Jon Racherbaumer was born January 22, 1940, in Oak Park, Illinois. He spent his early years in Elmhurst, Illinois (Harlan Tarbell’s hometown), a western suburb of Chicago. His interest in magic was sparked by seeing Dr. Tarbell perform in 1950. Tarbell’s daughter, Marian, was involved in community theater with Jon’s mother at the time and soon thereafter on his eleventh birthday he received his first magic book, Tarbell Course in Magic –Volume 1. After discovering that Tarbell had donated his magic course to the local library, Jon spent many hours diligently studied each volume.

Jon joined the Mazda Mystics Club (Juniors) in 1953, a club started by Russell Shaw and his wife in Oak Park, Illinois and maintained his interest throughout his life. After moving to New Orleans, the site of Mardi Gras, jazz music, and voodoo, this Dream State was an ideal place magical things to happen. During the years between 1957 and 1965, Jon attended four universities and worked as a radio programmer, disk jockey, record promotion man, salesman, restaurant manager, male model, tree-trimmer, blackjack dealer, construction worker, warehouseman, program consultant (voluntary health agency-the Lung Association), institutional housefather (Milne Boys Home), social worker, health-club instructor, bartender, ambulance driver (at Arlington Park race track), and finally as an airlines business person for Eastern Airlines from 1965-1990 .

He has been a member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians and the Society of American Magicians since 1966 and is a Lifetime Member of the Magic Castle in Hollywood, California.

He is a columnist (“On the Slant”) for Genii magazine and was a columnist and contributing editor to Stan Allen’s Magic magazine for six years. He was also the Parade Editor for the Linking Ring for over a decade and contributed to Joe Steven’s Gemini Magic Network. He also contributed at column to M-U-M (“At the Table”) in the 70s and later worked with John Moehring for three years at M-U-M and was a columnist (“The Artful Ledger”) for Antimony magazine. He has contributed scores of tricks and articles to various magazines: Genii, The New Tops, M-U-M, Linking Ring, The New Pentagram, Blue Print, Precursor, The Looking Glass, The Conjuror, and Apocalypse and has published 75 books. He received a Literary Fellowship from the Academy of Magical Arts and Sciences and was honored with Milbourne Christopher Literary Award.

Jon’s mentors were Ed Marlo and Eddie Fields and was inspired by Channing Pollock, Cardini, Don Alan, Albert Goshman, Chan Canasta, Tony Slydini, Finn Jon, Lennert Green, Tommy Wonder and Juan Tamariz. His (magic) literary influences are Martin Gardner, John Northern Hilliard, Walter Gibson, Ted Annemann, Bruce Elliott, P. Howard Lyons, and Victor Farelli.

His other interests are literature, book collecting, martial arts, philosophy, poetry, film, theater (theory), cosmology, painting, mathematical recreations, and physical culture.

He has 7 children (Karen, Michael, Jona, Jonathan, Erika, Robynn, and Ry) and 11 grandchildren (Lindsey, Matthew, Thomas, Sasha, Autumn, Ben, Adam, Allyssa, Sophina, Kirin, and Koko).

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