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Jim Diamond, a retired American magician of stage and television, born December 1, 1942. He is an internationally recognized expert consultant on human intelligence.

Early Life
Jim Diamond was born in Ohio. His mother was a singer and his father a professional Hawaiian steel guitarist and methods engineer. At age five, Jimmie telephoned the police, summoning them to his upscale neighborhood adjoining a country club, to control a “riot” at his family’s residence. Moments later, Jimmie explained to his surprised father and a police squad that his 10-year-old brother had been teasing him, and demanded that the police put the kibosh on that. The police roared with laughter and the news media ran with the story. Little Jimmie's solution worked! His brother never teased him after that.

By age six, Jimmie had become intensely interested in magic (perhaps to make those who annoyed him disappear). At age seven, he solved a brainteaser for adults, winning first prize in a local radio call-in contest. Then he convinced the show’s sponsor, who was a magician, to award him used magical apparatus in place of the advertised prize. Then he charged each child in the neighborhood 10 cents admission to see his backyard magic show.

By age 12, he was performing for nationally prominent corporations, before audiences of thousands.

As a pre-teen, he befriended Dorothy Fuldheim, the “First Lady of Television News,” at WEWS-TV, in Cleveland, Ohio. Ms. Fuldheim was the first woman in the United States to have her own television news analysis program, and later became the first woman in the U.S. to anchor a television news broadcast. Her interviewees included Albert Einstein, Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, the Duke of Windsor, Helen Keller, Martin Luther King, Jr., Barbara Walters, and President Ronald Reagan.

Four years later, when Jim was 16, he and Dorothy Fuldheim forged a pact. She promised her continual support in exchange for his promise to significantly advance the evolution of humanity during his lifetime. The following year, he performed for his high school’s annual talent show as both the master of ceremonies and as a standup comedian. Jim bet the seniors in his high school’s physics classes that he could beat all of them in the school’s annual science fair, despite being merely a junior and never having taken a course in physics. Accordingly, he constructed a six-foot tall Van de Graaff electrostatic generator that produced rapid bursts of 1,000,000-volt bolts of lightning, and then discovered a previously unexplained electrical phenomenon that he later demonstrated for scientists at Heidelberg College.

Jim won first prize in physics at the science fair, with a rating of “superior.” For his innovation and discovery, he was inducted into the Ohio Academy of Science.

Soon thereafter, while enrolled at Ashland University, he accepted an offer from the United States Department of Defense for intensive training in advanced classified aviation electronics.

Professional magic
Throughout the 1960s, “The Amazing Mr. Diamond,” performed in theaters and nightclubs throughout the United States, and repeatedly on television on all three major networks: NBC (KSL-TV), CBS (KUTV-TV) and ABC (KTVX-TV).

“Those were the early days of color television,” Diamond recalled, “beginning in 1966, when all three networks began airing full color, prime time schedules. Those of us on camera had to wear a spectrum of theatrical cosmetics — Maui-tan pancake makeup, lapis lazuli colored contact lenses, and pepper-red lipstick — so as not to appear washed out and lifeless on television. Studio makeup artists decorated us as if we were corpses, while NBC advertised that we were in ‘living color.’”

In the late 1960s, while living in Las Vegas, Nevada and Los Angeles, California, Jim Diamond opened “The Diamond Palace,” a jewelry store specializing in diamonds, near Temple Square, in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Amazing Mr. Diamond then distributed thousands of his business cards, each of which was embedded with a genuine diamond.

“Advertising has a short life expectancy," Diamond explained. “But, Seymour Heller, Liberacé’s manager, suggested the solution to me.  And it worked!  No one ever tossed away one of my business cards and everyone remembered my name.”

Diamond’s career as a professional magician spanned 45 years, until his retirement from that field, in 1992.

“The Million-Dollar Miracle” … the world’s greatest illusion?
On October 23, 1976, to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Houdini’s passing, Jim Diamond presented a “magical effect” that he called “an attempt to escape from the laws of the physical universe.”

He arranged through the offices of Joe Albritton, the owner of the Washington Star newspaper, for an official 12-member committee to photograph and fingerprint him that morning, on the balcony of the Los Angeles County Art Museum. Moments later, at 11:00 a.m., Pacific Daylight Time, in full view and surrounded by hundreds of spectators, in what the committee later described as “a singular, brilliant flash of light,” Diamond’s body appeared to dematerialize.

At the same instant, three time zones away, at 2:00 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time, he reappeared near the White House grounds, 2300 miles (3700 Kilometers) distant, in Washington, D.C., surrounded by hundreds of spectators who had been awaiting his arrival. He was then immediately photographed and fingerprinted again, by an official 12-member reception committee.

