SPYSCAPE conjures up six stories about spies and sorcerers this week from the CIA’s Manual of Trickery and Deception to Mission: Impossible’s consulting magician. We also snooped around to find out more about Apollo Robbins, the world-famous pickpocket who trains US spies in the dark arts.
CIA trickery
Among the many tricks the CIA had up its sleeve during the Cold War was a top-secret manual written by magician John Mulholland. The guide offered advice to operatives who might need to slip poison into an enemy’s drink or smuggle an agent out of a hostile country. All copies of the manual were thought to have been destroyed in the ‘70s, but two intelligence agents - and now SPYSCAPE - have got their hands on the long-buried secrets.
Apollo Robbins is a master pickpocket, a Las Vegas magician, and a Hollywood consultant on crime flicks like Margot Robbie’s Focus and the series Leverage. Not bad for a former shoplifter who robbed Jimmy Carter’s Secret Service bodyguards while entertaining the ex-president at Caesars Palace - all in good fun, of course, at least for Apollo. So what did the world-famous pickpocket do for an encore?
Get a FREE copy of a hot new killer thriller, spy story, or crime novel every Monday with a special Story Mondays ticket to SPYSCAPE HQ. Next Monday it's The Liar by Benjamin Cunningham - where the Cold War meets Mad Men in the form of Karel Koecher, a double agent whose shifting loyalties and over-the-top hedonism reverberated from New York to Moscow - don't miss grabbing your FREE copy only at SPYSCAPE HQ! Read our story on Koecher here to start!
When Now You See Me and Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation needed a magic consultant, they turned to David Kwong, the Harvard grad who relaxes by creating New York Times crossword puzzles and testing his audience’s ability to discern patterns. Kwong has also broken down illusions into seven principles - and never have America’s magic shows been more crammed with expert codebreakers.
British-German magician David Berglas wasn’t always making furniture levitate or dazzling audiences with ‘the Berglas effect’ - the Holy Grail of Card Magic. During WWII, the 19-year-old was so determined to help the Allies he lied about his age to join the US Army Intelligence Service and help defeat the Nazis. After studying hypnosis, he found his calling on the stage. So why is he known as ‘King Rat’?
Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows… And so too did American magician Walter Brown Gibson, the author behind the superhero spymaster with the psychic power to ‘cloud men's minds’. Gibson wrote more than 100 books on magic, psychic phenomena, and hypnotism but long before becoming a household name Gibson earned his chops as a ghostwriter for Harry Houdini.
Spies and conjurers are kindred spirits. They are both on intimate terms with deception, swear a professional oath of secrecy, and practice sneaky ways to pass messages and materials. In fact, the history of spying is sprinkled with magic dust (and spoons). SPYSCAPE traces the links between spycraft and stagecraft, and the many magicians with a side hustle in espionage.
