I've been doing magic for about 5 years now, and taking it seriously for 3 years, but a few months ago I started learning about mentalism and I was enthusiatic about. But now I'm started to sway. I don't if I should mentalism or magic. I can't do both because they're opposites.
Another Mentalism Post
- Thread starter Vinsanity
- Start date
What was attractive about it, and why is it not so attractive now?
If you don't want to do both and you're not sure you like mentalism, go with magic - you never know when the desire might return.
If you don't want to do both and you're not sure you like mentalism, go with magic - you never know when the desire might return.
Why can't you do both? Derren Brown, David Berglas, David Blaine (and a few more magicians whose initials aren't DB) have done it successfully. It all depends on how you present yourself, and each effect. This is a realisation I only came to recently, and, in fact, I used to argue that a clearly-defined persona would be limited to only a small array of possible effects.
For example, you could even throw in an Ambitious Card routine in the middle of a full-on mentalism set. You could perhaps talk about how you're going to let the audience in on some of your secrets, and how you rely on the mind creating its own patterns based on suggestion. The easiest way to explain this, you tell them, would be by showing them how it could be used in a card trick. You get them to invest something of themselves (maybe call it an "anchor") by signing the card, and get them to take a "mental photograph" of the card on top of the deck. So now, every time you trigger the anchor, they will instantly see the top card of the deck as being the signed selection. At the end of the routine, you could have a kicker where you switch the signed card for an unsigned duplicate, and show them that the pen they apparently used to sign the card doesn't, in fact, work, and it was all a hallucination....
Didn't read the whole thing as TeeDee, but must say I agree. You can't do both in the same act if you routine correctly.
In fact doing more than one type would be unique, so many people conform to types nowadays, whatever happened to a magician being an entertainer, all around, rather than just someone who can do stuff with cards etc.
TeeDee you mentioned some of the greatest performers of the modern times. Yes they can combine magic and mentalism quite efficiently, however you need to give the two different things their space. Derren talks about this quite a bit in The Devil's Picture Book. However, the effect you demonstrated would defiantly be considered a trick with a magician's explanation of hypnosis. And that could really hurt your effects and character if you were to use more genuine (or even pseudo) hypnosis. They can be combined just so few magicians can do mentalism well as it takes a different mind set to achieve the desired effect.
Just have to say this as nobody seems to have acknowledged it - I love this idea withthe ambitius card trick! It seems logical and has a very sweet ending
Mentalism is great. In fact, I was just watching Something Wicked This Way Comes by Derren Brown. Now, in his act he says he uses magic and various techniques to influence the mind. He is know as a "mind reader" in some of his other shows. He comes off as a mentalist but he is using unconscious hint and magic in his acts. So, if you find that you want to learn more about mentalism, go out, research the topic, use the techniques, and see if you are comfortable with the whole idea of being a "mind reader"
Thanks for reading,
Justin
Thanks for reading,
Justin
I take your point, but I slightly disagree with it. If you've got a robust, three-dimensional performance persona then you can perform any effect and make it fit. I don't feel that my character is harmed when I stick someone's hand to the table with suggestion and then do something with a deck of cards. My character is one of a gambler/hustler, so it's perfectly in keeping that I would have card skills as well as psychological ones. In fact, I think it makes it more interesting for the audience, as it gives a simple ACR an added depth, allowing the audience to wonder whether I'm using hypnosis, sleight-of-hand, or something else entirely.
To my mind it all comes down to who you decide you are as a performer. Work on a silent script to give yourself a back story about who you are, the skills you've developed and the reason why you developed them. In this way, you will know when a certain presentation feels right, or whether it needs more justification.
TeeDee I know you have thought about this and you mentioned it when you said your silent script. The only problem I have is that you tell your audience that you have great sleight of hand. You proceed to perform an effect that is rationally a sleight of hand piece but you give it an NLP underlying premise, yet the cards remain in your hand. If you were really doing what you claim to be doing you would let them constantly turn over the card because they know there is no sleight of hand taking place.
They will rationalise this as you lying to them and reject everything else you have told them. If you are portraying yourself as someone with a talent which you obviously are everything needs to fit your premise otherwise the house of cards will come crashing down. This is not to say that you have to use the method you are claiming to but it should at least look like it.
They will rationalise this as you lying to them and reject everything else you have told them. If you are portraying yourself as someone with a talent which you obviously are everything needs to fit your premise otherwise the house of cards will come crashing down. This is not to say that you have to use the method you are claiming to but it should at least look like it.
