper-Twist (1975)
  6. Kabbala Three (Lou Tannen)
    1. Suppressed edition (1975)
    2. Printed edition (June - 1976)
  7. Lecture Notes 1 (1976)
  8. The Mandarin Mystery Coin (1976)
  9. The Ascanio Spread (book) (1976)
  10. Card-Coins (1977)
  11. Good Turns (1977)
  12. Arch Triumphs (1978)
  13. Kabbala - Volume 1 (October - 1980)
  14. Kabbala - Volume 2 (March - 1981) This includes the missing issues 9-10-11-12.
  15. The Lost Pages of Kabbala (May - 1981)
  16. Card Finesse (1982)
  17. Lecture Notes 2 - IBM Convention (1982)
  18. The Card Puzzle and Other Diversions (1983)
  19. Marlo Without Tears (1983)
  20. Racherbaumer's At The Table (1984)
  21. Don England's Gaffed to the Hilt! (1985)
    1. A collaboration with Don England and Richard Kaufman
  22. Cardfixes (1990)
  23. Lecture Notes 3 - European Lecture Tour (July - 1991)
  24. Synergistic Sandwiches (1991)
  25. Cavorting Ladies (1991)
  26. The Wild Card Kit - First Edition (1991) spiral-bound
  27. Cabbages & Kings (1991)
  28. Lecture Notes 4 - Another Roadside Attraction (1991)
  29. The Wild Card Kit (1992) - hard-bound edition
  30. Back To The Future Classic (1992)
  31. Vintage Marlo - Volume One (1992)
  32. Pastiche (1992)
  33. Flashpoints: Edward Marlo's Full Tilt and Compleat Devilish Miracle (1992)
  34. Big-Easy Card-Cunning (1992)
  35. Chronopoly (1992)
  36. Card Finesse II (1992) hard-bound
  37. Inside Tracks - Lecture 5 (1992)
  38. Psi-Clones (1992)
  39. Compleat K.M. Move (1992)
  40. Imitations, Intimations (1993)
  41. Pastiche II (1994)
  42. Recycle (1994)
  43. Magie Duvivier (1996)
  44. Arcade Dream (1997)
  45. The Greater Artful Dodges of Eddie Fields (1997)
  46. Conn-Fidential (1997)
  47. Provenance (1997)
  48. The Amazing Cigar (1998)
  49. The Legendary Hierophant (1998)
  50. The Legendary Kabbala (1998)
  51. Gene Castillon's Redoubling the Double Cut (1999)
  52. In a Class by Himself: the Legacy of Don Alan (2000)
  53. Dust Motes in the Gird (2000)
  54. Grifty Business Memes to Quicken (2001)
  55. No Pipe Dreams: Trade Secrets of Mike Rogers (2002 - unpublished)
  56. Prime Moves (2002)
  57. Arch Triumphs 2.0 (2003)
  58. Counthesaurus - Volume One (2005)
  59. Sankey Unleashed (2004)
  60. Marlo on Erdnase (2007)

Periodicals

THE HIEROPHANT (1969-1980) 

 1 - Fall (September) 1969
 2 - Winter 1969
 3 - Spring (March) 1970
 4 - Summer (June) 1970
 5-6 - Fall-Spring 1970-71
 7 - Resurrection Issue (1975)
 8 - The Last Hierophant (June-1980)

THE KABBALA 

 Volume 1 (1-12) September 1971 - August 1972
 Volume 2 (1-8) September 1972 - April 1973 (four issues missing)

AVATAR 

 1 - July, 1973
 2 - August, 1973

PIDDLINGS & PETTIFOGGERY 

 1 - January, 1972 - 50 Xerox copies

STICKS & STONES: A Leaflet for the Left Hand 

1-12  (January 1977 - December 1977)
13-24 (January 1978 - December 1978)
  This leaflet was part of Son of Bat Jr. (Lloyd Jones)
  96 pages, complete

THE OLRAM FILE 

 Volume 1 (1-12) December 1990 - June 1992
 Number 13 (September-1992)
 Numbers 14-16 (1993)

SWIPE 

 1-7 (March 1991 - December 1992)

RACHERBAUMER PAPERS 

 I - September, 1991
 II - December, 1992

MODUS OPERANDI 

 1 - March, 1993
 2 - June, 1993
 3 - September, 1993
 4 - 1994
 5 - 1994
 6 - 1995
 7 - 1995
 8 - 1996

MARLOPHILE 

 1 - 1994
 2 - 1995

THE LOOKING GLASS (with Richard Kaufman and Stephen Hobbs) 

 1 - 1995
 2 - 1996
 3 - 1997
 4 - 1998

FACSIMILE 

 1 - September, 1983
 2 - 1994
 3 - 1995
 4 - 1996
 5 - 2016
 6 - 2017

OBITER DICTA: Dust-Motes in the Grid 

 27 installments (available through Joe Stevens' GeMiNi Network)

FOREIGN EDITIONS 

 The Very Best of Kabbala (Richard Vollmer) 1981
 The Very Best of Hierophant (Richard Vollmer) 1985
   These are translated into French

EDITED and RE-WROTE: 

 Hauntiques (Christian Chelman)
 Vis-a-Vis (Jack Avis)

Technical Editor (with Mark Levy): 

 Magic For Dummies (1999)

References

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