This is definitely one of the most interesting and unique reading experiences for me this year. The moment I saw the title of this book, I felt it would be an interesting one to read, and it did not disappoint. If you enjoy history, especially reading about lesser known topics or more obscure things, this may be a book for you. If you enjoy reading about performers, mentalists, clairvoyants, etc., this may be a good book for you as well as it does have some discussion of that trade as well, including quotes and comments from Teller (of Penn & Teller). And if you happen to be a World War II or Nazi Germany history buff, you may to grab this one. In other words, there is something to interest various folks.

The strength of the book is in the narrative. Magida writes this book as if it was a novel. And even if you know the fate of Erik Jan Hanussen, the psychic in question, you still want to read through it. There are moments when you feel sympathy for the guy and moments when you say, "what was he thinking? Is he really that blind?" Those moments in reading help show that Hanussen was a complex individual. True: he was swindler; he was very selfish (looking after numero uno, so to speak), and he was quite the charmer able to live off his wits. But the guy was also quite the performer struggling to move in a world that was collapsing around him. It is quite the tragic story. It is well written, and the pace just moves along.

In addition, the book is very well researched as evident from the extensive notes at the end of the book. Also, there are some revelations (well, maybe to some). For example, where the Nazis stood when it came to the occult. It is commonly asserted that the Nazis were big on it, yet this book argues that it varied: some Nazis were indifferent, others embraced it. Also fascinating to see was how the Nazis used the clairvoyant for more than just his abilities. Hanussen often lent them money and bailed them out of debts, something he thought he could use as leverage. That and the fact that he pretty much became a Nazi mouthpiece, at least until they turned against him, and by then, it was the end. This detail may make a lot of readers wonder: why did he not leave Germany when he could? How could he not see what the Nazis would do? So on.

Overall, this is an excellent book that I do recommend. ( )

The book has a wonderful title, doesn't it? It titillates and intrigues, and coupled with the image on the cover it pretty much guarantees that anyone who sees it will want to pick it up. Nazis, the Occult, the very thought of a Jew being Hitler's psychic consultant for any amount of time? It's wondrous, and perhaps even more surprising, entirely true.

So why the two stars then, even if the rating is a rather high two star rating?

Unfortunately, it's for how much just isn't there.

[a: Arthur J. Magida|15654|Arthur J. Magida|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] did an impressive amount of research, but unfortunately when it comes to his chosen topic there just isn't a lot that remains. Interviews he conducted with people who had met Hanussen, or had seen him perform, are sadly short and not very much referenced. There appear to be few surviving letters from the man, and thus the image that we are stuck with of him is second or third hand more often than not. Even the interview with his daughter is tinged with a bit of confusion. Hanussen himself has become something of the illusion he desired himself to be. We know bits and pieces, but most of what we are relying on are stories and legends, changed and made sense of. We have to go on what remains in the end.

The most intriguing section was towards the end in reference to Hannusen's prediction of the Reichstag fire, but nonetheless I am left a bit baffled by the book. Did Magida, like Hannusen's own daughter, end up believing he had something of the clairvoyant in him for true? So much is lost in mystery, and this book left me desiring rather a lot more than what it contained. The author chose a wonderful subject to be sure, I just wish there had been far more information and primary sources in these pages. ( )

Weimar Germany, and especially Berlin in the 1930’s, was a desperate, eventually doomed, country and desperate places attract a wide variety of human detritus — gangsters, hoodlums, charlatans, psychics and psychotics — all brewed together into a lethal mix that led eventually to the creation of the Nazi regime.

Thriving for a while in this stew of misery and excess was Erik Jan Hanussen, an opportunistic mystic and performer, a Jew who catered to the egos of Arian gangsters and Nazi warlords. His one goal was to live well and prosper, taking advantage of the gullibility of his wealthy patrons and promote whatever side seemed to be able to get him what he wanted. If that meant catering to Hitler and his crew, to the detriment of his fellow Jews, so be it. He seems to have been a master at turning a blind eye on what was actually happening to Germany during his own personal ascendancy.

Hanussen was charismatic and the headlines and letters from this period attest to the success he had on stage and in late night soirees. His act was persuasive and he built a fortune while bankrolling certain Nazi collaborators who needed a financial boost.

The Nazi Séance is an engrossing tale, well told and persuasively documented, shining a light on one of the minor characters tragically caught up in the horror that was Nazi Germany in the 1930s. It seems ironic that the mentalist and fortuneteller, while successfully persuading crowds of his powers of second sight and deduction could not predict his own doomed ending.

