Bill is simply one of the original masters and knows his metals as intimately as others know their children. He is very outspoken and would probably take blunt issue with mystic "stuff".

His knives are not only the result of intense study of manuscripts and drawings from old New Orleans knife fighting schools, medieval history and manuscripts etc, but also the result of input from modern knife fighting pros who get together for practice and clinics. He also knows how to be amusingly humble, such as the first time when he spoke to James Keating and told him what he proposed was impossible (in polite language), and James showed him verbally and by example that it was not (in polite language), while both learned a thing or three from each other and Bill freely admitting he learned a lot more than he taught.

Now, as for wild blue yonder spirit of the blade cosmology and guys doing near paranormal feats of mind over matter for crowds at a SOF convention, James Keating and the crowd he runs with would be your entree; simple stunts like jamming a steel rod through a forearm and then dragging a jeep using chains attached to rod...simple stuff.

But I am a meat and potatoes kind of guy, and Bill Bagwell straightforward country wisdom more my speed.