When asked what you do, how do you choose to introduce and describe yourself? A mentalist, psychological illusionist, thought reader, mind reader, "kind of magician" or.... ?

Then, how do you choose to describe what you do?

With so many talented performers out there, it would be interesting to see how each explains his/her "magic" to a prospective client.

Good thoughts to all.

Hennessey

I shut my eyes and concentrate really hard. The all the flowers around me wilt and die, birds fall out the sky and the sun goes out. Then in a really deep voice I say "I am the all powerful Simon Lea".

Unless it's to a potential hypnotherapy client, then I just say I'm a hypnotherapist.

Hope that helps

My personal definition of mentalism is "the illusion of mindreading." I am sure that there are many mentalists who wish for audiences to believe in their powers who would be angry at my definition, but nonetheless it works for my character.

The term "mentalist" has unfortunately been hijacked by certain comedians to mean something quite different in the UK.

Barry

I tell my tables that "I don't do the usual type of magic, I do strange stuff like mindreading etc etc" ,usually enough to get the typical responses required to start off.
Regards Mark

I tend to stay clear of labels in general to be honest...what you define, you create afterall...

it can make drinking poison quite a regular occurance though...

Yep, thanks to Steve Coogan, you just cannot get away with admitting that you're a mentalist over here!! I'm a psychological entertainer - or at least, that's what it says on my business cards!

MY DEFINITION: "Mentalism is a highly specialized area of magic. A mentalist is a person who performs feats of magic but in a way that suggests some kind of PSYCHIC ability is being used to accomplish them."


Jim Sisti quote:

"Mentalism has been called 'Magic’s last frontier.' It’s really the only form of the art left where the audience can think that what they’ve just seen is, perhaps, real."

I like the Ned Rutledge phrase which Banachek quotes in Psychological Subtleties: "I use my five known senses to create the illusion of a sixth".

Personally I have always hated that quote, particularly because there are a few more than five known senses.

I have also always hated the term 'mentalist', it is a word that says nothing about what we do. You may as well use the term 'brainologist' or 'mindest', it's just nonsense and I don't care that it is the 'traditional' term, that counts for nowt.

I am one of the 'psychological illusionist' crowd, and I usually just tell people that 'I create the illusion of psychic phenomena'. If they look confused I clarify by saying 'mind magic'.
Because people do lump us in with magicians no matter what.

I tend to tell people (in small groups or when table-hopping) "Don't worry, I'm not a magician (big smile). I don't do sleight of hand or anything like that. In fact, the only reason I've been asked along this evening is because over the years I've learned to do some... WEIRD stuff... (Another smile) Would you mind if I try a little demonstration of something with you...?

Works for me!

Drew

I mention I perform magic with my mind.

Personally I *hate* the term, 'using the five senses to give the illusion of the sixth', or any other tag that practically dismisses what we have just performed.

'You have just seen something that you thought was weird and wonderful, but sorry, it was just a trick'.

In my view this knocks us straight back into the camp of magicians - put on your sequined jump suit as the audience think:

'I thought that I had just experienced something that challenged my beliefs, for a moment there I thought life was less mundane, but you are just a magician!'

Now, if I cast my mind back to the things that got me into magic in the first place - I remember the tremble in my stomach after seeing Geller perform - why? Not because I thought he was good at slight of hand - but because I thought it was real.

Put simply, this made the world a more interesting place.

Now, I do not want to be a charlatan (well not *always*) and say out right 'I am a guru with amazing powers that are real'. However, come to think of it, I could be a lot richer if I did....... Hmmm!

I like to muddy the waters - challenge the comfortable preconceptions of the audience (go on, do it, this is a good thing!), get them to think.

In my view, there is no need to say anything. Let them make their own minds up, come to their own conclusions. Give them credit for owning their own brains.

The context that I always use is that 'this is an experiment'. BTW, this is a good place to be if things go wrong! I am part of a highly secret organisation (Shhhh S...), I have found this curious old book in a strange old bookshop, I was visited by an angel in a blue track suit who..... Well, OK maybe not the last one!

At the end of the performance, when the audience are saying, 'How on earth did you do that?' I just give them my best eyebrow-arch. I am not saying that any of this is REAL, but I am not saying that it is trickery either.

