At 2:47 AM April 8th of 2013, Peter Reveen passed away peacefully at his Las Vegas residence. For several years Reveen has been battling from both diabetes and dementia.
"Peter James Reveen" most commonly referred to as "Reveen", "The Great Reveen", "The Man they call Reveen", or "Reveen The Impossiblist" was a husband, a father, an entertainer, a business man, an historian, a teacher, a hypnotherapist, a mesmerist, a mentalists, a diplomat, an ambassador, a scholar, a powerful entertainment manager in Las Vegas, and a trusted friend to hundreds of people all over the world.
He was unquestionably one the most extravagant illusionists in magic, and of course he was the most successful, the most respected, and the most famous “concert hypnotist recorded history”.
Born in Adelaide South Australia in 1935, his career in the entertainment industry began as a magician at the early age of 8 years old. By 1955 (at the age of 20) he became a full time entertainer by profession.
Although his fame as a hypnotist would quickly rise and continue to eclipse his achievements as an illusionist, his passion for the “art of magic” was a predominant force that influence and shape his career.
In Reveen’s words, “Magic has always been my biggest hobby, …my love and dedication towards the magical arts helped to fulfill my dreams as a child, and taught me how to be a great entertainer”.
By the time Reveen had made his way to the United States in the early 1960’s, he had already dedicated fifteen years of intense study to the science of hypnotism. He had also developed the ability to memorize one hundred different articles and then recall the articles numerically at high speed in front of his audiences.
As he combined his supernatural memory demonstrations with his unusual and advanced knowledge of hypnotism, all his other background experiences regarding theatre, showmanship and promotion created for him a unique chemistry, his audiences found his shows irresistible and his success began to sky rocket everywhere he performed. Due to his unique insights in the field of advance publicity, within days of him arriving to almost any city or town, he was performing in front of packed out crowds.
By the time Reveen was 38 years old (1973), physicians from one of the leading Medical Universities in the United States had made arrangements with the US Immigration Department (agent Gerald Fasbender) and Reveen was granted H1 Visas to allow him and his family to immigrate into the United States in exchange for teaching doctors throughout the medical community how to apply the science of superconscious psychology to their patients.
Since then, Reveen’s lectures, interviews and working relationship with doctors and medical institutions in different countries around the world is well known and his published writings on hypnotism made him a Best Selling Author for 16 weeks consecutively with his book in 1987 entitled “The Superconscious World”.
The controversial stigmas held by the general public (as well as sectors of the scientific community) associated with perceptions about “hypnotism” have radically changed specifically during recent decades, Reveen’s documented participation involving thousands of newspaper articles, and hundreds of television and radio interviews had a monumental affect in helping to evolve hypnotism out of the dark ages in the minds of the general public and medical industry.
Reveen’s practical experience as a professional hypnotist, a clinical hypnotherapist, his medical research work with leading doctors and medical institutions, his College and University visits lecturing to medical students internationally, combined with his extensive knowledge on the history of hypnosis, made Reveen one of the world’s foremost authorities in the field of superconscious psychology.
As a professional concert hypnotist, Reveen’s success throughout the twentieth century remains unequalled everywhere Reveen performed. No other concert hypnotist ever experienced a level of success on a similar scale.
Throughout his career Reveen performed approximately seven thousand live performances frequenting many parts of the world, Australia, New Guinea, Fiji, New Zealand, Hawaii, mainland United States, Canada, Bermuda, Scotland and England.
The majority of Reveen’s performances were performed in Canada where more than 60% of his shows occurred.
Included among the many accolades of Reveen are the following:
As a scholar and a historian, no other acclaimed concert hypnotist has published a more definitive or concise document detailing the history of hypnosis.
Since 1962, Reveen has sold more than 500,000 superconscious recordings of his voice on LP’s, cassettes and CD’s, He received his first Canadian Gold Record back in 1967 for his recording entitled Relax with Reveen.
Reveen sold out more consecutive shows than any other international entertainer to ever play Bermuda (180 sellout performances within 30 weeks of shows).
Reveen’s show was the longest running show to ever play Scotland’s largest theatre, the Edinburgh Playhouse for 8 weeks straight.
As a hypnotist, his track record statistics are legendary and unsurpassed in virtually every major venue, or major city where Reveen toured and returned to year after year. He established records breaking statistics pertaining to “the longest running show”, “the most consecutive sold out performances”, “top grossing sales”, or “top attendance records”.
The biggest theatre in western Canada is Vancouver’s Orpheum Theatre (with a capacity of about 3000 seats) Reveen broke their all time biggest attendance record by performing to 60,000 people during one run in the early 1960’s.
The Orpheum Theatre was built in 1927, since then - to this date, no entertainer has ever come close to achieving that same level as his success.
As a result of that historical achievement, his name has been carved in granite and permanently place on a plaque beside the back stage door of the Orpheum Theatre.
Reveen was one of Canada’s only English speaking entertainer’s who learned to speak French to enable him to fluently perform any of his shows (exclusively or bilingually) for both of Canada’s predominant speaking audiences.
Reveen is one of the very few Canadian artists to be honored with two separate television biographies of his life story, broadcasted in both French and English.
Another extraordinary fact about Reveen, is that his success was primarily inspired by “word of mouth”.
From his first show as a hypnotist in 1955 to his last performance in 2008, he never allowed his performances to be televised, which is in contrast to today’s most successful performers such as magician’s or musical entertainers who establish their live performance audiences through television or radio. The accumulation of Reveen’s audience were always generated from people who inspired their family, friends and others to go see his show. This is almost unheard of in show business today, especially Reveen’s ability to return each year after year, decade after decade, and continue to maintain and build his popularity.
During the twentieth century Reveen single handedly played to more Canadian’s than any other theatrical artist coast to coast in Canadian history.
He is survived by his wife Coral, and 4 sons Wayne, Tyrone, Calvin and Pete Jr. The family of Reveen’s sons include Tyrone’s wife Lisa and their 3 children Alexander, Morea, and Taj, plus Calvin’s wife Cathy and their 2 children Carson and Cody, plus Pete Junior’s daughter Candace.
Funeral arrangement are still being determined.
The Dallas Observer recently profiled Harry Anderson as he was set to make an appearance at this year's Texas Association of Magicians conference.
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