Anybody know who the first performer(s) to use the term 'mentalism' or 'mentalist'?

Certainly a number of performers that we would classify as mentalists were calling themselves mediums (such as Anna Eva Fay). J. Randall Brown and Washington Irving Bishop, I think both called themselves 'Thought Readers'

But I haven't been able to determine exactly when the term 'mentalist' came into use...

Bob posted research of the first recorded use of the term in regards to the performance of mentalism. If I recall, it was about 2 years ago (my memory isn't what it used to be, so I may be off on the time line). So if you search through his posts here, you may find it. My personal belief (and I may have mentioned it on the thread) was that there was a crossover of terminology from the 19th century esoteric system called Mentalism.

I know this is going to be kinda incomplete, but it was in reference to a female performer named Pearl something, and it was in an ad copy released in the WNY/Buffalo region in the early 20th century

thank you.
http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewt......forum=15

Interesting, I didn't see that thread when looking.

Actually, rather the Pearl being the first, later in the thread someone else mentions the following:

The Sphinx_, Mar 1906, p 5: "Mr. Wm. Broderson, a prominent merchant of San Francisco, has considerable fame as an illusionist and mentalist in his city and occasionally exhibits his skill there."


And as Bob says, it is quite likely that the term was used for several years before that without appearing in a record that has since survived.

Thanks Tony and Jude.

Quite interesting indeed. I wish we could have more accurate facts about it, but so far (from what I understand) we only have speculation on what was tracked up to a certain point.

Thought reader, mind reader, mentalist, psychic... there are many ways to refer to ourselves and this kinda complicates things. Maybe most of us say "mentalist" only because it is the most popular wording at this point. If "mind expert" was more popular we would probably be searching it's roots just like we're doing for the word "mentalist".

The only thing I don't forget is that, according to Bob Cassidy, Samri Baldwin (White Mahatma) is credited as the inventor of the Q&A act. Also credited as the creator of the one ahead system. This at least seems to be solid information for something quite important to us...

Cheers

Max