On a related point, and this is almost a given in mentalist (I hate that term too) circles - A truism of performance is that the subject you are working with is always more interested in themselves than they are in you - or to put it with less clarity - they are fascinated in the possibilities that they *could* possess interesting capabilities, far more than they are interested in your so called powers - or your dismissal of them.

What is wrong with making peoples life more interesting? What is wrong indeed, with opening their minds to the *potential* of hidden levels to the human psyche. As long as we are not exploiting the emotionally weak. As long as we are not taking money from people in exchange for contacting the dead and messing with the natural grieving process.

If someone does think that I have created a miracle, I can sleep easy, the worst case scenario is that I have caused them to challenge potentially rigid belief systems..........

Thank you one and all for some marvelous posts.

One of the most fascinating part of this art form is that it brings you in contact with some remarkable "thinkers", as is evident from this forum.

I agree with Dr.Spirit's excellent post, in particular with reference to "opening their minds to the *potential* of hidden levels to the human psyche".

As entertainers, what a bonus it is to know that not only did the audience have a great time, but also may leave wondering as to just what else they themselves may be capable of?

Empowerment through entertainment, perhaps.

Hennessey

That was an excellent post Dr. Spirt....thank you

I prefer mentalguest. If you would be so kind as to allow me to vsit your mind.

yeah Dr. Spirit is a cool dude. He's a friend of mine.

"I read people minds".
I think that the most important thing is how much you believe in what you are saying. How you sell yourself. You must act as you really think you can read someone else mind
,if only if, you are in the right contest.
Let's not forget that even today people remember that guy (uri geller) who could bend forks, etc..he trusted himself...and people trusted him (except RANDI!)
It does not matter how strange you appear as long as you do simple and straightforward
demonstrations and if something goes wrong......it goes wrong...
Many times I just guess...sometimes I am right...I am still a human being.
I use PNL (I explain them what it is). Psycology. Hypnosis. This is how I do. Everybody can do that if they study hard as I did....
My 2 cents.

Dr. Spirit, that was brilliant, and your post should be on every thread that deals with the "ethics" of psychic entertainers.

Well, I disagree with some of what DrSpirit wrote, and I can back up most of what I write below with documentation, although obviously a few statements are personal opinions.

I call myself a magician.

DrSpirit wrote:

Many people realize that the real world isn't mundane. Great and exciting mysteries exist, so there is no need to make false ones.

DrSpirit wrote:

You are in the company of many very smart people who were fooled by Geller. However, a great many more people thought he was a total fraud. It's not possible to fool all of the people all of the time, and charlatans are always known by many people. This is just one of the reasons I find mental magic preferable to mentalism.

The best mentalist in the world has made perhaps a few million. David Copperfield has made almost a billion dollars. The best mentalist bought a nice house. David Copperfield purchased many buildings and also an island in the South Pacific! His greater wealth is because of the immensely greater numbers of people he can draw.

DrSpirit wrote:

Getting an college education made the world more interesting for me. Many of the things I learned about the world and the universe are far, far, stranger than anything Uri Geller has ever done that he's noted for. And, these things I learned are all true!

DrSpirit wrote:

And, as I noted above, if you are a good entertainer, and perhaps lucky too, you could be a lot richer if you didn't.

DrSpirit wrote:

This is a fallacy. People who believe tricks are real do own their own brains, and they often are intelligent. A claim does not have to be explicit. A demonstration can be very convincing. I do not claim to have written this post at all, and yet I expect you believe I wrote it.

If the performer intends to make people believe, and some people in the audience do believe, then the audience's level of discernment isn't relevant. The performer is responsible. It's that simple.

Worse, allowing some people to believe creates opposition to such performances. Read the March 12, 1973 article about Uri Geller in Time Magazine. He was called a magician. His popularity plummeted before that article was written, and today he's widely known as a fake and a fraud by many people.

DrSpirit wrote:

They do have some hope to do the same if they can read books about tricks. Otherwise, it's generally a false hope.

DrSpirit wrote:

Supplying false evidence wastes people's time and their future choices could be affected in ways that cannot be predicted. We owe people the truth as we know it, not to trick them into believing something that is false, even if the falsehood is only about ourselves.

DrSpirit wrote:

Again, beliefs should not be challenged with false evidence. Life is too short, and time too precious, to lead people in a direction using lies.

By the way, it's how a performer represents themselves off of the stage that is important to me. On the stage, they should act like whatever character they're playing.