Surrounding Chicago’s magnificent lakefront, behind the amazing parks, zoos, and museums, and in myriad haunted homes throughout Chicago, paranormal mysteries abound. And in this giant city where Mrs. O’Leary’s cow was purported to set the city ablaze and where Al Capone gave Chicago its mob connection status, stands a man whose mystical tales luminesce and coalesce into a haunting paranormal experience. This man is renowned necromancer Neil Tobin.

Combining magic with mystery, this highly acclaimed one-man show is held in what is reportedly one of the most haunted locations in Chicago. Neil Tobin explores Chicago’s paranormal past in a performance that will leave you breathless. Listed as one of the “top ten cool things to do” in Chicago by The Chicago Sun Times, www.supernaturalchicago.com/">Supernatural Chicago will haunt you long after you leave the Excalibur nightclub.

Located on Chicago’s near north side at 632 N. Dearborn (at Ontario), Excalibur showcases Neil Tobin, Necromancer, who delivers a paranormal performance every Friday night (plus Saturdays in October) promptly at 7:30. The performance is limited to only 50 attendees, so tickets for his Supernatural Chicago performance should be purchased in advance.

I had the pleasure of interviewing this master performer and I would like to share with you my interview with Neil Tobin of Supernatural Chicago:

BW: You mention in the video that appears on the front page of supernaturalchicago.com that you have been interested in paranormal activity since you were a child. Did something of a paranormal nature happen to you to spark your interest in the supernatural? If so, how old were you and what happened?

NT: For nearly as long as I can remember, I've realized that I had a sensitivity to other people's feelings, thoughts, and even to the environment around me. Call it psychic, call it intuition, or just call it sensitivity, but whatever it was, I knew as a child that I had it. And while that sounds strange, it really wasn't—most of my friends had this sensitivity too. No, the strange part was that as we got older, more and more of my friends seemed to shut that part of themselves down. It was something that adults seemed upset by, that society at large didn't seem to accept. But it continued to interest me. And when I went to the library to read more about the psychic, I saw that next to those books were books about spirits and hauntings. And next to those books were ones about magic. So I read everything in those sections and have been interested in all of it ever since.

BW: How did you come up with the idea for the show?

NT: There were a few thoughts that sparked the idea of Supernatural Chicago. First, I'm a magical performer, and I was deeply frustrated that Chicago—a city that has been home to many great magicians and places to see magic through the years—did not at the time have a single place where members of the public could go to see a professional theatrical magic performance. So that was Thought Number One.

Thought Number Two was to create a show that did more than appeal to other magicians or to self-identified magic fans. There are a lot of people out there whose only contact with magic was through an unhappy birthday party experience as a child. They might be going through life thinking that they hate magic; if you think that's far-fetched, just think of all the kids who had one bad Shakespeare teacher in High School and now swear that they hate Shakespeare! So in this show, I wanted to expose magic to people who aren't necessarily even looking for a magic show, so I could help grow the audience for magic in Chicago. That meant creating a show that was about more than just magic.

This led to Thought Number Three: if it's not going to be about magic, what would it be about? And I did what any artist would do: I looked at myself and my interests, and what I wanted to communicate. And I decided that I wanted to tell people about the paranormal side of Chicago, and turn it into interactive theater using all the tools I have as a magical and psychic performer.

BW: Why did you choose Excalibur as your showplace?

NT: We pretty much picked each other. You see, when Supernatural Chicago was still just a germ of an idea, I was working on another event: The Houdini Séance, on behalf of the Chicago Assembly of the Society of American Magicians. I was the host of the event, which was a theatrical recreation of a traditional Victorian séance—exactly like the ones Houdini himself visited during his lifetime. It was a wonderful Halloween event for the community and for the magicians of the Assembly, and was very well received in the press the first year we did it out in the boonies. But the turnout was very small, so I made it my project to relocate it to a more city-accessible location the following Halloween. And one of the very first places I thought of was Excalibur. It's an amazing building! Massive granite slabs, Romanesque arches, twisted wrought iron, imposing size—it was perfect. And it was even a historic landmark that was reputed to be haunted! So I picked up the phone, talked to the terrific people at Ala Carte Entertainment who run Excalibur, we had a meeting, and that was it. They agreed to let us use their space.

Well, that year the response was huge. Excalibur received a lot of attention in the media. And everybody was so happy that when Halloween was over they asked me, "What can you do the rest of the year?" And suddenly I had a place for this germ of an idea that became Supernatural Chicago.

BW: You, more than probably anybody (because of what you do), hear stories about haunted homes in Chicago. How many Chicago homes do you estimate are haunted?