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As a side note, while this is technically an LT Early Reviewer review, I never received this book from the publisher and, in fact, never heard from the publisher after writing more than once to inquire about not having received my copy. Only because of my interest in the subject did I eventually buy a Kindle version of the book. ( )

This was a biography of a little-known figure who was fairly interesting, but not really for the reasons implied by the cover hype ("Hitler's circle!") I would probably not have requested it from LibraryThing Early Reviewers if I had realized that Hanussen was at best a peripheral figure in Hitler's reign and had no real ties to Hitler's inner circle. I felt that there was a lot of worthy material in the book, but it would perhaps have been better used in compiling a history of stage magicians and psychics. (With illustrations. I would read that book.) The author obviously cannot be blamed for the cover, but neither can the publisher be blamed for finding it difficult to make the book sound like a gripping read. ( )

A note about these newly posted non-link reviews.

Here's another book from the LibraryThing.com “Early Reviewer” program. I was pretty sure that when I put in my requests for the February batch, that I'd end up getting this, having read extensively in both things Occult and things Third Reich. I figured that Arthur J. Magida's The Nazi Séance: The Strange Story of the Jewish Psychic in Hitler's Circle was going to be a home-run, after all Nazis! and Séances! and Psychics!, how could it go wrong?

Unfortunately, Magida's book lacks all the drama and luridness that one might expect of its subject … and veers fairly close to being something of a bait-and-switch. From the title/subtitle one might think that Erik Jan Hanussen was doing spiritualist parties for Hitler, and that the book was going to have a whole bunch of juicy details about these … but the closest that it's suggested that Hanussen was in on-going touch with “Hitler's Circle” (note the omission of “Inner” in that) was that it appeared that he had knowledge about the notorious Reichstag fire in advance of its happening.

Is it the author's fault that the “fun read” that I'd anticipated the book being did not materialize? I'm sure that this sells better being marketed like a pulp novel than as a biography of a minor figure from Germany between the world wars … but it's much more the latter than the former, and reading through it I kept waiting for it “to get good”.

As a biography of Hanussen, it's quite good, and really remarkably well researched, given both the ephemeral nature of the psychic stage show, and the grinding obliteration of WW2 on the places he lived and worked. This is, on that level, a very interesting look into the work of psychic/spiritualist performance at the time, with many others aside from Hanussen discussed. Many of the details are impressive in that they were able to be retrieved (such as the deal that he got for a series of shows in Paris).

Hanussen himself is presented somewhat as an enigma, both a self-confessed “carny” playing his audiences, and a possible psychic, with a long string of otherwise-hard-to-explain revelations … including the one that won him a major court case and ended up being a huge boost to his career. He also appears to have been a bit of a fool … or certainly deeply naive … in believing that Hitler and the Nazis were just “posturing” and would prove to be reasonable people. He was a strong supporter of the Fascist movement, publishing issue after issue of his magazine promoting Hitler as a savior of Germany, with glowing predictions for the future. Did he believe this, or figure he was being “useful” to the biggest, nastiest dog on the block? Needless to say, as a Jew, this seems to be an insane course to have taken, but somehow he dodged that reality for years.

In the book he has one significant Nazi contact, Count Wolfgang Heinrich von Helldorf, a high-ranking officer in Berlin, and a “fallen aristocrat” whose own estates had been frittered away. Hanussen provided Helldorf with the opportunity to enjoy the “rock star” wealth that he commanded on and off (along with some other “rock star” perks), and also ended up lending large sums to both Helldorf and other Nazi officers. Evidently Hanussen thought these connections would keep him above the dangers in the street, but they actually ended up being the very things that led to his murder. Certainly his other brushes with the Nazi leadership (such as a chilling encounter with Goebbels) makes one wonder how he was able to not see the danger of his situation.

Due to these connections, the book also manages to paint an picture of the “descent into madness” that accompanied the rise of the Nazi party. While not breaking any new ground on the subject, it provides a perspective not as well covered in other sources I've read (frankly, there are parts of The Nazi Séance that resemble nothing quite so much as the tenser parts of The Sound of Music!).

Again, I was hoping for another look at the Occult underpinnings of the Nazi regime, as told from the perspective of the activities of Hanussen's career … and there is very little of that in this book. As a biography of a performer who was delusional in regards to the evil he was sidling up to, it's a very well done study, but it's not what I (and I'm guessing most people would be) expecting. This has only been out a few months, so it should be available in your local brick & mortar book store (if you still have any near you), but it's rather telling that the new/used channel at the on-line big boys already have copies of this kicking around for under two bucks.

CMP.Ly/1

A link to my "real" review:
BTRIPP's review of Arthur J. Magida's The Nazi Séance: The Strange Story of the Jewish Psychic in Hitler's Circle (808 words)