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Episode 1 – Stage vs. Close-Up and Mental Magic vs. Mentalism
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Thanks for taking the time to listen to this week’s episode. Did you think I was ‘on the money’ or would you take a different standpoint?
Absolutely loved the first episode. Honest and thoughtful throughout and full of very useful advice.
Hi Darren, thanks for taking the time to comment and I’m super glad that you enjoyed it. Even better is that it was useful to you. All the effort IS worth it.
Paul.. Listened to the first episode and loved it! You have the key to a great podcast:
They ask.. You answer.
Keep this up and never become just another sell sell sell product review show.. 🙂 However, if you do want to sell out.. email me anytime and MoM will happily sponsor you 🙂
Thank you very much for the that high praise indeed, Dominic 🙂 I’m committed to keeping this format of answering questions so I won’t be morphing into a review show, guaranteed! However, I may want a sponsor or two in the future, so will likely be in touch.
Great first week mate, I perform what I guess you would call close up mental magic. I like using props but simple ones e.g.:
A colour cube to present how the colours around them influence their choice and how after 3 goes of this I can then predict the next choice or choices if I want a longer routine.
I tell them the name of a friend they had st school age 7 including what they looked like. Cut a famous celebrity they are thinking of out of card, Predict ahead of time the total of a sum of numbers called out. Correctly assign secrets to the correct people. Etc also hypnosis.
I guess my point is all that would be classed as mental magic by mentalists but to the spectators experiencing it they think it’s mind reading and surly that’s all that matters.
Cheers, John 🙂 They all sound like solid working mental magic pieces that, as you say, are experienced as mentalism for those you are performing for. I’m intrigued by your use of hypnosis in a close-up situation, how does it play? In my past I’ve done a lot of hypnosis but usually on stage or one-to-one when not ‘on the clock’. Would love to hear your experience.
I’ll pm you mate re hypnosis
I was a little bit confused by the fact that you differentiated mentalism from mental magic mainly because of the props.
To my mind, the difference lies in the different perceptions of the audience.
Mental magic is just magic – albeit with a mental theme…. almost everybody feels that it is a trick, a deception.
Mentalism on the other hand creates either belief in special abilities (be it psychic, psychological or other) or at least invokes the question “Wait, could this be real?”
So it all comes down to how convincing a performance is. It is very possible to present a pure billet routine in a way that it is perceived as a “cute paper trick”. -> mental magic.
It is also very possible to make a trivial magic trick like the Ball & Tube into an amazing demonstration of hypnotic phenomena. -> mentalism.
And sure, both can be very intriguing forms of entertainment. But what you perform should always match your persona. If you claim to be a psychlogy expert, you better not do stuff which obviously is a magic trick, or your credibility is gone….
And to my mind, this is more about the mind set, premise, persona, and process you employ – not the props you use.
Other than that, I really enjoyed this episode. Especially the talk about walkaround mentalism was interesting…. I did my very first walk around gig a few weeks ago.. did basically the same two effects over and over… it was very tough. Thank you for your thoughts on this!
I will be tuning in next week!
Hi Alexander, thanks for the kind words 🙂
Sorry if I confused you. I mention in the podcast that I differentiate on mental magic based on overt props that are very magic looking and also lengthy procedural effects, but I think this is the categorisation from within the community. However, you are correct it does depend on what the audience perceives and that is the major point. I wanted to emphasize that point by giving the examples such as the crazy dice trick dressed up an ESP testing routine.
Sorry to hear that you found you first walk around event tough, but they are hard, so as long as you didn’t cry on your first time, it went well 😉
Glad to have you tuning into next weeks episode.
Awesome work, Paul – I absolutely loved it and thought you were spot-on! Doing mentalism at tables can be challenging and I recommend your Around The Table ebook to anyone looking at doing this type of work.
Would be interested in hearing which other effects of yours (and those of others) you perform at tables, as not everything works in this environment, as you mentioned.
