One of the basics to study and learn with mentalism is mentalism psychology
So you want to learn the basics of mentalism? You want to read minds? You want to have access to a sixth sense?
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If you want to learn mentalism, one of the basics to study is mentalism psychology. To become a mentalist, you need to have the ability to use your five senses to create the illusion of a sixth sense. You need to hone your skill of reading body language, to create the illusion you can read minds. You need to learn how to influence people with hypnotism and embedded suggestion.
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Is mentalist a real thing?
Is a mentalist a ‘real thing?’ Apart from the hit American TV series ‘The Mentalist‘ mentalists are real. Mentalists do actually exist. Plus, you too can learn how to become a mentalist.
The best definition of a mentalist that I’ve heard came from Lior Suchard when he appeared on The Late Night Show with James Corden.
A mentalist is: Someone who uses my five senses to create the experience of a sixth senses. I use lots of techniques from psychology to body language reading to influencing to doing interesting experiments.”
dLior Suchard on James Corden’s Late Night Show in America
Mentalist Lior Suchard describes a mentalist as someone who uses their five senses to create the experience of a sixth sense. Or how I would explain it; a mentalist uses their five senses to create the illusion of a sixth sense.’
The common and well known sixth sense illusion of a mentalist is the ability to read minds. But mentalists don’t actual read minds. Instead they use various forms of mentalism psychology to create the illusion of ‘mind reading‘.
More Reading: How much is Lior Suchard worth? (Mentalist Lior Suchard net worth)
How can I be a mentalist?
If you’ve asked the question ‘How can I be a mentalist?’ You need to start somewhere.
Firstly and foremost, you have to believe in yourself. So there’s plenty of psychology in becoming a mentalist. Which is not just about learning the art of mentalism psychology, it’s also about having the confidence in yourself.
It’s partly about the psychology of self confidence.
It’s about having self-belief. To be a mentalist you need to have confidence, lots of confidence! As you’ll be performing in front of others, which could land you on stage in front of hundreds, if not thousands of people.
More Reading: Master Mentalism Course review (Includes the features and the Pros & Cons)
How you become a mentalist includes the following:
- Being able to make a snap judgement about the person on front of you.
- Having a keen ability to read body language.
- Being able to trust your judgement and to believe in what you pickup in body language from your ‘target‘. Your ‘target’ is the person you chose as the one you are going to ‘read‘.
- Having the ability to spot physical cues in others, which is about honing your ability to read subtle cues people give off in their body language.
- Try using your friends or family members first as guinea pigs to learn the art of body language reading, which is what will be interpreted as mind reading or a sixth sense.
- Learn the art of detecting lies, or truths.
- Learning how to ask leading questions. In other words, ask questions that will lead your ‘target’ to give off body language cues or to say things that lead to the answer. But without them knowing or picking up on what you are doing.
How does the mentalist do it?
As already discussed, a mentalist uses their five senses and learns the art of understanding psychology.
How a mentalist does it is double sided, as follows:
The two sides of mentalism psychology include learning to read others and learning to influence others. Let me explain further.
Learning to read others
Learning to read others is what has already been explained, which is mostly about reading body language. To begin with you are probably best to start by reading books on the art of reading body language.
There’s also a very good course on the subject of mind reading, which is the Revelation Effect. When people experience the revelation effect, they are blown away at how it looks like you’re actually reading minds.
Learning to influence others
What I mean by ‘influencing others‘ is to affect what the person thinks by using ‘mind-control.’
Mind control can be achieved in essentially two ways.
The first is through hypnotism, which is an excellent skill to learn as an up and coming mentalist. The second of these skills is using ‘embedded suggestion‘.
Derren Brown demonstrates the mentalism skill of embedded suggestion with Simon Pegg in the video below. Embedded suggestion is a very powerful tool to possess.
It looks like you’ve read your ‘subject’s’ mind, when in fact you’ve planted the idea in their mind in the first place. Which in the case of Simon Pegg was what he wanted for his birthday.
Or in this case what Derren Brown chose for him by embedding the suggestion in his subconscious.
Embedded suggestion psychology – Derren Brown with Simon Pegg
As you will have seen from this great video with mentalist master Derren Brown, to be able to embed suggestions is a very powerful skill to learn.
Can a mentalist really read minds?
Many question ‘can a mentalist can actually read minds‘ is asked by many, and not just by those who want to learn mentalism.
A good mentalist will have his whole audience questioning whether a person can actually read minds. Learn this one skill and you’ll amaze your audience.
Can mentalists read your mind?
Hopefully by now you’ll realise from what I’ve already explained so far, mentalists can’t read minds.
Can anyone read minds?
No they can’t, but mentalists create the illusion that they can by using their five senses to create the implied ability of a sixth sense.
Mentalists carefully use their ‘honed’ five senses to create the illusion of mind reading or a sixth sense.
Mentalists are in the business of creating the ‘illusion’ that they can read minds. This involves trickery, which is not magic, but deceptive psychological at its best.
Mentalists engage in similar techniques as those who claim to have psychic powers.
No one actually has psychic powers, but instead psychics use the psychology of reading body language, the power of using influence over their subjects, or they engage in the use of Barnum Statements or the Barnum Effect.
Derren Brown is very well versed in creating the illusion of his psychic powers.
Can anyone read minds?
Having said what I’ve already said about anyone reading minds, you could argue that mentalists can read minds. This may seen to contradict what I’ve already explained so far, but let me explain further what I mean by this.
If you argue that a person’s body language is reflective of what they are ‘thinking’. And if a person behaves in such a way as to give-off certain cues to what they are thinking. For example, most people behave quite differently when they are either lying vs telling the truth.
