talkmagic.co.uk

Hello fellow magicians!

This is my first post and id like to take this opportunity to say hi to everyone

My friend got me started in magic about a year back and i was hooked instantly, although i have met no other magician where i live that can do proper magic. I can't believe the lack of magicians my age (16) in my area. Ive been involved in magic for about a year now and i found this forum recently (i don't own a computer yet), its good to have a forum where i can talk to other magicians!

I was wondering how many magicians out there are aware of Neuro-:inguistic Programming (NLP) and use it in their routining to help with patter and audience connection. In context of using magic to pick up girls, i thought anchoring them in a state of awe would be good.

Any comments?

x_calibre wrote:I can't believe the lack of magicians my age (16)
...
Any comments?

You're sixteen and you're a psychologist? You're a regular Dougie Howser, aren't you!

This is where we all step aside, ready for Craig to explain a few facts to him.

Seems like we need a sticky about Mentalism somewhere, so Craig doesn't have to spend all his time writing posts for wannabies.

Darrel wrote:This is where we all step aside, ready for Craig to explain a few facts to him.

Seems like we need a sticky about Mentalism somewhere, so Craig doesn't have to spend all his time writing posts for wannabies.

START HERE!
http://www.ipswichmagicalsociety.co.uk/downloads/becomingamentalist.pdf


X-Calibre... what I'm about to say is going to seem harsh... don't take it personal! This is what I tell all new people wanting to move down this path, so please take in the spirit it is given.

Firstly, you are young and you have a solid ten years of deeper education based opportunities ahead of you for establishing a career for yourself. If Psychology peeks your interest then take classes in this field and get certified and don't stop there; the day you stop learning is the day you die! You become hardened and dogmatic and incapable of growing... not a good place to find yourself.

Once you understand basic Jungian, Fruedian, Erickson and other such aspects of psychotherapy then you may be ready to move into the "side-sciences" like NLP, body language, FACs, etc. That does not mean that you can't study linguistics and semantics and how to use them constructively in acts of public speaking and effective communication, I encourage people to study Kenton Kneppers WONDER WORDS material... I likewise tell them to take classes in public speaking, improvisational theater, ettiquette and other such "strange" things that help us to not only learn how to communicate better, but how to be better human beings in general.

These are not my words, thoughts or my personal philosophy alone, it is akin to what I was told long ago by a man that influenced me a great deal as a kid and later in life as a young man -- Harry Blackstone, Jr.

Now, as to your question... NLP is not something all magicians employ and for that matter, it is not something many even believe in or support; an amazing number of magicians consider it bunk or psuedo-science. Then we have those, such as a certain well known British chap, that use the idea of NLP, Hypnosis, the power of suggestion, etc. as a bogus explanation or "cover story" to laymen... a false explanation as to how he apparently reads minds or influences people's actions, etc. You see, most magical entertainers has a B.S. in B.S. and that's about it. We are fast talkers, double talkers, and con-artists at heart... it's why we are thespians of a sort, it's in our blood.

NLP is something, like psychology, that requires a lifetime to learn. I can assure you, at 16 you've not even scratched the surface as to what these fields are about. If you want to know the truth of it all, get to school and get your degree and stop reading the magic books! You can't learn how to be a carpenter by asking a plumber to teach you the trade; when it comes to the whole psychological mumbo-jumbo in magic very few of the folks talking about it, actually have formal training and certification in it. Just as a Brown Belt in Karate is a dangerous position in life (you know just enough to get yourself into trouble) so is the case with some of the commercial drek you hear about in these forums on this and related topics. So choose to step outside the confines of magic club consciousness and study some of the real material

Read the eBook I mentioned above and think seriously about where you want to head and why.

Psychology has so much more than just NLP to offer the world of magic...and yet if you ask a lot of "psychological illusionists" about what the do NLP is the thing you'll probably hear the most often.

That said, Wonder Words is good. Kenton has a sample on his Online-Visions article somewhere which has a sampler of it.

Craig Browning wrote:START HERE!
http://www.ipswichmagicalsociety.co.uk/downloads/becomingamentalist.pdf

Thanks for this Craig. Very informative stuff.

Goddam NLP! It has caused me so much grief! Its generally not what it appears! NLP has some applications to 'mental magic', but it is mostly a lot of BS wrapped up in a world of self help and self congratulation. I subscribed to a course in it, only to find myself immensely disapponted and unfulfilled. There is a whole new culture that has built itself around NLP, one that scares me slightly!!

