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Today we have a translation of a newspaper article about my grandfather, Haim (Vitali) Cohen, that appeared on pages 5-6 of the June 28, 1934 issue of the Vienna Neue Freie Presse.

The Magic Shop.

There are no magic links and no miraculous tickets for sale in this shop - none of those little things which keep “a whole party” amused. There is nothing but – paper. A simple stationer’s shop in the center of the city is the place, where ‘miraculous things” do occur. It has happened, several times already, that a buyer would hand the stationer his fountain pen in order to get it repaired – and that, while he was waiting for it, he would, quite casually, be told some details about his life, past, present and future. For some quite unaccountable ideas and images had come into the mind of the cheerful little man dealing with the fountain pens – images and ideas which he himself paid no attention to at first; until they became so powerful that they forced their way and forced him to splutter them out. And it turned out that those were the private lives of his customers which he now was, quite truthfully, describing!

This paper-dealer, being an oriental and a Turk, is not quite inaccessible to mystic tendencies; yet on the other hand, having formerly been an architect and engineer, he cannot help considering himself a cool rationalist. His first reaction to these events were a kind of shame and embarrassment; and he tried not to listen to the voice within himself. Yet when, the next time, people again came to have their fountain pens mended, the vague characters which they scribbled in order to try them out again gave reason for the Turk seeing and telling about images and impressions.

CUSTOMERS HANDS ARE PAINTED RED

Mr. C., the clairvoyant in spite of himself, now happened to visit the lecture of a chirologist - an event which occurred about a year ago - who, with the help of various photographs and plates, revealed the secrets of palm reading. “Why, that’s as easy as playing a child’s game,” thought Mr. C.; and when, on the following morning, a customer entered the shop he simply smeared his palms with red ink - much to the horror of the good man - and pressed the red palm down on a sheet of white paper; he then examined the portrait of the hand. Fates appeared before is mind’s eye, images whirled through his brain, and, full of eagerness, he told the customer what he saw. This was repeated several times; and the customers, amazed, could but corroborate the accuracy of his “visions.”

Within his inmost heart, C. admitted that he actually had no idea of palm reading; and that he only spoke out of intuition. Yet he got all the more interested in the network of lines which appeared different in every hand; and he took imprints of the hands of his relatives, friends, and customers with great eagerness. His predictions and prognoses became more and more daring, and more and more sure; until, one day, he told a rather taciturn fellow, who was out for acquiring some wrapping-paper, some of the most intimate things about his whole life. The buyer turned out to be one of the best-known chirologists in England, who on his turn, amused himself by proving that the prophet had not the slightest ideas of any questions of palm reading. Yet he could not deny that the things he had said were true. Quite the contrary: he wrote, underneath the imprint of his own hand: “Well roared, lion!” and encouraged Mr. C in developing his faculties.

2200 PAIRS OF HANDS WITHIN A YEAR.

C. has taken the advice. It is not much longer than a year since his customer’s private affairs first forced their way into his mind - and he already owns 2200 well-ordered imprints of pairs of hands. He no longer has to beg people to let them take the imprints of their palms: quite the contrary, there are many who beg him to look at them. But his sixth sense is not well disposed toward all callers; and he is quite capable of being disagreeable in some cases. Yet he always has time for those who really are in need of help. And he knows to tell, dramatically, of the way in which people can be spurred to higher efforts by the very intensity of their despair. It yet does occur, however, that, leaning in front of his shop in the sunshine, he suddenly will rush up to some guileless passer-by, draw him into his shop, and then, in a small back-room, will tell him the most important and urgent matters about himself; until the surprised visitor will feel almost faint with surprise and emotion.

This small back room looks queer enough. The skeptical, paper-selling and prophetic Turk has had the blue walls painted with symbols of the zodiac; which still make a mystic impression on innocent minds. There is a wash-basin which serves the practical purpose of having the clients wash the color off their hands; for C. no longer uses stamp colors, which can only be removed with the help of some chemical ingredients; but some color that comes off quite easily. He shows the unique case of a college teacher, whose right palm is imprinted in the brown color which actually was used on it, while the left- being painted with exactly the same material - has come off green. C. Is not quite certain of an explanation for this phenomenon; he supposes some abnormal polarization of the emanation of the hands; or the consequences of a cure of injections which the college professor took, and whose poisons, being now part of the skin, transformed the color as it touched it for chemical reasons.

