the phrase within their work. Quite brilliantly, when Stan Laurel (of Laurel and Hardy fame) was asked by those creating his fan club for an official motto, he offered a spoof of the Zancig’s tag line, ‘Two Minds Without a Single Thought!’ The Zancig’s last work, Crystal Gazing, The Unseen World: A Treatise On Concentration was published only a few years before Julius’ death in 1929.
A names, with extensive lists of men’s and women’s names correlating to numbers within the couple’s minds. On stage, this system would appear to be little more than inane talk between the couple, but would produce astounding results, implying they indeed had powers beyond human comprehension.
mazingly, the death of Agnes in 1916 aged 59, did not signal the end of the Zancig’s performance. Julius remarried a Brooklyn schoolteacher called Ada and revived the mentalist act, much to Ada’s resistance. The newly-weds managed a year in performance before Ada’s hatred of the stage led Julius to hire a man named Paul Vučić (Paul Rosini) under the name ‘Henry’ to join him on stage. However, this partnership was also not to last as, at the advent of the US joining WWI, Vučić joined the army and Julius was forced to search for a new partner, with a great memory. Julius didn’t have to look too far, as the teenage son of famous magician Theo ‘Okito’ Bamberg was poised to step into the vacated position. David Theodore Bamberg went on to perform with Julius
under the snappy name ‘Syko the Psychic’. In this role, he acted as a blindfolded medium ‘divining articles from the audience, solving mathematical problems, and ending with an impressive book test.’ Bamberg went on to achieve immense fame in the magic world as Fu Manchu, presenting some of the most elaborate and popular illusion shows the world had ever seen. However, when returning to the States from a prolonged stint in places such as South America, Spain, Portugal and the West Indies, he had to rename himself Fu Chan in order to avoid a lawsuit! The couple retired from their extensive touring programme in the 1920s but settled in America and continued working under the occult and magic umbrellas. Reportedly, the pair worked as professional tea leaf readers, palmists, crystal ball seers and astrologers for private clients, eschewing their public audiences. In their time, the Zancigs – in their many forms – were some of the most famous mesmerists, being household names across continents. They created one of the most complex code systems in performance history and have never been bettered. Yet today, they’re little more than footnote in a magician’s biography.
Katie X
References
The code was bafflingly complex and remains known by professional magicians today as one of the most complex communication systems between two people. In the intervening years, many magicians, such as Robert Nelson in 1940, have attempted to create their own Zancig codes, but none have been able to match the complexity of the Danish couple’s vocabulary. Between 1900 and 1926, the Zancigs published several books under the name ‘The Zancigs’, (or as Prof. Zancig and Mdme. Zancig) most relating to palmistry and fortune telling using cards. In 1907, Julius wrote ‘Two Minds With But a Single Thought’, a work that professed the psychic connection between the couple and popularised
W. W. Baggally, Telepathy: Genuine and Fraudulent, Marlowe Company (1919) p.61 Ivor LL. Tuckett, The Evidence for the Supernatural: A Critical Study Made with “Uncommon Sense”, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & co., LTD.(1911) p.120 Will Goldston, The Truth About the Zancigs. In Sensational Tales of Mystery Men. London (1929) Harry Houdini, A Magician Among the Spirits, Harper Brothers, (1924) p210 Harry Houdini, A Magician Among the Spirits, Harper Brothers, (1924) p210 W. W. Baggally, Telepathy: Genuine and Fraudulent, Marlowe Company (1919) p.57 W. W. Baggally, Telepathy: Genuine and Fraudulent, Marlowe Company (1919) p.61 Laura G. Fixen, The True Secret of Mind Reading as Performed by The Zancigs, Diamond Dust (1912) Online resource via archive.org David Bamberg Illusion Show: A Life in Magic. David Meyer Magic Books. (1991)
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