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Show 'Master Mentalist' Finds Thought Reading Easier Than Addition; Challenges Skeptics Dunningcr Denies 'Supernatural' Aid, Credits Tcfepathy By ALBERT J. PUGNER Released by Wtitern Newspaper Union. Arithmetic was tough for Joe Dunninger. So he found an easy way to get the answers. an-swers. He just read them from the minds of his teacher and classmates. This was fun. so after school Joe tried reading others' minds. He soon found out, says he, that if a person would concentrate upon any simple question for a second, he could tell exactly what that person was thinking. think-ing. Today, 35 years later, Joseph Dunninger is still reading others' thoughts on the radio, over the telephone, tele-phone, and, previously, on the stages of America and most foreign countries. After relating how he discovered his thought-reading ability, Dunninger, Dunnin-ger, a tall, solid man with receding hair and searching eyes, emphasized: empha-sized: "There is nothing supernatural about my work, and I am not a fortune for-tune teller." Those are the words with which he usually opens his weekly performance per-formance before a visible and radio audience. A few seconds later he calls from his desk on the stage: "Someone is thinking of Harriet. Will that person please rise?" A woman in the audience rises. Dunninger asks her: "Have we ever met before, madame?" "No," she answers. "Very well," continues Dunninger. Dun-ninger. "You are thinking of a Har-riet' Har-riet' Davis. Her address is 6217 South Campbell street Is that correct?" cor-rect?" "Absolutely," gasps the woman. Dunninger calls out, "I seem to get a word that looks like Baylor. It seems to be a university." A military officer stands up. , "Is that your thought, sir?" The officer nods and Dunninger .calls out with great emphasis: "Do you swear that I have prearranged nothing with you and that you have not revealed this information to anyone any-one in the audience?" "I do, sir," answers the officer. "Very well," says Dunninger. "You are thinking of Baylor University Uni-versity in Wacd, Texas. You studied stud-ied there, and now you are thinking of the course you took. Chemistry and pre-medical. Is that right?" "It certainly is," answers the officer. of-ficer. Judges Check Show. Carefully watching these strange proceedings are three Judges seated near Dunninger. They are usually famous persons such as U. S. Sen. Hattle W. Caraway, Paul Whiteman, Judge Edward R. Koch of the New York Supreme court, and John A. Zellers, president of the Advertising Club of New York, all of whom have acted as observers on the program. Recently, MaJ. Lenox Riley Lohr, president of the Museum of Science and Industry, former general manager man-ager of the National Broadcasting company, acted as a judge and assisted as-sisted Dunninger in what was described de-scribed as "the greatest long distance dis-tance mental telepathy experiment ever attempted." Major Lohr. seated next to Dunninger Dun-ninger in Chicago, 111., telephoned Congressman William A. Rowan in Washington, D. C. He asked Rowan to select any volume of the Congressional Con-gressional Record, and then select any three words on any page of that volume. "Tell Mr. Rowan to put his finger on a word any word," instructed Dunninger. Major Lohr relayed the message. Dunninger quickly wrote something on a large white sheet of paper. "Now the second." he continued, con-tinued, and immediately wrote again. "And the third." he concluded. con-cluded. "Now," announced Dunninger, "I ask the Judges to initial this paper ' "V ' ( ' ' p . V 'fa S t . - i Ipg & 0 JOSEPH DUNNINGER, who bills hlmsell as the "Master Mentalist," sits at a desk before the studio audience during much of his program. Sometime he writes on a slate, or draws symbols that come to bim from his subjects' minds. The "Blue" on microphone refers to Blue network. I have written on so they can identify iden-tify it, and then to place it in an envelope en-velope and seal it." Then Major Lohr asked Rowan by telephone to reveal the words. They were "Thanksgiving," "unanimous," "unani-mous," and "consent." The envelope enve-lope was opened. One of the Judges read Dunninger's words. They were "Thanksgiving," "unanimous," and "consent." The paradoxical Dunninger constantly con-stantly insists that his work Is not related to the supernatural and in the same breath relates that he has asked the United States navy to let him make our battleships invisible to the enemy. He's a magician, too. When he gets bored reading minds, he might be found on a stage making an elephant or two disappear, disap-pear, sawing a woman into eight pieces, or, if the sawing makes her nervous, he'll just let her float in midair. But thought reading occupies most of his time these days. According to Dunninger, this