It's currently Tuesday night as I write this. Earlier, I saw a post from Vanishing Inc. (@vanishingincmagic):
Our community lost one of its greats today. While Max Maven may be gone, the legacy he left is one that will continue to inspire magicians and mentalists for generations. Max was a major catalyst in the evolution of our art and we are eternally grateful for that.
Our hearts are with his family today ❤️
This upset me on several levels, as I think most people are upset when someone they look up to leaves the world.
I didn't know Max, not personally. In fact, I only knew him as a figurehead in magic and mentalism. Today is when I learned that he also went by another name, Phil Goldstein. That was his birth name, though he later legally changed it to Max Maven and still kept Phil as his pen name for publishing. Today, to me, I lost two greats.
I had always hoped that I would have a chance to meet him one day, especially now that I'm starting to go to conventions. I don't know if he would have been in attendance of any, but I've seen that he's appeared at plenty so I figured the odds would be good. At the very least, maybe I could have attended one of his shows or seminars.
His memory will live on with magicians from the performances he's given and in the plethora of work he leaves behind. A quick search on Conjuring Archive shows over 1500 entries related to his work, which is just astonishing. His earliest publishing, per the archive, is from 1974, and the latest is 2021. Now that is a lot to sift through!
Cause and Time of Death
Publicly, we don't know what the cause of death was yet. Based on an older post from The Magic Cafe and Max's Facebook page, he has been battling brain cancer for some time though.
Richard Kaufman posted on Facebook earlier today that alludes to this as well. Dustin Stinett also posted on the Genii Forum that around 9:30pm on November 1st, Max left us.
A sad time indeed.
Rest in peace Max.