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Episode 5 – Playing Cards and Mentalism
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Did I nail the Ozzy Osbourne impression or not? Does the audio sound better in this episode? Let me know.
I honestly believe that cards can work in mentalism. I also believe they have to be correctly framed and the framing has to happen before the deck enters play.
I have a routine that involves a spectator selecting a card of her choice, and eventually I determine what it is. Before this starts, I talk about how playing cards were the early Tarot Cards. How the four suits represent four aspects of humanity and the values represent the degree to which they represent us. Once this is done, when I bring out a deck, spectators know why it’s there and are ready to accept it in the demonstration.
That said, I don’t think cards should be used frequently.
Just my two cents, though I completely understand those who don’t use cards at all. I just believe they can be used in a way that lends credibility to mentalism rather than give the feeling of magic.
Agreed, framing the piece is really key if you are going to use playing cards in mentalism. I have seen and watched some of the best explanations (during live performances) for using a deck of cards and still heard the audience/group explain it all away as a card trick/sleight.
I think that the bond between playing cards and magic is so interwoven that even the best framing told by an expert storyteller would still be swimming against the tide.
Can I ask you a question?
What makes you use playing cards in your mentalism routine? Is it the methodology or the outcome? Genuine question not trying to lampoon you or anything.
Happy to answer. Right now I only use two card routines. The first is Bob Cassidy’s memorised deck routine is a great way to demonstrate memory capability and cards are instantly recognisable. So the framing there isn’t that I’m reading minds, but rather that I can use mine to do something incredible.
The routine I mentioned earlier was born out of a desire to come up with an ID presentation that went beyond the usual “Build up a card, I’ve predicted it”. I wanted to see if I could create something that would be able to give the revelation a bit more meaning and also act as a surprise. So now I use it as a twist after letting someone select a card from a separate deck, reading their thought process to reveal the card, and finally being able to show the prediction.
I probably won’t use it for long, but enough to be happy that I was able to at least create a routine that was natural for me. I could achieve the same effect with a drawing duplication re-framed as a prediction, and probably will in the future.
So I guess the answer to the question is really neither of those two things. One uses cards because they’re easy to relate to, and the other was simply to see if I could come up with a presentation I liked.
Thinking about it now, I suppose after a decade of being a magician, I’m finding it hard to let go of the cards despite refusing to perform anything related to sleight of hand now.
You’re correct with the idea of using a memory routine, there’s not much that you can apparently do as you are not touching the cards.
It’s nice to use come up with personal challenges and develop solutions, especially when they add depth and substance to a ‘quick trick’. Have you thought about gimmicking up a tarot deck and using that instead, then you don’t have to spend potential valuable time explaining the evolution of tarot to playing cards and may even get a visceral reaction out of people upon seeing them?
I completely understand the reluctance to let go of playing cards. Despite just a few years of using them I found it hard to give them up too.
I think when I remove cards, I will remove them completely. So no tarot.
What I need to do is become more comfortable performing on the spot without a deck. Right now they’re a crutch, as they provide an easy means to do some mentalism when out and about. As I’m learning more techniques though, propless and a few billet handlings, I can abandon the cards and do genuinely impromptu demonstrations. That’s what I’m aiming for right now.
It’s very admirable that you want to move toward a card-less performance.
Do you do a drawing duplication right now?
Also worth noting is perfecting the skill of ‘magician’s choice’ which can create some strong powerful moments if done well. If not well practiced it can look either suspect, or worse, transparent.
I like to recommend the ‘PATEO Force’ by Roy Baker as a good starting point to get used to this style of routine that will have a definite outcome.
I currently use a Stealth Assassin for word revelations and drawing duplications, though I sometimes worry about the justification for keeping hold of the original. Perhaps I need to brainstorm another routine for myself?
I have a copy of Docc Hilford’s E’voque which was a great way to learn the magicians force. I’m not actually sure why I don’t use it more.
Thinking about it there’s a few skills I have like that which can be applied to impromptu mentalism without the need of cards.
I always give the original back. Do the drawing, give it them to hold but not look at. Remove their drawing ans take a look. Act surprised and then reveal your drawing in their hand.
I don’t mind some use of cards in mentalism. Im currently learning mnemonica and am planning on using it with the deck cut and top card taken and hidden then the remaining cards put back in the box so Id have no way of seeing any of them, then using Mark Spelmanns glimpse 20/20 and be able to do the reveal. I think if you at no point see the cards but can still do a reveal it falls more into mentalism than starting with pick a card and fanning/dribbling them. I don’t have a problem with cards used in mentalism, I do think the context of bringing a deck out should be right and the justification of bringing them out is important.
As I mention in this episode, there is such a strong connection to cards and trickery. Have you considered using something other than playing cards?
Also as I asked another commenter above, what’s your reason for using the playing cards? I don’t mean from a presentation point of view, I mean for choosing them as the method?
