Hello.
Is mentalism supposed to work only on "common-minded" people?
Take Extraordinary Proof by Andrew Gerard (performed by Bro Gilbert, in Paul Harris' True Astonishments Vol. 5) for example. The explanation to it is very blurry, but in short words, you're supposed to force your spectator to stop at the card you want (they do it with the 17th card in the DVD). How do they force it? By employing mentalism. However, I just don't see it working. And when it does I can only guess it was random luck, because there are so many factors involved that aren't taken into account in the explanation. I fail to understand how a person can be lured into grabbing exactly that many cards. One less, or one more, and you're screwed.
There is a risk factor in everything you do in magic, but in mentalism this risk appears to be much, much bigger and the pay-off most of the time is the same as a non-mentalism trick (to the spectator's eye it's all "magic", anyway).
I understand that mentalism works -- to an extent. I just don't see it working as a vital part of a trick that you do to a stranger. Or, back to my example, I don't see how you can possibly force them to take 17 cards off the deck. There are more examples I could mention, but the tricks themselves are not the point. I took Extraordinary Proof as example because it's the best example I could mention that I know of.
(I have read about mentalism. I know some of you will tell me to "read books" which I have already read. Trust me, I wouldn't bother with creating a thread if I was clueless about its subject).
Is mentalism supposed to work only on "common-minded" people?
Take Extraordinary Proof by Andrew Gerard (performed by Bro Gilbert, in Paul Harris' True Astonishments Vol. 5) for example. The explanation to it is very blurry, but in short words, you're supposed to force your spectator to stop at the card you want (they do it with the 17th card in the DVD). How do they force it? By employing mentalism. However, I just don't see it working. And when it does I can only guess it was random luck, because there are so many factors involved that aren't taken into account in the explanation. I fail to understand how a person can be lured into grabbing exactly that many cards. One less, or one more, and you're screwed.
There is a risk factor in everything you do in magic, but in mentalism this risk appears to be much, much bigger and the pay-off most of the time is the same as a non-mentalism trick (to the spectator's eye it's all "magic", anyway).
I understand that mentalism works -- to an extent. I just don't see it working as a vital part of a trick that you do to a stranger. Or, back to my example, I don't see how you can possibly force them to take 17 cards off the deck. There are more examples I could mention, but the tricks themselves are not the point. I took Extraordinary Proof as example because it's the best example I could mention that I know of.
(I have read about mentalism. I know some of you will tell me to "read books" which I have already read. Trust me, I wouldn't bother with creating a thread if I was clueless about its subject).