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Supernatural - Of or relating to existence outside the natural world...sherlock holmes? no...thats not being pedantic...its being factual

take the three sentence challenge...

in response to the original poster's request - you are young, no one will remember you if it all goes wrong...just have fun and test things out...

though i do have a question for you - if you're so skeptical and against that kinda thing, i do hope you've researched the history of mentalism and know where it all came from... its like saying you disagree with how cows are treated, yet still eat beef...

IAIN wrote:Supernatural - Of or relating to existence outside the natural world...sherlock holmes? no...thats not being pedantic...its being factual

take the three sentence challenge...

in response to the original poster's request - you are young, no one will remember you if it all goes wrong...just have fun and test things out...

though i do have a question for you - if you're so skeptical and against that kinda thing, i do hope you've researched the history of mentalism and know where it all came from... its like saying you disagree with how cows are treated, yet still eat beef...

Well it's also factual to point out I said 'superhuman' not supernatural. E.g 'Superhuman strength'.

And just how the f*ck did I suddenly become so f*cking concise?

IAIN wrote:in response to the original poster's request - you are young, no one will remember you if it all goes wrong...just have fun and test things out...

though i do have a question for you - if you're so skeptical and against that kinda thing, i do hope you've researched the history of mentalism and know where it all came from... its like saying you disagree with how cows are treated, yet still eat beef...

i know mentalism is all started by spiritualists and such, but that doesn't mean i have to agree with the style of presentation.
did picasso agree with the earlier presentations of his art? i think not.

i tried the Psychology thing out today, and the person didn't seem to question it at all..

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

TheMentalist wrote:i know mentalism is all started by spiritualists and such, but that doesn't mean i have to agree with the style of presentation.

Just out of curiousity, may I ask why you're so opposed to the psychic flavour of things? The argument that it isn't believeable 'these days' is quite frankly, hogwash. A Gallup survey conducted in the US in 2005 revealed that three in four Americans believe in some kind of paranormal phenonemon, ESP being the most popular at 43%.

Yes indeed. Americans believe in all sorts of nonsense especially if they live in California. The British tend to be more cynical but they believe in nonsense too. However, the belief tends to dilute once they see the nonsense presented on stage. A few daft people will indeed believe you have psychic powers when all you are doing is trickery from the 13 Steps to Mentalism but most people in their heart of hearts know that you are doing a trick. In fact the people who tend to believe in psychic stuff will spot the trickery element faster than others.

And I don't give a stuff if you are presenting it as so called Mental Magic or so called Mentalism. It is all the bloody same even though lots of daft mentalists think they are different from each other.

It may be a terrible disillusionment for mentalists to find this out but I bet if you were to get members of your audience to fill in a questionairre after the show and one of the questions was "Do you believe the performer is really a magician doing tricks or do you believe he has real psychic powers" you might find it rather a shock to discover that fully 90% of them will say that you are a magician. And guess what? They would actually be right.

I will admit the percentage will be less if you conduct the survey in California of course.

On another note the Gurney child may have become more precise. Alas he seems also to have become more profane as a side effect of it. Quite disgraceful. I think I would rather him go back to all the incomprehensible big words rather than the too comprehensible four letter ones.

superhuman - above or beyond the human or demanding more than human power or endurance

apologies...

I give up.

However... rebuke of something else. If I told some people I was psychic and even if I actually was, could prove it- they wouldn't believe me. That's not hogwash, its the truth.

Some will believe you're psychic anyway, so why risk loosing those who find the idea patronising when I could simply leave lots to the imagination; not ambiguous but subjective.

An interesting way to present some mental effects is as highly advanced psychology. Tell them you have been reading adavanced pysch books and now understand how people make choices, or how men and woen think differently. People find this fascinating, and will ask for advice on how to understand their boyfriend/girlfiend etc.

Or you could say you are an escaped mental patient, and how schiztophrenics actually have highly advanced mental capalbilities, beyond those of mere mortals. People find this amusing and scarey, but it is actually slightly true. Many of your favourite musicians and such have been diagnosed with bi-polar or schitzophrenia. ODB from Wu-tang, Kurt Cobain etc. There is a link between amazing creativity and 'madness'.

