The Amazing Kreskin has created a niche in the very competitive entertainment industry with his ability to perceive people's thoughts. He appeared on "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson 88 times and wowed "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon" this summer. Born in 1935, he was inspired as a child by the comic book character Mandrake the Magician and found he could entertain his fellow students and teachers by reading their minds.

He inspired the fictional movie "The Great Buck Howard," now on DVD, and just wrote his 17th book, "Kreskin Confidential." He is headlining at the Frontier in Las Vegas.

In the book you explain that you practiced at perceiving people's thoughts or mind reading with your classmates. Is it something that we can all do with practice?

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PG audio

Hear more of this interview with The Amazing Kreskin.

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I think the ability really is an inate talent. I'm not saying it's foreign to a lot of people. I think, inherently, probably the ability is there, but in our culture today our senses are barraged with stimulus, so I think it's become dormant.

I've read that you do not believe there is such a thing as a hypnotic trance.

Hypnosis has always been considered a state in which a person was in a trance. But the point of the matter is, people are legitimately responding to suggestion. They are totally conscious and wide awake and not in an altered state. In the past, the idea of being in a trance made it seem more understandable. We are all suggestible under a multitude of conditions. It's remarkable that an idea can change your thoughts. Like if you read a Stephen King novel and get goose bumps. In my performance, the entire second half is very dramatic. When it's all over people say, "I was wide awake, but I couldn't move or I couldn't think of my name when asked." I was on Jimmy Fallon and I re-created the incident, which I did with Johnny Carson years before in the same studio.

You are talking about the time you hypnotized Johnny Carson into being a bench and had Bette Midler sit on him.

In the case of Carson, I went back to his office before the show. I said, "Johnny, just look at me. I want to talk to you." For about six or seven minutes I said, "This is going to happen to you. I know it seems dramatic, but it will work. Don't be concerned." When I finished, he said, "Kreskin, I believe you. We'll go with it." In the case of Fallon, I made it very clear to the crew that I wanted no camera directions during the demonstration. I didn't want him to hear things because his mind, as a broadcaster, is tuned to listen to every cue. His mind had to be narrowed to what I was doing. Any doubt could break down that response and I couldn't take that chance. Fallon came to me after and was stunned that it had worked.

Did your abilities make it harder for you to make new friends?

That was a very significant thing in my earlier years. In my teens, I was doing this all the time, and my teachers were fascinated. One teacher had me practice on my classmates. You can't function always trying to perceive people. I need about an hour to get ready for my performance because I've had to separate what I do professionally from my everyday life.

Has the way you have dealt with skeptics changed over the years?

It's changed only in this way: I love skeptics.

Did the movie "The Great Buck Howard" introduce you to a new generation?

Oh, my God, yes. I've done hundreds of college shows, and Jimmy Fallon is getting mail all over the place talking about the fact that people had known about me but didn't quite understand what I do. John Malkovich studied videos of me for three days -- a great actor. It was an awesome experience. It's nice to have things happen when you're still around. While the story is not me, the staging is me and the character on stage is me. But the most meaningful thing in the story line is the suggestion that when I do the trick at end of the show [and I find it by tapping into the thoughts of the person who hid it], it's made clear at the end of the movie that it's never been shown in any way, shape or form that I've used electronic devices or anything.

Any failures on stage?

Yes, well, I had nine failures in the check-finding thing. [At the end of the show, he locates his paycheck, which has been hidden, and if he doesn't find it, he does not get paid.] It was discussed by Mike Wallace when he did a profile on me. One of the failures was in New Zealand. I couldn't get the right impulses and finally gave up, and it stunned the audience. I lost $51,000 that one night. Anyway if you think it's rigged, it isn't. I didn't talk about this incident until this year. But in that case, the gentleman who was part of the committee that hid my check said, "I really doubted you, and you picked me to be on the committee. I was the person you asked to concentrate on where the check was." He admitted that he had thought of the wrong place. It turns out that in four or five of the other cases, that was the same thing.

What is the most common thing people want you to do?

People usually ask me about some problem they see developing in the future, and I try to explain I'm not a psychic. I don't give advice.

Is it true that the late [Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen] was an influence on you?

Oh, tremendous. He was on television every Tuesday night. I'm Roman Catholic, but I had friends who were atheists who watched him because he talked about the good life. Bishop Sheen never asked for money, he just talked about the good life.

You've conducted seances. Do you ever worry about attracting a negative energy?

I've never felt like I've communicated with a spirit. Sometimes there are energies given off by the people who are there. Why do you think shows like "Medium," "The Mentalist" and "The Listener" are so popular?

I have a very strong feeling about this. This is a reflected need in our culture. There was interest in phenomena before the Civil War, before the First World War, before the Second World War, before every great stress in modern society. It's reflecting that beyond terrorism, the economic situation, that we feel so unsettled. In a way, it's healthy because as great as science is, it hasn't solved all our problems.