Starting Suggestion

adsalamon

I've just starting reading into suggestion and I wondered how do I go and start doing it. It's all well and good reading it but how can I practise for the 1st time without letting them know what I'm trying to do. Do I just go up to someone and do it and fail looking silly.

Banachek

The best way to get into suggestions is to use them with fail proof effects.

For instance, use equivoque for a routine. However try to get them to choose the items you want by using your voice. If you hit it right of the bat, perfect, if not you still have an out.

As stated in psychological subtleties, usually one wants to use such techniques to make a fail proof effect stronger but not as just an effect in itself unless one is harvesting, something I will cover in the sequel to PS1.

Warlock and Anneman

mcdotty

Welcome sir, to Magic Bunny, the best!

I was lucky to have Peter Warlock as a mentor years ago, who in turn put me onto Theo. What, if any, is your opinion of these two purveyors of the mental art?

Banachek

I have the utmost respect for both their thinking and creativity styles. As we know, Anneman is required reading, so should Warlock be. Having not seen either perform I can't comment on performing styles. I am sure both were excellent in their chosen environments.

Trickery

DarkRaven

Hi Banachek. Warm welcome to Magic Bunny. Thanks for taking time off!

I am a magician myself, but I do not do so much of mentalism. As a magician, we're suppose to believe in what we do as magic, like we have to believe in magic ourselves before we can convince the audience that it is magic. And I've seen your interview on Unscrewed, and you kinda said one effect that you did is due to some sort of trickery. How come? Aren't mentalists very sensitive to the word tricks?

Hope you understood my question, and once again, thanks for your time!

Banachek

Most mentalists are sensitive to the word "tricks". I rarely use that word myself unless in the context of adding "tricks like a tightrope worker uses to stay on the rope or a trick like piano player might use to remember notes."

I think most mentalists do not like the work trick or magic because they fell it takes away the mystery. However, I tell my audiences that I use my five senses to create the illusion of sixth (Ned Rutledge credit), that I use psychology, verbal and non-verbal communication, MAGIC, and perceptual manipulation. That nothing I do is psychic! I will not tell them what I am using for any particular effect, it might be a combination or it might be just one of those five things and the reason being is because I do not want to ruin the mystery.

Too many mentalists (in my opinion) want to run away from their magical past. I think Derren Brown has recently done a wonderful job of merging the two and respecting his magical past.

As for the direction mentalism is going. I suspect more to the non-claiming of psychic abilities. In this day and age of instance news it is easy to find out if someone is B'Sing you when they claim to be psychic.

Men In Black?

daleshrimpton

I was watching a fascinating programme last night on the CIA, and Psychic spies. It was all covert, cloak and dagger conspiracy stuff, as per usual. I was wondering, have you ever had to stand in front of anyone and say, " well, look guys, I don't really do this, it's just a trick"?

Banachek

I don't like the word "trick" but I think I get what you mean.

Yes I have. Especially when I have given lectures to high schools. In fact, in high schools I used to give a lecture starting out with a small performance. I would then ask how many thought it was real, 98 percent or so would raise their hands. I would then turn to the other 3 or 4 people and ask them each why they did not. Their statements where such like: "My dad told me it was not real." Or "I read somewhere that psychic stuff is not real." I would then tell them they were right, it was not real. They would smile, but then I would hit them with: "You are right but for the wrong reasons." I would then steer the talk into a direction that at least the other people saw something they could not explain and I had given them a plausible explanation, however they were taking someone else's word as fact. I would then go into an area of "It is sometimes the smartest tactic to say 'I DON'T KNOW" that it was okay to say you did not know something, It does not mean you are stupid, if fact quite the opposite. To say "I don't know" means you are smart enough not to fall into traps of coming to a conclusion just to look smart. There is a big difference between looking smart and being smart. And we would go on to some interesting discussions of peer pressure and so on from there.

I always state in my stage show that I am not a psychic. I have at times gone as far as to state that it is MY BELIEF that if anyone gets up on stage and does what I do and claim they are psychic, they are either lying to you or lying to themselves.

I believe that some mentalist rely upon people believing in what they do as real in order to be able to get away with the trickery. Kind of like when someone comes to see a hypnotist they are often pretty much pre-hypnotized and ready to go.

Once I worked on stage with Geller, his apparent trickery looked obvious to me, yet all those in attendance were pretty much the converted and no matter what he did, they did not see what I did because they did not want to. This was amazing to me. Geller could have stood on stage, taken a spoon between his hands and bent it out in the open (it appeared pretty much that way to me anyway) and they would have ate it up.

This is what many mentalists rely upon. I think a good mentalist who knows his craft does not have to rely upon this. So I have no problem telling someone presenting it that way. It not quite how I do it but it can be done. For fun I have told people that I will be using a trick to bend a fork, which it will look real and they will try to convince me it is. I then have gone on to do just that and yes they did and have tried to convince me it has to be real. Of course after I told them that, I went into the presentational mode as I performed that it was real. They forgot the trickery statement or just did not want to believe that they could be fooled so badly. I am not exactly sure which but I have my suspicions.

Sorry for rambling.