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The world of the paranormal and the world of entertainment are intrinsically bound together. From Moses and his Burning Bush to Valerie Bertinelli getting Touched By An Angel, we tell stories to each other about the things that might sound crazy if they would happen in our regular life. But those stories help us believe.

Really, would The Exorcist have been so scary if it wasn’t Roman Catholic priests battling a demon who serves a master that fifty-seven percent of Americans believe exists? That’s not The Creature From The Black Lagoon or even George Romero’s zombies (who I thought might be real after a particularly traumatic Night Of The Living Dead viewing as an easily impressionable six-year old), we’re taking about The Devil, baby.

But we’ll get back to Ol’ Scratch soon enough (we always do). First, let’s talk about this week’s guest. Daniel Rumanos is a Baltimore-based entertainer who performs bizarre magic. Okay, that’s a pretty cool name, but what is bizarre magic all about?

Rumanos describes it as story-based magic, you tell a tale to go along with the tricks. Part of the performance is creating a greater magical “outside” world with which to tell the story and then the tricks serve to spice up the performance. In our Houdini & Doyle episode, we talked about how some magicians in the Houdini era deliberately told their audiences that they had supernatural powers, and that set an atmosphere of wonder during the performances. While most modern mainstream magic shows use comedy to set the mood, Bizarre Magic uses the power of a supernatural or horror story to evoke an air of mystery. But today’s audiences don’t believe that these modern bizarre magicians actually have supernatural powers.

If David Copperfield makes an elephant disappear right before your eyes, you don’t really think that David Copperfield is a sorcerer who is invoking a supernatural power Gandalf-style to make the elephant disappear. It’s still wondrous and amazing, but you know that it’s a carefully constructed man-made illusion. If someone told you that David Copperfield is actually a wizard, it might flash as a possibility before your eyes for a second (how did he make that German goddess Claudia Schiffer fall in love with him after all?) but then you’d have a laugh because we all know that stage magic is an illusion and it’s great, but it’s not supernatural.

So, now let’s go back to the Devil and this is where it intersects with Daniel’s life. While a bizarre magic show might create a Lovecraftian world of sorcery and monsters which the tricks and stories take place in, there are events that take place all the time where someone’s faith has prepared them their entire lives for an atmosphere of wonder and paranormal experience.

When people go to a traveling religious revival event, their Christian faith has already done the groundwork to set the mood. If a majority of Americans believe that there is an actual Satan who is actively trying to deceive, seduce, and tempt humanity to do horrible things to each other, well, then you’ve got a pretty good setup for a traveling stage show where the magician (preacher) does battle versus the Devil and his minions (sinners in the audience.)