THE SECRET OF THE WOODEN BOX.

And then there is a mysterious small wooden box, which C. hands to every visitor, requesting him to place each hand on it, alternately. I do it just to please him, I spread my hand over the little box, and, after a few minutes, I feel a breath of cool air on my palm. I now change the position of the hands and I feel —- nothing at all. Mr. C. begs me to put my observations down in a book, which is already filled with notes written by my predecessors. One has felt warmth in the right hand, and, on the left, a feeling of having touched upon an electric current. The other one felt nothing at all in his right hand, but a violent twitching in — the next when he held the left hand above the box. And what is there in the box? I open it, and find nothing but a small, withered root, which is oddly ill-shaped but, on looking at it more closely, one discovers that it is the likeness of a bearded man in a dancing position. “Why yes, it’s a mandrake,” the ever- cheerful miracle man will answer to my questioning look.

The mandragora, the famous magic plant of olden days! Oval leaves have grown from it, and berries which all served magic purposes. Arabs, to this day, eat these berries in order to go to sleep; but as aphrodisiac effect also is ascribed to them. Love-potions were distilled from them in antiquity. The leaves were placed on open wounds in order to soothe the pain; and the root was uses as anesthetic for operations. If the fleshy, beet-like root is dried, it assumes, in many cases, the oddest and most uncanny shapes; and, with a little good will, one may see the likelihood to a human form. It is a small wonder that miraculous powers were ascribed to them. They were supposed to bring luck and money, and they were being secretly tended and kept like human beings.

MANDRAKES FOR SALE.

These products of the Mediterranean regions had, in our time, been forgotten. An Austrian ex- serviceman, Colonel Franz Koeppl, was the first again to take interest and to study these rare objects; and, in the course of many years, he acquired 900 of them - all shapes and sizes. A laic might take it for granted that, owning so many talismans, this man must be loaded down with luck and riches. But this point does not seem to be quite clear; the Colonel certainly has handed his collection to Mr. C. for the purpose of selling it; for he says that it is to every mandrake that will bring luck to every man; it takes a clairvoyant to discover the root which fits one. “I originally thought that all this talk about the mandrakes was nothing but a bit of humbug,” says Mr. C. “But there remains the strange fact that the owners so often come to see me, and will assure that they are gaining new strength by the possession of this queer plant - and, consequently, new successes. I daresay it is all imagination - but the favorable effect does remain the main thing.”

This newspaper article was among the documents Vitali had translated into English in the hopes of continuing his occupation when he and Helene finally made it to America. We saw translations of testimonials in the May 22 post. We saw a far less complimentary article from 1939 in the April 7 post. What a difference a few years made.

When I read this article, for the first time I had a sense of who my grandfather was. He seems to have been a brilliant, charismatic, confident, insatiably curious, and intuitive man who was open to unusual and unpopular ways of thinking. Palm reading piqued his curiosity after attending a lecture in 1933, and by 1934 he was sharing his insights with anyone who would listen. In other posts, I describe my own journey to get to know my grandfather – first, having my palm read and then getting trained in hand analysis. In my year-long training with Richard Unger, I was required to read 100 hands, which was a daunting task for me. In the same amount of time, my grandfather had looked at more than 2200 pairs of hands!

Although Eva and Harry never told us about their father’s occupation, we have a wonderful photo of him taking handprints of the entire family. My archivist colorized this photo beautifully. You can see Eva and Harry looking on with great interest while Vitali rolls ink on Helene’s hand to take a print. Pages with handprints are strewn on the table.

In the photo below, you can see Vitali at work with all the tools of his trade: an inked handprint, a pendulum, mandrake root and a few other things I can’t identify.