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I think it depends really on what your trying to portray. For instance if you want people to belive you are a real psychic then no i dont think it mixes well but if you want to portray it as you are not really psychic and using body language,psychology or whatever other way you decide i think it can work and does work well if you are experianced enough to make it work. You might have to change a few of your presentations for your card effects to fit in thoe.

thanks for your help everyone from what everyone has told me I will try and keep mentalism in a different act and my close up magic in a different act.

im surprised craig browning hasn't blasted you!!

I perform the two quite comfortably side by side in the same performance.

However, when I do mentalism effects I don't profess to be Derren Brown or Uri Geller and when I do card tricks I don't do fancy finger flicking moves.

If you want to be a specialist mentalist or a specialist card sleight of hand merchant then I don't think you can combine the two, but it depends on what you perform and to what extent. The two can mix in the right circumstances.

Let's look at this from a more "business" point of view; are you a "Magicians" or are you a "Mentalist"?

Let's not pull in all the other points of "I'm an Entertainer" etc just to skirt the point at hand, the reality is Agents and Talent Buyers don't book jacks of all trades, they want people that know their job instead of everyone else's job. They are likewise looking for a product package that is what they tell a client it is vs. a surprise package that no one is certain about when it comes to content, time, theme, etc.

Psychologically and commercially speaking, the public that patronizes a Mind Reader/Psychic Entertainer does not want to believe they just coughed up some serious cash to see a magician doing tricks...

Let me put this in a more "cold" perspective for you...

The public might pay as much as $15.00 to see an unknown magic act perform and at that, it better be darn good... On the other hand, if you are doing a Hypnosis or Mind Reading show it is not uncommon to see folks fork out between $25.00 and $75.00 a seat just for the show, no frills!

If I'm doing a themed "Mystery Dinner Show" I know I will see admissions that start at $75.00 a person to as much as $300.00 ... this is the same range people like Docc Hilford, Rick Maue and Mark Strivings have seen over the years doing similarly themed shows. Not "Magic Shows" but interactive Mystery Shows that host a strong psychic or paranormal theme.

Considering these facts, you can continue justifying your right to do magic and mentalism in the same show and continue seeing those show ticket rates of less than $15.00 a shot and rarely working a room at beyond 60% capacity or, you can learn to specialize and present yourself as a solid product and then, even as a stage magician, see a stronger sense of financial gain along side media appeal. But as a professed Mentalist that is seen as an "expert" in his/her field, you can readily work casual dates seeing exceptional gains, positive networking advantages and strides forward that negate the need to hustle and rush as much as we see our magician cousins doing to make the same amount of income.

In my experience and in what I've learned observing and talking with other pros, being a specialist and a focused package is where the public seems to prefer things and is likewise where the money seems to lay, to maybe rather than arguing this point, we ought to just look at the business facts surrounding it.

I am a magican not fully a mentalist yet I have learned a couple killer effects and another killer effect from the mentalist book i bought and I know I need more for a street act or a stage mentalist show however I will be using these while I gain publicity to be known in the state I live in. I think I consider myself to be a mentalist however I need a mentalist stage show and a longer close up act which I am working on at the moment. Thank you craig and everyone else for posting there comments.

Not only can you mix the two I think you SHOULD mix the two. I am utterly convinced of this. Bear in mind that for years I followed the standard wisdom that you shouldn't. I believe I was wrong even though I am mortified to admit it.

I have posted my thoughts on this matter somewhere or other. Perhaps even on here. If I ever find the energy I will post a link to it.

Here it is: http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic10799-0-asc-0.php

Somewhere on that thread I am pontificating about the matter.

so it's basically like this, do what you feel you should do. some people believe you shouldn't others believe you should. how i feel about it is that you shouldn't do a blistering sleight of hand card effect for example and then a mind reading effect because you will come across as having a split personality. do you want to be known as a thought reader or a sleight of hand demon that nobody wants to play cards with... EVER!!
hope you understand what I'm going on about

Can you mix them? Yes.
Should you mix them? Ah, that's the real question! I reckon it's down to your individual preference.