is how it's done: "The sender must concentrate upon his thought The receiver does not try to form a preconceived idea of what the thought will be, but keeps his mind open and then accepts ac-cepts the first impression without question. "I usually vision a black slate and my impressions usually come in the form of white writing or images upon this slate." Sometimes Dunninger uses real slates, as he did in Chicago when entertaining a group of 4-H youths at their 22nd annual congress. The "Master Mentalist" called a young farmer to the stage, handed him a piece of chalk and a large slate, then told the youth to leave the room and draw any symbol upon the slate. This Time It's a Real Slate. Dunninger picked up another slate. Almost as soon as the youth had left the room the "Master Mentalist" Men-talist" drew a large dollar sign which he displayed to the audience. The youth returned and held up his slate. On it was a dollar sign. Dunninger hopes to try a variation varia-tion of this feat with Walt Disney of Hollywood soon. He will ask Disney Dis-ney to draw Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, or any other famous animated animat-ed cartoon character. Dunninger, seated in another room, or possibly possi-bly another city, will try to read Disney's mind and reproduce the character. "I am not an artist but I believe I can reproduce a fairly clear likeness," like-ness," he ventures. He probably will succeed. For although he says I frrf ... , ii vn THREE FAMOUS personages whom Dunninger has mystified. Thomas Thom-as A. Edison, the great Inventor, Barbara llutton, the heiress, and MaJ. Lenox Lohr, sciential and radio executive, who assisted la a startling experiment ex-periment on thought transmission by telephone. he Is not a musician, he succeeded in reproducing a bar of music written writ-ten by Paul Whiteman while the two men were separated by the thick walls of different broadcasting studios. "Of course," explains Dunninger, "I go out on a limb when I read single minds. Naturally, the more minds concentrated on the same subject, sub-ject, the easier it is to receive that subject. Therefore, in practicing thought reading, it is best to start out with a group of minds concentrating concen-trating on the same thought." Some of the famous minds Dunninger Dun-ninger has read are those of Theodore Theo-dore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, the duke of Windsor, Thomas Edison and Pope Pius XII. The "Master Mentalist" discusses his strange art quite freely. He believes be-lieves it could be developed for use in such fields as criminology, psychology psy-chology and psychiatry, but he thinks the time is a long way off, because so little is known as to the nature of thought reading. He believes be-lieves the reception is in the subconscious sub-conscious mind and "possibly may operate as a radio receiving set." A Mental Radio. His theory is that he figuratively twists dials until he hits wave lengths on which he receives messages mes-sages or images. Before a broadcast, he tunes up by walking through the audience as he distributes slips of paper on which they are to write their thoughts. These slips stay in the possession of the writers and everyone every-one is urged not to show his slip to anyone in the studio. "Those slips are the explanation of your mind reading act," wrote one person to Dunninger. "Somehow "Some-how or other you manage to read them, probably when you walk down In the audience." Another skeptic wrote: "You take the slips away from the people, read them, and return re-turn them without the audience realizing real-izing it" He disposed of the slip theories by reading several thoughts which had not been written down. "I ask people to write their thoughts," ex-plains ex-plains Dunninger, "because it usually usu-ally makes those thoughts clearer in their minds." As for walking in the audience, Dunninger says he does that "to become acquainted with my subjects. It seems to make the impressions come clearer and faster." fast-er." Skeptics Amuse film. Skeptics are constantly trying to explain Dunninger's work In terms other than telepathy. Sometimes this is a source of amusement says : he. ! "Two or three men Investigating i my work apparently were passing j notes to each other in the studio ; during one Sunday afternoon broadcast" broad-cast" Dunninger relates. "I kept receiving impressions of these notes. One note read: 'Dunninger walks down in the audience.' Another was: 'I'm a criminologist I don't get this.' Some day I'm afraid I'll em-barrass em-barrass one of these investigators by reading his note over a nationwide nation-wide hookup. "My work cannot be explained except ex-cept as telepathy, and my offer of $10,000 to anyone who can prove that I use confederates, employees, or stooges, still stands." |
