Rod Robison is a mentalist, illusionist, author, speaker, and broadcast executive. His comedy mindreading show, “Mentallusions,” has been a popular feature at corporate and organizational events as well as aboard Holland America cruise lines and at London’s Magic Circle Theater.
A graduate of Cedarville University, after college Rod toured and recorded with pioneer contemporary Christian music band Selah in the 1970s. During those years he sang and penned lyrics for the band’s songs, one of which, Fat Baby, was later recorded by Amy Grant on her multi-million-seller Grammy award-winning album, Age to Age.
Following his years with Selah he helped found two Christian television stations in Ohio and Michigan then moved on to Christian radio in the 1980s. For the past three decades he has been a radio executive in Tucson, Arizona where he and his wife Jeannie raised their five children on a small ranch in the beautiful Desert Southwest.
Rod’s interest in magic was ignited thirty years ago when he saw a magician at Dollywood amusement park in Tennessee perform a trick where a copper coin transformed into a silver coin in Rod’s own hand. Deeply perplexed by the trick, he lay awake that night obsessively attempting to devise a method by which the “miracle” might be accomplished. The next day he returned to the shop, bought the trick, and learned that none of his proposed methods explained the real secret.
That was the genesis of what years later became his popular “Mentallusions” show, during which he demonstrates not sleight of hand but what he calls “sleight of mind” popularly known as mind-reading. Today Rod is a member of the Fellowship of Christian Magicians and the Society of American Magicians. Although all of his feats are accomplished my natural means, he’s often asked by audience members if he has psychic powers. His response: “It may look that way, but looks can be deceiving.”