talkmagic.co.uk

ummm seems to be the lad prostest too much !!

you can call it mentalism and im sure the veins in his forehead will probably explode.. BIG DEAL ! what matters is the reaction from the audience! Many know me as a magician , but for some audiences thye know me as someone who now having studied magic for many years is now moving to the metaphysical side of study and looking at the power of the mind itself,, Pure b=ll=x of course but they do accept it, so what i choose to call it is largely irrelevant. Craig, i do not wish to be disrespectful, but are you really as knowledgeable and widely regarded as stephen minch?
Personally, i like the sound of the effect mate, as far as the wand is concerned i like the idea of using something, just not so stereotypical, for myself , using tarot cards and an antique jewelled stilletto dagger, and having the prediction written on heavy quality flashpaper would be my preference but then thats just me.

alex

magicbyfish wrote:ummm seems to be the lad prostest too much !!

Ain't that the truth.

There is an awful lot in this world to get SO VERY wound up about.

But getting annoyed because a 'magician' decides to do a mental trick really shouldn't be one of them.

Life is too short.

Is the audience entertained? Job done. Doesn't matter what you call yourself.

And if someone wants to mix magic and mentalism, why the heck not. Daniels seemed to do it rather successfully back in the day.

Craig Browning wrote:Sorry folks, but I will always point out the differences. Stephan Minch did so for decades as do other MENTALISTS out there; just because you and spell the word don't mean you are one.

Why on earth does it matter?

Does the audience care whether they're being entertained by someone who insists they only do mentalism or magic? Of course not.

I'm learning some effects from Osterlind right now. Alongside that, I like card "tricks" and TT magic too. Is that NOT allowed? Can I not call myself a mentalist because I use TT's? Or not be classed a magician because I use mentalism effects? Says who? Where's this rulebook?

It's all a bit silly and ridiculous

Why on earth does it matter?

If it doesn't matter to you then no problem, nobody will assassinate you if you mix magic and mentalism. The important point here is that it does matter to some and they're as entitled to their point of view as everyone else. The two genres are different although they can employ common methods, each ‘borrowing’ from the other to achieve their effects. If a blend of the two works for you then nobody can say you’re wrong any more than a card worker can say a rope magician is wrong. There’s room for all.

Mandrake wrote:If it doesn't matter to you then no problem, nobody will assassinate you if you mix magic and mentalism. The important point here is that it does matter to some and they're as entitled to their point of view as everyone else. The two genres are different although they can employ common methods, each ‘borrowing’ from the other to achieve their effects. If a blend of the two works for you then nobody can say you’re wrong any more than a card worker can say a rope magician is wrong. There’s room for all.

Fair enough. As it makes no difference to me, I suppose I wondered why others were so bothered by it.

I'm a hypnotherapist, yet am constantly asked to do stage hypnosis tricks and effects. The two require different techniques, but both still use hypnosis. It doesn't matter to the audience or client what technique or method I use as long as it gets the result they want...treatment or entertainment. If it doesn't matter to them, why should it to me?

I'm still very confused with relation to this mentalism/magic debate

To use a very widely known performer as an example - Derren Brown. Would you call him a mentalist? He does card tricks and uses sleight of hand methods to achieve other effects, yet I would class him as a mentalist.

To use Mr Browning's example though,m because he does a card trick but "spices it up" it doesn't make him a mentalist

Surely what "makes you a mentalist" or a magician is the presentation of the effect - not the methods involved?

Take the ID for example. I have a stage show coming up based around the presmise of mindreading through psychological means (and i dont want to get into a debate about psychological presentation please), and one of the key things throughout the first half is the ID.

Now, the presentation I give it isnt a normal ID presentation, thus it isn't a "magic trick". But because i am using a normal magic trick, does that mean i cannot be a mentalist?

Another effect utilises a hidden secret assistant, somebody who the audeince never sees and isn't aware about - this is something used by stage illusionists for decades gone. Does this mean I cannot be a mentalist?

Thus, the reverse can also be true. Are you not allowed to class yoruself as a magician if you use a swami gimmick? A billet knife?

I have always respected you and your opinions Craig, and your experience and knowledge is, as you and others are aware, invaluable. But one thing that I do not see is why you have to get so hyped up about the traditions? Times change. If I wish to use a hidden helper I shall. If I wish to use a magical method and pass it off as psychological trickery I shall. At the end of the day I am out there doing the job, and getting paid for it. The audience love it, and I get repeat bookings. They describe me to friends when I am there as "somebody who can read body signals". They do not say "someone who does fancy card tricks".

At the end of the day, this young performer is doing a card trick, with a metalism presentation. Yes, the presentation may not be, in your opinion, to a good standard, but (correct me if I am wrong) from the original poster's grammer and wording he/she does seem to still be very young. Were you not young and eager once? I very much doubt you were "perfect" all of your life. You had to go through a learning curve as well.

