The Amazing Life of Ormond McGill
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The Amazing Life of Ormond McGill

Ormond McGill

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eBook - ePub

The Amazing Life of Ormond McGill

Ormond McGill

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About This Book

Ormond McGill has hypnotised audiences all over the world with his exciting stage shows. Here are some of the secrets of his success. "... fun-reading and additionally a resource of little-known information for magicians and hypnotists." Dr. Dwight F.Damon, President, National Guild of Hypnotists, Inc

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Part One

Conception of a Magician/Hypnotist

Chapter One

A Magician is Born

Somehow I always knew I was just a visitor on this planet; however, my birth certificate affirms I was born on June 15, 1913 at 5.15 p.m. in Palo Alto, California, USA. According to astrology, this makes me a Gemini (the Twins), as being a person with a sort of dual personality, as it were.
My mother was a relatively small woman with flashing brown eyes. Her maiden name was Julia Battele. She was born in Florida, spent her girlhood in Omaha and then moved to San Francisco where she met my father, Harry A. McGill, and said, “I do.”
My father was a gentle, soft-spoken man, who often told of having gone through the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Harry and Julia teamed up together to live their lives. And they did until death bid them apart. Their union resulted in the birth of me in 3D space.
Harry joined the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in Berkeley, California, while living in San Francisco. He worked in that East Bay City for 15 years, and then was appointed telephone manager in Palo Alto. His work included the entire district from Redwood City to Mt. View.
Harry and Julia performed the magic of conceiving me one night in La Honda, a vacation spot in the West Coastal Mountains. Today, it takes less than an hour to get to La Honda from Palo Alto. It was a full day’s trip by horse-and-buggy in 1912. Nine months later I was born in a brown shingle house on Fulton Street in Palo Alto. That makes me a native son of the town. Anative son of Palo Alto is rare these days, as it has grown from a community to a thriving city adjacent to Stanford University.
Palo Alto in Spanish means “tall tree” or an approximation thereof. The old redwood tree still stands by the Southern Pacific Bridge, at the entrance to the city. Palo Alto is known as an educational center. Today it lies in “Silicon Valley”, a capital of the electronic industry. Many famous people lived there who contributed to world progress. Novelist Mary Robert Rhinehart wrote her stories there. Artist Swinnerton, creator of “Little Jimmy” and “The Canyou Kids” had his studio there. DeForest discovered the vacuum tube in Palo Alto, which revolutionized radio. Two young men, starting in a garage, advanced to Apple Computer fame. Hewlett Packard, from a small beginning in the town, became a billion dollar industry in electronics. And, of course, Stanford University nurtured many a prolific mind. Truly, Palo Alto was a creative place to grow up in. A few childhood memories stand out 

