Phil Goldstein

I have always been a student of the science of the mind. I took all the possible classes under Dr. Jaime Licauco. As a kid I would get all the materials I could about Uri Geller. Later in life I discovered the power of mentalism , entertainment wise. The more astute audiences seem to enjoy it more than slights etc.

Peace,

Rannie

Chan Canasta (yes, I am an older mentalist), Kreskin, Dunninger, the Falkenstein & Willard duo and one of my mentors - Tony Andruzzi.

Of course, starting out primarily as a stage hypnotist helped a lot, too!

Lee Darrow, C.H.

Barry Sinclair, saw him in the mid eighties.

Later it was David Blaine and Derren Brown.

Ian Rowland

What inspired my interest on mentalist, was at first all the psychology involved behind it. But I Have to say that I'm a mentalism addict right now thanks to my good friend gosman

Uri Geller

One name: Richard Osterlind
and then a long list of books, inventors , inspirators.

Kind Regards
Cornelius
France

ChEeKy_MoNkEy, I have been into 'magic' since I was a little boy. However, my experience of mentalism had been old men and cardboard personalities. There was never anything exciting or thought provoking about the acts that I had seen.

I managed to get a great deal on some second hand magic books and there were some great finds within it, but my first read of a mentalism book was one on muscle reading and question and answer sessions. Not a good start, I dismissed it as dull and unworkable at the time.

As I played with 'magic' I discovered the reactions you got from mental magic and started to experiment, then I saw Derren Brown and realised that there were a myriad of different presentations available. Then I read Corinda and 8 months later I put on my first stage show.

There it is, in a nutshell. So although I was already involved I have two people to thank for where I am at at the moment. David Blaine and Derren Brown. Go figure.

Likewise, Dancer.
I've always loved magic, but I can trace my interest in mentalism back to watching David Blaine approach a stranger, hand him a deck of cards, and ask him to imagine that one of them is slowly turning over...
When he removed the deck and showed him that the thought of card was upside down in a face up deck, I nearly fell off my chair. 'Stooge' was the only explanation that came to mind.

Bazzer Munday, best con' artist there has ever been...

SgC

If there was one over the rest, the guy who inspired me was probably David Berglas. His apparent direct nature I really loved. And his show looked just like you were invited itno his living room as he invited his famous friends around.

Best,
Kennedy

Can someone tell David Blaine to stay out of the Pubs and Strip-Clubs for a while and get back on the street where he belongs ?

My sister-in-law gave me Derren Brown's "Mind Control" DVD (his Channel 4 show excerpts). I didn't know him beforehand (I live in Switzerland) and then I read on café the reviews on Richard Osterlind Mind Mysteries.

Although Derren Brown might have been a little seed, my interest for mentalism was suddenly awaken by Richard's DVDs. Watching Richard Osterlind's performance was definitely an eye opener.

Sincerely, Matt

I will definitely go for Banachek!

Well,I wasn't going to reply but I couldn't resist anymore,
To me, it was Ted Annemann!
And I'm not joking!

I was a card trick fanatic, just for the fun of fooling my friends at school, nothing fancy.

When I was 16, somebody brought me a copy from the US of "The Encyclopedia or Card Tricks" by Hugard and it was a great gift, the effects were lovely but the ones that I liked the most were the ones by this guy refered as Annemann.

So, I started to search for information on this "Annemann" guy, only to find out that he passed away maaaany years ago, but in my search I found that there was another book "apparently" written* by him : Practical Mental Effects and ... oh boy!, suddenly everything changed for me.

Then I found that PME was just a compilation from an even greater collection of effects called The Jinx and Max Abrams came out with "The Life and Times of a Legend" and that was my point of no return.

When I started reading and using this, I didn't know that this was "mentalism" stuff.
I was looking at it as the most incredible effects I have ever seen.

In fact, The first time that I read (heard) the term Mentalist was on these books, written in english and then looking at the dictonary for its spanish translation (my native language is spanish)

That was one of the reasons why I became so excited at the release of ETMMM by L&L and Richard Osterlind. It was like watching the movie made out of your favorite book.

All in All, my main influence were the words from and about this Master.
A Master that I will never had the chance to watch perform.


...mmmm, it looks like my post was somewhat romantic.
Bah!, What Tha' Hell... [SUBMIT REPLY]

__
*NOTE : PME was not written by Annemann, but when I started to look for information about him, this book appeared everywhere and most dealers stated that it ws written by him.

Juan D wrote:-



Well, I'm not sure why you were thinking of not replying - but glad you did - it was an interesting read.

Thanks for the input - I'm just soaking this all up!

Bob Cassidy, Luke Jermay, Derren Brown... and can I say Kenton Knepper? In that order, these guys have been my introduction to mentalism and modern magic.

Easy. The Invisible Deck

Jason

For me it was watching Kreskin on tv. Always when I heard he was going to be on the Johnny Carson show, had to stay up and watch.