Anyway, keep up the good work and I’m really looking forward to the other podcasts!
Thanks for the kind words of support, Iain. Mega appreciated. Also, thanks for recommending my ‘Around the Table’ eBook 🙂
If you want to know what other effects I may perform at tables, then the big green voicemail button is waiting 😉
Hi Paul, really enjoyed the podcast , a breath of fresh air and a new and interesting approach in the genre. Look forward to future episodes and getting involved.
I was interested to hear you talk about close up mentalism and performing ‘only one effect’ for each table due to time restraints would also be interested to know what else you would perform if more time allowed. I would feel a little guilty if i only performed one effect. I am very much interested in structuring table performances. I also love drawing duplication’s 🙂
Hi Dean,
I was aiming for something fresh and interesting and glad that is how it is coming across.
If time is allowed I tend to do a name/person revelation and a book test. If there is a lot of additional time I have a great prediction routine based on free will. When I first started doing just a single effect for a group I feel guilty, but realised that when I was doing more effects I felt guilty about not getting to perform for everyone. In my experience a booker would rather everyone see something.
The end of your post sounds almost as though it could be a question for the podcast if you wanted to hit that big green button 😉
Hi Paul,
Thank you so much for answering my questions, the podcast was really interesting! My current goal is to offer mentalism walkaround entertainment like you do, and it’s so valuable to have such accurate and reasoned informations from someone who is on the field since a long time.
Like John said, i think the use of a rubiks cube with predictions or sw*** writing can be a nice visual touch to a mentalism effect. I also agree with Alexander, all that maters is entertainment AND your persona, how you want to be perceived. I think that staying willingly ambiguous on this point can be a choice too (“wait… was this just a trick or was it like.. something else”?). I also think that people who are skeptic will always stay skeptic and people who want to believe to something special will believe.
Your idea with the one ahed method for double drawing duplication is also a nice touch, i’ll keep that in mind and i’ll pm you about that.
I also enjoyed a lot when you spoke about how subtly justify the props that can be categorized in “mental magic”.
Thanks again, i’m looking forward to listen to episode 2 🙂
Greg
Hi Greg, thank you so much for being part of the first episode 🙂
The use of ambiguity of your character can be powerful. If people ask you what do you do, “I’ll let you decide…” and then into your effect you go.
Hope you enjoy episode 2 as much as this one 🙂
Really enjoying the Podcast.
You should just start the cast by saying. … in my opinion. .. if people don’t understand that statement then . The content of the cast will be tooooooo complex.
Stop pologising
Hi Terry, glad you enjoyed the podcast. In the latest episode (number 3) I actually raise this idea of whether I require a disclaimer for each episode or not. Drop a message in the comment section for Episode 3 and I will continue the conversation there, just to help keep this set of comments on topic.
hey paul iv just came across these and i love them!! you’ve got a really nice idea for a podcast i cant wait to listen to the rest!!
its interesting about the debate you were making for stage mentalism vs close up because personally i find close up much more enjoyable, the main reason is because you can go a lot more personal with it! i think 1 on 1 can be the most powerful kind but if you try something like that on stage for anything longer than about 30 seconds the rest off the audience will be sat there listening to you talk about one person they most likely have not met before but close up your generally going to be working with a group off people who all know and care about each-other and the more personal you can make it in a small space off time the better im probably a little bias because i do a lot more close up than stage but it was really interesting to hear somebody talk about both different performance kinds!! i also really liked the sound off the one ahead drawing duplication!! 🙂
great job man
Hi Thomas, thanks for the kind words 🙂
Like you, I think I enjoy the personal connection with Walk Around performing, I also think it’s possible to ‘get away’ with more things.
Give the one-ahead drawing duplication a try, it’s good fun 🙂
Hi Paul,
Just going back over these early podcasts. I’m interested to know what your premise is for getting one person to draw a picture but the second person to only think of a picture? How do you justify the 2 different procedures to the spectator?