I recall my mother mentioning that she named me Ormond, using the last name of a friend she had known in Omaha. She also gave me the middle name of Dale. I have used this very seldom. Mostly, Ormond McGill is quite enough for identification.
I recall my father saying, “There is something different about Ormond.” What the difference was I haven’t the slightest idea. Maybe he had a premonition that I would grow up to be a magician/hypnotist if that can be called “something different”.
Most assuredly, I have always had a yen for the mysterious, which Einstein expressed so magnificently in saying, “The most beautiful and profound thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead for his eyes are closed.”
I recall my father going frequently to Army Station Camp Fremont in Menlo Park, a neighboring town to Palo Alto, to collect nickels from the pay telephones during World War I. My birth and his job kept Harry out of the service, but he did his share. He would bring the sacks of nickels back to the car (we had an old Overland at the time) to be counted later in his office. Frequently, slugs were used to make the phone calls instead of nickels. The nickels used, at that time, were “Liberty Heads”. Wish I had kept them; they are worth far more than a nickel now!
Occasionally I would go with my father to help carry the bags of nickels. One night, on returning to the car, a dog was sitting on the front seat – an Eskimo dog of the most affectionate nature. Somehow he had the good sense to sit in that car, as it would give him a happy life with people who liked dogs. He was obviously a dog of value, so we advertised for his owner to claim him. None showed up, so we kept him and named him “Sport”. He was the first dog I knew who became my friend. Also, a few other animals joined my family from time to time. I have always had a soft place in my heart for animals.
Another childhood event I still vividly recall was seeing fairies dancing in a bush across the street from my home on Forest Avenue (we moved there shortly following my birth) in Palo Alto.
The strange illusion of the “dancing fairies” is still clearly etched in my memory. I did not understand it then anymore than I understand it now. I saw a number of what appeared to be dainty little people dressed in flowing white garments, dancing amidst rose bushes. They vanished shortly, and I have witnessed nothing like it ever again. Possibly it was the imagination of a child, as I was quite an OZ book reader. All I can say is that it remains as definite an experience as any I have marveled about in this lifetime. In any event, it provides a nice memory of childhood days, and, in its way, was my first encounter with magic.
Some memories are not so pleasant. One that especially stands out in my mind is of an experience at an amusement park in La Honda, California, when I was bitten by a monkey. A small chimpanzee was chained to a post and people were allowed to feed him pieces of apple. When it was my turn, I held out a piece to him, and, in my childish excitement, dropped it as he was about to take it. I reached down to pick up, and the monkey, thinking I was trying to take it away from him, grabbed my arm, pulled my hand to his mouth, and bit deeply into my right forefinger. Blood poisoning set in. Fortunately, my mother knew how to use flaxseed poultices to draw out the infection and my arm was saved, but it is not an experience I would care to repeat. I still carry the scar on my right forefinger.
I started school at the age of seven, one year later than most kids did, but it worked out all right. Palo Alto had a good school system. In 1923, my father changed jobs and we moved to Berkeley for a year. In Palo Alto, my scholastic work was average; in Berkeley, I was a “genius”, as they were a year behind in the curriculum. It was fun while in Berkeley but not much fun when I returned to Palo Alto, as I was a year behind my classmates. It took some private tutoring to catch up.
It was to my classmates, in the fifth grade of grammar school, that I did my first magic trick. I have always had an interest in chemistry, so the trick I did was the popular one of “Wine and Water”. It was an ambitious trick for a kid to do, but my father helped me prepare it. I learned it from a book on chemical magic; the effect and “how to do it” go like this:
A glass pitcher half-filled with water is shown along with five empty glasses. The magician pours water into the first glass, wine into the second, water into the third, and wine into the fourth. Then, he pours the contents of the first and second glass back and forth, and they both become wine. He pours the contents of the third and fourth glasses back and forth, and they both become water. The first and second glasses of wine are poured back into the pitcher, making a pitcher of wine. The third and fourth glasses of water are poured into the pitcher, and the wine visibly changes to water. The pitcher seems filled with water, as it was at the beginning of the trick. For a surprise climax, the magician then pours water from the pitcher into the fifth glass, and it changes to milk!
It was a good trick then and still is. Years later I saw it performed by a famous magician billed as “Think-a-Drink Hoffman”, as the opening effect in his vaudeville act at the Golden Gate Theater in San Francisco.
Here’s how to do it using harmless chemicals:
From a drug store, get a bottle of strong phenolphthalein solution. Fill a second bottle half-full with powdered tartaric acid; then, fill the bottle to its top with water. Fill a third bottle half-full with potassium carbonate and make a solution by adding water. The chemicals for performing the trick are now ready. You also need five glasses and a clear glass pitcher with enough water in it to fill four of the glasses.
To prepare for the exhibition, arrange the glasses in a row on the table, and into the first glass place one-half teaspoon of potassium carbonate solution; into the second glass place a few drops of phenolphthalein; into the third glass place a teaspoon of the tartaric acid solution; into the fourth glass place a few drops of phenolphthalein; and into the fifth glass place one teaspoon of the phenolphthalein solution.
You are now ready to perform the trick.
Pour water from the pitcher into the first glass, filling it about two-thirds full. The water mixes with the clear solution of potassium carbonate in the glass and looks like water. Pour the contents of this glass back into the water pitcher. This makes a mild solution of potassium carbonate in the pitcher. Again pour the “water” from the pitcher into the first glass and place it on the table as a glass of water.
Then, pick up the second glass and pour the “water” from the pitcher into it; a chemical reaction occurs and the glass appears to be filled with wine.
Pick up the third glass and pour the “water” from the pitcher into it; it mixes with tartaric acid, but as no visible reaction occurs it passes for a glass of water.
Pick up the fourth glass and pour the “water” from the pitcher into it. The visible results, on your table, will be two glasses of water and two glasses of wine that appear to have been poured from a pitcher of water alternately.
Now comes more magic. Pick up glasses No. 1 and 2 and pour the contents back and forth between them. The result appears as two glasses of “wine.” The “wine” is poured from the glasses into the pitcher, which results in the contents of the pitcher turning red. You show it to the audience as a pitcher of wine.
Now, pick up glasses No. 3 and 4 and pour the contents back and forth. The result appears as two glasses of “water”. The “water” is poured from the glasses into the pitcher, and a chemical reaction occurs which appears to change the “wine” in the pitcher back to water.
To climax the trick, pour the “water” from the pitcher into glass No. 5, and you end up with what appears to be a glass of milk, as the concentrated phenolphthalein forms a milky solution.
The trick went over great with my classmates, and their acceptance gave me the confidence to perform more magic in the future. Really, it was rather bold of me to perform the trick, as I was a shy child. So shy, in fact, that when my folks visited friends I would prefer to stay out on the porch until refreshments were served. Refreshments have a remarkable way of curing shyness.
Shy as I was, I never seemed too bothered standing before a group; possibly, it was an inborn sense of theater, as I liked to dress up in costumes and pretend to be different characters.
I recall being a clown, a policeman, a cowboy, and an Indian. I even recited some poetry before a church audience and won a prize. Then, magic came along in the form of a Gilbert Mysto Magic Set under the Christmas tree, and a magician was born.
Chapter Two

Early Adventures in Magic

It was not until I started high school that my “career” in magic really took off. I was 14 at the time. The year was 1927, and the Tarbell Home-Study Course in Magic was being nationally advertised in all the major magazines. I wanted to take the course. My folks were a bit concerned that it might interfere with my studies, as I was just entering high school. However, Principal Walter Nichols assured them it would be the best thing in the world for a boy to have magic as a hobby.
Walter Nichols, what a fine man he was. We became good friends over the years; he even stooged for me one night during a “Stunt Show” at Palo Alto Union High School (“Paly Hi” as it is affectionately known). He pretended to become hypnotized and walked zombie fashion from his seat in the audience onto the stage. It caused a sensation at the school that some remember to this day. Some remember Walter Nichols through his work in the literary field; his book, Trust A Boy has become a classic.
And so, I took the Tarbell Course in...

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