Hello my Bizarre friends, Im the Mentalist who posted a topic a little while ago entitled, "Bizarre......but lovely". And Im back again, wishing to get to the root of my odd dislikeing for what Mentalism as an area of magic has to offer.

Why am I drawn to the world of Bizarre magic?
Im not one for performing blood and gore and makes ya scream type stuff, its just not to my taste, no offence is intended, I'm sure you all understand.
I don't think its the story telling stuff, again that's not for me.

A deffenet intrest and goal if you like, that the Bizarre community and my self seem to share is making it (Magic, Magick, Mentalism etc.) an Art.........again.

Now I love Mentalism. I love all matters of the mind and how mentalism can have a chilling edge (which is different to the 'makes you scream' stuff I spoke of before) and the subtilties not only of method but also of performnace.

Yet for somereason I want to pluck a deep red rose out of thin air, cast a somber shadow over it untill it is clearly seen to have died........... only for me to breath life back in to it with a simple and gentle blow wich in turn causes the once deep red rose to turn a light, almost unnatural blue. I then give this to the prettyist lady in the audience.

I guess I think of the last wild idea in a similer way to how some Mentalsits virw Spoon/Fork Bending. As a phisycle expression of there 'powers'.

I guess my main frustartion with what Mentalism has been offereing me over the past few years of study is, in my view, is that its not magicall enough. If at all.

I need help,
Alex.

Mentalism has tended to go for a rather austere presentation. The effects are effects of the mind. You are asking people to accept thought transferance, clairvoyance, precognition, and so forth. These are abstract concepts. People must accept these as explanations for what they have seen.

If the props used are odd or showy, if the performer is too flamboyant, if there are showgirls and sequins and so forth, it wrecks the illusion. Mentalism needs to be austere as a contrast to the rich visual pleasures of magic.

Of course, then along comes a guy bending a spoon, and suddenly we have something to look at again. But remember Uri Geller's demeanor: enthusiastic and positive, but yet still uncertain whether it would happen.

When you say mentalism is not magical enough, is it because it has tried to make itself look like the edge of science rather than a colorful circus of impossibilities?

What is the most magical thing that you have seen, to help us understand what you mean by using that word?

Yours,

Paul

I understand where you're coming from Psychomagi, and I tend to share some of your preferences. Not all, as I have no problem with buckets of blood and demons appearing briefly, (at least on Halloween, anyway) but all that aside, I can see where someone would be on the fence. In many ways, I am too - respecting the plausiblity of mentalism, but also admiring the often visual aspect of magic.
As you said, bizarre magic is bringing it back to an art, and away from the Las Vegas style of vaudevillesque outlandishness.
Bizarre need not be about blood and gore though, nor even demons. That's just one facet of the genre, although the one usually represented.
One thing you have to ask yourself though, because I have asked myself and am wrestling with it, is , what is so attractive about the plausiblity of mentalism ?
Could it be not only the reactions that you get from an audience, but as much, if not more, the reactions that you don't get ?
To elaborate: I am still very unpracticed and unskilled, relatively, and I still am wary of the heckler, the know it all, or the person who sees me slip and yells how it is done.
Magic, I believe, is inherently more suceptible to this, partly, because it's premise is almost entirely unbelievable, and much harder for the spectator to suspend disbelief; it's effects are almost entirely beyond the realm of acceptability.
On the other hand, mentalism, seeming much more plausible, in most circumstances, would seem not to antagonize the "heckler" in someone to the same degree, because it is more subtle, and harder to question. Scientific experiments continue to this day to determine the veracity of reports of ESP, telekinesis, etc. Many people really do believe in this stuff.
So, it almost becomes a way of "playing it safer". At least, maybe, for me.
Now then, I am in no way suggesting this is some common neurosis, characteristic of all mentalists, or even you; only that it's something that I've wondered about in myself - but it makes for a good bit of soul searching when straddling that fence, and trying to make a decision as to style.

