You're thinking of mental magic. Mentalism is a completely different beast. If you want to be a mentalist, you can not break character.
That seems to be the allure for a lot of people. But mentalism is not simply about the reactions. You're still thinking like a magician. Mentalism is even more constrained in terms of mechanics than magic is and there are only 4 basic plots: telepathy, clairvoyance, precognizance, and psychokinesis. I am currently working on learning a cold reading system that is one of the best I've ever seen and most magicians would read the book and feel like they got ripped off. The frame of mind is that different.
Well put young weed hopper. . .
Indeed, it is the power and impact of mentalism effects that have sparked my interest.
To put it bluntly, this is ego overriding discipline. . . 90% of today's popularity with Mentalism and Bizarre styled magick stems from ego more than anything else; we want the illusion of being the all powerful without the commitment and discipline (obligations) that go with it. If we treat Mental Miracles as we do sponge balls or card tricks we can appease our guilt when it comes to making claims of validity and yet, we seem to be oblivious as to how much harm that does to the art of Mentalism itself. Worse, many simply don't give a damn due to selfishness, "
If I can buy it, I can perform it" being their motto. I wish I had a dime for every idiot that thought that when it came to big illusions, and like big illusion Mentalism is far more involved than most want to accept initially.
Given your age and lack of experience I would strongly suggest that you stay away from anything that smacks of being a Mental Miracles UNLESS you are resigned to make that your primary course of study and performance and as such, you're willing to approach things in a manner that are quite a contrast to what you're used to doing. Mentalism requires us to generate belief within our audience where magic does not. Magic in fact negates belief in that the public knows that it is a trick of some sort but agrees to enjoy it as an amusement. Mentalism is so potent that religions really have been started by it and by people that only knew a couple of its most basic methods. . . and I should add, that is not limited to esoteric or religious thinking as we normally think of such things, "analytical" forms of presentation have added to the popularity of pseudo-sciences like NLP, FACS and a number of other in trend ideas. . . we must remember that Phrenology was once cutting edge science as well. . .
There are dozens of books & videos available that deal with improvisational magic, betchya type magic and bar magic. I'd suggest you go to
Stevens Magic and check out their video collection and maybe even shoot Mark an eMail asking about the older VHS tapes that deal with such topics and if they're still available (though you may have to track down a VHS player). But, my strongest encouragement is that you invest time into learning and practicing slight-of-hand and on that point, pick up copies of both
NOW YOU SEE IT; NOW YOU DON'T books by Bill Tarr they will give you an excellent start in this direction (you'll find them on Amazon). Once you've mastered the basics in this area you will be more than able to handle such random scenarios. I will encourage you to also study
Modern Coin Magic by Bobo and anything you can find on the topic of slight-of-hand work; sadly, most such insights are hidden within other resources like the Rice Encyclopedia of Silk Magic and of course Royal Road to Card Magic, etc. but the quest is worth it. . . and do yourself a huge favor and never get rid of these foundation books, you WILL find them important as the years move on and you need to refresh your mind about things; it's amazing how much stuff we ignore or discard early in our studies that we find to be absolutely priceless years later.
REMEMBER: there is a huge difference between "Impromptu" and "Improvisation" (by today's standards); the former seems to justify the idea of walking around with pockets stuffed to the gills with whatever gimmicks & gaffs that will fit into them while the latter covers what you've posted about -- doing magic when you don't have all those tricks & whistles and you actually have to rely on your skills & knowledge (+ experience). A real magician, in my book and that of most old timers I know, don't need all the stuff, nor do they need to cross over into Mentalism on any level in order to demonstrate their prowess. They can mesmerize an audience by doing simple tricks. . . the Mark Wilson Course is full of such ideas that many a pro have used for decades.
I hope this has helped you (and others) understand just what it does mean to be a "Magician" and why those first few years of studying the basics is far more important than chasing after the latest in cool trending tricks.
