Mentalism
Mentalism is a form of magic where the magician presents himself as a mind reader or in some case make a prediction.
More often than not, mentalism employs 2 principles of magic, verbal manipulation and the Principle of Force. In the act of the performance, usually the audience is asked to choose something, which can be an object or a card from a deck of playing cards. In some other cases, the audience are asked to do something such as writing down something without revealing to the magician. In the case of the audience choosing something, the audience is “forced” into choosing the item that the magician wants the audience to choose. This is called the Principle of Force, which can be carried out in many ways.
Have you ever watched a magician speaking to you from your television or DVD playback, asked you to pick a card as he riffled through a deck of playing cards? After he had riffled through his deck of playing cards, he paused (for effect) and told you the card that you picked. Perhaps you were stunned. He was not even physically present with you there and the recording was made earlier than you watched it. How did he know which card you picked? It is because you have been forced to pick the card he wanted you to pick. As the magician was riffling through his deck of playing cards, it was so fast that all the cards are too blur for you to see what the cards are. However, he slowed down and paused for a split second when he reached the card he wanted to FORCE you to pick, then he continued riffling through the rest of the cards quickly. So the only card you saw clearly and eventually picked, was that card he slowed down for you to see clearly. That is the execution of the Principle of Force in magic. So isn’t this simple little trick, but amazing, mind reading as well as mind boggling to you? This is a simple performance of mentalism.
What is verbal manipulation? In performing mentalism, more often than not, the magician will be interacting and talking to the audience, telling the audience to choose this, write down that, move objects, keep some other objects, etc. In all these interaction and conversation, he uses many words. The way that he speaks to the audience, there are many manipulation of words and there leaves many rooms for different interpretations. Sometime it also involves some psychological manipulation. At the end of the act, all these manipulations eventually end up leading to the result that he wants, which is a prediction or the right guessing of the action that the audience made. Verbal manipulation is most commonly employed by conman, especially spiritual conmen who profess to have great spiritual power which he demonstrated by telling you much about you and your situations. Verbal manipulation is also one avenue in executing the Principle of Force in magic. Harry Houdini used his knowledge in magic to expose such spiritual conmen and con women during his lifetime.
Principle of Force and verbal manipulation are just two common methods employed in the art of mentalism. There is a book entitled, “13 Steps To Mentalism” by Tony Corinda teaches 13 ways to perform different acts of mentalism. It is a classic book on mentalism.
In comparison to other forms of magic, such as card magic and coin magic that require mastery of sleight of hands, mentalism is relatively easy. If you want to be able to perform magic quickly, mentalism would be one of the easiest and convenient choice. You do not even need specific props or gimmicks, although there are specific gimmick designed to help in executing some magical routines for mentalism. However, as a professional magician, you would have to put effort into your showmanship and image to convince your audience that you indeed possess supernatural power to read their mind.
One of the famous mentalist (magician who focus on performing mentalism) during this era is Max Maven. Max Maven styled his hair in a unique way that is unusual from an ordinary layman. In the natural you wouldn’t want to keep his hairstyle. He conducts himself in the manner of his speech, gesture and dressing just to portray himself as a very mysterious man. Max Maven has also written many magic books on mentalism. Some of the books Max Maven has written are as follow:
Prism – The Color Series of Mentalism (a compilation of books such as those below)
- The Blue Book of Mentalism
- The Red Book of Mentalism
- The Violet Book of Mentalism
- The Green Book of Mentalism
- The Yellow Book of Mentalism