talkmagic.co.uk

yeah, basically, think of it like this, you're telling someone a mountain of lies to entertain them...it sounds awful, the power of the word "lie", but lies can do good as well as harm...

if your missus says "have i put on weight?"

if you laugh and say "well, of course you have, that belly wasnt there last year luv" then poke it with a stick and sneer...

you're in for a well deserved hiding aren't you...

you can tell someone you really like their poem, when it stinks to the heavens, but, its a harmless hobby, they're expressing themselves, and you could gently nudge them towards some baudelaire or someone worthy...

anyway, mentalism, cards, all the others, a mix of skill, lying and cheek...its all in the entertainment and suspension of belief/disbelief...

if you're not getting much out of it, then you need to either give it up for good...or study more and apply it to your own ideas/creativity to come up with something that suits you...2 months isnt enough time to be honest...

and if you just want to be derren brown, well, i understand the hero-worship, we all go through it, but dont try and emulate what he does, you're not him, and he's not you...just be yourself and relax...take it one (out of 13) steps at a time...

Oh dear, it's all out in the open now isn't it.

When I first developed an interest in magic I'd seen some magicians doing a mixture of classic close up with some mind reading thrown in and I thought it was all part of the magician's parcel and I could learn it all at once.

Fast forward a bit and I start meeting other magicians and reading stuff online. I found out how to force and peek cards and started doing it then pretending to divine people's thoughts via whatever pseudo pscychological poppycock I came up with on the spot. Sometimes I missed slightly as I reasoned this would make the effect more realistic. I got some very good reactions, tables of people would sit there in the pub dissecting the language and body posture I'd adopted whilst reading their minds.

Aha! I thought to myself. "This mind reading malarkey is fun and easy, but I quite like the technical challenge you get from sleight stuff I'll concentrate on that."

Fast forward a bit more and I discovered that I'd committed a heinous crime. I'd been doing mentalism and close up at the same time. This was a Bad Thing. My cheeky home made trickery was undeserving, I was a naughty imposter who didn't really appreciate the solemn depths of Mentalism. It was with some shock that I discovered that you mustn't do mentalism without first taking on the amount of work you'd need for a degree, otherwise you weren't doing it right.

This may seem facetious but it's just the way it appears to me. Despite muh earnest reading of the definitions between magic and mentalism and so forth I still can't get my head around the fact that most of the time you're still using a mechanical method to create an effect then bluffing a awful lot. Unlike a card trick where you're.....hang on....

actually bronz, you've danced round rather fluidly a major bugbear for me...cards in mentalism...lots say yes, lots say no...

but what bugs me is, we seek out and buy pro's books on mentalism, and lo and behold, there's some card work there...but wearing the mentalist hat/turban....so it teaches us amateurs that its ok to mix the two in a logical way...

if the pro's publish it, then it must be ok, right? i'd hope so...

cutting to the aces, with the orignal patter and then going into a mind reading effect might be iffy i grant you...but changing the patter to someone subconciously memorising where the aces were in the pack after a 2 second glimpse would sit better if you then went onto another test or experiment wouldnt it?

well, it does in my mind anyway...changing patter, more involvement, rather than demonstration i think is the key...

magicians display, mentalists involve...perhaps?

In the words of Wiggum, "Slow down egghead!"

Nah seriously I think you're right, the cards thing was just an example. In my previous errant life when I childishly performed effects that I shouldn't have without first standing naked beneath a freezing waterfall whilst clutching a picture of Banachek I also made myself a nifty little swami thing with a bit of Sellotape and a pencil lead and predicted all sorts of numbers and words.

It's too early in the morning to be thinking too hard about this.

Actually I don’t think cards are a problem . They have a lot of good points , firstly they are easy recognisable every one knows what they are and as Spelmann says on his DVD’s “I am going use cards because its easier then getting 52 different objects”

Of course e all make personal choices what we perform

Markdini wrote:Actually I don’t think cards are a problem . They have a lot of good points , firstly they are easy recognisable every one knows what they are and as Spelmann says on his DVD’s “I am going use cards because its easier then getting 52 different objects”

That's a brilliant way of putting it. Cards are the medium, not the message. Some people seem to see the prop and not the use it's being put to, which I think is a bit daft. I've never been sure what the conceptual difference is between executing a pass right under the spec's nose and using a thumb writer right under a spectator's nose. After all, one puts graphite where it can be understood, the other puts a card where it can be understood. Confession time: I've always seen the contents of Corinda and Annemann as being forms of sleights. Am I going to Hell?

Woah! Too much coffee, I think...

Well, possibly, but not for that

I absolutely see them as sleights, for that is what they are. For instance, mis-calling the date on a coin as part of an effect... the only rule seems to be that if Sankey does it it's magic, if Larry Becker does it it's mentalism...

quite right tomo...

billet switches=card switches
TT = swami
top/bottom card glimpse = billet peek

they all bled from one to another...it's just the dressing that differs...

Well if you can pluck a word or an object out of some ones mind why cant it be a playing card? It covers both things I feel. If you got a nice stack going or a marking system then you are in business, and combine that with a glimpse case….. Just because they are cards don’t mean they are not worthy to be used,. But I don’t use a nail writer.

Wow...

I am so chuffed with all the replies that have gone into my sad little moaning topic. You guys all have really interesting things to say which i all seem to agree with.

I've taken a new little insight on to Derren's work and now that i've heard it from other people, i feel better knowing that most of his work is based on simple mentalism tools.

Knowing that me owning 13 steps is the gateway for me performing miracles like he does has really urged me on to keep going and not give up.

Some of the things you guys have talked about i totally agree with and had already taken on board before hand. Mentalism is about the presentation and the lies that you tell. I mean in just some of the things i have learnt that i have performed on people i know, i love to spice it up with some Bulls**t about how i read people and how we all give away signals with our face, lips, eyes and everything else, which is true but i love knowing the fact that I'm actually not doing any of this and just using a simple swami. The same goes for my I.D like Tomo said. I like to tell them that I'm going to transmit a card to them, and i do try and psycologically tell them the card which gets me a little practice in on verbally forcing cards without them knowing!

Derren is a world class performer, no doubt, simply for his presentation and even though i did know presentation was a big thing in mentalism, i didn't realise HOW big...I'm not giving up though! No way....watch this space!

And Oh my God...

Cardza Wrote:

"And, let's not forget, in his stage show Derren had participants write something down for one effect."

Thats so true, he did! I totally forgot about that! He is so sneaky with the whole misdirection thing that everyone forgot that they all wrote down the name of their first crush!

I must go and study the video