Feb

1

So-called psychic James Hydrick was different from your run-of-mill overnight swindlers. He was born poor in the Deep South, chained to a tree as a child, fed dog food, but a spark kept him striving to find his real self. As a teen, he was shuttled from orphanages to foster homes, only to run away again and again, chased by the hounds. He escaped to Hollywood, in search of a cinematic dream, where tryouts for parts didn't develop. He modeled, took part time jobs, and earned a black belt in karate. By his early twenties, his timing was exquisite and body like an oak when he ran afoul of the law.

He robbed a van, fenced the merchandise, got caught, and thrown in the LA county Jail that is the bowels of hell with 2000 screaming inmates. (I know because I once landed there myself on a trumped up jaywalking ticket.) He became, according to the County Jail shrink I talked to, the King of the inmates. He decked the Black Gorillas gang leader in the shower room for soliciting homosexual favors and, with a bounty on his head, was thrown into a 15' cube solitary cell on the lowest level. The LA County Jail is normally a transit facility, however he was a special protective case, and spent two years there in solitary, where he spent thousands of hours working out and learning how to move objects without touching them.

On trips to the Big House shrink he stole and stuck pins and paperclips under his skin as lock picks, that eventually were found on x-rays but not surgically removed because of the cost to the County. He developed a close relationship with the Catholic monk while in solitary who, upon Hydrick's release, understood that the ex-con needed to be sent far away, and chose Salt Lake as his new home during probation. He was quartered with a hulking retired marine officer and staunch Mormon business executive and his family to live with under control.

I met Hydrick one day in 1980 in Salt Lake where I was doing a racquetball camp. I noticed a lone figure in the gym taking five running steps, jumping, inverting in mid-air, and touching a basketball rim 10' off the floor with one foot. We adjourned to a desk where, without touching, he moved pencils, papers and other small objects from a distance of up to 5'. I smelled a story. We became apartment mates for six months, as he started a dojo and local tour of his stunts, and I wrote and photographed them. (Some of my photos would appear uncredited in martial art and online magazines.) Soon sport and psychic apprentices from around the country arrived at the dojo doorsteps to learn Hydrick's 'powers'.

From 1980-1 he appeared on That's Incredible, What's My Line, and the Danny Korem Show. Then I was in the wind, and he was reported moving pyramids in Egypt with a new host of devotees. The next thing I knew he was picked up on an outstanding warrant when a policeman recognized him on a 1989 Sally Jessy Raphael episode. He has been incarcerated to this day, except for one short respite last year, at the Coalinga State Hospital Maximum Security Hospital for the violent mentally disturbed that opened its door for the first time, as if for Hydrick, in 2005. James is not mentally disturbed, just misunderstood from the aforementioned childhood trauma. He used to take knives and swords and strike within an inch of my body, without touching the skin, when we sparred.

My family was worried about my getting taken into the Hydrick cult and sent a deprogrammer to Salt Lake to rescue. After a short discussion, I was convinced he was off his rocker, but acquiesced out of respect to my family, and ducked out of Hydrick's life.

To pick up on details, I went to LA and traded racquetball lessons with four turnkeys at the County Jail for an introduction to the psychiatric staff. They vouched that Hydrick had been the King of the LA County Jail and showed me radiographs of a half-dozen metal objects under his skin. I met and buddied with the Catholic Chaplin to a dozen monasteries throughout the Southwest.

According to Hydrick's transcript, the deputies in the County Jail were frightened of him, thought him possessed. The Chaplin taught him to read and write, and gave him a Bible. To pass time in a timeless place, Hydrick proselytized, converting up to twenty inmates a day like a prophet. He opened the Bible and commanded, 'Hold the Bible. Father, in the name of Jesus Christ make these pages move. And the pages would flutter and turn.'

Hydrick's telekinetic powers were common magician tricks mastered to a high art in solitaire, plus one that was never discussed. I believe he could blow out the tear ducts on the medial side of each eye, small openings that drain tears into the nasal passage. I found in a 1950s Ripley's Believe it or Not a reference to a 19th century Englishman who blew out candles 'through his eyes' from 6' away.

He was released from Coalinga on probation for a few months in 2014, and was reported as having taken a day-to-day room in the San Diego Gaslamp Quarter. No address was given, but there is only one, where I used to stay while doing the Sports Arena Swap Meet. I visited the Golden West hotel on 4th Avenue where they told me he had left, and is reported back in Coalinga.

The lesson is to keep your eyes open when you dabble in the esoteric.


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2 Comments so far

  1. Anonymous on July 9, 2016 7:38 am

    …..and then he raped numerous boys and now lives as a sexually violent predator in a state hospital. A real success story.

  2. burn hydrick burn on July 9, 2016 7:39 am

    ….and then he rapes numerous boys and lives in a state hospital as a sexually violent predator. A true success story.

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