All of those going into mentalism.

[Sherlock]

SO many people trying to go into mentalism are going to fail and wonder why. Spending money on a whole bunch of stuff that they will later on never use in life. Well it's because you can't perform it and don't understand it. Now obviously mentalism isn't necessarily to look like magic but to be as real and impossible but possible in your audiences head.

You need to understand that magic and mentalism are on two different levels. Not saying one is above the other but it's like playing a different game, where the actions you do and how you go about them result in much different experience for everybody. Going into this thinking that your idle patter will pass is not going to work, neither is fancy work with your hands. This is as direct as it can get, understanding that you are the reason behind it working is the first step.

Work on everything else first, your coins and cards, everyday objects, all that is just a preview, a warmup before you get to mentalism. Understanding the performance and presentation behind it and everything you need to do to make it look real is just overlooked by so many. Mentalism is a different step and will require more than just answering the question I wrote before, it will require time, effort, and maturing of age to be looked at and judged by others as "the real deal."

A few things to add, if you are getting into mentalism then review your performance. If you are the patter magician and say as you do, "I'll place your card in the middle, I'll snap my fingers, and the top card is your Blank of Blank." If you perform like this then don't get into mentalism, because you certainly aren't ready for something like mentalism. Mentalism is all about you and the spectator, not necessarily the effect itself.

Secondly, do not get into mentalism expecting to be like Derren Brown. You may believe that his effects are a whole ton of psychology but in fact he uses an incredible amount of basic effects. His performance though and his presence is just so real, which is exactly what you want. Yes he does have great skills forcing certain things on people, cold reading is fairly good. Yet what he is really known for in his shows is his basic mentalism effects.

Lastly, read praetoritevongs post Aim High, that is exactly what spectators should experience with magic and mentalism. More so mentalism since it's that sort of "effect." That is what you want you want to do e-v-e-r-y single time you perform, you want to make it an impossible situation.

 

[menderkant]

You speak the truth, idle patter and descriptive patter don't work well in mentalism, but they don't work well in magic either. Presentation is most important to lay people.

 

[Sherlock]

Indeed, however people can manage with their idle patter in magic. Not saying it's good or even mediocre but some people will still be amazed, however mentalism you will not even scathe by with the same useless chatter between you and your props.

 

[Mr.MadMan]

Suprised to see this kind of post coming from you. Since im not sure you are ready to give out advice this kind. Although some points were made the whole posts was far too rushed and not thought through.

Ill try to add my two cents.

mentalism |ˈmentlˌizəm|
noun Philosophy
the theory that physical and psychological phenomena are ultimately explicable only in terms of a creative and interpretative mind...

So what exactly is mentalism?
Well mentalism is the art of Believing(to me at least). People need to understand that mentalism is something far beyond conditional magic and illusion. Its a form of illusion that uses a high understanding of human psychology and the true meaning behind the words, actions and effects you do.


Let me explain a little of the things that i said in the last few lines. In psychology i don't mean the conditional Derren 's psychological stunts where he hypnotizes people in seconds and uses NLP and other stuff but the fact that we understand people better than others. Its actually an art of its own in fact, mentalists know a lot more about people than the people know themselves. I for one can spot if a person is uncomfortable on stage from the back row although i wear glasses. Mentalists need to understand the fundamentals behind a person, how they think and what they think, with their body. So mentalists have to know people on a whole new level, you can see it as a psychologist who can identify a personality in a few seconds.

How to start!?

There was a topic somewhere here, called Starting mentalism orsmth like that.
Anyways the few things that stuck to the back of the mind was that
READ BOOOOOOOOOKKKKKSSSSS!!!!!!!
No really, most of mentalism is in books and thats the way its going to be for the next few years, i hope.

So if you are a "visual learner" then forget mentalism but if you don't have problems with books then the best place to start is Corinda's 13 Steps to Mentalism. From on there there are dozen's of possibilities.

After the fundamentals?

After you have gotten the simple steps down you have to understand the fundamentals behind human psychology. This you will obtain from different books you read and every Mentalism based book has some new tips and aspects of performance. The best book i have read on how people think, react and act is Paul Brook's Alchemical Tools. (please don't kill me for this! )

Who am i?

Now i think that when you get serious with reading Mentalism based stuff you will encounter the word "Character". This is an important part of mentalism, who you are.