Here is a link showing how 'schizophrenics' see through 'illusions' that most people don't.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1 ... usion.html

JoeMagick wrote:An interesting way to present some mental effects is as highly advanced psychology. Tell them you have been reading adavanced pysch books and now understand how people make choices, or how men and woen think differently. People find this fascinating, and will ask for advice on how to understand their boyfriend/girlfiend etc.

Or you could say you are an escaped mental patient, and how schiztophrenics actually have highly advanced mental capalbilities, beyond those of mere mortals. People find this amusing and scarey, but it is actually slightly true. Many of your favourite musicians and such have been diagnosed with bi-polar or schitzophrenia. ODB from Wu-tang, Kurt Cobain etc. There is a link between amazing creativity and 'madness'.

Here is a link showing how 'schizophrenics' see through 'illusions' that most people don't.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1 ... usion.html

You'd be surprised at how many people wouldn't have to pretend about these sorts of things. Literally.

BUT



Schizophrenia and Manic depression/ Bi-polars are two completley different things. Unless the mania is the sort which leaves you feeling that you are literally walking amongst angels and you are literally the chosen one then manic depression is a world apart from the hallucinagenic world of the psychotic schitzophrenic. Besides, I'm not sure- talking about schitzophrenia here- that it would particularly endear you to your audience if you are claiming to possess a psychosis whic is all too often associated in the media with murder cases and very incorectly with multiple personality disorder, a la jeckl and hyde.

But yes, you can add Freud, Van Gogh and more famously- Stephen Fry to the list of people who experienced manic depression, I'm sure there are plenty of others. In my opinion, manic depression has very little to do with creating creativity but instead creates opportunity for it; for example, if you play an instrument and you play it when you're feeling a particular emotion, that tends to come through what and how you are playing.

I have been diagnosed with 'bi-polar' or the old school term would be yes 'manic-depression'.
I guess I have suffered with this my whole life, I have always gone through periods of being reclusive and creating things, then stretches of going out and showing people.

See now this is something I have been thinking about for a long time. I've just passed being a teenager, but as a performing "teenage mentalist" I've found that your credibility as a mentalism increases with age.

What I mean is, if you perform genuine psychological mentalism (psychological forces, etc...) I find that your age can have a massive influence on how well the performance goes. I have found that if you are a relatively young person performing this type of mentalism; your success rate tends to lack a fair bit. But as you get older, it gets alot better. But another factor which affects this is your credibility as a mentalist/magician. If your audience thinks your a rubbish magician, this will not help you in performing psychological mentalism, but if you can establish yourself as a very good mentalist/magician, your credibility will get higher as will the success rate of your psychological illusion.

This is just something I've found as a mentalist trying to perform psychological effects since the age of 15.

Start off with something that is foolproof and will get a great reaction and try some psychological stuff once you've become more established to yoru audience and see how it goes.

If this doesn't work maybe look at your performance of the trick, and see how you change it so suit your style but still accomplish the same psychological effect.

i think if you are young, and want to pass it off as psychology - you will have to know your beans as to how you go about studying such things to such an advanced degree - and make the backstory as believable as you can...

so you can't just whizz through "psychology for dummies" and start spouting whatever you like...

i still say though, that at an early age - just have fun with it, build confidence and so on...i wish i had started on all this at such a young age (rather than nonce around with guitars and being in bands)...remember to enjoy it and not feel as though you have to live up to anything....

no one will remember you in all honesty after about a week or so, if that... do it, enjoy it, learn from it all...then only if you feel you're getting very serious about it should you start looking at refining yourself and your skillset etc...

but learn billet work above all else...

SamGurney wrote:
And just how the f*ck did I suddenly become so f*cking concise?

It's three word story's influence.

I often look at pop culture, and wonder if you can get inspiration from that for teenage mentalism. Carrie, in the Stephen King novel, is a telekinetic teenager. The TV programmes Heroes and Misfits are full of teens with weird powers. Teenagers are often possesed by demons and exhibit telekinesis in stories! Hormones and supernatural abilities are an intriguing combination, I think.

When I say psycology, I don't mean pretend you have a phd. But just present effects as delving into the way the brain works. I do a colour guess or shape guess routine. after I say that men are more likely to pick a certain spectrum of colours etc. then do a quick reading using that colour. Do you get the idea?