talkmagic.co.uk

There is a sticky at the top of "support and tips" which you may find useful. Craig Browning has made a list of people and books etc that may be useful. If he misses this thread, you could always PM him for advice.

Be warned, you WILL get a good lecture on being impatient and trying to do mentalism after 2 months. (Quite rightly) Once you let him know you are wanting to learn the theory and psychological part, rather than gimmicks, I'm sure he will warm to you. For people willing to put in the work, he is a very good person to ask.

Sod it, I can't go a whole post about Craig without saying something bad. If you are looking for shortcuts, he can be a cantankerous old ****. There, that feels better.

Oh, be sure you are a 100% sure on the difference between mentalism and mental magic before you speak to him.
(sorry Craig, I DID try to resist! )

ollieinthelight wrote:I mean i saw Derren Brown do something where he said to someone 'think of something and just picture it in your head' and then without wiriting ANYTHING down he just told him what he was thinking. Thats what i want to do! but all i come across is stuff where the spectator must write it down or something like that.

Magicians are keepers of an empty safe. If you try to copy the MEANS that lead to the end result, you're going to get nowhere. However, if you try to duplicate only the end result, you'll be onto something.

Psychological misdirection is Derren's specialty. That's not to say that he's using psychological effects to get the results you see--in fact, he uses classic mentalism to divine the selection. However, you only see one part of the puzzle.

Remember that Derren is working for a TV audience. What you see is meant to be adequately impressive to the live audience but nearly supernatural to the TV audience.

Next time you watch a Derren Brown video, think of what mentalism technique you've learned that can get the information... Then think of how that could be done before the camera starts rolling.

I hate to burst many of your bubbles, but Derren Brown isn't as great of a psychological genius as we think he is. I was an awestruck, dumbfounded fan when I started watching him and getting into mentalism, but the more I watched, the more I realized he was simply relying on trickery. That's not to say he's not a great performer--in fact, he is my number one favorite performer of all time. The fact that he can have hordes of deluded fans is probably what sets him apart from all of the other more transparent performers in the world today. Think Criss Angel and co. Even though he comes right out and says that he uses a blend of "magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship," even putting "magic" first, his fans still tend to think that they are all strictly psychological techniques (sans Simon Singh, and as Derren would say, "I'm sure as you read over that last sentence, you'll find the use of the word sans both unnecessary and annoying").

I hope this eases your frustration a bit. Remember, the means to the end are no more than clever misdirection from the actual method afoot. To achieve his effects, you'll need to rely on classic mentalism with a more modern presentation (and perhaps some clever camera edits).

Ciao,
Rob

Very well put Rob!

And, let's not forget, in his stage show Derren had participants write something down for one effect.

Cardza wrote:And, let's not forget, in his stage show Derren had participants write something down for one effect.

Indeed, but I watched it time and time again and couldn't catch where he could get a glimpse, assuming he was using an impression pad... Any ideas?

On second thought, I'm going to post this in the Tips section!

Ha! Well said Rob and how amusing, I posted a similar post then deleted it immediately as I thought it was too controversial... you're very diplomatic though!

I would just second precisely what Rob has said. I very much respect the work of both Derren and Banachek, but if you see their live shows they use stuff like peeks, billets, the one-ahead principle straight out of Corinda and Annemann. Ok, these guys are seriously good at what they do and have a lot of experience, but essentially they put their trousers on one leg at a time like everyone else!

It amuses me and sometimes annoys me slightly that people write books that get set upon incredible pedestals about psychology and subtleties - not that there's anything wrong with the books themselves - but then they go and do Kurotsuke, or use a centre tear which is entirely "mechanical" in it's workings and has been around since the dawn of time! The cynical side of me wonders if these guys give each other a sly wink when they see each other in the street, and whether the degree to which they harp on about the psychological aspect isn't in some ways a smoke screen to prevent other mentalists from waking up and going "hang on - that was on a Max Maven DVD." We already know for a fact that Derren - versed as he is in genuine psychology - uses pseudo-psychology to make lay-audiences believe that what he does is "real". He does this because he knows that these days, to claim supernatural powers is to be scoffed at, and he's no fool - it's definitely the best way to present mentalism in modern times. But I sometimes wonder if he's not taking the magicians along for a wee bit of a ride too... and of course, they are more than happy to be taken for a ride, because mentalists can be a proud group who enjoy this flattering "blurring of the boundaries" between what you can *appear* to be able to do and what you can *actually* do... after all, if you can force someone to choose something just by the words you use, is that not some form of "mental power"...?


