Mental Magic | Instant download mentalism from S. J. Lea

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Mental magic is a genre of magical entertainment that can best be described as ‘sleight of mind' rather than sleight of hand. It is situated midway between mentalism and magic. How can we tell the difference? When are we performing magic and when it is mentalism?

From the audience's perspective, with mental magic, the ‘magical happening' occurs in the mind of the magician or performer. The mental magician has neither magic wand nor magic hat. Never does he, or she, present effects as displays of physical dexterity. Properly performed, no mental magic trick should be considered a clever feat of juggling (such as making a card move from the middle of a deck to the top, or vice-versa). |

How did you know that?

This is question that mentalists or mental magicians want to be asked. Not, how did you do that? Or worse still, how does that box/hat/envelope work?

The difference between mental magic and mentalism

Mentalism was originally done for real (magic too was presented as something real but this is older history). Séances, reaching the dead, paranormal activity, all of these were the domain of the mentalist. This explains why so many classical effects of mentalism still bear the name of ‘test' – the book test, the living and dead test. The word ‘billet' long forgotten now lives on the mentalist's world as the word for a small square of paper. Originally, billet referred to the French word billet-doux, a love letter. Mentalists would take such a letter, written perhaps to or from a soldier serving on the front line and, after ripping it to shreds (proving that the contents could not have been read) a message would be psychically ‘received'.

How did you know that?

Not, how did you manage to read the letter after it was torn to pieces.

Modern Mentalism

There are still performers today, using the tricks of the classical mentalist's trade, to dupe the public into believing the paranormal. A modern update has been a slew of next generation mental magicians using the same old tricks to ‘prove' the power of modern marvels, such as handwriting analysis (graphology) and therapeutic cures (NLP anyone?)

However, there have always been those performers who chose to present their mentalism as a debunking. Instead of saying “I have psychic powers, test them?” these performers say “They fake psychic powers, so can I!”

Fakirs, fakers and debunkers use the same original sources. What is common to all three is that there is some claim to reality.

I can really do it.

S/He says they can really do it.

Here's how it's really done.

Mentalism needs to be based on reality. Magic is based on fantasy.

If you are a magician then incorporating mentalism into your act will kill it. It is the kiss of death. The same goes for people wanting to learn a few tricks for their friends and family. Mental magic will work, not mentalism.

This doesn't mean that magicians can not become mentalists.

This doesn't mean that ordinary people can not become mentalists.

If you want to learn mental magic or mentalism then go to my Lybrary page or Lulu page.