Mentalism’s Biggest Challenge…

Mentalism is huge right now, unfortunately most mentalism isn’t huge. That’s the biggest challenge with mentalism, isn’t making it interesting. The biggest challenge is making it play big!


I think that’s why there are certain plots that are popular, like a chair test. A chair test uses 4 people, large props and can easily be seen from a distance. Where something like a lottery prediction is good if you have video projection, it won’t play nearly as well without projection.


Doing things like having someone roll a die is very small, and even if you use a two foot die, most of the audience cannot see the top side. Having something like a word picked from a magazine is small. This is why I think most mentalism is basically a close up trick that is performed for one person while a group watches. Where with a magic trick like the egg bag, we still see it happen, the part that the person does on stage is fairly “mechanical”. Even a card trick, we all know the card if they show it to the audience. But remembering a word, that’s something only one person knows.


I’ve been working on a trick that’s normally a close up trick, but trying to make it play big. I think I’m onto something….more later…