By all means, think about the structure of an effect and seek guidance from these resources as to how to use language or psychology to make the effect more powerful, but ultimately Derren is not going to go on stage to a paying audience of 1000's and wave his hand in someone's face in the hope that they think of the 2 of diamonds. He's going to use a forces, impression pads and every other tool in the mentalist's arsenal - what makes him so special is the way he uses them.

My advice to you would be to steer clear of the "real, genuine, psychological, NLP etc etc" side of mentalism - for now at least - until you've gone through 13 steps etc (if you want "classical mentalism" but presented in a more modern way, check out Osterlind, Max Maven or Marc Spelmann to think of a few) and can amaze people with just a few business cards, an envelope an a pencil.

I echo the Spelmann coment Farlsy. The amout of time I am saying "I am suggesting to you" when I am one ahead or something.


Ok I know Mr B will be along to slap me. But isnt all magic lies? ok here I go another slap!

I agree with pretty much all of you. In fact, I've been sat here nodding my head like a plastic dog on a parcel shelf. Oh yes. Psychological techniques, even the classic card force, are not something to be taken lightly. In fact, you could say that of cold reading too, which is, after all, a psychological effect that requires skill to generate belief.

And Brown is a very cheeky monkey. He's a master at the double bluff, and I think we all love to hate him for it. He goes through process A quite openly (the trick itself), implies he's doing process B to achieve it, and is in fact doing process C, a rather mundane thing, instead. Well, maybe mundane is a little too strong, but if we were to ask him how he did something and he told us, we'd all probably just tut and walk off, disappointed and greatly miffed. I almost threw Pure Effect at the wall when I read how to do Plerophoria. I wanted the real thing, like the eager kid who buys a CTW effect and actually expects to throw a deck at any window and achieve the results impromptu.

Mind you, faced with a difficult spec, are any of us going to hang around hoping to convince her we're the real deal and make things worse, or ask her to name her favourite card, pull out the old ID and give it her straight between the eyes? I'm going for the latter every time. It's a total shocker!

But as much as I love my beloved ID, my Si Stebbins stacked stripper, and my arsenal of tricks and outs, the single idea that really lights my candles is having apparently no method at all. Nothing written down, no peeks, no gaffs, nothing. My approach has been to split the approach into two halves.

One half of this is to use the spectator's mind directly as part of the effect. What is she likely to do, how do I create the circumstances where that will allow itself to happen unconsciously, and how do I handle the situation if it doesn't? The other half is to use statistical models upon which to base predictions. I think these are opposite sides of the same coin.

So, that's where I'm coming from with Naked Mentalism: statistics and psychology blended to create something seemingly intuitive without any apparent method, just like the real thing. That's important to remember. The idea is to create a simulation of the real thing that's far more accurate than Madam Wotserface from down the road, without any form of physical paraphernalia involved at all. These are effects, but I'm not sure they're actually tricks.

Mentalism is nothing but bullsh*tting and getting away with it. If you can tell interesting lies and appear to prove them, you've got a top class mentalism act.

Re: Tomo's comment on the card force...

My current closeup routine has three phases: prop magic (rope, silks, cigs), card magic, and "mind reading." I frame the mind reading as a psychological feat that anyone can do, though, so I don't appear quite so pompous.

The first effect in the mind reading phase is nothing more than a card force and some bullshitting. A little bit of pseudo-hypnosis and the audience is stunned. The classic "trickery" is definitely not to be forgotten!

copyright wrote:Mentalism is nothing but bullsh*tting and getting away with it. If you can tell interesting lies and appear to prove them, you've got a top class mentalism act.

I cringe at the stories I come out with to explain the ID! All about waking in the morning and wondering who I'd meet and what card they'd think of. I wonder if, technically, that makes me a bad person?

Nah being a bad person makes you a bad person Tomo.

I fear we shall all feel the wrath of Craig Browning in one of them very long post of his. Lets face it if magic wasn’t all lies then every psychotherapist and his dog would be out doing Mentalisim. We lie about but do the audience care? They care when they see a badly palmed coin but not when you give them flannel about I ve hypnotised you then suggest this, the looks at what way your eyes moved.

Markdini wrote:Nah being a bad person makes you a bad person Tomo.

The difference between magic and mentalism is that the lies are all you have in mentalism. When people talk about having difficulty performing similar material to Luke Jermay (and others) they reveal only that they haven't yet understood what mentalism is.

I like telling lies, Big ones small ones ones as big as your head. And if i am doing a coin bend I will throw in some jermay. But if my lies fall flat on the face then the spec still ends up with a bent coin.

RobLaughter wrote:The classic "trickery" is definitely not to be forgotten!

Absolutely! A world without classic techniques would be incredibly dull, if not a bit strange!