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, Vol. 45, N° 3, March 1981, 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)

Selected works

• Max Maven's Book of Fortunetelling, 1992, Prentice Hall General. ISBN 0-13-564121-7
• Max Maven's Mindgames (video) (1984)
• The Art of Magic (book co-written with James Randi)
• VideoMind - Phases 1-3: Mentalism (3 volume DVD) (1997)

Quotes

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

External links and references

• Max Maven's Home Page

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