Mentalism and the Misses…

One of the things that armchair mentalists say is that having “misses” in your show makes what you do feel real. I get what they are going for, however I’m not sure if they mean complete misses, or close enough to kinda be a hit on a technicality misses. Here’s the example people use to … Continue reading “Mentalism and the Misses…”

One of the things that armchair mentalists say is that having “misses” in your show makes what you do feel real. I get what they are going for, however I’m not sure if they mean complete misses, or close enough to kinda be a hit on a technicality misses.


Here’s the example people use to describe why it you need misses. Let’s say you go see on of the TV mediums who talk to dead people’s spirits. They throw out stuff all the time and that doesn’t land. However if they did a full program without only a couple of hits, I think you’d probably never buy a ticket to see them again. Also they are doing a different type of show than a mentalist show and the audience expectation is very different.


Back to a mentalism show. If you miss the word someone is thinking of completely it’s a loss for your show. Typically this happens when your method for the trick fails, like you don’t get a good peek at the word. This is bad.


A good miss that, while still a miss, but is a hit goes like this. They are thinking of the word and the word is “submarine”. You ask them to visualize the word. You say, “There’s a “U” in it? Great. Is there an “A” in it?” You continue, “visualize not the letters, but what you are thinking of, like in a scene from a movie…” You then write down and reveal the word Underwater, which is wrong. However you can then show that essentially they mean the same thing. The word sub means below, and the marine means water, or however you want to connect the two. this is a good hit, because you’ve planned it out and it’s not really a miss.


TLDR: Script your misses, so they aren’t really misses.

Go With The Flow

Recently I was performing a close up gig for a bunch of teenagers and a great group. When I finished they thought I as the best magician in the world (I’m not). What made me 200% more amazing than I normally am was that I wasn’t afraid to go off script. This was one of … Continue reading “Go With The Flow”

Recently I was performing a close up gig for a bunch of teenagers and a great group. When I finished they thought I as the best magician in the world (I’m not). What made me 200% more amazing than I normally am was that I wasn’t afraid to go off script.


This was one of the shows where everything that could go right, did! What I mean by that, is I do a “coin under watch” routine. I load the coin really early in the routine. It’s risky, as it has a lot of time to be discovered or fall out. Well, about halfway through the trick one of the kids says, “make it appear under his watch” and points to the guy who I had the loaded watch.


A miracle was about to happen.


When things like this pop up, I can’t get excited and immediately make it happen. I need to make it look difficult for me to do. I laughed it off telling the kid that it would be amazing, but I’m not that good. Got slightly deeper into the routine, and then made it appear under the guys watch. The kids when crazy!


The entire set I did for these kids, they would request things to happen that I already had set up. To them it must have felt like I could do anything, to me it felt like the audience was psychic!