I have considered something other than playing cards. My thoughts are I wanted to learn a stack because 1) It would be really cool 2) you never know when it may come in handy helping another magician, hence why I chose a popular one 3) I personally think 1 trick involving cards isn’t a huge problem, people are familiar with cards and they wont be put on the spot or feel uncomfortable thinking of something else. everyone knows whats on those 52 bits of card and if you can tell them whats on the one they thought of or cut to then I still think thats very strong 4) Vincent Hedans book which is awesome (without giving too much away on an open forum)
I haven’t listened to this episode yet , but iam not overly keen on using cards in mentalism however i do feel they have a place. I was recently putting a script together for a stand up spot and liked Luke Jermays intro about if you were an althlete you would warm up by stretching, or an actor you would look over your script for a mind reader, he uses the deck of cards to warm up as a deck of cards is a good quantitative base, a deck of cards is a selection of colours, shapes and numbers, symbols and even letters, then he goes into his fabulous tossed out deck routine. I like his justification of using the deck, Eugen Burger also says playing cards are 52 unique items all easily remembered and instantly recognisable and we will use them to make a totaly random choice. Personally i think i have seen enough card tricks to last a life time, but occasionally iam inspired by other peoples performances with them 🙂
There are bigger demonstrations of playing cards (such as memory feats) that I feel can seem organic. However, I still feel that it pulls the thoughts of the audience in the direction of ‘magician’ and then ‘trickery’. I think it is far better to try and reduce procedural explanation where it isn’t necessary. If the performer has to explain why the deck is being used then I don’t think it’s a step in the right direction.
Got to say that I agree with almost everything you’ve said in this podcast Paul. The one exception I will make is that I do occasionally use the Ouija deck of playing cards or the DMC cards for a reading presentation. Personally I use my business cards or blank business card stock in all my professional performances. Having said that I have a very good friend who is a professional reader and he put together an Annemann lecture, only using playing cards and because of his consummate skills as a reader I have watched him frying magicians and lay people. In his case given that he has been a very successful professional reader for almost thirty years I would be genuinely gobsmacked if a layperson suspected trickery of any sort.
I bet with such experience that he actually didn’t even require the playing cards. The few very gifted readers that I have met use little to no props and when they do it’s usually for the sake of the client.
On the subject of business cards I would highly recommend your NetWorker deck. This is a terrific set of cards and some very strong effects. Having said that almost as soon as I got them they fired off my imagination and I sat and looked at the cards off and on for weeks before coming up with a personal main presentation. Great idea and great quality.
That’s very kind, Ewen 🙂 I always recommend that people take a little time to choose what they put on the cards. Sadly, I may have shot myself in the foot with the quality (sales wise) as they last a long time and stand up to a lot of usage. I’ve been rocking a deck at all my trade show gigs since release and they still look new.
In your podcast, you made a request for people to leave comments to try to convince you that playing cards “should” or “should not” be used in mentalism. I would simply say that there is no good answer to that question. Whether or not playing cards CAN be used effectively in mentalism has been proven many times by mentalists who know how to use them competently in that context. I’d go as far as saying that if playing cards don’t work for you, it isn’t the cards themselves that are the problem. We are all shaped by our experiences. I use cards extensively in my repertoire, and based on the feedback I receive, I am quite sure that people do not suspect sleight of hand, gimmicks, or magicians’ techniques are at work.
By the way, I’ve stopped using terms like “mind reader”, “mentalist”, etc. I simply say I’m a magician. I then perform very realistic mentalism exclusively, and allow the audience to come to the conclusion themselves that this is a very different kind of magic than they’ve ever seen before.
I performed a mentalism card piece for a stranger at a coffee house recently. He was blown away. In conversing after the effect, I learned that he was the chief prosecutor in the Flint water crisis case (a very high-profile court case here in the USA). He offered to hire me as a jury consultant based on my apparent skills.
On another occasion, I performed a mentalism card piece for a neurologist. He insisted that I must have been using “biofeedback”.
I’ve had lots of experiences such as these when performing mentalism using playing cards.
Telling people that you are a magician, and then performing realistic mentalism sets up an interesting contrast in people’s minds. A good mentalism card piece must seem completely above-board and miraculous, of course, but it also must not resemble anything the audience brings to the show in terms of preconceptions of how card tricks are done by magicians.
As Max Maven so succinctly stated, “Competent mentalism is miraculous.” To use cards successfully in mentalism requires a certain type of competence that many performers either do not possess, or haven’t cultivated correctly.
I think it’s misguided to try to convince another performer that cards should or should not be used based on your own idiosyncratic experiences, and your unfortunately failed attempts to use them yourself. My experience has been quite the opposite of yours, and indeed cards have been a mainstay in the acts of the top mentalism performers of all time.
Please don’t mistake this post as an effort to convert you to my way of thinking. I think that the decision to not use cards is probably the right decision for you. But it may not be the right decision for everyone.
