Julius and Agnes Zancig

Julius and Agnes Zancig were stage magicians and authors on occultism who performed a spectacularly successful two-member mentalism act during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Julius Zancig (1857-1929) -- born Julius Jörgensen in Copenhagen, Denmark -- was the originator of the routine. with his wife Agnes Claussen Jörgensen (also born in Copenhagen), who was known as Agnes Zancig.

Career

Several versions of The Zancigs act appeared over the years:
* From their first professional appearance in the 1880s, until her death in 1916, the act consisted of Julius Jörgensen Zancig and his wife Agnes Claussen Jörgensen Zancig. Julius and Agnes were very close to one another in real life as well as on stage and were known as "Two Minds with but a Single Thought." They had been childhood sweethearts in Denmark but grew apart, then met and fell in love again after both had emigrated to the United States. They were married in 1886. Theirs was the most popular and famous version of the act, and was successful for 30 years.
* As a performing duo, The Zancigs toured the world, visiting England, India, China, Japan, Australia, and South Africa. After several years of travel, they again settled in the United States.
* During the early 1900s, Julius Zancig wrote articles for magazines. Both individually and as a pair, Agnes and Julius also wrote and published several books on such occult methods of divination and fortune telling as cartomancy, palmistry, and scrying with a crystal ball. On the title pages of these books, they styled themselves "Prof. Zancig" and "Mdme. Zancig."
* In 1916, at around the age 59, Agnes died. Julius remarried to a schoolteacher named Ada, who had been born in Brooklyn, New York, and she became his new partner in the mentalism act.
* By 1917, Ada's dislike for public appearances had become so strong that Julius hired Paul Vucic (a.k.a. Paul Rosini) to take her place, under the stage-name "Henry."
* In 1917, Vucic was drafted into World War I and was replaced by David Theodore Bamberg (1904 - 1974), the teenaged son of a stage magician named Theo "Okito" Bamberg.
*In 1919, the Bamberg family left for Europe and Ada rejoined the act.

Retirement and private work for clients

During the 1920s, the Zancigs retired from touring. Julius was in his mid 60s, and the couple settled down to a quiet life as professional astrologers, tea leaf readers, crystal ball seers, and palmists, working for private clients. For a while they resided in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Julius wrote his last book, on crystal gazing, in 1926. They were living in Ocean Park, California (now Santa Monica, California), when Julius died in 1929, at the age of 72.

Method

The Zancigs worked their stage act by means of an extremely elaborate and undetectable code, which in later years became known as the Zancig Code. Writing in 1929, the year of Julius Zancig's death, the British magician Will Goldston was among the first to describe the code. The full methodology was published some time later by the Zancigs' one-time friend and fellow mentalist-magician, Alexander the Crystal Seer.

Bibliography

* [http://sky.prohosting.com/fizbin/athenaeum/magos/books/zancig1/01.html Zancig, Julius. "Adventures in Many Lands" (online version)]
*"Crystal Gazing, The Unseen World: a Treatise on Concentration". I. and M. Ottenheimer Publishers. 1926

ources

* [http://sky.prohosting.com/fizbin/athenaeum/magos/books/goldston/01.html Goldston, Will. "The Truth About the Zancigs" in "Sensational Tales of Mystery Men". 1929. (online version)]
* Fixen, Laura G. "The True Secret of Mind Reading as Performed by the Zancigs". 1912.
*Romano, Chuck "House of Cards - The Life and Magic of Paul Rosini". 1999