http://www.canada.com/theprovince/columnists/story.html?id=0a3a50eb-47c7-4de1-bfcb-6637fe1a1306&p=1

Don't feel bad if you have a hard time retrieving your lost luggage. Even the world's most famous mentalist occasionally has problems locating missing bags.

"Sometimes they [the airline] will say to me, 'You're the mentalist; you find it,' hoping that I laugh," said The Amazing Kreskin during a recent phone call.

Growing up in Canada in the '70s, a great staple of TV viewing was The Amazing World of Kreskin, and if you were lucky enough to stay up late for The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, you probably remember seeing Kreskin as he made a record 88 visits to the show, impressing Johnny with his apparent ability to read minds.

"He was the best," said Kreskin, who added that during commercials he showed card tricks to the prestidigitatious Johnny.

The excuse for calling up Kreskin was to get him to talk about the trend of paranormal and supernatural TV programming, like Phenomenon -- the Uri Geller and Criss Angel-hosted hunt for the next great mentalist -- which ends tonight with a big live show.

"It's interesting -- there always seems to be an interest in the paranormal during times of war," said Kreskin, as he listed off examples. "I think part of the reason is the uncertainty of war."

But while shows like Phenomenon, American Psychic, Psychic Detectives and that all-knowing John Edwards have found TV homes, Kreskin doesn't buy in, even when he is asked to.

"It became clear to me from memos from part of the production team that the program would be based on trickery," said Kreskin, who was approached to take part in Phenomenon. "I cannot compromise myself by doing that."

Trickery? You mean Criss Angel doesn't really levitate?

While Kreskin, 72, has turned down numerous TV gigs, including ones that would require him to solve crimes, he isn't home in his slippers trying to guess what the mailman will be dropping off.

Nope, he is on the road working more than three weeks out of every month. But his hectic schedule has not lessened his desire to discuss just about anything, even the time a friend of mine saw him lose a chunk of change at a blackjack table.

"I did, did I?" he laughed from his New Jersey office. "It's blackjack that happens. Sometimes they use multiple decks of cards. With that many cards you can't memorize them."

But poker, now, that's another story.

"I'm allowed in casinos for blackjack, but I can't play poker," said Kreskin when asked what casino even lets him in the door. "In poker the other people are thinking about their cards. If I played that you would be writing an obituary about me buried in concrete."

Instead Kreskin prefers to make his money by really working for it.

At shows he puts his paycheque on the line by having a member of the audience hide his payment in the venue. He then uses his mental powers to sniff out the cash.

To date, he has missed his payday nine times, losing $200,000 plus.

"The worst was in New Zealand, I lost $51,000," said Kreskin, who first used his mental skills to locate an object when he was nine. "Friends say, 'Wow that's an expensive gimmick.'

"I've announced that when it happens a 10th time I am done."

By done he means done with that particular guessing game, not travelling the globe wowing people with his perceptive powers.

Powers, I might add, he refused to demonstrate on me.

Hmm. I better start working on my poker face.

dgee@png.canwest.com