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I think Lady of Mystery has hit upon the crux of this here. If it's a CREDIBLE transition to jump around in your act, then fine.

But I think the dilution effect works only one way...

As Craig said, credibility is defined as concentrating on one genre so far as a mentalism act goes... and to that, I agree.
After all, a mentalist who spends 80% of their set performing mind games who suddenly launches into a cut'n'restored rope routine could possibly lose credibility points—adding Magic to Mentalism is a dilution.

However, being a magician, and adding a mentalism effect to you set, you're still just a magician, and the mentalism bit goes possibly unnoticed.

In my own opinion, I still stand by the fact that you can't mix 'proper' mentalism with a magic show, or vice-versa. Most of the credibility of mentalism relies on the premise that the effects are based in the power of the mind, and not sleight of hand.

abraxus wrote:...the thing that gets me though is this - in just about every mentalist book out, there's always a section for cards...

...so the way i see it is that it can be very confusing for the learner to be told one thing in our "bibles", yet the contrary from others...

if you spend years learning the stuff in corinda and annemann, there's a complete step and section in both covering cards, so we take that on board that well, if its there in print by these greats, then its obviously there for a very good reason - and if it's just to capture a wider audience, then ...

no wonder there's so many arguments over the definitions of mental magic vs. mentalism when the main books we all start from tell you one thing, yet you get the opposite from significant others ...

it's a very windy road this mentalism lark....

i think one of the best examples of a cross breed is Kenton's Dunninger's Delight...a hallucination of a playing card, hands free...all in the drama and believability of the "vision"...

everytime i look at these lines between magic>mental magic>mentalism, they just blur and blur and blur...

and one final thing (sound like columbo there) - on a certain level, if you did have gen-u-ine psychic or highly inuative powers, would you not investigate all the related skills/knacks to try and understand your gifts that bit more? pfft....i dunno...

You of all people know what's about to happen...

Magicians love card tricks e.g. they will make every excuse possible to justify using cards in anything they do. This includes their ignoring the post show comments of patrons who comment on the "clever card trick" vs. his/her psychic acumen.

If you don't offer a card trick in a lecture or book, it will not sell as well and there will be serious complaints. Just look around at book reviews and comments on people's lectures who don't include card tricks.

Now, let's look at one other fact so many love to ignore... Annemann, Dunninger, etc. all lived in a different era when the social attitudes and perspective were completely different than they are today... grossly different than anything most of you can begin to imagine because we look at things as we understand them in the here and now as being "the norm" but even 30 years ago, let alone 50-75 years ago, our society looked at things very different when it came to the issue of things paranormal, surreal and metaphysical. The public was far more conservative, less read when it comes to the variety of things we now have access to for study, and most important the public was more superstitious or "gullible" if you would in that religion held a stronger degree of influence in their lives and society on the whole.

Take a look at the niche reading material of the Larsen Book or even some of Nelson's "Answers" in his series of books addressing the most commonly asked questions in a Mind Reader's show... you wouldn't only get mocked for being "out of touch" and "inaccurate" with some of those lines, you'd likely get slapped by more than a handful of "ladies".

What worked 25+ years ago does not translate or work the same in the hear and now. If that were so we'd all be carrying around 5 and 10 pound cell phones and would be content with dial up Internet service.

If those things change along side our perspectives why wouldn't our craft see changes along side what the audience will and will not accept as being "genuine" or "more legit" as it may be?

Siege hit the nail on the head in his post above, when he pointed out that it would be perfectly fine for a magician to place one or two Mentalism type bits into their show... that's normal and even traditional if you want to get right down to it. On the other hand, we now have a mind-set within magic in which everyone wants to call themselves a "Mentalist" but very few are willing to give up the other side of the game in order to fulfill that role and exploit all the psychological advantages available to them that make the job easier and extends to them greater credibility in the mind of the public.

I realize his unholiness St. Lewis has encouraged you to do otherwise, but he's much older than I and I fear, his mind is beginning to snap

You of all people know what's about to happen...

not only did i know it would happen Craig, i have it in a sealed evelope...

Not as a response as such, but...all hail kenton that's what i say...

http://www.online-visions.com/krystal/0507cards.html

i've bored people already with what i do and how i link things together, so (for once) i won't repeat myself...

