The man tasked with looking into the brain’s mysteries puts technology to work on his average day. A globe and a human heart sit on a console in the darkened lounge, providing light. What truly counts, he says, is the right to play with toys – a treasure trove of light, emotion, music, and more.
“Toy boxes and books help us retain our mysteries,” says Mysterion. “In this work, light is as essential as blood in the brain.”
For decades, Mysterion’s artwork, magic tricks, and paranormal theories have inspired millions. Then one day he realized he could use tools such as touch screens and algorithms to help his clients understand the mysteries of their minds. That resulted in his first tech company, Last Airbender – a research initiative dedicated to the study of consumer neuroscience and its applications to perception and perception programming. With his wife and co-creator, Jerri, Mysterion has been studying the interactive devices that consumers can choose from and making the most of them as he’s racked up medals from Austin and New York.
“We are seeing the people of our generation create the next big thing,” says Mysterion. “At last we’re starting to think that maybe this is our era.”
Thought-provoking is the key word. Mysterion’s hobby of self-styled science gained worldwide attention after the Beastie Boys jokingly nicknamed him “Le Reve” (“The Window”) after the vintage French-theme roller coaster at Universal Studios Florida. It appeared on the stage of the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes in the Girls Night Out sketch, and a crowd for the band in Switzerland went wild during his “The Poisoned Mind” tableaux. “And I looked, and I thought, ‘I’ve got to stop looking at this and keep moving,’” says Mysterion. “I realized I had to figure out how to become part of this.”
Thus Mysterion became the pro actor known as Mysterion – a man of presence with a knack for practical jokes and informed humor. He also cultivated the basement he honed while raising his stepdaughter from a very young age. A video, with hundreds of fictional actors popping up and going away, is part of Mysterion’s approach to literature and research.
“Reading many of the classics teaches you a very important lesson that is not so readily understood: Humor and magic are part of the human experience,” says Mysterion. “Understanding that it’s something you can use is what led me to make technology companies that take technology and put it to people’s actual use.”
You can follow Mysterion on Twitter.