Max Maven

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Max Maven (born Philip Goldstein in 1950) is an American magician and mentalist. 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, 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, Penn & Teller, Siegfried & Roy, and Doug Henning, and is a frequent contributor to industry journals such as Genii, The Linking Ring, and MUM. He has also been the featured magician at the annual conventions of both the Society of American Magicians and the International Brotherhood of Magicians.

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".

Having performed often in Japan, he is quite fluent in Japanese, although by his own admission his literacy in the language isn't as proficient.

His name has been legally changed 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'.

Contributions

• See Genii 1981 March, Vol. 45, No. 3, page 167 for a list of all published works in print from 1965 to 1980.
• Phil Goldstein in Genii (Virtual book).
• Phil Goldstein in The Linking Ring (Virtual book)
• Phil Goldstein in MUM (Virtual book)

Selected works

• Max Maven's Book of Fortunetelling, 1992, Prentice Hall General. ISBN 0-13-564121-7
• The Art of Magic (book co-written with James Randi)
• Prism (2005) A compilation of five (colored) books of mentalism

Videos

• Max Maven's Mindgames (video) (1984)
• Max Maven's VideoMind Phase One: Parlor Mentalism (1997)
• Max Maven's VideoMind Phase Two: Close-Up Mentalism (1997)
• Max Maven's VideoMind Phase Three: Stage Mentalism (1997)
• VideoMind - Phases 1-3: Mentalism (3 volume DVD) (2004)
• Nothing (2006)

As Phil Goldstien

• New Magic of Japan (with Richard Kaufman) published by Kaufman and Greenberg in 1988.

References

• Cover Genii 1981 March
• Cover Genii 1983 October
• Cover Genii 2007 November

Quotes

• "There is nothing miraculous about puzzles. Competent mentalism is miraculous." March 1977, The Red Book of Mentalism.

External links and references

• Max Maven's Home Page

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