talkmagic.co.uk

Tomo wrote:Then read this: http://www.online-visions.com/jonthomps ... rmula.html

That was really very interesting. I *think* that X=1-(E/A), though, not X=E/A.
T.

Of course there are others from On-Line VISIONS that have offered "advice" on this very topic over the years, including a handful of bits by Kenton Knepper that more or less challenge the newbie, asking them why they feel they "must" follow along with all the other drones in the world, jumping onto the Mentalism TREND and wrongly labeling what they do as "Mentalism" when it is in fact, NOT!

My most recent article in VISIONS points out how so many pieces now days are sold as "Mentalism" when in truth the only real claim to said field the product hosts is a presentational theory at best. For example; INK which is a very impressive bit of BIZARRE MAGICK that is being marketed as "Mentalism"... having a tattoo mysteriously appear from nowhere, on blank skin IS NOT Mentalism, it's an obvious magician's trick and as I've stated, is best understood as Bizarre or Shock Magick in that there is absolutely NOTHING about the effect (outside revealing a known entity) that ties to Mentalism itself. It is a mode of delusion that has resulted in a great deal of "loss" within Mentalism as an art form.

MATURITY is the golden rule and there are 20 year olds out there in today's world that have a far more seasoned sense of world view, life experience and general maturity... individual's whose sense of professionalism goes well beyond that of those 20 years their senior. On the other hand, such young personalities are rare; most require some solid mentoring in order to overcome the burden of age... as in, not being able to come across convincingly as a Psychic Entertainer because of your youth; a circumstance that can be circumvented simply by planning things out, finding a path that seems most practical & logical for your current circumstance, etc. The yesteryear formula being that the younger talent serves as a special guest act (for lack of a better term) in an existing program; you have been "discovered" by the older performer who gives you some stage time on two fronts (typically); a short double's act such as the classic telepathy demonstration (code act) followed by a short personal bit of business that allows you to have a more direct sense of rapport -- revealing your character but in so doing, gaining the kind of stage time experience that allows you to grow into that role.

Far too many want to approach Mentalism in the same way they've approach the creation of a Magic Show. While a lot of this stems from inexperience, the more recent demonstration of such stems more from impatience and refusing to work within the frame work that is Mentalism; replacing the "standards" of the craft with new contrivances, theories and defiance -- magician's seeking to have their cake & eat it too vs. those that respect the contrasts and differences between each art form and why those lines of demarcation were set into place originally.

Yes, there is room for young Mentalists BUT, very few of those who are young, inexperienced, etc. have they discipline required, when it comes to pulling it off and of course, our obligation to the craft itself. The question being more akin to "Am I considering the idea of being a Mentalist as the result of trend and ego?" or "Am I envisioning myself to be a Mentalist because I am capable of delivering solid ENCHANTMENT as an entertainer; leaving the audience bewildered and uncertain as to whether they've just witnessed the "real deal" or just a cleverly structured magic show?

HINT: Even Banachek strives to be seen as "real" based on his claims. It would stand to reason therefore, that your goal as a performer, is one and the same. Unfortunately, very few of those that "love" mentalism comprehend this side of it and why it is so crucial. It is really up to YOU, the exercise of getting honest enough in our evaluation in what we do and why; whether we honestly host those qualities this art form demands of the individual or, more importantly, are willing to do what it takes to hone said skills, traits and all around talent. But then, this is the primary rub... it's not as much as whether you can be successful as a young mentalist but more an issue as to self-confidence and our willingness to be willing to make the changes in attitude, approach and discipline (dedication of study & practice). If you're willing to LISTEN to the advice and critique of your peers (especially those older and more experienced than you) then you have more than "a chance" in fulfilling your personal dreams when it comes to this path. But LISTEN you must! You might be the artist, but unless you listen to the wisdom of experience and discipline yourself in the art of drawing the best from yourself that's possible to know... even paying those of theatrical note to aid you in breaking down your "vision" and rebuilding it time and again, until the perfected product comes about... this is the truth of show biz as a whole and the biggest reason one must seemingly surrender their "youth" in order to achieve.

I know I've rambled a bit... my apologies... been out of the hospital for less than 24 and am not "all together". Nonetheless, I hope that what I've conveyed aids any young person in their adventure.

TheMentalist wrote:I have a serious problem presenting it as real psychic abilities, plus it is not belivable anymore these days.
Thanks!