Hmmmm, (realizing that communicating in this means via little bits of electrons can sometimes not set quite the impression one would like), I ask you to consider something that I personally try to do, and that is to ask "why?"
Yuu say "Yet for somereason I want to pluck a deep red rose out of thin air, cast a somber shadow over it untill it is clearly seen to have died........... only for me to breath life back in to it with a simple and gentle blow wich in turn causes the once deep red rose to turn a light, almost unnatural blue. I then give this to the prettyist lady in the audience. "
Define that reason, and use it. (Are you tryign to impress only her? )
As to Bizarremagick being gore and blood/screams? It need not be so, besides who has to clean up that mess!
Artistic? it can be, Eugene Burger does a wonderful recitation of an Edna St.Vincent Millay poem, very dramatic, and very magical. Not quite a dying and reborn rose- but emotionally pretty *** close!
Mentalism can be worked into Bizarre, and Vice/versa, espedcially so depending on the presentation and personna one puts forth.
I know that obtaining many of the seminal works for this genre can be difficult and expensive. The writers have passed on, moved on in their lives to other things, etc. They made limited runs of self published booklets, obtaining permission to reprint is a task, but I submit that you DO need to seek out the roots of this area of the performance art, and understand what was done and why! Titles like "Strange Ceremonies" were not created just as a hook! Pages of information and incantations form older grimoires were used as part of the presentations!
Time passes, and life moves along/evolves (dependig on your beliefs) and perhaps calling what you, or I or anyone else does, "Bizarre" might no longer apply. Perhaps we have aided in the birthing of a newer genre of the performance, one that has yet to be named, though for convenience ends up here.
Still ask yourself "Why?" If it is indeed about YOUR powers, then "WHO are YOU!"
How do yoru powers manifest, and , again, Why? Are you "Bruce Allmighty"? or do you smoke a cigar as in "Oh God"?
And what DO you think you are demonstrating in the image you present when you "cast a somber shadow...until it is seen to be dead"? Only to later "breathe life back into it". You do not think, under the right audience and presentation that someone might not scream? Please note carefully- I am NOT trying to flame, or come off as sounding mean, I am asking a series of questions.Ultimately it will be YOUR answers and opinions on these and others that move you into or out of the style of performance loosely called Bizarre!
I think the idea you present is very interesting, and already my mind is thinking about how it might be done, and WHY I might do it, were I you.
May your answers not wake you screaming in the night! (unless that is how you like it! ;} BWA ha Haaaaa)
KAy

Thanks guys, some very good, deep responces. that's the main reason I asked the question here, in the Bizarre forum rather than the 'Penny' forum.

First off, I feel I should mention that, If you, as a fellow performer of 'some kind of magic entertainment', would probably class me as more of a 'psychological mentalist'. I don't go on about ESP, clairvoyance, precognition, etc......... but also note that I don't go on about voice inflection, non-verbal communication and "you blinked when you said..........." Just thought Id mention that.

True, Bizarre need not be about blood and gore, sadly, and Im sure many of you would agree that this seems to be an all to common missconseption.

A while ago I had an idea that I named, 'The Silent Bizarre Act'. It kind of speaks for its self. More subtile disturbing than anything else. Under your skin.

kaytracy - Intrestingly enough I posted something in the Mentalism forum tha posed the question 'Why?'. Why......do you bend spoons? Why......do you X, Y and Z?
It didn't go down well, things like that tend to go over there heads. Anyway.....

The other day I 'performed' the Rose effect I mentioned above for a friend. What I mean by 'performed' is that there was no rose. I just mimed the actions and used my words to paint the picture in her mind (Think 'Wonder Words').
As for reason, it has an asthetic and romantic appeal.
To my mind that is a totally MENTAL effect.
As would be vanishing a coin that represented many, many negative emotions (via geting the spec. to associate those with the coin in a number of ways).
The above IS MENTALism...... and a lot more so than some of the stuff out there.

To my mind MENTALism has nothing to do with Psychic Phenominon or Psychological Techniques. Its about people and as soon as that connection is lost we are at a stage that magic got to, i.e. all about the sequins and giant saw blades, scanterly clad women and......well you get my point.

I have asked myself Why, many times and I really have grown, it feels so good doesn't it .
Perhapes Im just little dishartened by 'the community'. I feel inside me a revolution. Perhapes Im a rebal without a cause, I don't know. I think Im just trying to find out what that 'revolution' is.

I believe is harder to find a heckler in a bizarre performance. There is something about the typical mentalist attitude that attracts hecklers. In a bizarre performance you are telling a story, and it works in a similar way than movies: knowing how a movie effect is done doesn’t spoil the magic on the movie.