People behave in a fixed manner. We have habits, and there are some common habits that are part of human nature. The responses we have towards a performer or magician is the same. Either we get bored, or we listen attentively. In this case, by persuasion, a mentalist can hold your attention and make you hear and watch him. This is an easy mentalism trick 101.



The fact of the matter is, if you know someone, you will know how he or she thinks. There is really no magic or telepathy in there, just plain common sense. Extra-sensory perception is out of the equation but yet, magicians will have you thinking that he or she can read your mind.

When you understand a normal person's behavior, you can anticipate his or her answers, actions and reactions to questions and situations or things that he or she sees. That is how it works, a pattern is formed. And this pattern keeps repeating itself. For example, if you are going to witness an accident, right at that crucial moment, you will either freeze or close your eyes. It does not matter who you are, the behavior is repeated for almost all individuals.

In the same way, the audiences or spectators in a show all think the same way and behave the same way. For someone to perform mentalism tricks in such a setting is easy. He or she sets the stage, decide the course of action and set of emotions or reactions to invoke so that he or she can then manipulate the outcome. Every step is done so meticulously that to the untrained eyes, it looks and feels like something supernatural.

To perform mentalism is an art. Magicians/mentalists are like artists but the skills behind each of these professions are different. To be successful as a mentalist, there are a few principles of stage magic you have to learn, not forgetting the act of creating an illusion of mind control and mind reading. Here are some principles that are often inseparable from such a performance or stage act.

1. Presentation

Presentation or what people call stage presence is important. You need to learn how to captivate the attention of your audience so that they are not distracted by the surroundings. You need them to only focus on the object or hand movement that you want them to see.

2. Persuasion

Persuasion is another powerful principle. The act itself is to convince the audience to follow what you say and what you do, making them trust you as a person. Observe the way magicians talk to their audiences and answer questions. They are always ready to add humor to it so that their audiences will let their guards down and not be on high alert.

3. Throwing a Smoke Screen

By this, we are talking about misguiding or misdirecting your audiences to something which is in fact a smoke screen. While the act is in play, you are actually doing something else in the background under concealment. But you will not want the folks to spot it. They are often misled by the performer to give their 100% attention to the smoke screen.

4. Add Entertainment Value

Some tricks can look gory such as chain-sawing or even body piercing. But you will realize that the shows are never without funny, interesting acts like starting with card tricks or simple magic tricks. These are important to warm up your spectators.

You see, learning how to perform mentalism is both an art as well as science. If you are just beginning, it is important to pick up a few useful guides to learn the tricks of the trade.