talkmagic.co.uk

These pictures sum up why I think Tabula Mentis works so well... No egos, no superstars. It's just thinkers and practitioners openly demonstrating, sharing and explaining their ideas, having a laugh with it and pushing the art of mystery entertainment forwards into new and interesting fields.

Madelon Hoedt wrote:

themagicwand wrote:

Ant wrote:
Rainer performing "sponge balls" and "disappearing/reappearing salt" in the pub though was by far the highlight!

Blast it, I thought the highlight of the whole event was me busting a few moves on the dancefloor to "the Snake" by Al Wilson!

I have to second this; Voodini can bust some serious moves!

I think Paul and I should form a bizzarist version of Twist N Pulse and enter Britain's Got Talent next year....

It was a pleasure to be there, to meet several old and a few new friends and to lecture for you.
Hope you found our deliberations a little inspiring.

For those of you who get our lecture notes: Send Madelon your shipping address so that we can send an appropriate amount of those testing cards we introduced.
For those who didn't get our lecture notes - there are a few booklets left.

Cheers
Th.

Thomas Heine wrote:It was a pleasure to be there, to meet several old and a few new friends and to lecture for you.
Hope you found our deliberations a little inspiring.

For those of you who get our lecture notes: Send Madelon your shipping address so that we can send an appropriate amount of those testing cards we introduced.
For those who didn't get our lecture notes - there are a few booklets left.

Cheers
Th.

All attendees will receive an email with details on this and what to do next within the next day or two. All will be taken care of!

A big thank you, as usual, to the Psycrets team for organising another great event. Top-notch speakers (again, as usual) and some really interesting ideas.

Madelon, I hope you have now exorcised the laptop.

I thought that the venue was pretty good; the room was perfect, with plenty of space for people to put out their wares and even a coat rack. Shame about the room time mistake; we always seem to have something go wrong with the booking!

I was really glad that I actually had time to stay afterwards on this occasion and spend time with some of you. I think the strangest moment of the evening was seeing one of our number stretched flat out on the floor while someone tried to put him into a trance, with bar staff walking right past.

But then, I didn't see Paul's dancing.

Seeing Alex hypnotised must have been a little surreal too I would have thought?

Although Tom laying on the floor was quite odd..

Ant wrote:Seeing Alex hypnotised must have been a little surreal too I would have thought?

We-ell, I have hypnotised her myself a few times and she has done self-hypnosis courses (Paul McKenna type things), so it was actually not that odd at all!

Part-Timer wrote:

But then, I didn't see Paul's dancing.

You missed a treat. I put the funk back into funkadelic.

This event assembled a series of presentations and demonstrations that were remarkably complementary and formed a coherent whole for all participants. The event as ever had the great benefit of calling forth a wide range of practitioners from the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Italy, Portugal, the US and the UK. They have a huge variety of substantive interests beyond mentalism, including philosophy, social constructivism, social science methodology, psychology, law, history of the book, Russian, drama studies, acting, horror, design, computer programning, motivational speaking, coaching, among many others.

For me, the event represented the beginnings of a real paradigm shift and maturation of mentalism. Gone from the discussion were detailed accounts of method and mind reading without premise. In contrast, the event focussed on giving meaning to what we do and how to move the craft into the depths of human experience. Through psychological and other routes, the attendees explored deep themes involving emotion, nostalgia, fear and the unknown.

The run-up to the event included a certain expectation among the participants as they made their way to London. Emails, forum posts and Facebook postings from attendees built a great sense of excitement.

I knew it was going to be a great week when the topic of Melvin Bragg’s Radio 4 programme ‘In Our Time’ was on the neo-Platonists who were at the heart of the Renaissance and provide a wonderful foundation for much of what we seek to achieve as mentalists: questions of human existence, the position of the human between earth and ‘other’ worlds, the possibility for accessing ‘secret’ knowledge that manifests itself in our abilities, and expanding the human experience of the unexplained in our performances.

Psycrets is proud to celebrate its 5th Anniversay is building from strength to strength as members join us from around the world.

I had a wonderful day and enjoyed meeting such nice and hugely dedicated people.

Best wishes

Dr Todd

During Madelon's presentation, I was suddenly struck by the the perfect example of the idea of beginning to build an experience right from the initial cues. A man walks out onto a completely undressed stage with a ghetto blaster and an acoustic guitar. He announces that "I have a tape I want to play you". Before you know where you are, you're in the Tom Tom Club, David Byrne is dancing in a library with a standard lamp, and his suits keep getting bigger. Brilliant.

Interestingly, Byrne/Talking Heads came out of the same New York performance scene as did Richard Schechner (a practitioner discussed in Madelon's talk.) Stop Making Sense quite deliberately references contemporary notions of what performance is and how can we understand the sign-system of the performance space.

nikmagick wrote:Interestingly, Byrne/Talking Heads came out of the same New York performance scene as did Richard Schechner (a practitioner discussed in Madelon's talk.) Stop Making Sense quite deliberately references contemporary notions of what performance is and how can we understand the sign-system of the performance space.

Ah, that makes sense, no pun intended. I hadn't thought about Stop Making Sense for years, but hearing Madelon's talk I suddenly recognised the grammar it uses.

Tomo wrote:

nikmagick wrote:Interestingly, Byrne/Talking Heads came out of the same New York performance scene as did Richard Schechner (a practitioner discussed in Madelon's talk.) Stop Making Sense quite deliberately references contemporary notions of what performance is and how can we understand the sign-system of the performance space.

Ah, that makes sense, no pun intended. I hadn't thought about Stop Making Sense for years, but hearing Madelon's talk I suddenly recognised the grammar it uses.

I am in ur brainz messin with ur mindz...

I mean, hi

Tabula was, and always has been, nothing short of amazing! Scott Grosberg's lecture, even just the first two or three minutes, served as a wake up call. Scott's lecture is having very long lasting effects concerning my attitude to the esoteric.
Tabula XI was full of amazing talent and interesting characters both at the front doing the lecturing and in the audience.

It is interesting to contrast this thread with the one on The New Scientist and Derren Brown....

I have also posted a blog on the question of the New Magic raised in the Prospect article in this month's issue:

http://www.todd-landman.com/?p=1416" target="_blank

Mick: I am very pleased that you enjoy our events, there is a lot of hard work that goes on behind the scenes....

Next one:

Tabula Mentis XII: The Surnateum Unveiled
17 November
Freddie Valentine and Dale Shrimpton
Peter Antoniou
Alex Marsh
Christian Chelman

Cheers

Dr Todd