talkmagic.co.uk

Thanks Craig - I was brought to this post by searching 'How to become a mentalist' in google as I had literally no idea where to start and the one person I knew who could tell me I don't really want to ask!

I'd imagine I'll be a smidge quiet on the forum until I've got a fair few months of study under my belt, but I look forward to being able to chat to y'all on a slightly more even footing maybe this time in two years

A lot of interesting material in there. But it really takes time to put all those things into practice.

Learning NLP is enough to do stage hypnosis and reading minds ?

szaby_n wrote:Learning NLP is enough to do stage hypnosis and reading minds ?

No

No, you need to learn how to 'hypnotise' and 'read' minds, there are a great number of methods depending what kind of hypnosis and what kind of mind reading you want to do. NLP by itself isn't enough.

Not only is NLP not enough it isn't necessary either. Dunnninger and all the other great mentalists of the past managed very well without it.

From what I can tell, learning NLP won't even enable you to do half the things that NLP practitioners claim to be able to do, let alone make you a mentalist.

Read Craigs essay, follow his suggestions, and then you'll start to learn about what it involves to become a mentalist.

mark lewis wrote:Not only is NLP not enough it isn't necessary either. Dunnninger and all the other great mentalists of the past managed very well without it.

ACTUALLY. . . many of those yesteryear greats used NLP it just wasn't called that in those days and too, most of what they did would only later (decades later) get tossed under the NLP umbrella.

NLP is highly over rated as some kind of Magic Bullet when even the best trained practitioners are seen to fail countless times when demonstrating or "performing" such material. That's not to say we should just overlook it, only that we shouldn't depend on it. Like using statistical commons, there's always a risk and we must have an out at the ready.

I'll also encourage you to check out these two FREE PDFs

http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/mentalism-introduction-resource-list/15574606?productTrackingContext=author_spotlight_767346_

http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/learning-to-cold-read/17796796?productTrackingContext=author_spotlight_767346_

I think the abbreviation NLP stands for "Not a Lot of Plausibility" In other words it is a whole load of baloney. I saw one of the founders-Bandler or Grinder, I am not sure which- walking round a psychic fair once.I took one look at him and realised immediately what a load of tosh NLP is. I think his pony tail put me off .

NLP is great as a presentation of the effect, claim of what you're doing. But in itself, it is very limited when it comes to method of the effect. There are still some interesting things you can do with it, though.

jakubr wrote:NLP is great as a presentation of the effect, claim of what you're doing. But in itself, it is very limited when it comes to method of the effect. There are still some interesting things you can do with it, though.

AMEN!

Craig Browning wrote:

jakubr wrote:NLP is great as a presentation of the effect, claim of what you're doing. But in itself, it is very limited when it comes to method of the effect. There are still some interesting things you can do with it, though.

AMEN!

When working as a hypnotist we constantly questioned the worth of NLP. If it was able to do half of what a hypnotist can do, why do so many NLP practitioners feel the need to use it with hypnosis with it?
Having said that. After spending a lot of money of training to be a hypnotist, the last practical lesson you learn is the hardest. It's not the hypnosis but the hypnotist that does the real work & by that I mean much of it is not achieve thanks to the use of hypnosis, that cost you so much to learn. But by the approach, the confidence, the language & mostly because as humans we make very good sheep, in that we like to cooperate & do what we are asked.

Thanks for putting this together Craig. Very informative.

I've just managed to source a copy of 13 Steps, I've heard a lot about this book and that it was a good starting point so I'm looking forward to reading it.

You'll do well with 13 Steps, but like all things in magic don't rush it. There's a ton of vaulble information in that book that you'll miss the first time over. Read and reread it and get as much out of it as you can. I don't know how many times I've read that book and can always find something new in it.

Thanks Lady, Unfortunately I have to wait until the middle of May to get my hands on it as I'm currently offshore working but when I do I'll make sure I go over it a few times. I've also just found Practical Mental Magic by Anneman so I've ordered that one along with Self Working Mental Magic by Fulves. I'm hoping that these 3 will give me a good starting point for the summer.