Mentalism Routines and Books

Mar 9, 2021
44
31
Hello everyone, I am Orange, and I am currently looking for Mentalism books/routines I can perform.

Disclaimer: I have provided a list of books I already have, and I am 13 years old.


Books I already have:

13 Steps to Mentalism
Maximum Entertainment
Practical Mental Magic
Psychological Subtleties 1
Psychological Subtleties 2
Pure Effect
Repertoire By Asi Wind (not that well-known, but very good for professional magicians)
Reputation Makers
The Dance(for cold reading, as I would like to learn Cold Reading


I do not have Psychological Subtleties 3, as it is not available to me.

Thank you for reading this everyone!
 

RealityOne

Elite Member
Nov 1, 2009
3,744
4,076
New Jersey
Maximum Entertainment

This is the best book you have. Every so often, reread it as you continue to perform and you will get even more out of the book.

I am currently looking for Mentalism books/routines I can perform.

You are off to a good start. I'd suggest:

Fundamentals by Bob Cassidy (https://www.lybrary.com/fundamentals-p-562.html)

Self Working Mental Magic by Karl Fulves. Don't be fooled by the title, there are a lot of great effects in this inexpensive book.

Prism by Max Maven - A lot of the routines in the book will be easier to perform since they are magic based (the illusion of mentalism rather than the demonstration of pseudo-skills like cold reading). At your age, you should be performing as often as you can.

Principles of Mentalism by Richard Osterland

Switchcraft by Elliott Bresler - This is the Bible on billet work.

Sign up for a free account at Ask Alexander and you will get access to the Jinx. There is some amazing material in that magazine.

Also, get a subscription to Genii -- with it you get access to all the old Genii and Magic magazines with lots of materials.
 

WitchDocIsIn

Elite Member
Sep 13, 2008
5,877
2,945
Same way anyone does - find a venue, find an audience.

Before Covid my most frequent venue was a local shop, as I'm close friends with the owner so we could set up lots of events. Other than that, private parties and two/four wall venues for professional shows and bars and hangouts for casual performances.
 

RealityOne

Elite Member
Nov 1, 2009
3,744
4,076
New Jersey
How can I try and perform mentalism for people?

So, there are two things you need to perform - material to perform and an opportunity to perform it.

For material, there is a lot of good stuff in Fulves's Self Working Mental Magic and Prism. You can adapt stuff from Annemann's Practical Mental Magic and find some gems in Jinx. There also are a lot of good routines in Genii by Max Maven and Jim Steinmeyer that come with presentations (you can find them by searching here: http://genii.somee.com). To start, find things you like and that you can competently perform. Rehearse the presentation and script so you are confident.

As for opportunities to perform - take anything you get. Start with family and friends. It will be hard to do more than that with the COVID restrictions on meeting other people. Look into joining SAM or IBM - those organizations are very supportive of young magicians and mentalists and many are meeting on-line.

At your age, people are going to have a difficult time ascribing mentalist or psychic powers to you. Especially if they've known you for a long time. Pick material that can be explained by coincidences, hunches, guesses or intuition rather than psychic skill.
 
Mar 9, 2021
44
31
Self Working Mental Magic by Karl Fulves. Don't be fooled by the title, there are a lot of great effects in this inexpensive book.

The above is a very good book and I love it! So many good effects and such easy explanations. I kind of understand now why some magicians stray away from Mentalism. I think they feel like Mentalism has its own kind of skillset, and it is not focused so much on skill, but more on the presentation, which most magicians probably don't prefer.

I am still however trying to find the PRISM by Max Maven
 
Mar 9, 2021
44
31
Prism by Max Maven

I recently got this book and I have to say that this is my FAVOURITE mentalism book so far. Because I read a lot of books(over like 300 a year), I am able to tell which book will be good for me by just looking at the font the publisher used for the print. And the second I saw the font used in PRISM, I immediately bought it. It is a GREAT book, and after reading that, I was able to come up with way better routines for myself. All my older routines just got better with this book! PRISM is a mashup of all the tricks in the mentalism "booklets"( i guess), that came out. You can still get all the original booklets in pdf formats though, I found. TYSM for suggesting this book to me!
 

RealityOne

Elite Member
Nov 1, 2009
3,744
4,076
New Jersey
You can still get all the original booklets in pdf formats though, I found.

Any PDFs of the original "Color Series" manuscripts are unauthorized and therefore illegal copies. Avoid downloading or purchasing illegal copies of magic manuscripts / books and support the authors who wrote them by purchasing from a reputable source.
 
Searching...
{[{ searchResultsCount }]} Results