Funsway

What I will try and do with my mentalism is open people's eyes as to abilities they already have, and to promote the courage to use them them to help others

On Dec 5, 2014, Robb wrote:
Funsway, you do have a point and I understand what you are saying. At the same time, Bob was right with his initial statement. Even without knowing the effects, if someone has to ask if they are "pure mentalism", then you must assume they are not. Not because of the effects, but because to perform "pure mentalism", you would have to know what that is! So the question is in a way self-answering. It's like someone playing a jazz song vs. a folk song and asking whether or not it's jazz. Well, no, because if you don't know what jazz is you can't play it!

...As a performing art, modern mentalism evolved during the period spanning the latter half of the nineteenth century through the early years of the twentieth. It was a theatrical response to the public’s fascination with Spiritualism, Theosophy, hypnotism and early psychical research.

The word “mentalism” originally referred to a monist philosophy that held reality itself to be a mental phenomenon. For our purposes, though, it shall be defined as a performing art in which the mentalist entertainingly demonstrates mystifying “powers of the mind.”

Unlike most magical effects, the illusion of mentalism is not primarily visual. (The exceptions, of course, are “mind over matter” effects such as bending or moving small objects by apparent psychokinesis, etc.) While visual aids are often employed - i.e. the performer exhibits a book from which a word is selected, or a spectator draws a picture which the mentalist attempts to duplicate – the actual illusion takes place in the viewer’s mind.

Imagine, for example, that you are vacationing abroad and see a mentalist on television. Imagine that he is speaking a language completely unfamiliar to you. It is likely that you will have no idea what he is doing - he could be a game show host for all you know.

If you were watching a magician, however, you would quickly recognize that he was performing magic and would probably understand what he was doing regardless of the language barrier.
But in mentalism, the illusion itself cannot be created without effective verbal communication and misdirection.

Mentalism, to be effective, must appear to be an actual demonstration of some unusual ability. Its plausibility is inversely proportional to the number of abilities claimed. In other words, the more unusual abilities you claim and demonstrate, the less believable you will be. Before you can begin to select effects and develop a presentation you must first create a plausible subscript – a detailed description of your stage persona’s powers, how he got them, how they seem to work, and what his limitations are.

On Dec 5, 2014, funsway wrote:
Martin, Iain is probably right. This is not the forum for expanding on that these thoughts -- an least not today.

Happy to chat with you on at gusarimagic@comcast.net -- and perhaps start another thread. I'll let you decide if it is worth the effort.

When I queried as to whether or not pendulum work should be classified as Mentalism I got no responses. Check out my earlier posting on Smoke Pendulum.

I am content with Bob's decision that I am not a Mentalist because I don't do things for entertainment. I just want to know how to respond when observers call me a mentalist.

On Dec 5, 2014, Martin Pulman wrote:
Funsway,

You made your statement on this forum; I asked you a question about your statement on this forum; you've chosen not to answer on this forum. I'm not really interested in private emailing or receiving items. Just interested in discussing mentalism on a mentalism forum. If you only wish to discuss mentalism on your own terms and only through private emails, I'll leave you to it.

On Dec 5, 2014, Robb wrote:
Funsway, you do have a point and I understand what you are saying. At the same time, Bob was right with his initial statement. Even without knowing the effects, if someone has to ask if they are "pure mentalism", then you must assume they are not. Not because of the effects, but because to perform "pure mentalism", you would have to know what that is! So the question is in a way self-answering. It's like someone playing a jazz song vs. a folk song and asking whether or not it's jazz. Well, no, because if you don't know what jazz is you can't play it!

See what I mean? I'll agree Bob got a little cantankerous there will his responses, but whatever. I think we can walk a line between being condescending or patronizing. If that's how Bob would respond to this guy "in the real world", then it's just who Bob is and he has earned the right to be who he is and many people love him for it.