Now, I am not slating you or anybody else with a similar opinion - I am just expressing my views in what I hope is a fairly mature manner which will spark a bit of thoguht in opposition to any hurt feelings. I am not setting out to change your perspective, or even say that mine is the right one - I am trying to show you that your opinion isn;t the only one, and therefore it is not neccessarily always right.

At the end of the day, if you were to say "it is still a bloody card trick" then I could say that a billet switch is "still just bloody sleight of hand - you must be a magician!".

I want to say that it is the presentation which makes what you are - not the methodoly involved. You need only look at DB's finale in "Something Wicked" to see that. A "simple" magic "trick" dressed up to a degree in which people think he is the master mentalist.

So, to summarise...stop getting to hyped up. Let the times change. By all means you carry on being traditional, but I'll carry on using both "magician methods" and "mentalist methods" to achieve what I do. It gets me more jobs anyway...which is ultimately what I wish to have.

I always find the whole magician\mentalist debate amusing and to be brutally honest a little bit pointless.

I don't really think that it matters at all how something's done, what is far more important is the effect that it produces. We like to give ourselves as well as others certain lables but it really doesn't matter what any of us think, it's what the audiences think and how they percieve use that's important. If they think that we're reading their minds or seeing into the future using what ever ability that we claim to be using then we're mentalists.

But why does it really matter, why's there the need to stick lables on ourselves? In my view I find this sort of discussion and some of the opinions very patronising towards traditional magicians.

the punters will label you differently, regardless of your own label...

best just to not bother with a label at all..

be good, be entertaining, be consistent...

and don't worry too much what people say on online forums...

The lines between "mentalism", "mental magic" and magic are so blurred now that to act as though clear, objective, I'm-right-you're-wrong distinctions can be made... it's ludicrous. All the magical disciplines borrow from eachother, and any magic trick can be dressed up as mentalism. The ACR becomes a hallucination induced by covert hypnosis, equivoque becomes superior powers of influence, it can all be given a mental flavour depending on the style and showmanship of the person presenting it. So it's not in 13 Steps. So what. What's the difference? To the people on this forum who have studied it and have clear definitions set in their mind, it might be huge, but to a spectator who knows absolutely nothing about what's going on behind the scenes, the method does not matter one bit. And they won't be popping home and Googling the method to see if what he saw at the restaurant this evening counts as "pure" mentalism or whether it's some unchristly hybrid. The only people who care about that sort of thing are some other magicians, who - unless you fraternize exclusively with other magicians - make up roughly 0% of your audience.

I still don't consider the effect AS IS mentalism - simply because of the introduction of the wand. For me, no matter what happens afterwards - it will appear as a magic trick. It's not the playing cards that make it a magic trick - it's the wand.

Take that wand out of the picture and, for me, it's a whole different ball game.

As far as magic/mentalism goes - I'm not at all interested in the debate, and I'll break the rules of either side, as long as I find it effective and it entertains my spectators.

Having said that - if it's all so pointless and laughable to some - why are you bothering to comment on it at all? Craig has his reasons for speaking up, and in many ways - I completely respect and understand where he's coming from.

To take an example from my own experiences: I am a designer by profession, and have been an illustrator/artist since I was able to hold a pencil in my hand. Without tooting my own horn - I am a talented artist, and my career speaks for that.

A person who goes on stage in some hole in the wall dump in Manhattan can (and has - I've seen it) shave off the fur of his dog, tossing it in the air while reciting inane children's poems - and he too, is called an artist.

Say what you will, and offer any opinions - I will never call that particular man an artist.

Not all "art" is art ... and I believe my abilities/knowledge/education on the matter more than allows me to make and uphold that argument at any time.

How is Craig any different? When you do something for a living, every day - for many years - and you see some people beginning to dilute the waters a bit - I challenge you to sit back and not protest.

Craig defends his position because it is people who do not respect the difference between the two genres and think nothing of sticking a Q&A demonstration between two rope tricks. While I don't necessarily adhere to the letter of the argument Craig is making, I can plainly see his argument - and agree that there are some who threaten to undermine the credibility of others by not knowing and respecting that the two genres don't (and sometimes shouldn't) always meet.

JFC! I wrote a Sticky that got major kudos just a couple of week ago that helped "unblur" the blurred situation so many want to have.

THE DIFFERENCE is that a Mentalist is not using material that goes against the psychological dynamics of his craft; Magic is something the public understands and accepts as trickery, that is not the case with properly presented Mentalism... and please understand that what Osterlind and Larry Becker do, by their own words, is Mental Magic in that it is the more commercial course with things. I've said that, I've even encouraged that mode of presentation for years. I'm even guilty of using Grand Illusion technology within a "Psychic" themed program simply for the sake of production value.

What's it matter?

What's it matter when you refer to a patron of a show as being a spectator vs. participant?

The dynamic as it is understood in your own mind and with application, in your actions is what the difference is. Same with understanding why things fit into specific boxes at times vs. the self-will gone riot antics of not giving a damn and doing whatever you please. The "law" reads "That it harm none, do as thou wilts" and when you run off doing as you wish and negating the value within whatever it may be, just for the sake of personal "gain" and in so doing others lose out, you have broken said axiom and thus, betrayed your humanity.... if we are to consider the more metaphysical course of looking at things, that is.