Mark Smith wrote:Goddam NLP! It has caused me so much grief! Its generally not what it appears! NLP has some applications to 'mental magic', but it is mostly a lot of BS wrapped up in a world of self help and self congratulation. I subscribed to a course in it, only to find myself immensely disapponted and unfulfilled. There is a whole new culture that has built itself around NLP, one that scares me slightly!!

NLP has it's roots in psychology, you can't just expect to understand these things without a good knowledge of psychology first... you have to know your roots, don't START with NLP, that's more like building a house on sand... build your foundation from an understanding of psychology first.

[edit] read that ebook Craig posted above

rabbit wrote:NLP has it's roots in psychology, you can't just expect to understand these things without a good knowledge of psychology first... you have to know your roots, don't START with NLP, that's more like building a house on sand... build your foundation from an understanding of psychology first.

[edit] read that ebook Craig posted above

That's fair enough. There are a lot of interesting ideas in NLP. It is the whole culture of self-help, life chaging and self-fulfilment that has grown out of it that I don't like. There are a lot of people claiming that NLP can change your life - certainly a lot of people on the course I took said that!

NLP can certainly present some interesting ideas when it comes to the language you use in magic. Although, I would recommend Kenton Knepper's 'Wonder Words' over any NLP course when it comes to magic.

Yeah, NLP was originally about modelling how successful people work, the way they do things and get cooperation, etc. Bandler and Grinder wanted to see if there was a set of traits common to successful people, so they studied the likes of Milton Erickson in action and came up with models (the meta model and Milton model) and techniques like anchoring, mirroring and matching, pacing and leading, etc., that can do some pretty impressive things when done with utmost subtlety. One of the pair behind NLP used to do stand-up comedy using NLP that simply shouldn't be funny, for instance. TV advertising uses it a lot. Remember the Weight Watchers ad last year? "Stripes are slimming, but who wants a stripey wedding dress?" etc. Very nice indeed.

In the wild today, though, NLP has been hijacked to a degree by pseudoscience and by people who see it as being anything they want to. A lot of it is now feel-good self-help mumbo-jumbo. Basically, they have something to sell you.

But at its heart, the original work still holds water, so it's a good idea to go back to the original books and even into Erickson's work for a clear explanation of the original underlying tools. The task is then to see how to apply them to your magic. Derren Brown talks in one of his books about anchoring the emotion conjured up by an effect so that you can fire it off later, for example.

get stuck into Kentonism and Trance This by Kenton Knepper...but only if youre going to give it the respect it deserves...and have the suitably large 'spheres' to pull it off...

..actually, you dont - just the belief in yourself more than anything else and to act convincingly...if you believe it, they'll believe it...utter genius stuff...

And if you like Kentonism then also check out Twists and Trances by Kenton Knepper, takes the principles and the ideas behind Kentonism and looks at further applications for them - it is more of an effect book than the original, but bother are utterly brilliant.

Mark Smith wrote:

rabbit wrote:NLP has it's roots in psychology, you can't just expect to understand these things without a good knowledge of psychology first... you have to know your roots, don't START with NLP, that's more like building a house on sand... build your foundation from an understanding of psychology first.

[edit] read that ebook Craig posted above

That's fair enough. There are a lot of interesting ideas in NLP. It is the whole culture of self-help, life chaging and self-fulfilment that has grown out of it that I don't like. There are a lot of people claiming that NLP can change your life - certainly a lot of people on the course I took said that!

NLP can certainly present some interesting ideas when it comes to the language you use in magic. Although, I would recommend Kenton Knepper's 'Wonder Words' over any NLP course when it comes to magic.

This is true with many things though... I- for one- love tea, I drink tea every day, and I've been studying about tea for some time now, being as I am preparing to go into the business of importing and selling teas... but you see many ads such as this one claiming that certain teas are "amazing fat burning secrets!" or people selling "green tea weight loss pills" on ebay et cetera... people always exaggerate and try to make a buck off of everything they can... sadly it works much of the time

Well Rabbit if you open a Tea Room up in the area, I want first dibs on being a Reader there!

Actually, one of my favorite places on earth is the Bodi Tree bookstore in West Hollywood. They always had fresh herb tea (free) and places to just kick back, listen to subtle "new age" music and enjoy a good book, quiet conversations, etc.

Sigh memories of my youth