Hellstromism

By Robert A. Nelson

Robert A. Nelson’s authoritative treatise on the life and sensational mind reading feats of Axel Hellstrom, a German muscle reader, mentalist and stage magician who redefined the art of muscle reading.

Hellstrom was a man who baffled many of the brightest scientific and magical minds of his time by singlehandedly taking this ability to incredible, new heights—so much so, in fact, that for many magicians his name remains synonymous with “Contact” and “Non-Contact” Mind Reading—“Hellstromism!”

Nelson, the long-time professional mentalist and mentalism/magic dealer, was personally coached by Hellstrom before the celebrated mind reader’s death.

In this book, he painstakingly explains the inner workings of Hellstrom’s miracles. Every phase is covered in detail: from choosing and working with subjects to suggested performance routines.

You will learn everything you need to know to begin developing your own abilities, as well as what is required to take your performance to the next level.

A truly informative and fascinating read, written by an expert who was sincere and passionate about the possibilities “Hellstromism” has to offer.

Originally published 1935, this edition contains the author’s additional chapter titled “Later day experiments in Hellstromism,” dated April 15, 1941.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Borodino Books
• Release date: Dec 2, 2018
• ISBN: 9781789127737

Robert A. Nelson

Robert Alan Nelson (1901-1973) was an American magician, mentalist and author. Born on November 16, 1901 in Columbus, Ohio, Nelson made his debut at age 13 with a paid mental act. He performed further acts with partner Syl Reilly until 1921 before becoming a full-time professional as a stage mentalist-telepathist. That same year, he founded Nelson Enterprises in Columbus, Ohio, which went on to become the world’s largest company trading in mentalist’s props and literature. He also helped organize the Howard Thurston IBM Ring, the Columbus Magic Club, and the Magic Hobby Club of Ohio, and served as president of all three. He maintained a small demonstration theater in his shop. From 1928-1935, Nelson appeared on the radio programme “Voice of Destiny” as Dr. Korda RaMayne, PsD, which he also used on stage in a crystal-gazing act. He also published pitch books for mentalists, private readers, astrologers, and numerologists under the RaMayne name, though his Psychic Sciences publishing wing. In the 1940s, following the retirement of American spiritual author and vaudeville magician Claude Alexander Conlin Jr. (1880-1954)—the highest-paid mentalist in the world at the height of his career during the 1920s—Nelson bought his entire act. He later sold portions of the stage show and many of the posters to another magician, Leon Mandrake (1911-1993), who toured in the Pacific Northwest during the 1950s. A prolific author of books and booklets on mentalism, Nelson published some 65 books between 1928 and 1972, including Super Mentality (1929), Hellstromism (1935), The Encyclopedia of Mentalism (1944), Miracles in Mentalism (1945), The Mentalist’s Manual (1953), and Sensational Mentalism (1965), the fourth volume of which was published posthumously in 1977. Robert Nelson passed away on February 21, 1973, aged 71.

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Text originally published in 1941 under the same title.

© Borodino Books 2018, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

HELLSTROMISM

By

R. Alan Nelson

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

TO THE READER 4

FOREWORD 5

THE SUBJECT 10

THE PREPARATION 10

THE OPERATOR 14

A STRANGE INTERLUDE 16

HELLSTROMISM CONTINUED 17

HIGHER PHASES 18

IN CONCLUSION 22

SUGGESTED ROUTINE FOR PUBLIC EXHIBITIONS 22

LECTURE 23

LATER DAY EXPERIMENTS IN HELLSTROMISM 25

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 28

TO THE READER

In order that you get the most out of Hellstromism, it is the author’s request that you FIRST read the entire contents of the works, before trying any of the experiments.

—THE AUTHOR

FOREWORD

HELLSTROMISM is a coined and copyrighted word by Robert Nelson, and is vaguely defined by its author as being the development and practice of a ‘sixth sense’ or ‘Perception’ that enables the operator to divine certain thoughts and commands of others.

HELLSTROMISM IS TRUE mindreading, and in its highly developed stages is definitely divorced from any element of trickery or fraud. It is the writer’s sincere conviction that the development of the faculty will lead to the revelation of mysteries and possibilities of the mind that are far beyond our present day conception.

HELLSTROMISM IS NOT NEW! It has been practiced (mostly) in Europe for years, and other parts of the world. Needless to say, it was not known by this name. It was called mindreading, and some of the cruder experiments were plain contact mindreading. In its primary experiments it does not employ perception or a sixth sense, but depends entirely on the correct interpretation of muscular impulses.

HELLSTROMISM as presented to you here stands for more than muscle or contact reading—properly developed, it is a definite link between two minds, each working in harmony with the other! It is true that muscle reading plays an important role in the operation of these sensational experiments, but in its higher phases, muscle reading may be entirely eliminated.

HELLSTROMISM IS AS difficult to concretely define as ELECTRICITY. We know all about electricity—what it can do—how it may be harnessed to do our bidding—its appearance—its odor and the like, yet we cannot actually define electricity. This may be said of Hellstromism. Thus far, a definition has been attempted by only a very few.

HELLSTROMISM—a word itself—what it stands for—is an enigma! Surely, the author has not, as yet defined the mysterious word, and strange to say, further effort here will not be expended. What