LOL, Brian--I'm one of those sad few who can do a flawless faro shuffle, but can't do a decent in-the-hands riffle to save my life. I suppose it's a blessing; I can hold my own when indulging my hobby, magic, and still look believable when doing mentalism, which is my full time love.

I gotta say, though, it's priceless to see my card-geek friends' reactions when "the mentalist guy" starts doing faro's and Kenner's "Five Faces of Sybil" cut ;o) It's stuff I'd never use for an audience, but I still enjoy it. Like I said, it's a hobby, kinda like how some people collect stamps. Just cooler :o)

All that aside, there are certainly many magic techniques that are applicable to mentalism. I do feel that mentalism and magic are two different things, but they're not entirely different. They're related arts, which share a certain amount of overlapping technical background.

To say that a mentalist must learn magical technique isn't really accurate, because if the technique is applicable to mentalism, it's mentalism technique, too. It's certainly possible to come in as a mentalist and learn those techniques from that perspective, without ever having considered being a magician.

That said, since a lot of the basics (such as coin switches and card moves) aren't usually covered in mentalism writings, you do have to be open to reading non-specialized books to glean what you can.

Studying the King James Bible doesn't automatically make me a Christian, though, if you know what I mean. I don't have to practice Christianity to learn valuable lessons from the writings in the Bible, and I can ignore those parts which don't apply to me.

(Before anybody starts getting up in arms here, this is not a post about religion, I just used Christianity/the KJB as an example; it's an analogy, not a religious statement. I know some folks here are sensitive about such things.)

--A

Yes, and Staples, too!

I agree.
And I am sure that the good Dr. will say that
he also agree...
strange.