So in a way you could argue that a good body language reader, or someone who is better in tune with this sense, is actually reading the person’s mind through what they are saying with their body.
Just another perspective on mind reading. However, what I am not saying is that a mentalist, or anyone else for that matter, are actually reading a person’s mind. There’s not some kind of telekinesis going on.
The person who’s creating the illusion of mind reading, they are doing so in very subtle way.
You want to learn mentalism – what to take from this
The most important point to take from this if you’re looking to learn mentalism, is that with the right training and with the right amount of practice, you too can learn how to read minds.
When you learn mentalism, you’ll be able to develop this skill. Noting that we are all born with the skill of reading body language.
In fact a large part of communication between one person and another is through body language. But we are not totally in-tune with what we are reading.
When you get that feeling you don’t like someone, or if you have that gut-feel about someone, this is most likely you are picking up on some form body language communication.
Can you hear a person’s thoughts?
I wanted to clear this up, as some will be asking ‘can you hear a person’s thoughts,’ especially after my last few comments about mind reading.
No you can’t! You can’t hear someones thoughts, as this would be a sixth sense. All you are doing, and the skill you can learn as you learn mentalism, is to develop your body language reading skill, which is totally different to reading someones thoughts.
How do you read psychology of a person?
If you are asking ‘How can I be good at reading people?’ then according to FBI Agent LaRae Quy there are 9 secrets to reading people.
These nine secrets include beginning by creating a baseline. What someone might naturally do may indicate one thing, but with anther person something totally different.
For example, they may clear their throat, or they may look at the floor while talking. They may scratch their head, touch their ears or nose, stroke their neck, squint, pout, or be fidgety. Some of these quirks may just be mannerisms, whereas others may be indicative of what they are thinking.
This is where understanding body language truly comes in to play.
Once you’ve created your base line, you now need to look for deviations from this baseline. Notice if the person who regularly clears their throat, does this more frequently, or less frequently. This could indicate deception.
For more on this this subject, please take a read of this article written on inc.com by Justin Bariso. For example, use the ‘looking into the mirror’ technique:
Mirror neurons are built-in monitors in our brain that reflect other people’s state of mind. We are wired to read one another’s body language. A smile activates the smile muscles in our own faces, while a frown activates our frown muscles.
When we see someone we like, our eyebrows arch, facial muscles relax, head tilts, and blood flows to our lips making them full.
If your partner doesn’t reciprocate that behavior, this person could be sending you a clear message: He or she doesn’t like you or aren’t happy with something you’ve done.
Inc.com – An FBI Agent Shares 9 Secrets to Reading People by Justin Bariso
How can I be a mentalist?
If you want to learn mentalism you also have the option of a Master Mentalism Course.
In a mentalism course like this, you will learn the following skills:
- Mind reading
- Hypnotism.
- Levitation.
- Remote viewing (ESP or telepathy).
- Card tricks.
- Spoon bending and illusions.
In this mentalism course, you will learn enough to do mentalism and magic at parties or weddings or to even become the next stage performing mentalist or magician.
Who is the best mentalist?
Who the best mentalist is can be debated at length. Having a list of top mentalists will give you a good benchmark to aim for.
It will hopefully inspire you as you learn mentalism, but also you will be able learn from these great and famous mentalists.
Top 5 Mentalists
- 1. Derren Brown – English born Mentalist, Derren Brown is the master of mind control. Derren Brown ranks well among the top mentalists in the world. A mentalist to learn from and to look up to.
- 2. Uri Geller – One of the most famous mentalists of all time. Known for his spoon bending and so-called supernatural abilities.
- 3. Banachek – Banachek has grown to become one of the famous top mentalists of all time. Known for inventing a few tricks, which includes the famous Penn and teller bullet catching trick.
- 4. Preveen Pandita – India is known for its mentalists, especially Kerala. Kerala is where mentalist Nipin Niravath is from. But another famous mentalist from India is Preveen Pandita. Nipin Niravath introduces himself as a mentalist and mind reader.
- 5. Morgan & West – Rhys Morgan and Robert West are more recent famous mentalists after appearing on Penn & Teller’s Fool Us show. Known for winning a trip to Las Vegas for fooling Penn & Teller with their time-travelling mentalism tricks.
If you would like to learn how to do amazing mentalist tricks that will make your friend’s jaw drop, look at the Master Mentalism course.
Master Mentalism is an in-depth course that will show you the secrets behind most of the popular mentalist magic tricks there are.
In just a short time after learning from Master Mentalism you will know exactly how mentalists do what they do!
For a ridiculously small investment on your part you will be learning some fantastic mentalism and magic skills. These skills will not only make you the life of a party, but they will set you on your way to become the next famous mentalist!
I hope you enjoyed this article about I want to learn mentalism
I’d love to hear from you. Tell us about your journey to master mentalism to become a performing mentalist or magician (or both). Please comment below. Please also share your experiences, both good and bad!
If this article hasn’t answered all of your questions. If you have more questions either about mentalism or magic, I will try to answer them (or specifically about I want to learn mentalism), please comment below with your questions.
There will also be many more articles about mentalism for you to read and learn about this fantastic skill.
Have fun and enjoy your journey into learning how to become a mentalist!
I knew a person ( he is no more) who will ask to meet with you one an one without others present. He will tell you what you are thinking etc. I suspected some thing like this, but could not get the details. I refused to meet without him in isolation. One day he told me, join me, we can conquer the world. he became a powerful man and had cheated many on his way. Thanks for unmasking the behind the scenes.