I am a consulting mentalist (i have book published for that public and designed a stage show amongst other things) and... This article is very empty. It mostly quotes small points from thinkers in that domain to a public who does not care about those small points as they don't know what mentalism is.
Mentalism is an ensemble of techniques (including mnemotechnic, hypnosis, magic tricks, a knowledge of statistically likely phenomenons and, indeed, a trained intuition) used to produce incredible phenomenons (usually psychic phenomenons or an impressive mastery of the human mind) in an entertainment setting.
One point that is worth stressing is that it is neither all real (magic tricks are great to make things look better / add some punch and anyone telling you they don't use them is either lying or very ignorant) nor all fake (anyone telling you otherwise is, similarly, likely ignorant or a magician who did some telepathy-themed tricks and think that it is all there is to it, the human mind is an amazing toy).
If you want to be entertained by a world class mentalist, I highly recommend watching some Derren Brown shorts on YouTube (as someone else suggested).
But Spideys tricks tend to boil down to sleight of hand - something the author claims that mentalism is not, and alludes that it is a way of reading peoples thoughts.
Derren Brown is such an incredible rabbit hole to fall down, the passion he has for the craft of illusions and mentalism really shine through.
Recently he's shifted towards an honesty that I really appreciate, about where he's coming from and his own abilities. It feels so much more genuine, which makes it connect so well.
If you're relying on likelihoods, what do you do on a stage show when it fails? Do you leave yourself backup possibilities? Just throw your hands up and try again?
Derren Brown shows have the benefit where he can try his tricks on 100 people and just show you the successes.
Depending on the situation I could lie about it succeeding, go forward as if it didn't matter, use a back up technique, take the miss and admit i am not perfect or do it on the full audience all at once to make sure it mostly works (you will observe some of the above if you go see Derren's stage show several times).
Like in this trick, Derren appears to know Fry's card is the king of diamonds, but he doesn't. It's just quite probable[0], and if he was wrong you wouldn't even notice he was guessing, the way it's worked into the trick. If he's right, it also doesn't seem like a guess, but like he somehow knew for certain. The initial deck has only 6 different cards, and Derren has 6 different card-cigarettes hidden on his person. By then he's been told what the card is, so he can't fail that part.
[0] I think Derren half-forces a red diamond picture card, by the way he asks Fry to BURN the card into his mind, but not 3 of hearts, i.e. not a number or heart. He probably can force the choice of a King of Diamonds a lot of the time. A lot of his skill lies in increasing probabilities any way he knows how, until the apparently impossible occurs.
Browne's live shows (usually in a packed auditorium or theatre with an audience of hundreds or thousands) are amazing. Sure, his TV stuff can be edited, but the live show has to work, and it does.
I believe he’s admitted that he is disappointed with that show and the ‘tricks’ involved. He’s at his best when he’s just using suggestion and psychological stagecraft rather than camera tricks
Pretty much yes. Usually people contact me because they want to do a particular demonstration on stage and i find a way to do it given their skillet, constraints and theme. But it can also be building a full show around a theme or helping someone track older references on a subject they are researching.
> If you want to be entertained by a world class mentalist, I highly recommend watching some Derren Brown shorts on YouTube (as someone else suggested).
I've been to see him live (in Bristol, UK). He did the 'usual' (for him) amazing mentalist stuff, then did a physical turn. He got some audience members to break some glass bottles on the stage, hyperventilated in a bag (to slow his pulse), then lay with his cheek on the shards and got someone to press his head down with their foot. Afterwards he stood and plucked bits of glass from his (not bleeding) face.
He followed it up with a brief explanation of how he'd done one if his routines that night using suggestion, including photos of billboards/posters outside that guided attendees down certain thought paths before the show started. It was a revelation.
Incidentally he also published "Tricks of the Mind" which has a fair amount of detail about how he does some of it.
> He followed it up with a brief explanation of how he'd done one if his routines that night using suggestion, including photos of billboards/posters outside that guided attendees down certain thought paths before the show started. It was a revelation.
This is all for show. That's not how any of these tricks are done. Brown is famous for giving fake explanations for his effects.
