An amazing and rich resource has just been made accessible online! Over at the Genii Magazine website, you can now access the Genii Archive, containing PDF files comprising the entire run of Genii issues from September 1936 through September 1998. During these years, Genii was printed by the Larsen family, who also run the Magic Castle.

The archives are not free to access, currently ranging from US$10 for 24 hours of access to US$200 for unlimited access, but the prices are a bargain at any level! Once you gain access to the archives, you can search for items that interest you, or simply browse the issues. The first thing I noticed when perusing the archives is how the feel of Genii Magazine changed over the years. Every article, column, letter and ad is preserved in this archive.

You can also follow many of your favorite performers' rise to fame. Seeing the original versions of routines you perform today can also be enlightening, and you may even find that the original version was better!

With such a long run, Genii issues have often been mentioned as sources in numerous books, and even other magazines. The Genii archive makes looking these issues up easy and convenient. Since they're PDFs, you can also easily save them to your hard drive and access them whenever you need to. Answers to any questions about the archive can be found or posted in this thread, over in the Genii Forum.

Naturally, when I gained access, I started looking for memory-related routines. Even as hard to find as they can be, there are plenty of articles on memory over those 63 years. The most amazing piece I found was a 10-part series by Tom Harris, called “Mnemonics For Magicians”, which ran in 1959, from January through October (the articles also hint at an 11th column, but this was apparently never printed).

What else did I find in my searches through the Genii archives? I found enough memory related items that I was able to add four full pages to the MemoryEffects.pdf file (opens in a new window)! Download this file, and search through the PDF for “Genii” to see if any of the new additions interest you. If so, you have a great excuse to at least try out the US$10 24-hour pass!