Then you go on to say: "I am one of the the biggest Skeptics you'll ever meet, so having psychic powers, or telling people about there intuition is no option"

Perhaps it is because of the second quote that people don't find your psychic abilities believable. All the evidence including the fact that the Psychic industry is easily a billion dollar industry suggests that people not only want to believe, they do believe.

Besides are you a psychic or a mentalist? Two different fields of study. And if you are a mentalist you may want to consider acting classes because really all you need to be is a good actor and entertainer.

Personally I would take acting classes while you are young and just getting into it. Acting will only help, and help avoid all the mistakes you are about to make anyway.

I agree with the above posts when they say, "Don't worry about it" Lead your audience down the path, but in the end let them decide what they believe.

My view is rather surprisingly the same as Mark's

But yeah, as Tomo said:

Tomo wrote:Read what everyone else has to say.

Then ignore everything and make up your own mind.

First of all I think this says most of it:

Corinda: "Now the next question. Do you think that age matters if you want to be a mentalist?"

Fogel: "Well, for pure mentalism, naturally, as I said at the beginning, you have to have a commanding personality. Well straight away that does suggest that you have to be of a mature age, although the youngster that wants to come into mentalism-I don't want him to be thrown off because of this. By all means do it, as a youngster you can still present it and with experience you will learn a lot. For a really mentalist presentation I would say you should be a ripe mature age-round about thirty and onwards."

Corinda: Actually Fogel, What I had in mind was appearance. That is to say, even if y ou do get a yong chap with a commanding personality (which is possible) do you think the audience will accept his mentalism if he looks "too young"?

Fogel: No- certainly they will accept it. As I say, primarily, if he remembers he is an entertainer and his stuff is presented well-neither age or appearance matter to that extent"

But anyway:

IAIN wrote:

Ted wrote:

SamGurney wrote:I play it as something like psychological prowess.

How do you avoid appearing arrogant? Genuine question - not sniping.

and pretentious...

AEOLISTIC RESPONSE BELOW:

Before I even begin explaining my own style, I should point out how easy it is to find problems with things rather than solutions. Socrates realised this and he avoided making any arguments himself, instead he prefered to tear apart others' arguments.

But anyway... the question is 'How do I get away with comging across as pretentious and appearing arrogant, if I am claiming psychological prowess'.

Assuming it is a serious question (which I'm sure it is), then it deserves a serious answer.

First of all, I shall deal with claims of being 'pretentious'. I must apologise before I say this, but this is just silly. Isn't the ENTIRE point of magic, that its pretentious? If you're deception is failing, and you're spectators are seeing your DLs and your passes, then they will see through your pretentions that there is only one card, or their card is still in the middle. If they are seeing through your pretentions you are failing at magic. ERGO... if you can't get around pretentions why the f*** do * magic.

That is all.

But therein though, is the whole issue, of not coming across as pretentious and not therefore failing at magic as a teenage mentalist. To be honest I know I have given ten times more convincing performances than some mentalists I have seen. Is this me being arrogant? No; its the truth. There are some sh*te mentalists out there. A two year old could give a more convincing, less pretentious performance. I can't help how popular it is, but its the truth.

But let me make myself clear; yes I tend to lead toward psychological performance. But I'm not particularly interested, I'm interested in whether it is 'real' to the spectator and whether they are convinced. I would be pretty oblivious if I didn't know whether they were or weren't convinced by now. I find a magician pretending not to be pretentious... extremley pretentious.

So now to adress the question... again. Personally, I think my performance 'character' is virtually who I am naturally. The question then becomes 'Am I naturally percieved as arrogant'. In absolute honesty, by people who know nothing about me *ahem* yes, they do mistake me as being arrogant. An insatiably questioning teenager can be misinterpreted as someone who believes they have all the answers, rather than simply believing nobody does. But those people who know me, know that I am not lying or carrying out some huge pretense; a few years ago when I was 12 I said I could play Led Zeppelin on the guitar to a friend, who asked if I played an instrument. Thier BS-ometer nearly exploded. Then they gave me a guitar and an amp. And so I played some Led Zeppelin. I'm not interested in pretentions, I do magic because its real. Depending on which end you percieve it from. The 'reality' it used to possess me, is what I aspire to incite in others.

Those who actually know me, know that I despise elitism. In fact, I can't even say the word without wanting to digress into a very impolite rant. I despise people who believe they know anything never mind everything; intelligence is merley knowing that you know nothing, in my definition. And more importantly I despise people who think they are better than anyone else in any way, certainly in terms of so called 'intelligence' which doesn't exist. I certainly then don't think I am better than anyone else. People may perceive me as thinking that I know more than I actually do and as pretentious, but nobody mistakes me as believing myself falsley to be above anyone else, simply because I don't have the capacity for such delusions. That is what I mean by my definition of 'arrogance'.

