[4] In 1927, after returning to Palo Alto from a brief move to Berkeley due to his father's work for AT&T, McGill began taking Tarbell Course in Magic lessons at the start of high school and studied hypnosis.

Inspired by a performance of magician Charles Carter, McGill held his first full-length magic show at Palo Alto High School, with more complex tricks such as the bullet catch and a hypnosis act involving a homeless carny and a sledgehammer.

In 1934, he turned down an offer to be signed with Elwin-Charles Peck's El-Wyn Midnight Spook Party as he didn't want to quit college, but continued to visit magic shows at any opportunity, including a few by Long Tack Sam.

McGill continued to collaborate with other colleagues including Gil Boyne, whom he mentored, and to teach hypnotherapy until his death in 2005 with Randal Churchill at the HTI.

He wrote between twenty-five and forty books (sources disagree on the total), including such titles as Grieve No More Beloved (about his afterlife contact with his deceased wife), Hypnotism and Mysticism of India, and his autobiography, The Amazing Life of Ormond McGill.