NT: Any place where lives were taken suddenly or violently is prime material for a haunted site, and Chicago certainly has plenty of those. Numerous hauntings have been credited to gangland activity, pioneer and Native American massacres like the one at Fort Dearborn, and major disasters such as the Chicago Fire and the sinking of the Eastland in the Chicago River. But surprisingly enough, most of the hauntings that have been reported to me firsthand are by people who simply had a loved one such as a grandparent pass on, and were visited in the middle of the night by that grandparent's spirit to reassure them and let them know they're loved. That's it. Since most people hold these sorts of experiences privately, it's impossible to know how many people go through it—and of those, how many people even recognize it as a haunting instead of just a weird but comforting dream. But if somebody were to make a study of it, I would expect the incidence to be startlingly common.

BW: What types of comments do you hear from attendees after your performance?

NT: The show attracts different kinds of comments from people with different perspectives. I hear everything from "Great stories!" and "How did you do that?" to "How long have you had the gift?" and "I don't know what to think!" And that tells me I'm doing something right, because whether an audience member is a believer in the paranormal and the psychic or not, my goals is that every guest leaves with an experience that resonated with him or her in some way. Probably my favorite response of all, though, is when guests, after listening to me talk for 90 minutes, want to stick around and tell me their stories. Then I really know I've made a connection.

(Author’s note: find numerous positive reviews at the Supernatural Chicago web site)

BW: Do you watch any of the ghost hunting programs, Ghost Whisperer, Supernatural, or Medium?

NT: The so-called "reality" shows that present ghost hunting as entertainment usually just make me angry. Much as they present themselves as documentary, they aren't. They're entertainment, and as such they're completely justified in faking results and setting unrealistic expectations. If they didn't produce results, and quickly, would they even have shows? Of course not. But the fact is that real spirits don't produce impressive manifestations reliably—and especially not when a film crew is watching. As for the fictional TV shows, movies, and books that use the paranormal in their plots, they can be great fun. My only concern is that by and large, they have historically presented the spirits as frightening and out to get us. I know there's a good reason for doing this: warm, friendly, reassuring spirits aren't very helpful for creating dramatic conflict. But the unfortunate result is that mainstream Americans believe in these fictional portrayals while most other-world cultures have a healthier relationship with spirits and mortality.

BW: Merriam-Webster defines necromancer as one who conjures spirits of the dead for purposes of magically revealing the future or influencing the course of events. It also refers to magic and sorcery. Is that how you define yourself?

NT: You and Merriam-Webster are absolutely right: "necro" means dead, and the original definition of "necromancer" describes a person who speaks with the spirits of the departed for the purpose of forecasting the future. But a lot has changed since that definition first appeared: in the ensuing centuries, it has been expanded to include one who has any variety of magical or psychic gifts. How perfect for me! In my performance work I apparently communicate with the spirits at The Houdini Seance and Supernatural Chicago; that takes care of the original "necro" part. I also perform divination through tarot, palmistry, and object readings at private parties; read minds; and do magic. So, "necromancer" is a wonderfully large envelope to contain all the elements that go into my performances. Plus, it doesn't come with any of the psychological baggage that saddles words like "magician" or "psychic." If it didn't already exist, I probably would have had to make it up myself.

BW: Why do you think people find your show so entertaining? What do you offer your audience that's different from other entertainers?

NT: I think people find it entertaining in large part because the paranormal is inherently entertaining. We all have a fascination with the unexplained; that's why ghost stories have stayed with us as a culture.

Also, my shows are interactive, so the audience becomes a large part of the entertainment. It's certainly entertaining for me—I wouldn't still be doing Supernatural Chicago after more than five years if the audience didn't help make it a different show every night. And it's entertaining for the audience too. It's a great break from our usual entertainment choices—most of the time, people get used to passive entertainment: we usually just watch a movie or turn on the TV.  But at Supernatural Chicago, you get active entertainment. You respond to the show, the show responds to you, and back and forth the communication goes so that by the end of it, you haven't just passively watched something. You've been part of a unique experience.

One more thing I think people really like about that experience is that it doesn't give them easy answers. Nobody tells them what's real in the show and what isn't. So they're left to think about and come to terms with what they've just been part of. It makes them ask questions and maybe look deeper into their own beliefs for answers. That really stays with people.

With that said, it sometimes feels like every guest has his or her own reason for enjoying the show. Some like the funny parts. Some like the dramatic parts. Some like that it's spooky. Some like that it never gets too scary. Some like learning the history. Some like the magic. And on and on. Frankly, I'm just glad they keep coming to the show, sometimes multiple times with different friends in tow. I'm really very lucky.

For great interactive fun filled with history, magic, and mystery, join Neil Tobin in a supernatural Halloween type thrill that will keep you engaged long after Halloween is over. For more information on how to get tickets, visit Supernatural Chicago and prepare to be enthralled by Neil Tobin.