And ultimatley how this answers the question, is because that is my entire message. Yes, I have these extraordinary abilities. Yes, I'm young. And that is the message you take. You can do anything you want to if you work. You are not determined by a label and that includes age; that includes whether you believe you were born a genius or not. You are a Genius. Everyone is, because Genius doesn't exist. Everyone has difficulties, and these difficulties often give birth to extradinary ability. You are amazing because everyone is amazing! You have the most incredilble mind because the mind is the most incredilbe thing! Nothing worth achieving is easy; Don't ever let anyone tell you that they are better than you, don't ever tell anyone that you are better than them. Work hard and you will encounter struggle, but you can do anything.

And that is why, as far as I know, I don't come across as arrogant. Look how arrogant I am, answering the question so arrogantly... :/

yeah, but...

"Don't ever let anyone tell you that they are better than you.."

if i were in a time-travelling cubicle in a pub, and i was next to hendrix, he could tell me he was better than me...and he'd be right...i know he never would, but he could...

if i was in the same pub cubicle as rory gallagher and jimi hendrix, i'd just keep quiet altogether...

know thy limits...play to your strengths...you don't have to be good at everything...

i know very good mentalists who can't swami to save their lifes..

IAIN wrote:yeah, but...

"Don't ever let anyone tell you that they are better than you.."

if i were in a time-travelling cubicle in a pub, and i was next to hendrix, he could tell me he was better than me...and he'd be right...i know he never would, but he could...

if i was in the same pub cubicle as rory gallagher and jimi hendrix, i'd just keep quiet altogether...

know thy limits...play to your strengths...you don't have to be good at everything...

i know very good mentalists who can't swami to save their lifes..

Hendrix said 'I'm the best guitarist in this chair'.

And I completley agree. Nobody whos good at everything, is great for anything.


ANDDD to offer advice: I couldn't really agree more with what Iain and Tomo said 'Learn for yourself, decide for yourself- you have time'.

Plus I agree mostly with what Craig said; which is an achievement given how much he wrote

Pot.
Kettle.
Black.

But anyway... he does know what he's on about. However, I always think that if someone is claiming expertise and experience if they are saying something they have to explain why thier experience tells them that, experience does not create infallibility and I have, do and always will find authority far too dubious to stop questioning.

If Albert Einstein returned from the grave and told me 'the moon is made of cheese' I wouldn't beleive him just because he was Einstein. I mean, he was Einstein though and he probably would be right. But I'd want him to proove it first before I belived him. I could never concur just because he's more experienced.

I'm sorry, I'm like that. But anway, that just MY opinion.

Besides:

'the most important thing is to not stop questioning'

I'm not sure why, but Albert Einstein said it, so it must be true.

hendrix also said (when asked "whats it like being the best guitarist in the world) - "i dunno, ask rory gallagher..."

while we're waving our freak-flags high...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CmdAjt8 ... re=related

http://www.xmission.com/~zerowc/other/0802brown.html

Sam,

Your answers are often so long that I admit it's a challenge to read the entire texts and to try to understand them fully. Clearly it is not only the young who are affected by a short attention span these days I beg you to take mercy and humour me with a pithy response.

Despite your lengthy post (and thank you for taking the time to type it) I don't think you've answered my question. You seem to have concentrated instead mainly on the issue of pretension.

So here's my question again:

Ted wrote:

SamGurney wrote:I play it as something like psychological prowess.

How do you avoid appearing arrogant? Genuine question - not sniping.

Let me (very briefly) enlarge...

A demo of psychological prowess would appear to show that your mind is better than those of your spectators. That's what prowess means - to be better than normal. I'd like to know how you form an entertaining presentation that shows you to have a superior mind to your audience's without appearing arrogant.

Personally I think that's a big challenge and suggesting it as a presentational approach is risky without providing at least some guidance on how to carry it off without appearing an insufferable c**k

T.

its my fault...

i clouded sam's mind with my talk of pretentiousness...

mainly cos people at work, those who don't like derren, refer to him as "that pretentious *insert expletive here"...

which i think they are meaning, he's pretending to be this master of psychology, where they know deep down he's doing "other things"...

