In my first article in this series, I exposed the real truth about magic but I didn’t touch on mentalism because I ran out of writing time. So I am going to tackle mentalism in this article. Just like with magic, mentalists really can’t read your mind. They just know a few tricks that I am going to point you to at the end of this article. After you get the info you’ll need, you’ll be performing mentalist routines with the best of them.
Okay, so what’s the deal with all these mentalists? How do they do the things that they do? Well, like I said, it’s all about the trick. There’s one trick where the mentalist makes you pick a card, takes the card, puts it back into the deck and without even looking through the deck, tells you what your card is and tells you that it’s the only card no longer in the deck. As you look through it, you find that he’s dead on. The card is not there.
Just a parlor trick, that’s all. But what about the really great routines? You know the ones I’m talking about. Those are the routines where the mentalist takes somebody out of the audience and tells him to take an object out of his pocket while the mentalist is turned around, stare at it, think about what it is, and then tells him to put the object back in his pocket. The mentalist then turns back around and after going into his little trance (some of these guys crack me up) he tells you what the object is.
Again, just a parlor trick. I won’t tell you how this one is done because it would really spoil it for a lot of people, but if you want to learn stuff like this, there’s a great resource for doing it that I’m going to tell you about very soon, so hang in there.
Point is, and you can believe this or not, there is no such thing as magic or mind reading. Nobody can read your mind or your thoughts. Without their assistants (yes, they have them) they’d be just another handsome face in the crowd.
But, if you want to learn this stuff, in my signature is a great resource that will actually have people thinking that you can do magic. You can read my review at my blog.
Magic? That’s only for kids.

I don’t mean to burst anybody’s bubble here, but there is no such thing as magic or mind reading, mentalism or whatever you want to call it. Now, I could end this article right here and have made my point, but since you’re interested in learning this stuff, you should at least understand what it is that you’re learning. What I am about to reveal here is going to make a lot of magicians and mentalists really angry at me. Well, so be it. I can take the heat as long as you can take the truth.Let’s start with magic first. You’ve seen all the tricks…the sawing the lady in half, the vanishing woman in the box, the whole nine yards. You watch and you’re astonished. You wonder how they do these things. Well, they’re all tricks and illusions. The key is to simply learn these tricks and illusions. And trust me, some of them come with a hefty price tag. The professional tricks cost thousands of dollars. They professionally designed and there is a lot of spying in this business to try to learn tricks.If you watch the show Numb3rs, you might have recently seen an episode where a magician ended up getting killer by her own trick. On the show was Penn Gillette from Penn and Teller. In the episode, they actually exposed some of the tricks that magicians do. Now naturally, these aren’t the most current hot tricks, but it did give us a great look at some of the stuff that we were in such awe of. If you watched the episode, you learned a lot from it.If you didn’t watch it, one of the tricks they revealed was when they put the woman in the box and turn the box around. Well, while the magician is doing this, he pushes a button that produces a false back. So when the box is opened, the false back is revealed instead of the girl, who just happens to be standing behind it. It looks very convincing, but it’s still just a trick.Okay, so I’ve just killed all your beliefs that magic exists. But what about mentalism? Well, we’re going to leave that for another article. Call it part two. In the meantime, if you want to learn these tricks yourself, check out the review in my signature below. You’ll find a great online resource that will teach you all the tricks you could want to know.

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Are you looking for information on how to learn mentalism? In picking up this performing act, you will need to learn first about the 5 important skills in mastering the art of mentalism.
1. Confidence and Stage Presentation
You need to be able to exude confidence when performing the art. Before you can even learn the skills and tricks of the trade, building your stage confidence is vital. It is only when you are able to speak and move around confidently on stage that people will listen and pay attention to what you show them or tell them to. This is the simplest and most basic "mind control" technique. Staging your presence and communicating with your spectators or audience is part and parcel of the trade.
2. Persuasion
Learning how to persuade is more important than anything a mentalist needs. Successful master magicians often speak in a certain manner and they ask directed questions that lead the audience to answer in predictive manner.
3. Misguide and Conceal
The skill of misguiding and concealment is a basic skill for someone who wants to pick up magic. All illusionists and magicians know that they need their audience to look at something which is an act of misguiding or misdirection, so that what you are really doing is concealed from their eyes and detection.
4. Mind Reading
Mind reading is an integral part of the skill set if you want to learn mentalism. What it does is to give the audience an impression that you know what he or she is thinking of when actually, it is just a trick. There are many basic to advanced tricks of mind reading you can learn. The basis of this skill lies in creating a setting and predetermined questions or steps that are within your control, not your audience.
5. Card Tricks
As a beginner, you need to understand that card tricks, no matter how cliché it may feel, are the pace setters in this trade. They prepare your audience, humor them and builds up the atmosphere towards your big act. As the first step to learn mentalism, pick up a few old magic and card tricks.
Books on mentalism or stage magic can be found in libraries, bookstores and even online. But quite frankly, not every one of them is easy to grasp. Many of the writers often write in their own understanding and assume that their readers are familiar with the trade itself. We are going to talk about what some of the books cover and what you should be reading if you are not a master performer yet.
For someone who is just starting out, it is important to learn the terminology of mentalism such as cold, warm, hot reading, mind reading, mind control, extra-sensory perception (ESP), clairvoyance, hypnosis and psychokinesis. These are often covered in basic books on the topic.
If you are already practicing some form of magic tricks whether out of leisure or professionally, then you should be moving on to literature that cover the technical part of the trade, ie the actual execution of these skills and hand tricks. Card tricks, sleight of the hand and misguide and concealment are some of the acts that should be second nature to you which means that at this stage you do need to know these.
For those who are more advanced in their learning and knowledge and in fact are doing shows professionally, intermediate soft core skills such as the art of persuasion, mind control, mind reading and manipulation should be acquired.
As for those who are beginners and intermediate magicians, books like "Killer Mentalism Manuscript" and "Master Mentalism" should be what you should be reading. These cover a whole range of techniques and secrets of the trade such as street magic, mind reading, levitation, card tricks, illusions, hypnotism, etc.