Radio Psychics by John Benedict Buescher

Some were vaudeville entertainers who read minds on stage and used the radio for publicity.

Many incorporated astrology or billed themselves as having gained extraordinary knowledge in India, Egypt, or both, and sometimes wore turbans. Some used more than one of these billings, successively or even concurrently.

Especially in the 1920s, some radio psychics were described as magicians or mentalists, as having a “Radio Mind”, and some were billed as Princesses or Rajah Mystic, Wizard or Fakir astrologer or spiritualist or Hypnotist. Some “radio psychics” began as seemingly sincere spiritual believers, sometimes performing relatively traditional congregational work others became so. Buescher details the careers of spiritual seekers, entertainers, and hucksters who were popular in the early decades of U.S. The author, John Benedict Buescher, former chief of the Tibetan Broadcast Service of the Voice of America, has authored articles on radio broadcasting to Tibet and books on the history of Buddhism and on the history of 19 th century American spiritualism. How successful were psychics on early network radio? How sincere were they? These are the main questions asked in the groundbreaking new book Radio Psychics: Mind Reading and Fortune Telling in American Broadcasting, 1920–1940. “A broadcasting station can’t … that the mystics are only entertainers … so long as the listener sends in money and problems in good faith.” 1

Radio Psychics by John Benedict Buescher