talkmagic.co.uk

I just came across a very nice (self working) card trick where the spectator is allowed to select a card from a choice of two. The magician keeps the declined card. (This from a small stack of high value cards). This continues until the spectator has selected five cards. When revealed it is shown that the spectator picked a King high straight flush. Amazing! However, it is shown that he left the magician with an Ace-high straight. Don't you love tricks with a double whammy?

The trick is included in Karl Fulves' book "Self-working Card Tricks" Mr. Fulves, however, included a 3rd whammy. Before the trick starts he writes a prediction (that the spectator will pick a King-high straight) and leaves it in full view-with the predition hidden.

I have performed the trick a few times (without the prediction), and it has been well received.

My thoughts are that mentalism should not be mixed with magic. Probably not in the same show--and certainly not in the same trick.

Now, Karl Fulves is a more more accomplished magician than I will ever be, so I am careful not to be too critical. However, I would appreciate hearing what others think about mixing magic and mentalism.

I Think that its very hard to follow card trick , which is
Quite clearly accomplished by skill or 'magic' with a mentalism
Trick because they are aware that there is some
Tricky business involved. Whereas if I was to perform
A few mental effects stand alone I feel they are better recieved. This is a good trick like you mention
Even without the 3 kicker although it wouldnt hurt to have the prediction in your pocket or wallet for the sceptical amoung spectators.

I was once booked to perform at a wedding and the brief was "magic for the kids, tarot readings and hypnosis for the adults". No one batted an eyelid that I could do all three. It's not the material that is a problem but how you present yourself.

I think you do have to be very careful when mixing the two although the effect that you've described, I wouldn't exactly call mentalism so you could probably get away with it.

When it comes to mixing, I think a lot will depend on what you're acually performing and how you're performing it. With my mental balloon modeling routine, I have the spec think of an animal, a balloon model of their thought of animal then appears in an 'empty' box. There's an obvious mix of magic and mentalism techniques, the animal is a psychological force and the production of the animal is clearly magic. But it works because of the presentation that I use, it's fun and it's light hearted.

On the other hand, if you're trying to perform something that needs a buy in from the spectator, you're claiming that you're demonstrating an ability to read body language or you're a medium, channelling the spirits, then it's going to be much harder to get away with performing something that's obviously magical without shattering the illusion that you're trying to build.

As with most things, to need to think about what you're performing and how your performing and build your routines around effects that fit in with you. There's no reason why you can't use mental effects in a magic routine but if you do then you'll need to understand that they'll be seen as nothing more than magic tricks.

Oh, not only do I think you can mix the two in some cases it is actually advisable. And there are still lots of daft people who will think you can really read minds whether you do magic tricks or not. I must reluctantly agree with Lord Freddie in this matter.

Lord Freddie wrote:I was once booked to perform at a wedding and the brief was "magic for the kids, tarot readings and hypnosis for the adults". No one batted an eyelid that I could do all three. It's not the material that is a problem but how you present yourself.

Quite. I've seen Julian Clary mix filthy innuendo and mentalism and bring the house down.

Yes, well I am all for mixing magic and mentalism. However, mixing "filthy innuendo" and magic, mentalism and anything else I can well do without. And I don't give a damn if the house is brought down or not. As the late lamented Victor Farelli once said, "Anyone can raise a vulgar laugh".

The trend nowadays toward this kind of thing makes me want to puke. I really hate the way magic is going down the drain with this kind of low class material and attitude towards the art form. Thank goodness I'll be dead soon.

Lord Freddie wrote:I was once booked to perform at a wedding and the brief was "magic for the kids, tarot readings and hypnosis for the adults". No one batted an eyelid that I could do all three. It's not the material that is a problem but how you present yourself.

We were just talking about this the other day and has I said to Freddie, magic is just a hobby and the rest is what I do

I find that it's only magicians that get hung up about these things. Once I was performing some run-of-the-mill innocuous thing like Ambitious Card and the spectator said "Wow! Can you do tarot readings?"