Craig Browning wrote:Magicians love card tricks e.g. they will make every excuse possible to justify using cards in anything they do. This includes their ignoring the post show comments of patrons who comment on the "clever card trick" vs. his/her psychic acumen.

This is getting really irritating now. Why must you always lump people into easily defined groups, Craig, then assign them a simplistic behaviour?

When I hear people discuss my stuff it's more along the lines of, "I thought he was just going to do some card tricks, but he ended up reading people's minds." So maybe I'm a stealth mentalist, hiding behind the pasteboards. Some people have even told me that I achieve all my effects by mind reading. They believe in the effect I achieve. The cards are, as I've said many times, just a conduit for the effect, and as we all know, it's all about the effect - NOT the cause.

I think you have a very singular view of what mentalism should be, but while maintaining it is one thing, insisting it's the only correct view is getting tiresome now. I mean, you wouldn't call Kenton Knepper a magician now would you, and yet here's what he wrote in Online Visions:

"Yes, there is a silly debate in some mental circles about playing cards and whether or not they can be used in mentalism performances. I do not feel at all that it is incongruent for a mentalist who knows his stuff to use playing cards. In fact, it would be odd if they did not."

I don't call myself a mentalist and I don't pretend to be one but I do throw in a mental routine for two very good (good in my opinion) reasons. I really enjoy performing it and the spectators really enjoy it too.

I want to entertain my spectators and if a mental routine does that, then I'm happy.

I never perform as a mentalist, more like 'I've been playing with a few things that I'd like to give a go'. I find it works really well, I purposely fail with some of the effects to reinforce the way I try to present it, as something I'm just trying out. I always finish with a thought projection effect using suggestion. I find it works really well and everyone always enjoys it.

At the end of the night, if the spectators have enjoyed what I've done then I'm happy.

I find it funny how folks will pull at a thread and think it out of place, only to unravel things that aren't there.

I simply loathe card magic in that it seems to be the only thing on the mind of most magic enthusiasts (other than getting laid, that is), when there is so much more out there.

I have and do use playing cards in some of the things I do. The TOD has been an encore piece in my club act for years and probably will continue to be. Similarly I've opened with PREMONITION or my version of THE IMAGINARY CARD since the mid-1980s so please understand that my views aren't dogmatic, as some has suggested.

Yes, we can create the feel of something psychic happening when we do card tricks but we can likewise censor what we hear from our public and in life... this is very common, we hear what we want to hear... look at how many horrible performers are out there that think themselves great because no one in their club would tell them the truth or else, they simply wouldn't HEAR what has actually been said... it is a matter of human nature after all.

I am a "perfectionist" of sorts, in that I want my audience to EXPERIENCE what they came for... a surreal psychic-like encounter, not a night full of card tricks and psycho-babble that makes them want to get on their hip waders.

Do I have a "narrow" opinion on how mentalism should be done?

Let's just say that I don't support 99% of the "new" way things are being done simply because I know from experience and from what I hear in feedback from my peers, that it don't work!

This is not to say that one or two individuals won't find a "knack" by which to make a contrary concept practical and viable. It happens in that we have exceptions to rules constantly and yet, such individuals are also a novelty... not everyone can be like Luke Jermay and see things as he did when he was just 16 years old... not everyone has the knack of what we have seen in Joshua Jay or Jason Lattimer... they are all novelties and not the rule. This is where the contentions held by many fail, in that they want the manifested results of the few to become the rule of thumb and that's just not how the Universe works.

None of you can go out and do what I do... yes, you can do the same tricks and even mimic my approach. By you are not me e.g. you cannot fully replicate the feel, psychology, etc. I have in place when working. Similarly, I can't do what any of you do... we are individuals and we must choose to be such in a way that is responsible; responsible to what we do, to ourself and to our patrons. When we look at the idea of responsibility we must include discipline, which is something a huge score of today's "aspirants" don't have much of... they have loads of self-will but very little in way of focus, respect, and the willingness to look at things in a way that might lead them to realize, they ain't getting it right.

