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I've mainly been focusing on sleight-of-hand card magic for the last six months since I got into magic seriously but I've recently been experimenting with a bit of mentalism. I recently bought Peter Nardi's "Knock 'Em Dead" and have had some fantastic results. However I have changed the presentation of it to suit what I think makes good magic. The trick comes with a standardised written prediction. I personally hate these as it shows that you probably have exactly the same outcome every time you do the trick. Therefore, instead of the written prediction, I use an upside down card in another deck revelation. This to me feels like a much stronger method of the magic I perform other than standardised predictions. I was wondering if any of you mentalists out there had a solid justification for using standardised predictions because I don't think they reflect magic in a mysterious enough way. I use my version because I can tell the spectator that they cheated and I can pretend that I don't even understand what just happened (lays are really confused by this).

It depends on what you are predicting.

The reason for the prediction is to show how you knew the outcome of a given test before the person knows it herself

If you are doing card predictions I would not recommend having the card turned over upside down in the pack after they select it (presummably this is what you asked about). Rather use an ID if you want something smooth

Mentalism is all about performance and very little about effect. Even if you only do two 'tests' and the rest of the time is just spent discussing matters of the mind, you would have done alot! In this field more is less

Think about what it would be like for the spectator, if you have a sealed envelope which upon being opened tells them exactly what they have just said to 2 seconds ago, what they will be wearing and even the date and time it is said!
Just think about what must be going through that spectators mind!


This is obviously a more elaborate test but you get the idea. Predictions can be powerful in the right hands.

If you are serious about mentalism, get a hold of Annemans Practical Mental Magic and Tony Corinda`s Thirteen steps to Mentalism.

Otherwise, just have fun with the whole mental magic angle

Be careful, some people may ask you if its real...

To be honest, if you have a good presence you can get away with almost anything. Your justification is only as good as how you explain it and how it incorporates with the trick and how congruently you say it. If in the right hands even the most simple mentalist revealation like a c.t. or basic billet switching kinda rouse can fool quite a variety of people. So the question is not how you pull something off, it is how you feel it suits you. If you don't think a certain style suits you then don't use it. It is more important that you have a single character rather than one that kinda jumps all over the place. If you are a card magician, you can do mentalism. Don't get me wrong. Just make sure you don't mix mind reading and psychological divination. Ect Ect. That is where you run into problems with the crowd. Pick an area and drive it home. And remember, subtlety rules everything and never say more than is ABSOLUTELY needed to be said. Never describe a trick, let the trick describe itself. Unless the description is unto itself misdirection.

I hope this isnt just random stuff you werent wanting to hear. And I hope it helps. ( i know i didnt directly answer your question and give you the information you wanted. But that is because I think it is something you should more or less figure out for yourself. If I gave you my handling, then there would be another me out there doing what I do. )

Thanks for the comments. In a way, despite not having a direct answer to my question you have justified for me that my way of performing is the best that I can do it. I've had very lacklustre reactions by pulling out a standardised prediction telling them I knew what they were going to do as people understand that this is the only possible outcome unless I screw up. Using upside down cards, or a duplicated card in an envelope rather than a prediction have given me much stronger reactions because it has given the impression that the trick could have many different outcomes each time I do it, but this time I knew this outcome would arise.

Perhaps this is my inexperience in presenting mentalism that has led me to perform this way but the difference in reactions between both methods has been extraordinary. If were to seriously carry on with learning mentalism I think I would continue with this method. Thanks guys.

Any further comments are also welcome.

Personally I would tend to agree with you that a standardized prediction is an element which detracts from the mystique.

One explanation, however, that fits nicely is if your were to give the impression that you did not read the specs mind, but guided their thoughts to a place you intended. This mind control aspect could justify a prewritten prediction.

To me that would mitigate the presence of a prewritten prediction. In general though, as I said, I agree that it seems a little skeptical.

Jacques made some very good points about mentalism and predictions overall, but I think the problem you have with knock-em-dead is that it actually plays as more of a magic trick than a mentalism effect.

If you wanted it to be more mentalism based, then you would need a prediction that was clearly set up in advance. I quite like your idea for having a single card turned over in another pack as one out, but there have been numerous ideas that utilise the original Koran deck principle.

It sounds to me that you are (either conciously or unconsciously) trying to mix magic and mentalism. In your routines do you perform a few sleight of hand tricks and a few mental effects? There's nothing wrong with this but in my opinion, you can get much better, stronger reactions when you isolate the two from each other.

Seeing as we're talking about mentalism, I'll focus on that. If you were to perform a purely mental routine, with booktests, mind reading and predictions there is absolutely nothing wrong with having a written prediction. It is completely wrong to use a reversed playing card as a prediction. Who does that!? If you were going to read somebody's mind would you use a reversed card to show that? It doesn't make sense.

If I were even going to use playing cards in a mental routine I would try and make sure that people make no associations with them as a magician's prop and hence sleight of hand and trickery. You don't want people to think that you have somehow tricked them into choosing a certain card that you had "predicted" earlier, you actually want them to think you predicted which card they will freely choose.

Justifying a prediction is the easiest part of a prediction routine. The hard part is convincing them that you are not manipulating them in any way. The ideal being "test conditions".

I suggest you look up The Devil's Picture Book by Derren Brown. He gives very good advice and insight into how to use playing cards in a mentalism context.

Thanks GoldFish. Thats the best answer I've had so far and has helped me understand the way I actually look at mentalism in my own magic. I agree with everything you've said, but I don't think mentalism will become a serious interest of mine. I like magic and particularly card magic and that's what I think I'll stick with given the advice in this discussion.

I now understand the purpose of mentalism better then before, and the brief portions of mentalism that I do perform for people are intended to weave into my card tricks as something that is "slightly more impossible" than whatever I did before, which in a way i suppose isn't really mentalism.

Thanks to all of the replies, it has bred some clarity in mind about what the hell I'm actually doing in magic.