And the bad thing about it is this TeeDee, even though you could say you are using NLP or suggestion techniques to achieve your results, like Dicer says if you can genuinely do what you claim to be doing, then what you would be doing would look much more differently than the conventional person who is doing the same thing (whatever that thing may be). And people can distinguish whether you are a real or fake.
When people catch on to your lies, even if you are tellin the truth and are really using these techniques within your act; never again shall they see it that way. Why? Because all they see is someone labeling themselves and their skills to be something it is not, all to dress up a trivial trick.
It will hurt your image man, if you know what your image exactly is, from the inside out, from all angles.
But to the original question - i still think you can take the beauty from Magic and apply it to Mentalism (not to say Mentalism isn't beauty, but Magic has that certain spark which Mentalism also has but people can't see as much; maybe you could call it not being much open minded); and the seriousness of Mentalism into Magic. I think it is an interesting field.
When people catch on to your lies, even if you are tellin the truth and are really using these techniques within your act; never again shall they see it that way. Why? Because all they see is someone labeling themselves and their skills to be something it is not, all to dress up a trivial trick.
It will hurt your image man, if you know what your image exactly is, from the inside out, from all angles.
But to the original question - i still think you can take the beauty from Magic and apply it to Mentalism (not to say Mentalism isn't beauty, but Magic has that certain spark which Mentalism also has but people can't see as much; maybe you could call it not being much open minded); and the seriousness of Mentalism into Magic. I think it is an interesting field.
Thanks for the compliment Kieran. I didn't notice it before I made my last post.
D ICE R and Shakutau, I think what you're missing is that I'm not explicitly saying at any point during my act that I'm using NLP, suggestion, sleight-of-hand, or any particular technique. To be fair, I do have one routine where I talk about misdirection and pretend to switch cards from the participant's hand, but I don't explicitly mention any method elsewhere. I don't personally use the ACR patter I described, but I was just using that as an example. However, if I'm faking the use of suggestion, then I will absolutely commit and perform the trick exactly as if I was using it.
Just to be clear on this, I think it's a terrible idea to do a sleight-of-hand routine and say, openly at the start, "I'm going to use suggestion to convince you [of whatever]". Rather, you should perform the routine in such a way that it appears to be suggestion, or, if you're really clever, in such a way that it appears your trying to trick them into believing it's sleight-of-hand when it's actually psychological.
The best example of this is one of the most powerful things I do, forcing a card then reading their "tells" to divine it's identity. I don't tell them that that's what I'm doing, I just force the card, put the deck aside and spend three or four minutes reading them, using confusion techniques to apparently make them drop their guard and so on. Everyone afterwards tells me they can see what I'm doing, reading their body language. If I'd set it up as "I'm going to read your body language", that's just asking for them to search for another method. Now, this isn't quite consistent with what happened. Why did they have to pick a card rather than just think of one? However, no-one picks up on this. In the same way, you can overcome other inconsistencies, with people either forgetting about them completely, or sometimes even putting them down to me trying to mislead them.
D ICE R and Shakutau, I think what you're missing is that I'm not explicitly saying at any point during my act that I'm using NLP, suggestion, sleight-of-hand, or any particular technique. To be fair, I do have one routine where I talk about misdirection and pretend to switch cards from the participant's hand, but I don't explicitly mention any method elsewhere. I don't personally use the ACR patter I described, but I was just using that as an example. However, if I'm faking the use of suggestion, then I will absolutely commit and perform the trick exactly as if I was using it.
Just to be clear on this, I think it's a terrible idea to do a sleight-of-hand routine and say, openly at the start, "I'm going to use suggestion to convince you [of whatever]". Rather, you should perform the routine in such a way that it appears to be suggestion, or, if you're really clever, in such a way that it appears your trying to trick them into believing it's sleight-of-hand when it's actually psychological.
The best example of this is one of the most powerful things I do, forcing a card then reading their "tells" to divine it's identity. I don't tell them that that's what I'm doing, I just force the card, put the deck aside and spend three or four minutes reading them, using confusion techniques to apparently make them drop their guard and so on. Everyone afterwards tells me they can see what I'm doing, reading their body language. If I'd set it up as "I'm going to read your body language", that's just asking for them to search for another method. Now, this isn't quite consistent with what happened. Why did they have to pick a card rather than just think of one? However, no-one picks up on this. In the same way, you can overcome other inconsistencies, with people either forgetting about them completely, or sometimes even putting them down to me trying to mislead them.
You sound awfully like my friend, Mental-state man. I see you're in Lonon huh, maybe we could meet up sometime? I live in BurgerHam.