None of us like to be told "NO" and yet, we must, as performing artists, learn how to tell ourselves no at times. There's not one top name working artists out there that will tell you that they have had to cut material because it wasn't working and add in material that they personally don't like but the patrons love. Yet, I keep hearing a ton of young people that are still climbing that ladder, tell me they can do whatever they please and it don't matter... something that's far from reality.

You have to do what works... my position and my style stays to keep the playing card thing to a very nominal level. Partly due to the fact that I hate the things and partly due to the fact that I've heard too many people make the comments I've already mentioned after shows, regardless of who is performing.


BTW... if you ask him, Kenton will tell you that he's a Magician or "Enchanter" he does not classify himself as a Mentalist.

He does go on doesn't he......................................

Craig Browning wrote:Let's just say that I don't support 99% of the "new" way things are being done simply because I know from experience and from what I hear in feedback from my peers, that it don't work!

Don't you think that if modern methods didn't work, we'd know about it? As soon as a bad product is reeased, all hell breaks loose, after all.

Banachek, whom you rate highly, wrote a whole book of psychological forces that "don't work" in the wrong hands and yet you rate it as highly as you rate him. The common factor here is the age of the writer, not the idea they're putting forward. I can't get away from the feeling that you're deliberately trying to poison something with your comments here. Would you be good enough to state what it is and why, please.

I'd be interested on what you think of Geist and Mentalist's Handbook actually Craig...http://www.alakazam.co.uk/acatalog/books4.html

i would personally say that these are pretty much modern-day classics...

I am not familiar with either of the books you ask about Abraxus

Sadly, I feel that TOMO is trying to back me into a corner and make me his batting boy...

The fact of the matter is, what we see done in these MTV styled "Magic Specials" ain't magic and it's far from being Mentalism... it is a bunch of tricks done for the camera, not "a show" as we would define such.

In the course of my life I've seen many who call themselves "Mentalists" that weren't and many that called themselves that seemed to go beyond that point of definition at times. But when I am watching four different magic specials back to back in which the Blindfold Drive is done and done in a shoddy manner by each of these performers, it ticks me off; not only have they ruined a great piece common to the Mentalist's field via over-exposure and association with magic and magicians.

Within minutes of seeing this stunt done on TV hundreds of people ran to their PCs and did Google searches finding adds for gimmicked blindfolds, etc. The guys doing this or any of these stunts might as well be doing a full expose' show on FOX. But just a look around and seeing the trends as they flow to the TV spots should tell you a whole lot... of course, you could go back to two or three of Kenton's articles at Visions that support everything I've said over the years.

I find it ironic, how the pros seem to understand what I say and agree but so many that haven't been there, want to argue.

Craig Browning wrote:I find it ironic, how the pros seem to understand what I say and agree but so many that haven't been there, want to argue.

They may well do craig, but it doesnt stop the buggers putting card stuff in their mentalism books!

we trust the pro's to point us in the right direction, for every person saying what you do, there's stuff from Cassidy, Knepper, Jermay, Brown, Becker, Busch and all those inbetween that sell effects/works that use cards...yet they're (for the most part classed as) mentalists...

what's good for the goose and all that jazz...that's what annoys me, and ultimately confuses me...I'm not advocating cutting to the aces, then suddenly channelling a spirit by the way...

Craig Browning wrote:I am not familiar with either of the books you ask about Abraxus

Sadly, I feel that TOMO is trying to back me into a corner and make me his batting boy...

No, I just want some answers from you, Craig.

I mean, back in 2001 when you were still earning your crust giving readings at a Reno occult book store, you weren't telling people they were being psychic all wrong, were you? So, what's changed? Where did the attitude come from?

You see, it piques my journalistic interest when you dodge difficult questions, make subtle implications about people being less authoritative, experienced or downright cheap, change perfectly reasonable discussions into rants about people you don't seem to like, or outright try to change the subject, rather than simply give straight answers about yourself and your views.

Sorry to sound personal, but I think that anyone claiming to be an authority on something should be able to tell us lowly amateurs who gather at his feet his reasoning.

Sorry guys, if it's getting personal then, as so many times before, the thread gets locked.

Sorry guys, if it's getting personal then, as so many times before, the thread gets locked.

Which is a real shame - because the thread itself and most of the replies were well worth reading...