I've been wanting to get into hypnosis for a while but I typically find all the classes are aimed (and priced) for a wannabe hypnotherapist. I'm interested in the stage hypnosis side of mentalism. Do you have any tips for what I should be looking for?
Should I start with your "how to be a mentalist" book?
In the magic and stage mentalism worlds, this one is a bit of a classic:
Trance-Formations: Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the Structure of Hypnosis - 1981. When I was doing magic, I found quite a bit of it to be useful in helping structure routines, patter, or improve non-mentalist effects.
I would recommend "The Trilby Connection" by Antony Jacquin (coupled with his book "reality is plastic") to start in hypnosis as entertainement. It is fairly well explained and focuses on close-up meaning that you can start practicing it now without needing a stage. Once you are confortable with that, you can start researching stage hypnosis.
Hypnosis for pure mentalism is different (when you are not explicitely telling people that you are using hypnosis). This is where you might want to complement your mastery of the basics with some NLP books such as the one given by an other commenter (or Steven Heller's "Monsters and Magical Sticks"). Note that a lot of NLP is not evidence based but you are fine if you keep with the founder's work on hypnosis.
(fun fact, I got started in hypnosis with some hypnotherapy books)
Thanks. I'm really looking forward reading the book, as well as having an excuse to break out the DVD player again. (As a sidenote, one of the unexpected nice parts of COVID lockdowns being over is the ability to have alone time to watch videos of special interest on something other than a personal device as other people leave the house.)
It's interesting to hear that NLP isn't evidence based. That's a blast from the past. I had a friend in college who was very into NLP, and I could never tell if it was realistic or not. It sounded BS-y, but also plausible as anything else with with hypnosis. We played around with whatever source he had dug up, but I could easily believe our lack of results was because of the source or our (at the time) very distracted lives. I can see how some of the same techniques for hypnosis may work without being obvious to the subject.
Did you ever do any hypnotherapy or was that just the source of knowledge you had?
I'm curious, why do this for entertainment rather than therapy?
I know about and practiced some NLP and hypnosis, but mostly to get over some personal problems. (Bandler himself cured me of depression.) Once that was done, I kinda lost interest. But there's a nagging doubt, shouldn't I be trying to help people with this? Or at least try to spread the word?
It seems to me that the self-referential use and development of the mind is more of an Information Revolution than the transistor/logic based technological revolution, eh?
> I'm curious, why do this for entertainment rather than therapy?
That's a good question.
I love the entertainment aspect of mentalism, I do it because it is entertaining and intriguing. As I believe that therapy has no place into an entertainment context, I do not mix it with mentalism. Some people disagree and will mix and match but I believe that the risk for harming the person by triggering something bad is too high in this context (therapy should not be done in public for entertainment, when you have time constraints and should focus on the audience's experience, I believe it should be done at the subject's rhythm and in a safe space).
However, I have taken the time to study both counseling and the therapeutic aspect of hypnosis, I have used them privately as one-off quick fix to small things and I often think that, in another life, I might have pursued this path further.
So I guess that the answer is: because I am primarily an entertainer, not a therapist.
My book is written in French and covers the technique most dear to the Bob mentioned in the article (not giving more specific details here), if you read French don't hesitate to email me and I will send you a link. My computer scientist background can be mostly seen from the research elements of the book (I have references and tips going back two hundreds years in the past) and the fact that I got my editor to let me typeset it in Latex.
The next ones will be in English (and Latex if my English editors agree with it...) and might get out within two years, keep you eyes open for a Nestor.
Mentalism is an ensemble of techniques (including mnemotechnic, hypnosis, magic tricks, a knowledge of statistically likely phenomenons and, indeed, a trained intuition) used to produce incredible phenomenons (usually psychic phenomenons or an impressive mastery of the human mind) in an entertainment setting.
One point that is worth stressing is that it is neither all real (magic tricks are great to make things look better / add some punch and anyone telling you they don't use them is either lying or very ignorant) nor all fake (anyone telling you otherwise is, similarly, likely ignorant or a magician who did some telepathy-themed tricks and think that it is all there is to it, the human mind is an amazing toy).
If you want to be entertained by a world class mentalist, I highly recommend watching some Derren Brown shorts on YouTube (as someone else suggested).