January 22: Jon Racherbaumer

Respected author, magician, and magic philosopher, the late Jon Racherbaumer was born on this day in 1940 in Oak Park, Illinois. He was a junior member of the Mazda Mystic Ring in Oak Park, and later lived in Elmhurst, another Chicago suburb. To his surprise, a previous resident of Elmhurst, Dr. Harlan Tarbell, had given a bound set of his Tarbell Course to the local library, where Jon discovered the books. They served as his magic primer, introducing him to a wide variety of different effects.