IAIN wrote:its my fault...

i clouded sam's mind with my talk of pretentiousness...

mainly cos people at work, those who don't like derren, refer to him as "that pretentious *insert expletive here"...

which i think they are meaning, he's pretending to be this master of psychology, where they know deep down he's doing "other things"...

No I just have a cloudy mind

TheMentalist wrote:hi everybody,

mentalism, has been kind of an obsession lately.
over the course of last year, i became pretty good at it, i mean, i hounostly can't remember the last time someone saw trough an effect.
ive been thinking though, how should i present my Mentalism?
I have a serious problem presenting it as real psychic abilities, plus it is not belivable anymore these days.
so pretty mutch all i can present it as is 'A mixture of Body Language, the power of suggestion, and sometimes magic'.
but is that belivable for an 16 year old, mabye if i have some kind of backstory?
or possibly something else my puny human mind can't think of...

like to hear what you guys think,
Thanks!

I don't think it is realistic for someone of your youth to pull off a 'A mixture of Body Language, the power of suggestion, and sometimes magic' unless you present your character as some kind of prodigy. On the other hand, I guess you could say that you were taught from when you first could speak by psychologists who were trying to make you the world's best psychologist (kind of like Doc Savage's father training him to be a crimefighter from an early age).

You indicated that you're a skeptic and therefore won't say you have psychic powers. I think that's a mistake. That makes more sense than you trying to say you've learned so much about psychology and suggestability at you age. After all, it's your character, your persona, you're presenting, not who you really are.

I'm guessing that you find the people who present themselves as psychics and then con people out of their hard earned do re mi as bad ( so do I) but you're supposed to entertaining them, not having the join your cult. You're acting. Sean Connery is not a spy, Julia Roberts is not a prostitute and Sean Penn is not mentally challenged. Those are roles they played. (Well, maybe Sean Penn ...) When you're performing, you're not whaterever your real name is, you're The Mentalist, or whatever your persona is (even if it's your real name).

Wouldn't it be easier to say that from an early age you knew things others didn't? You heard or saw things about people, things they's never revealed to others. Maybe your great aunt or grandmother had special abilities and they were passed to you. You could say you were a normal kid but one day you were in an accident and, when you recovered, you had these special abilities.

To probably misquote Olivier, 'It's called acting.'

I know Banachek fooled scientists when he was around your age. I don't know what his explanation for his abilities was, but I'll bet he didn't say he got them through a study of psychology. But I could be wrong.

Good luck in your quest. I predict that one day, when you're older, you will look back on this and smile that you asked it. (Cue Twilight Zone music.)

When I was late teens / early 20s I used to get away with mindreading and mental magic so easily because people used to think I was autistic. I'm not autistic but people would often form a first impression of me that I was. Some people still do think that, but that's another story. Anyway I used to do a lot of mental magic/mind reading type stuff and people would believe it because they had this idea that maybe I had sat at home and memorised all the lines in all the books on the shelf and could instantly recall what line on what page was so many lines down from the top of the page, and that I could instantly remember cards like the Dustin Hoffman character in Rain Man.

So follow the Dustin Hoffman character's way of doing things in every aspect of your life until it comes natural to you. Admittedly you won't pick up any girls doing it but why would you want to do that anyway?

I'm inclined to agree with previous posts regarding using a psychological/NLP/Blah approach for someone so young, it simply wouldn't be believable and what you'll be performing will be percieved as tricks rather than miracles.

Anyone here who's met me is likely to know I'm what I (cheekily) call "a reformed shut-eye". I was giving Tarot readings as a teenager and nobody ever questioned my age in regards to my abilities. It was an inate ability, guided by the Tarot and as such was entirely believable (partly because I entirely believed it myself, but that's another story).

Being so naturally sceptic shouldn't be a barrier to adopting a similar line for yourself. I'd be quite entertained by a young mentalist who couldn't explain how he does what he does, he just seems to be able to do these things. Use your scepticism to engage your audience.

The psychological approach might be plausible at 16, with the right slant.

This slant being the "wonders of the human mind" approach: "These are the amazing abilities everyone has hidden in their wonderful brains. You too could do any of these things with the proper teaching and practice, and a bit of talent doesn't hurt." Combine this with a backstory of where you got your teaching and practice from a very early age.

In this variation, you don't have a PhD in psychology, but a working practical understanding of how to do various mental feats -- just as a teenage musican might play an instrument very well without knowing much about music history or acoustic theory.

We're happy enough accepting a 16-year-old musician or chess player, knowing they combine an innate talent with intensive study ever since they were old enough to walk. So why not a mentalistic prodigy?