Room for Creativity

I’m reminded of an old interest, mentalism. One thing I’ve never found it satisfying was the impurity in its performance. By that I mean mentalism through magic methods, as in gimmicks. So, the only form that I’ve found most satisfying is two-person telepathy. I even came up with a set of my own code, which I’m quite proud of. Anyways, I was watching Richard Osterlind’s DVDs on Corinda’s 13 Steps to Mentalism, and saw that he did tick-tack-toe in his two-person telepathy act. It was pretty cool. This made me want to think of interesting ways to get information to the other person, and the first thing that popped into my mind was an old transposition idea of mine where a signed coin would vanish from me and reappear across the room in Andrew’s hands. This involved me sticking the coin onto the spectator, and having him walk his own signed coin across the room where Andrew would steal it off of him and produce it. This developed into a transposing ring flight idea on stage later on. But now, I’m thinking of having someone write something on a imp pad, take the imp and stick it onto the inner should blade (away from the audience) and have him walk to Andrew, and Andrew just reads the thing off of his shoulder. I think that’s pretty funny and clever and fair. And to make it impressive, I will impress upon the audience that if they think we were using verbal code, this time we will not even speak.

I have always had an interest in mentalism. Not really the gimmick-y stuff, though; the psychological aspect of mentalism- the ability to know the unknown. I don’t perform any mentalism, at least not normally, because of the props that it requires. I see no point to book tests and such routines that need the spectators to physically choose something for them to think; because choosing something is implicit of magic and trickery techniques. When it comes down to it, why is it necessary to choose a word from a book first, why choose a color first, why do they need to choose or pick anything? Why can’t they just think of it? That’s why most mentalism routines lose my interest; of course, if the presentation and motivation makes sense and justifies the choosing, then there isn’t any problems. But, unfortunately, not a lot of mentalism routines satisfy my requirements. Which, by the way, is why I enjoyed Patrick Redford’s Prevaricator so much.

So, an old idea came across my mind a while ago, but didn’t leave much of an impression. Today, I realized it can be something quite neat to add as an additional phase to a Prevaricating routine. This idea, I’ve known for a while, long before my performing and conjuring days. It will basically allow the performer to identify which person has the coin by asking one question to one of the two participants. Yep, just one. I went to lunch with a friend today and we worked it out. It is error-proof and will work all of the time. More on this later.

Prevaricate (v.) – To be deliberately ambiguous or unclear in order to mislead or withhold information. (syn.) equivocate, tergiversate, palter, have two meanings.

I can’t say I’ve been up-to-date with the massive amount of products being pumped into mainstream magic these days, but I think I have enough exposure to know when I’ve come across something good. I have purchased a fair share of books and DVDs but, up until yesterday, there has not been anything that left me completely satisfied with the money I spent. However, now, I can say this- the value of Patrick Redford’s Prevaricator is worth it’s price, if not more; I’d easy say it’s worth giving up a limb for- thought I think the original cost of the manuscript, I think, was pretty close to a limb.

This is as close to real pure mentalism without gimmicks or aid of any sort besides your mind. Ironically, the method is not a trick or anything misleading. You are doing exactly what you’re doing, you are actually reading people; but without the hassle of logic games, complicated equivocates, etc. As Michael Weber stated, “[Patrick's] deep thinking on the Truth/Liar object location is of value to anyone who wants to grow from owning props to possessing power.”

One thing immediately coming to mind is secretly transferring information. In the case of this idea, the amount of possibilities is very limited, so to adjust a code to communicate the results will be massively easier. So, this effect can be done over the phone as well. Even though the possibilities are less, the probability of knowing whether or not someone is lying is also less. I think that makes up for it. Doesn’t it? Maybe, maybe not. Either way, this gimmick-less and prop-less concept is pretty beast.

That’s it for now. I’ll be back with more thoughts on this.