Words have an amazing amount of power and how we employ terms can either empower or neuter us. It's amazing, given the topic at hand and the plethora of self-made NLP, Linguistic and Ericksonian experts we have on this board and yet, I'm the main one that points out this particular distinction and the folly around it; how our misplacement of the idea and more particularly, how and when we use it, robs us of the advantages we'd otherwise know if and when we choose to commit to the one or the other rather than treading the fence between them.

As to the hypnosis thing... Both, Arnold Furst and Ormond McGill were clinical Hypnotist, Ormond having close to 100 books on the subject to his credit and yet, the two of them are seen as the "fathers" of modern day stage Hypnosis as well as noted clinicians. It's not the same issue as the apple & orange situation around Mentalism. Oddly, mixing Mentalism with Stage Hypnosis is quite practical and far closer to a proper mode of association than the melding of magic with mentalism (UNLESS a segregation exists between the two).

To compare me to Stephan Minch... well, on many levels I'd have to say we are on par with one another even though he was (and still is) one of the great thinkers within mentalism to inspire and challenge me in my formative years of study. Though his direct knowledge on Mentalism may be more than mine, I'm confident that my background in grand illusion probably surpassed his... we all have our areas of proficiency; after a decade or better of studying, experimenting, trying to mix magic & mentalism in the same shows, I finally came to the conclusion that it had to be all or nothing and I had to stop lying to myself. That's not to say that I have completely divorced myself from magic, I just don't perform it any longer (other than maybe some silliness with friends)

Minch, Koran and others prior to, during their lives and since have each discouraged the idea of doing both in the same show. Minch refers to part of this course of action as "Magician's Guilt" (albeit, one side of said syndrome). So please do not attempt to make this a "Craig" issue; my position got its impetus from the history books and in some cases, those that have actually done it. Then again, history also reveals how the magicians of the world refuse and have constantly refused, to allow room for such things simply because of ego... "If I want to do it, no one is going to tell me I can't"

I'd love to see you apply that same approach to grand illusions and see just how far you get with it...

I think people have different way to doing things and different ways of looking at things. What Craig refers to is proper, old fashioned mentalism where as most people now think of mantal magic as mentalism.

There are no rights or wrongs in magic or mentalism just different ways of doing things. As long as the audience remains entertained, then as far as I'm concerened it doesn't matter. Like any performing art, for good or bad mentalism will change, develop and evolve over time to fit in with current trends and popular culture and that I think is what's happening at the moment.

This is all very similar to the arguements that used to go around when I was in my Folk band between the old folkies who would play traditional folk songs and the younger bands like us who'd play more of a folk-punk or folk-rock style.

Demitri wrote:Having said that - if it's all so pointless and laughable to some - why are you bothering to comment on it at all? Craig has his reasons for speaking up, and in many ways - I completely respect and understand where he's coming from.

For me, at least part of the motivation to post is due to Craig's phrasing. No offence to Craig, but his posts are adversarial and read as arrogant. I don't know him and can only go on the tone of his written word. When someone has such a huge amount of knowledge to share, it's good to respect their view and generally listen to what they have to share. I'm happy to take on board what Craig says and do respect his views. What I find irritating is that he "seems" and I emphasise that word, seems to be telling the rest of us that A) novices have no right to have an opinion and B) that his word is final. I can't respect someone's viewpoint when they shove it down my throat as the final word on a subject. I try to understand ONLY when someone is offering a perspective rather than telling me what to think. Just my constructive 2p worth on why I responded in the way I did. As I said, no offence meant.

Demitri wrote:Craig defends his position because it is people who do not respect the difference between the two genres and think nothing of sticking a Q&A demonstration between two rope tricks.

Again, for me, it's not lack of respect. I've been here five minutes and virtually every post I've seen from Craig is where he's put someone down, as with the "it's a bloody card trick" comment for being inexperienced, young, naive or whatever. That's not going to foster respect, quite the contrary.

As with all the (many !) previous discussions on Mentalism & Magic here, there will never be agreement and each will have it's own proponents and supporters, many of whom are working professionals in each field so they earn their crust through practicing what they preach. It takes a while to get the flavour of the various individual stances on this topic but each honestly held opinion is as valid as the next. This art is very wide and there's a place for all.

Mandrake wrote:

Why on earth does it matter?

If it doesn't matter to you then no problem, nobody will assassinate you if you mix magic and mentalism. The important point here is that it does matter to some and they're as entitled to their point of view as everyone else. The two genres are different although they can employ common methods, each ‘borrowing’ from the other to achieve their effects. If a blend of the two works for you then nobody can say you’re wrong any more than a card worker can say a rope magician is wrong. There’s room for all.

I know this, and I agree with you - perhaps Mr. Browning could use a reminder rather than simply condemning others' work as "just" card tricks and the like.