As verified by the Washington Star, the images in the photographs from both locations matched perfectly, as did both sets of fingerprints.

At the offices of the Washington Star, Diamond offered an immediate $5,000 cash award to anyone who could prove that either set of fingerprints, or either of the official photographs, was in any way fraudulent. No one ever challenged their validity. The Amazing Mr. Diamond explained later, “It was either the largest and most incredible illusion in the annals of modern magic, to this day, or it was the first and only reliably witnessed and fully documented transcontinental teleportation. I will let you decide.”

He then issued a press release, challenging anyone to accept his offer to publicly repeat his transcontinental teleportation, anytime within the following year, for a $1,000,000 cash performance fee.

A year later, in October of 1977, after no one had accepted his offer, Diamond raised his performance fee to $10,000,000.

On June 22, 2001, 25 years after the Million-Dollar Miracle, Diamond unexpectedly revealed how he had done it. “I did it,” he explained, “the same way anyone else would have done it.”

In 2003, Jim Diamond and James Randi, known as “The Amazing Randi,” a challenger of paranormal claims, sought to reach an agreement for Diamond to repeat the transcontinental teleportation. However, there was no resultant meeting of the minds. Regarding Diamond’s $10,000,000 performance fee, Randi wrote, “It’s just too steep for me.”

The Spirit of ‘76
In 1966, at age 23, Jim Diamond wandered into a dingy antique shop, past a sign that proclaimed, “Come in and see what grandma threw away.” In a dim corner, he spied a dusty 15-inch-tall pair of matching Bristol glass vases. Each bore an illustrious painting of The Spirit of ’76 — two marching American Revolutionary War drummers and a fifer — by Archibald M. Willard. The Spirit of ’76 was the most popular painting by an American artist.

Diamond suspected that grandma should have kept her glasses on, and that the images were not reproductions, but lost national treasures, original versions of the most popular patriotic painting in the world. He immediately bought the vases.

The following year, Diamond discovered their secret. A sole member of A. M. Willard's immediate family still survived. Alden B. Hare, Executive Secretary of The A. M. Willard Museum Society, was an adopted son of the famous artist. He had grown up in the artist’s home and knew that A. M. Willard had painted original versions of The Spirit of ‘76 on two fragile Bristol glass vases, in the 1870s, for his personal enjoyment. After the artist’s death, in 1918, the objets d’art had been lost. The elderly Alden B. Hare had had been searching for The Spirit of '76 Vases for most of his life.

Diamond journeyed 2,000 miles (3,219 kilometers) to meet the aged man. On August 11, 1967, Alden B. Hare examined the two Bristol Glass paintings and executed an “affidavit of authenticity,” certifying that he was "… convinced they are the two vases which rested on the mantel of the east parlor of the house of Archibald M. Willard at 4933 Holyoke Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio, approximately sixty (60) years ago [circa 1907] when I lived there."

Diamond had discovered, and preserved for posterity, two American treasures that symbolized the birth of The United States of America, which had been lost for more than a half-century.

In November of 1967, Mrs. Juanita Roberts, Personal Secretary to President Lyndon B. Johnson, and Miss Betty South, Assistant to Mrs. Hubert H. Humphrey, wife of the Vice President, began negotiations with Diamond to obtain The Spirit of '76 Vases for permanent display upon a marble mantel in the East Room of The White House, unquestionably the most famous room in America. However, no agreement was reached.

On the morning of March 25, 1968, The Honorable Calvin Rampton, Governor of Utah, and Jim Diamond jointly displayed The Spirit of '76 Vases at "Gallery 268," a professional art showplace in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah, as reported by ABC (KCPX-TV) news.

That afternoon, at Governor Rampton's request, he and Jim Diamond posed for a series of official photographs with The Spirit of '76 Vases in the Governor’s Office, in the Utah State Capitol Building. Later that day, NBC’s KSL-TV studios showcased The Spirit of ’76 Vases and Diamond’s remarkable story of the loss, and his eventual discovery, of two of America’s most symbolic national treasures.

On April 11, 1970, The Spirit of '76 Vases were exhibited publicly for the last time, in Los Angeles, at the fine arts gallery of Celebrity Centre International, a sanctum for stars of stage, television and motion pictures. On April 12, a large photograph of them and Jim Diamond were featured prominently in the Los Angeles Times.

In 1971, both Boeing 707s in the U.S. presidential fleet, commonly known as Air Force One, were designated by President Nixon as The Spirit of '76.

Jim Diamond still owns The Spirit of ’76 Vases, which he has not exhibited publicly since 1970.

