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T. A. Waters

US magician & SF author (1938–1998)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 19, 2026
Entity authorityQ7668118 ↗
Source-derived summary

Thomas Alan Waters (also known as T.A. Waters) (1938–1998) was an American magician, writer about magic, and science fiction author.

History

Born to Thurston Alan Waters and Pauline Ruth (Kunkle) Waters, T. A. Waters was a professional magician and magic author. He wrote several booklets on mentalism and bizarre magic which were later reassembled in his big book Mind, Myth & Magick (1993). At one point, he was the librarian at the Magic Castle, in Los Angeles.

Waters appears as a character in the Lord Darcy fantasy series by Randall Garrett (thinly veiled as "Sir Thomas Leseaux", an expert on theoretical magic), and in Michael Kurland's The Unicorn Girl (1969) (even more thinly veiled as "Tom Waters"). He himself wrote The Probability Pad (1970), a sequel to The Unicorn Girl; these two novels, together with Chester Anderson's earlier The Butterfly Kid (1967), make up the collaborative Greenwich Village Trilogy.

Published works

The Psychedelic Spy (1967)

Love that Spy! (1968)

The Blackwood Cult (1968) (Lancer Books) (Magnum Books 73769)

The Probability Pad (1970) (the third volume in the Greenwich Village Trilogy)

Psychologistics (1971)

Centerforce (1974)

Deckalogue (1982)

Cardiact (1984)

The Encyclopedia of Magic and Magicians (1988)

Mind, Myth & Magick (1993)

References

External links

See more about T.A. Waters at MagicPedia, the free online Magic encyclopedia.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “T. A. Waters” as uS magician & SF author (1938–1998). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Waters, magician and author.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1938, 1998, 1993, 1969—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1938-01-01, 1938-02-27—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Waters, magician and author providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “T. A. Waters”, the useful work is to connect “uS magician & SF author (1938–1998)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7668118. VIAF identifies the subject as 11331525. The Library of Congress control number is n86116481. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1938, 1998, 1993 and 1969.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “T. A. Waters”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow T. A. Waters primary sources, T. A. Waters archive and Waters research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “T. A. Waters”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “T. A. Waters” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.