I fully understand where you're comming from regarding the posts before hand, im just talkin about the possible negativities of going through that approach. Which obviously, you know its just blatant wrongness.
I fully understand where you're comming from regarding the posts before hand, im just talkin about the possible negativities of going through that approach. Which obviously, you know its just blatant wrongness.
TeeDee I get what you mean now. The example of the ACR read as you were inducing an hallucination and then anchoring it back constantly. I agree with you on it is a huge mistake to tell the spectators what you are doing however in your example explained an anchor and using jargon is almost as bad as stating your pseudo method.
I take your point. I think it does take a light and subtle touch to pull this off. Whether I manage it in my performances I'll leave to my audiences to judge, but it's a model of magical presentation that goes back to Robert-Houdin to Derren Brown via Maskelyne and Devant, so it's got a fairly good pedigree.
And Shakutau, yeah, I'm always up for meeting up and sessioning. Drop me a PM if you're ever down my way.
I want to start off by saying that I did not read everyone's post, so i am sorry if I repeat what has been said already.
Yes you can do both. In fact I do both. But it all depends on presentation. When I do a mentalism effect i dont tell the audience I have supernatural powers, I dont say that i can communicate with the dead, or that i sold my soul to the devil. In fact i tell them everything that I am doing. I will explain to them that mediums, and psychics are scam artists. i will tell them the use keen observation, body language and trickery to get them to believe i will then go into a mentalism effect. I never tell my audience that I know magic, I let them decided for them self's. it is all about presentation, and how you set up your routine. Here is an example.
"hello my name is Luka, I want to start he show off with a classic trick in magic. have you ever seen one of these, its a sponge ball." (sponge ball routien ending with deck of cards under bowl)
"Since I have these cards here, let me show you a few things gamblers do with cards." (card routine, end with forcing a card and reading the mind)
"mind reading is scary thought, but there are people who say they can do it Mediums, psychics, Fortune tellers, all claim the have supernatural powers like mind reading, and telekinesis. I am telling you that these people are nothing more than scam artists. (Mentalism act.)
a rough outline of how it could work.
Yes you can do both. In fact I do both. But it all depends on presentation. When I do a mentalism effect i dont tell the audience I have supernatural powers, I dont say that i can communicate with the dead, or that i sold my soul to the devil. In fact i tell them everything that I am doing. I will explain to them that mediums, and psychics are scam artists. i will tell them the use keen observation, body language and trickery to get them to believe i will then go into a mentalism effect. I never tell my audience that I know magic, I let them decided for them self's. it is all about presentation, and how you set up your routine. Here is an example.
"hello my name is Luka, I want to start he show off with a classic trick in magic. have you ever seen one of these, its a sponge ball." (sponge ball routien ending with deck of cards under bowl)
"Since I have these cards here, let me show you a few things gamblers do with cards." (card routine, end with forcing a card and reading the mind)
"mind reading is scary thought, but there are people who say they can do it Mediums, psychics, Fortune tellers, all claim the have supernatural powers like mind reading, and telekinesis. I am telling you that these people are nothing more than scam artists. (Mentalism act.)
a rough outline of how it could work.
i completly agree with teedee on this one.
magic tricks and mentalism, if u can blend it, go for it
i have a routine where spectator picks a card, then they deal the number of cards according to the number of the card that they picked. lets say the card is 7 of spades, they deal 7 cards. then, they use their cellphones to call the numbers, and somehow, my phone rings, and the ringtone will be a voice saying this "the card u picked is the 7 of spades."
A bit of sleight of hand, a wee bit of mentalism, u can never go wrong.
I guess in general we all as magicians, tend to mix mentalism into whatever cardtricks or any other sort of magic we do. In the end, it all comes down to leaving your spectators speechless and amazed.
pardon my poor english, i have a class in the next 5 minutes, and im doing this in my uni library.
magic tricks and mentalism, if u can blend it, go for it
i have a routine where spectator picks a card, then they deal the number of cards according to the number of the card that they picked. lets say the card is 7 of spades, they deal 7 cards. then, they use their cellphones to call the numbers, and somehow, my phone rings, and the ringtone will be a voice saying this "the card u picked is the 7 of spades."
A bit of sleight of hand, a wee bit of mentalism, u can never go wrong.
I guess in general we all as magicians, tend to mix mentalism into whatever cardtricks or any other sort of magic we do. In the end, it all comes down to leaving your spectators speechless and amazed.
pardon my poor english, i have a class in the next 5 minutes, and im doing this in my uni library.