I think it's more of a question of how you mix them and incorporate them into your routine. You wouldn't go from multiplying sponge balls into a deep mentalists routine. But perhaps you could build it in by intoducing some mind reading card tricks into a card routine for example and build up to a big mental effect.

Lady of Mystery wrote:I think it's more of a question of how you mix them and incorporate them into your routine. You wouldn't go from multiplying sponge balls into a deep mentalists routine. But perhaps you could build it in by intoducing some mind reading card tricks into a card routine for example and build up to a big mental effect.

It's about pacing and leading. Start by pacing their expectation by showing them what they expect to see, and gradually begin to lead them into a more serious place. If you're doing well and gaining rapport, the sense of wonder will build and the apparent ability you work towards will become more real for them when you finally demonstrate it - sometimes despite what you say to the contrary.

Lady of Mystery wrote:I think it's more of a question of how you mix them and incorporate them into your routine. You wouldn't go from multiplying sponge balls into a deep mentalists routine. But perhaps you could build it in by intoducing some mind reading card tricks into a card routine for example and build up to a big mental effect.

You could mix them as suggested above but in my opinion that would never be anything more than Mental Magic.

Now, I am not saying that mental Magic is a bad thing. Each to there own. There is no right or wrong, just what works for you and it has to be said that some mental magic plays extremely well. Extremely well indeed.

My thoughts though are that if you want to be taken seriously as a mentalist, that is to say if you want to be credible in what you are doing, if you want people to believe that you actually can bend metal, or that you do have (to whatever extent you want to play it) some sort of spooky sixth sense ability - then they shouldnt be mixed.

My approach is to start off by claiming to do it all with body language, suggestion, muscle reading etc, but then to do a few things that just can't be explained. I see this as being DerrenEsque.

On the other hand you have the hard core mentailists who prefer to claim they have the ability from the outset. Uri gellar is the obvious example here, and it is fun to watch how hard he sticks to the persona he claimed for himself. It is almost as if he believes the hype he created. Fantastic stuff. Even when caught bending a spoon on his leg - he will still make you doubt what you saw. Another performer in this catagory is the young and up and coming mentalist Kennedy. If you get a chance to see him perform - then go. I suspect he will be a big name in the future. But with both these guys - if they were ever seen doing ay magic there personas would be ruined. So for them it isn't even a matter of not mixing mentalism and magic in the same set, for them it is a matter of never doing any magic.

So mixing mentalism with magic? It's up to you. The mentalism effects will still remain great tricks - but if you perform them with magic.
in my opinion - they remain exactly that. Just tricks

For me there real strength of these effects (and the real fun in performing them) is when making them credible.

Tomo wrote:Start by pacing their expectation by showing them what they expect to see, and gradually begin to lead them into a more serious place. If you're doing well and gaining rapport, the sense of wonder will build and the apparent ability you work towards will become more real for them when you finally demonstrate it - sometimes despite what you say to the contrary.

Yeah - what he said.

...the thing that gets me though is this - in just about every mentalist book out, there's always a section for cards...

...so the way i see it is that it can be very confusing for the learner to be told one thing in our "bibles", yet the contrary from others...

if you spend years learning the stuff in corinda and annemann, there's a complete step and section in both covering cards, so we take that on board that well, if its there in print by these greats, then its obviously there for a very good reason - and if it's just to capture a wider audience, then ...

no wonder there's so many arguments over the definitions of mental magic vs. mentalism when the main books we all start from tell you one thing, yet you get the opposite from significant others ...

it's a very windy road this mentalism lark....

i think one of the best examples of a cross breed is Kenton's Dunninger's Delight...a hallucination of a playing card, hands free...all in the drama and believability of the "vision"...

everytime i look at these lines between magic>mental magic>mentalism, they just blur and blur and blur...

and one final thing (sound like columbo there) - on a certain level, if you did have gen-u-ine psychic or highly inuative powers, would you not investigate all the related skills/knacks to try and understand your gifts that bit more? pfft....i dunno...