If you are thinking, "Well i am me, im myself", then you have got another thing coming girlfriend!(im watching made on MTV, i just had to say this ).
Yes you are yourself but who are you, what is you exact strong and weak points.
I suggest cheking out Dee Christophers work on the papercrane forums. He has written posts that take you through understanding your character and setting points you need to achieve success.

This will help you understand what kind of a performer you are and what effects suit you and what type of performing style you have.


"I will take your card, put it in the middle, and its on the top"

That is just c***, never, i mean never, say what you are going to do. Its bad because it makes following the illusion far too easy.

Being a mentalist you have to understand how to perform something the way that
you can sell your personality, your performing style, let it be Spiritualism, Psychokenesis, NLP, Hypnosis etc.
You can't be a Psychology professional and a Spiritualist at the same time. One is supernatural and the other is natural and more explainable. As a mentalist you have to understand the meaning of word in every sentence since as much as one word could mess up your whole performance.

More....

All of these things come with performing. You can't be a mentalist if you don't perform since it is a performing art. It relies highly on theatrics and its tough to practice that at home. You can pretty much do nothing with your hands but you have to perform it like there is far complex and bigger things going on.

So perform a lot, study a lot and most importantly get out as much as you can. Ive seen mentalists who made mentalism their life, there is nothing wrong with that but really social life is key to this aswell. It helps to meet different people and get to know them and analyze them(don't be a doctor on this tho, naturalness try to remember as much as you can).

Peace men!
Mikk.

 

[Sherlock]

I know I am not the best person to be giving it out, but it seems nobody says it. I may not know as much but I certainly do believe I have reached a critical point in my time in mentalism.

Anyways, good advice and I completely agree. However I would still recommend Fundamentals before 13 steps, as it goes over what mentalism is and not everything it has to offer.

 

[Mr.MadMan]

I know I am not the best person to be giving it out, but it seems nobody says it. I may not know as much but I certainly do believe I have reached a critical point in my time in mentalism.

Anyways, good advice and I completely agree. However I would still recommend Fundamentals before 13 steps, as it goes over what mentalism is and not everything it has to offer.

Well if you had done your homework then even i have posted a few topics discussing these things pretty throughly, also Praetoritevong (yess, i think i spelt it right , practice makes perfect! )has written some topics on the topic and there are others(can't remember).

YBB...


Mikk.

 

[Sherlock]

Ah, I apologize then. Praetoritevong did recommend reusing this post since the original thread got out of hand and well away from topic.

However I did not see any of your posts so I apologize for that.

 

[Mr.MadMan]

Ah, I apologize then. Praetoritevong did recommend reusing this post since the original thread got out of hand and well away from topic.

However I did not see any of your posts so I apologize for that.

Sorry from me too, i came off a bit rude.
Most of these topics get buried (YBB...)and are not brought back. But repeating keeps stuff going!

Mikk.

 

[D ICE R]

There are so many thing you need to consider when entering into mentalism.

Jeff McBride talked about the magician 24/7 philosophy, it is not a complex idea basically you need to be a magician at all times. On some level most of the people on these forums adhere to that, with (I assume) 90% of the material people perform as impromptu card tricks. Mentalism is exactly the same however, it takes this belief to another level. People are a lot more intelligent now days and have the basic understanding of sleight of hand and that it can be used to accomplish some very powerful things. Regardless most people believe now days that magic is a skill.

Mentalism is still perceived as a skill, however the skill is perceived to be a genuine talent rather than a demonstration of knowing something clever. So as prae closes his set with a swami, there is nothing wrong with that. What if he did not have it as he left his house and there has been a bit of a buzz about this effect. Eventually people would want to see this miracle, whilst I am sure he could get out of the effect it would be nice to have a truly impromptu method like LB/RB from Mitox.

The simplest example that I can give is if we take two classics from magic and mentalism. For the magic effects we will use the sawing the lady in half and an ACR, and for mentalism we will do a drawing dupe and a booktest. For the ACR it should be anytime there is a deck of cards that is present and it can be. But the sawing the lady in half the audience knows that the prop special and is essential to achieving the effect. Both of the mentalism effects I decided on can use genuine props or gimmicked ones. Some people spend hundreds of dollars on a book that has been specially made to make one of the cleanest book tests available. The same thing can be said about the drawing dupe a impression pad could be used or a peek. Both achieve the same thing however one is impromptu and one is cleaner.

But as a mentalist using normal props (or ones that look normal) he should be able to recreate the same effect if handed the normal version of said prop.