It's stated that The Shadow was a "master of hypnosis" who had "the ability to cloud men's minds so they could not see him." Supposedly he learned this ability in the Far East.
I've been listening, on and off and over the years, to OTR episodes of The Shadow and I know there have been comic books, films, and pulp magazine stories and novels about The Shadow.
I would think, with the powerful hypnosis (or whatever it turned out to be) that he used to keep himself from being seen, he would be able to do other things as well. Is it ever stated, shown, or implied that he has other abilities besides clouding men's minds? For instance, has he been able to influence people so they see things that aren't there or hear something they didn't?
Answer
Yes. In an Orson Wells episode (The Three Ghosts or The Triangle of Death, I don't remember which) he made a criminal hallucinate while driving a car and made that criminal hit another criminal with his car. He's also demonstrated long distance telepathy on several occasions in the early Wells' episodes.
Reading the current Dynamite comic run of the character, including "The Shadow" and "Masks", he's demonstrated exceptional martial prowess (including a sword showdown with a drug lord who was also trained by the master monks who trained the Shadow himself), excellent marksmanship abilities, precognition (some voluntary, but most in the form on cryptic dreams.)
Even when he's just Lamont Cranston he has demonstrated the ability to affect people's minds to influence their decisions and to make them overlook whatever he wants (like influencing the mind of a British officer to make him investigate something, or influencing the mind of another officer who was inspecting Lamont's baggage so that he wouldn't see and would overlook all his shadow equipment, including his overcoat, cloak, hat, scarf and both guns.) He probably has a lot more abilities that haven't been addressed and will come out as the character evolves over time.
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