Mentalism is really pretty impressive when you look at some of the pros’ performances on TV. Some of what they do seems so unreal.
The difference between a lot of magicians and mentalists is that magicians let their subjects know that they are indeed performers. In other words, they don’t have any superpowers or a sixth sense so to speak. However, a lot of mentalists choose to make their subjects believe they do have some sort of special powers. Which we all know just isn’t possible. An example of this would be Uri Geller from years ago.
Many mentalists might claim they are psychic, telepathic, can hypnotize, levitate and can even read minds among other things… Like magically bend spoons, but it’s all just a performance actually.
So what are some of the important aspects of being able to learn mentalist mind tricks? What do the pros use to pull off their tricks? I’ll discuss a few things below that every mentalist should know.
Reading Body Language
Reading body language is a huge part of mentalism. This is especially true for tricks like reading minds, which is one of the most popular of all mentalist mind tricks. When learning mentalist mind tricks you must master reading body language. A practitioner must learn to pay attention to and decipher the minutest details in body language.
There are other professions that focus on reading body language. Psychologists are trained to read body language as well as many people who work in law enforcement like the police and the FBI.
Presentation
How you go about your presentation in mentalism is also very important. Without proper presentation, some of your attempts at pulling off a mentalist trick could be ruined and end with embarrassment. Mentalists who are great at presentation are David Blaine and Criss Angel among many others. These guys have literally mastered presentation and because of it can fool scores of people all at once. So needless to say, as you learn mentalist mind tricks, make sure you master presentation.
Controlling Focus
When learning to perform mentalist mind tricks, it’s very important that a mentalist control their subject’s focus. Because if a mentalist loses control of this one important aspect of mentalism, their trick may be discovered.
Practice Daily
Finally, in order to learn mentalist mind tricks so that you can pull them off naturally, you must practice daily. Learning to read body language can be fun and you can develop this skill simply by watching people anywhere you are. – While at the mall, a restaurant, the gym, just make sure you don’t come off as creepy.