Other business activities
Jim Diamond has been a lecturer and consultant on the anatomy and capabilities of the human mind; a corporate and political speech writer; an import-export entrepreneur; an advanced avionics consultant; a corporate photographer; and, a philanthropist.

From 1971 to 1972, Diamond served as Executive Vice-president of the National Heritage Foundation, Inc. and, from 1971 to 1976, Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer and President of The Houdini Institute, Inc.

From 1976 to 1984, as a registered representative of the National Association of Securities Dealers, he served as Director of Corporate Communications and Public Affairs for the financial services division of the American conglomerate Gulf+Western Industries, now Viacom and CBS Corporation, which published many of his corporate photographs and more than 30 million words of his technical writing.

Since 1976 he has written professionally for many diverse publications, such as The Detroit Free Press, The Santa Monica Outlook, The Los Angeles Herald Examiner, and The Los Angeles Times.

From 1982 to 1984, Diamond was Editor-in-Chief of the financial magazine, “The Hourglass.” His friend, President Ronald Reagan, whose office was near Diamond’s, in Century City, California, wrote the introduction to the first issue.

Competitive intelligence and military access
Since 1967, Diamond is known to have been involved in competitive intelligence and other legal corporate espionage. As a civilian, he has had access to various restricted military properties, which have recently included Hickam Air Force Base, on Oahu, and the Ground-based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance (GEODSS) site, operated by the U.S. Air Force Space Command, atop Haleakala, on Maui, in the Hawaiian Islands.

Intelligence certification
In 1985, Robert M. Brook, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist, Diplomate, Neuropsychology, at the Assessment & Psychological Consultation Center, in Santa Monica, California, officially evaluated Jim Diamond’s level of intellectual functioning. As documented by Dr. Brook, "The evaluation session extended for two hours of face-to-face contact and no rest breaks were taken," as Diamond did not need any.

Dr. Brook concluded that Jim Diamond had the highest certified level of intellectual performance possible on the “Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale – Revised,” the world’s most accurate intelligence test for an adult. Diamond’s intelligence equaled, or exceeded, the uppermost limit of the highest category of the IQ scale, “Very Superior” functioning, which is the highest that any standard "face-to-face" IQ test can accurately measure.

Diamond’s intellectual performance equates to an IQ score that approximates 200 on the Cattell IQ test (which is as high as that test can accurately measure), and perfect scores of 2400 on the SAT Reasoning Test (formerly Scholastic Aptitude Test and Scholastic Assessment Test) and 36 on the American College Test (ACT).

Diamond has held memberships in numerous high-IQ societies, including Mensa (which requires an IQ of approximately 130), the International Legion of Intelligence (which is twice as restrictive as Mensa), and the Triple Nine Society (which is 20 times as restrictive as Mensa).

Jim Diamond is the only person to resign from every major high-IQ society in the world, because none was able to provide him with a sufficient degree of intellectual stimulation.

Personal Life
He has no allergies, phobias, or other physical or mental maladies. He has lived throughout the U.S., and maintains residences on both the U.S. mainland and the Hawaiian Island of Maui.

His hobbies include collecting rare objects d'art and works of French impressionists, exploring rain forests and volcanoes, and taming and training exotic Amazonian and African parrots. He has also owned a South American monkey, a bat, and various tropical tarantulas. He is an avid collector of rare yo-yos, including bandalores, Flores’s, Duncan tins, jeweled Goody’s and Royal prototypes.

He has received one-on-one instruction in exhibition yo-yoing from all four Yo-Yo Grand Masters, who hold the world’s highest rank in yo-yoing: Dale Oliver, Dale Myrberg, Bill de Boiseblanc and Dennis McBride.

He is affectionately known at the annual World Yo-Yo Contest® as "The Door Nazi." (He ensures that no one gets in without the proper credentials.)

He bicycles more than 3,500 miles (5,632 km) per year.

Trivia
Millionaires lived in 10 of the residences on the street where he grew up.

He graduated from high school with Richard Dauch, selected in 1996 by the Automotive Hall of Fame as “Industry Leader of the Year,” and Colonel Robert C. Springer, American astronaut.

In the 1970s, he lived in the Hollywood Hills, next door to Don Novello, best known for his work on NBC’s Saturday Night Live as “Father Guido Sarducci.”

He has tracked down the precise locations of all of Jack the Ripper’s murders, in Whitechapel, London, England.

In 1992, at the request of U.S. Army General H. “Stormin’ Norman” Schwarzkopf, Jr., Jim Diamond sneaked the General into the Grand Wailea Hotel, Resort and Spa, on the Island of Maui, successfully preventing him from being recognized by anyone. At that time, General Schwarzkopf was one of the most famous and recognizable of all Americans.