How Do Mentalists Work - Magic Mentalism

Ever wondered how someone knows the exact word you’re thinking?

How do they suddenly know the number you chose just by asking you questions?

These performers are called mentalists.

They perform mind-blowing acts through several methods — including sleight of hand, power of suggestion, and cold reading.

But how do mentalists work?

We can only know by diving into the world of mentalism.

And this is exactly what we’re going to do here.

So let’s begin!

The Art of Mentalism

Before you confuse them, know that mentalists are not magicians.

Sure, they do things the normal person perceives as magic, but their techniques and tricks are very different.

For one thing, magicians focus on disappearing or appearing tricks. Mentalists, however, use tricks that are focused on the mind.

In other words, illusion is for the magician and misdirection is for mentalists.

Therefore, mentalism is a form of performing art involving mind tricks using human predictability, suggestion, misdirection, and body language.

So no, it isn’t magic at all.

A Brief History of Mentalism

The earliest recorded time of mentalists was during the 1500s. A guy named Girolamo Scotto showed sleight-of-hand tricks that made the crowds think it was some sort of magic.

However, it was only in the 1800s that mentalism got popular.

During this period, John Randall Brown performed a mind-reading trick. Like those in the 1500s, people believe that Brown was really reading minds.

He wasn’t.

Many years later, people found out that he used ‘mentalism’.

Nowadays, mentalism is done by various types of performers – magicians, psychic entertainers, and mentalists themselves.

Techniques Used by Mentalists

While it feels like a bummer that no magic is involved, mentalism is full of interesting techniques.

Here are some of the top ones used by mentalists:

Suggestion
Misdirection
Body language
Cold reading

Let’s look into these.

Suggestion

The suggestion technique works by introducing words, concepts, and mental images to the brain. In turn, this leads people to think about what the mentalist wants them to think.

Mentalists have many ways of doing this — it can be through asking leading questions or creating a story. Whatever the case, they always make you feel that you came up with those ideas yourself.

Misdirection

You’ve heard of this word a few times above — so what does it mean?

Misdirection, based on its definition, means that you lead someone in the wrong way.

For mentalists, they make the audience distracted by something (mostly in a different direction) while they’re doing something else.

For example, you predict a number that someone thought of and pretend to write it down. When they say the number out loud, you do something to distract them from noticing you writing down the number.

Since you already know the number, your prediction will be right all the time.

This is misdirection.

Body Language

Actions speak louder than words they say, and this holds true for mentalists.

Mentalists are trained to make guesses based on your body language – your gestures, your facial expressions, and your movement.

Cold Reading

Then, you have cold reading.

Mentalists use this technique to give the illusion of mind-reading.

What mentalists do is they give general statements that may apply to a lot of people. An example would be saying something like “I get the sense that you’re someone who has a very strong intuition. You sense things before they even happen.”

A lot of people can relate to that.

But in a mentalism performance, it will feel like the mentalist is singling you out and reading your mind to get personal information about you.

3 Mentalism Tricks For Beginners

So you want to become a mentalist?

Then here’s a great way to begin — you can practice these 3 super simple mentalistm tricks.

And when you’ve perfected them, you can amaze your family and friends.

From there, you can see if you really want to dive deeper into the world of being a mentalist.

Let’s show you the tricks!

Red Hammer Trick

The Red Hammer trick uses the suggestion technique.

Here’s how to do it:

Start by making a prediction and writing it on paper. You’ll write ‘Red Hammer’ on it.

Throw random questions at a rapid pace. These questions should suggest the color red and a hammer. You can use questions such as:
1. “What’s your favorite Christmas meal?”
2. “Which actor played Thor?”
3. “When is Valentine’s Day?”
4. “What color is Santa?”

After a while, ask the final question, “Can you think of a color and a tool?”

80% of people will say ‘Red Hammer’ since the color and tool are already implemented in their minds.

Show your prediction and leave your friends and family in shock.

Now, keep in mind that this won’t always work. As we said, 80% of people will be drawn by the power of suggestion.

Gray Elephant from Denmark

Now this trick uses a little bit of math.

But don’t worry, you won’t be needing any calculations for this. Just follow the instructions carefully and it should go smoothie.

Here’s how it goes:

Ask your friend to think of a number between 1 and 10. Tell them not to never say anything out loud.

Ask them to multiply their number by 9.

Then ask them to add the two digits of the multiplied answer.

Let them subtract 5 from the sum of those two digits.

Tell them to find the letter corresponding to the number they got in alphabet order (for example, 1 = A, 2 = B, 3 = C, 4 = D, etc).

Ask them to think of a country that starts with that letter. Again, tell them not to tell you the country.

Next, make them take the second letter of the country and think of an animal that starts with that letter.

Make them think about the color of the animal they’re thinking of.

Finally, reveal to them that they’re thinking about a gray elephant in Denmark.

How does this work?

The mathematical trick here is that whatever number they first thought about, the answer to Step 5 will always be 4.

And since 4 = D.

What is the country that they’ll most likely think of that starts with D? Denmark!

Likewise, the elephant is the easiest animal to remember that starts with the letter E.

And of course, elephants are gray.

So there you have it!

Rainbow Ruse

Our last trick uses cold reading as its main technique.

Here’s how it’s done:

Tell someone that you can give an accurate description of who they are.

Then proceed to give two vague statements (you can be less vague the more you get used to doing the cold reading). These statements should be about two characteristics that are opposite from each other. For example, say, “You are a spontaneous person, but you also want to feel that there are plans.”

And while one of the two statements may be false, the person will think that you are reading them and they might believe that you already know who they are.

Wrapping Things Up

How do mentalists work?

It isn’t any kind of magic.

Instead, it is the use of many techniques, such as suggestion, misdirection, body language, and cold reading.

And if that is something that you want to get into, then try out the 3 mentalism tricks for beginners.

Go on, try them out, and see how your friends react!