The fact that she connected the two means she either believed the ACR to a demonstration of real powers or assumed all this kind of thing is interconnected.

When all's said and done, it's entertainment. The punters don't get the subtle nuances, they just want amazement.

I think magic, mindreading/mentalism, hypnosis and psychic work are all the same thing...
Just different styles of entertaining.

Take the 21 card trick.
It is often presented [by the lay person] as a self-working magic trick.
it could be presented as mindreading/mentalism effect if the spec is asked to transmit a feeling about which column the card is in. [e.g. muscle reading]
it could be a hypnosis effect where the person's hand sticks to the table next to the column with their card.
it could be a psychic thing using tarot cards where the cards in the column give a reading.

Essentially it is the same effect but presented in different ways.
The question is how easy is it to mix different styles in the same performance ?
This is where scripting and your performance personality come in to the equation.

I see nothing wrong with mixing all the different genres of magic as long as they are consistant with your style of performing.

Tomo wrote:When all's said and done, it's entertainment. The punters don't get the subtle nuances, they just want amazement.

So you think Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink was a load of cobblers, then?

You can get extremely good reactions by mixing all sorts of things together in one performance. What is impossible to know (or almost impossible, I suppose it could be tested with a reasonable degree of accuracy) is whether, by doing something in a different way, you could have better reactions.

For example, magician does a card trick, then produces a full glass of water, then reveals a word chosen at random from a book. All three get applause and the audience enjoys the performance. A mentalist asks a spectator to tell him what number is written on a business card, then divines which of five audience members is holding the differently coloured pebble, then reveals a word chosen at random from a book. Do both performers get the same response to the final trick? It's very difficult to gauge, because you'd have to have enough sample audiences to eliminate any possible bias caused by one simply being "better"than another, the performers would have to be of the same calibre (but I think this is easily dealt with by using the same performer) and then you'd have the hardest part of it: how do you gauge the effect of a performance? It is not purely how much applause the person gets. Mentalism often gets a more muted initial response, but "gets to" people more strongly.

Unfortunately, anecdotal stories of how one person assumed assumed that doing an ACR means you might read Tarot cards only tell us that some people think that way. There will be people who think you can really read minds, even if you did the linking rings just before it.

If you could do routine A, which gets great reactions from 80% of the audience (and good for the rest), you might be happy. Would you be quite so happy, however, if you knew that routine B would have got a 95% great reaction?

Don't think I am saying that you can't mix the two successfully. Sometimes it works extremely well (I did a routine for someone's wedding that involved a magic trick, mind reading and another magic trick, in that order) and I know that she found the mind reading bit unsettling. The magic tricks that bookended the mentalism were there because I wanted to establish a theme. The mentalism was really there to break things up, make the bride think romantic thoughts, and to help conceal some of the dirty work for the final trick.

If it suits that act/performer/circumstances, the mixture is fine. I just think you have to be careful not to assume that good responses necessarily means you are doing the best you can.

Terry, in your example, I am not sure you're really mixing the two anyway. How is the card selection thing supposed to work? It doesn't really strike me as terribly magical at all. It's closer to a demonstration of luck or perhaps influence over the participant's choices; it's not like you've made the cards suddenly change to ones of a different value. I think the two elements sound fine together.

Once again it all comes down to presentation. I've seen the two mixed without any issues.

And again it comes down to what you are trying to accomplish. In your mentalism are you trying to convince people you are a mentalist? If so then why are you even bothering with cards? If you are performing 'mental magic' then there is really no difference between magic and mentalism. I've not seen many performers doing a strict mental show. Even the great Mandrake, son of Mandrake past uses a mentalism magic act for the most part. (although he also does straight mentalism).

If you are really hell bent on a straight mentalist act then you need to change direction in your thinking and throw out all magic and anything magic related, (except for method of course, because deep down, its all the same).

The first order of business is to define exactly what it is you want to do. Then go from there.

Despite what others tell you, you can make a fine living in 'mental magic'.