There are established techniques in mentalism that I have chosen not to use, even though they apparently work well for some people. It could mean that my level of competence in that particular area is below what it needs to be, or it could relate in some way to my personality. For example, I think that a certain percentage of people simply will not be fooled by a straight equivoque routine. I think that after more than 30 years of performing mentalism, I’ve had a chance to work on that, and try to use it in real life. Bottom line is that, for me, about 20% of the time, a close-up equivoque routine degrades into having to engage with an argumentative spectator who just wasn’t fooled, and saw through the method. Yet, I don’t try to convince others that equivoque is bad or should be removed from their mentalism repertoire, because while it doesn’t work well for me, it may work well for them.
Hi Ben, firstly that’s a long post, which would have taken time to write, so thank you. In fact, it’s the longest so far for the podcast.
I completely understand that playing cards can be used in mentalism, as I have done so successfully in the past and have seen others do the same.
My major issues with playing cards in mentalism is that there are far more impressive things for a mentalist to do for a lay person that have no immediate connection to magic.
As much as I would like to believe that, as you wrote, this is due to competence, I really don’t think that it is. Being competent in your field sadly doesn’t preclude a method from exposure. It’s impossible to please all of the people all of the time. If we take Uri and an example, he is extremely competent in his field of metal bending (possibly the most famous there has ever been) yet he has people disbelieve him and even expose his methods.
I think you were correct to raise the idea that another performer shouldn’t try and convert another. However, I was attempting to get an active debate started in this comment section.
For a number of years I have been quite vocal on my stance regarding playing cards and mentalism, simply because it is a minority viewpoint and I like people to think about their use of playing cards. Ultimately, what someone chooses to do regarding the issue doesn’t affect me. But I know for a fact that more than once my vocalisation of my thoughts on the subject has helped people to make positive changes to their performance, which is nice.
It’s horses for courses.
May I ask why you choose to use playing cards as a method, over other mentalism methodologies?
Because some of the most convincing mentalism I’ve ever seen uses cards. And some of the least convincing mentalism I’ve ever seen uses other items.
It doesn’t bother me if/that people “think” of magic and magicians when they think of cards. Bottom line is that I’m going to blow their minds with something that does not resemble the typical schemas and archetypes of magic performance. I use this to my advantage. They walk away KNOWING is wasn’t a mere card trick, but something much different from what a normal magician would do.
I’ve seen convincing mentalism using both playing cards and non-playing cards and equally on the flip-side seen mentalism that is terrible with or without playing cards.
As someone who has a USP of not being a magician this is, naturally of more import to me in this respect. To call back to the episode, that booker was not happy with any playing cards being used. It wasn’t for lack of strong playing card mentalism, I was getting knock-out reactions. Magic simply wasn’t what she had ordered. As you mentioned in a previous post this doesn’t matter so much to you as you don’t label yourself and let your audience label you. In this respect, would you call yourself a magician when pushed to give yourself a label, say due to working with an agent?
While you know that you have blown your audience’s minds in the moment, how do you know that this moment has longevity to it? I’m guessing it doesn’t matter too much to you from what you have shared here as you seem to be stood with a foot in both the magic and mentalism camp?
Oh, and I don’t exclude all other modalities. I do drawing duplications, word divinations, “which hand”, pseudo-hellstromism, symbol divinations, impossible coincidences, etc.
But I’m perfectly happy doing a whole set with playing cards.
I sincerely would really like to see your playing card mentalism set one day. I hope to get the chance 🙂
I have some stuff on video you could watch.
Would you mind pointing me in the direction of one of your pieces of strong playing card mentalism, please?
Here is the Videos section of my website. Some of the performances are casual, and others more formal.
https://www.benblaumentalism.com/videos.html
Hope you enjoy.
Very interesting contribution from Ben and having seen some of his presentations online I can see why doesn’t have any need to fear being accused of doing of magic tricks. Personally I find Ben’s style fascinating and very engaging whereas I’ve been known to groan out loud while watching magicians doing card tricks. My Reader friend has a side interest in mentalism and magic and he put together his Annemann lecture to specifically fool magicians by using really good old effects and his very personal presentation style. I’ve also been fortunate enough to have seen him several times doing a two hour Psychic show completely propless. Believe me that was an eyeopener. Now to catch up on podcast three and four.☺
Yes, I like a debate. I find that it helps you to bring clarity to your thoughts, either through chance, or simply to reaffirm why you hold the thoughts you do.
I am sure Ben is great at what he does.
How did the magician fooling go for you your friend?
Hope you enjoy episode three and four 🙂
Lol very well, at one of his lectures I was sitting behind three or four very experienced magicians. The lecture format was basically the first half the show, second half the explanations. The guys in front of me were so swept up in the accuracy of the readings that the very simple and well known methods flew by them, their reactions were priceless. I should add that none of them were directly involved in any of the effects but the seats they were in allowed them to see the reactions of several of the participants to their readings.