Who was Joseph Dunninger?

Joseph Dunninger (1892–1975), billed as “The Amazing Dunninger”, was an American mentalist who took mind reading onto national radio and early television. Born in New York City, he performed as a teenager at the homes of Theodore Roosevelt and Thomas Edison, hosted his own radio show in the 1940s, and spent years exposing fraudulent spirit mediums. He was a friend of Harry Houdini.

Who was Joseph Dunninger?

Joseph Dunninger was born in New York City on 28 April 1892. He started out as a magician and became best known as a mentalist, a performer who appears to read minds. He worked under the name “The Amazing Dunninger”.

He died on 9 March 1975, aged 82, at his home in Cliffside Park, New Jersey. He had Parkinson’s disease.

How did his career begin?

Dunninger was performing while still a teenager. Both Wikipedia and mentalist Roberto Forzoni’s history of mind readers record that, at a young age, he performed at the Oyster Bay home of Theodore Roosevelt and at the home of the inventor Thomas Edison.

The same two sources say that President Franklin D. Roosevelt also saw him perform.

What did he do on radio and television?

In 1943 Dunninger began a weekly radio show on the Blue Network. In the mid-1940s he also hosted a summer replacement for Amos ’n’ Andy on NBC, although our sources disagree on whether that was 1945 or 1946.

Television followed. In 1948 he appeared on NBC with ventriloquist Paul Winchell, and he went on to appear often on TV variety programmes into the 1960s.

A mind-reading act on the radio raises an obvious question: how do you know the people in the audience aren’t in on it? Dunninger answered it with money. He offered $10,000 to anyone who could prove that he used confederates or “stooges”, and nobody is recorded as having collected it.

Why did he fight fake mediums?

Dunninger campaigned against fraudulent spirit mediums, who claimed to contact the dead. Through Scientific American and his Universal Council for Psychic Research, he offered a reward to any medium who could produce a genuine psychic phenomenon that he could not explain or duplicate by natural means.

His book Inside the Medium’s Cabinet (1935) set out to expose the methods behind séance tricks. In this he followed the same path as his friend Harry Houdini, who wrote his own account of his investigations into spiritualism.

What did he write?

Dunninger published books throughout his life. They include:

• Dunninger’s Tricks De Luxe (1918)
• Inside the Medium’s Cabinet (1935)
• Dunninger’s Complete Encyclopedia of Magic

Why does he matter to mentalists today?

Dunninger’s career joins two threads that still run through mentalism: performing mind reading as entertainment, and exposing people who claim real psychic powers. If you’re new to the subject, start with our beginner’s guide to mentalism, or read about another mentalism pioneer, Ted Annemann.

What helps you take it further?

• A Magician Among the Spirits by Harry Houdini (1924), free from our public-domain library. Houdini’s full account of his investigations into spiritualism: the mediums he sat with, the methods he uncovered, and his friendship and falling out with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
• Behind the Scenes with the Mediums by David P. Abbott (1907), also free. Abbott exposes the séance tricks of fraudulent mediums, including slate writing, billet reading and spirit messages.
• How to Control Minds Kit by Peter Turner. A hand-picked selection of easy mentalism for beginners and working magicians alike, blending psychology, magic and pseudo-hypnotic suggestion. No prior experience is needed.

Browse more in our easy mentalism collection.

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