How to learn mentalism as a beginner and can it be done from reading books?
If you are new to learning all about mentalism and not sure where to begin, why not start by reading a few mentalism books designed for beginners.
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Mentalism books for beginners include the very popular Bob Cassidy’s PDF ebooks and MP3’s. This includes the Fundamentals of Professional Mentalism and Artful Mentalism and Artful Mentalism: Three Secrets. You should read as much as you can and buy as many books as you can afford. You’ll learn at least something from each book you read.
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Why learning is key to becoming the best mentalist
Before I list a few recommended mentalism books for beginners, I’d say read as much as you can. Go on YouTube and learn from some of the great videos there too. Plus if you really want to accelerate your learning to a whole new level, take this mentalism course ‘Master Mentalism‘.
Remember one important point, you can never over-learn. You can always learn more. Plus even if by reading one more mentalism book recommended in this article, or from watching one more YouTube video or booking yourself on a mentalism course, if you learn just one additional useful thing, it will be worth it.
To begin with, as you start learning mentalism, it’s about understanding some of the psychology behind the skill. It’s also about deciding what type of mentalist you want to become. Also, are you going to be a serious mentalist or a comedic mentalist?
More Reading: Master Mentalism Course review (Includes the features and the Pros & Cons)
Mentalism books for beginners
When you’re a beginner to any new subject, it’s always difficult to know where to begin. But a place that’s always a good to start with is by reading books on the subject.
If you’re looking for mentalism books for beginners, let’s take a look at a few that are suitable.
Let’s take a look at a few recommended mentalism books for beginners, starting with Bob Cassidy’s Fundamentals of Professional Mentalism.
Bob Cassidy’s Fundamentals of Professional Mentalism
Author: Bob Cassidy – American born mentalist, speaker and author. Bob Cassidy is one of America’s most accomplished mentalists. He has been a professional entertainer for more than 25 years. Bob Cassidy’s death on 24th February 2017 was a sad day for mentalists and magicians around the world.
About the book: This is a PDF ebook written by professional mentalist Bob Cassidy. Bob Cassidy himself said about this pdf ebook “I consider this my best and most favorite ebook I ever wrote“.
Bob Cassidy’s Fundamentals of Professional Mentalism is acclaimed as “a definitive resource for all who are interested in mentalism and probably for most in magic generally.” This book not only includes the fundamentals for beginners, but also Bob’s list of 39 most important books to read. This list of 39 books to read is hugely valuable, because you not only get a list of books but the reasons why each one of them is so important. Fundamentals of Professional Mentalism can be seen as Bob’s extracts of the most important concepts from these 39 books.
This book goes over a lot of the importance of working on your act, and as mentalism is all about controlling perspectives, this is the key thing for you to work on as a beginner mentalist or an up and coming mentalist.
Take a look at The Thirty-Nine Steps to Mentalism according to Bob Casidy too, plus find links to the ebook pdf’s of many of these 39 books ideally suited to beginner mentalists.
Here’s an extract of what’s include in this PDF ebook:
- The Psychology of Mentalism.
- Plausibility.
- The Path to Mastery.
- A Note on Rehearsal.
- Fundamental Structures.
- Common Misunderstandings.
- The Opening Effect Comes Second.
- Some Fundamental Principles.
- The Bulldog Deck and The Scary Movie Routine.
- A Fundamental Psychological Ploy.
- A Thought to Ponder.
- The Shuttled Newspaper Test.
- Get the Lead Out.
- Three Canisters and a Bill.
- An Essential Secret.
- Handling.
- An Introduction to the Interaction of Physical, Psychological and Presentational Principles in the Performance of Mentalism.
- “A Startling Thought Reading Effect”.
- An Interesting Fact.
- Commercially Available Effects and Gimmicks.
- Persona and Subscript – the Keys to Believability.
- The Thirty-Nine Steps.
- Some Thoughts on Performing.
Rated on Goodreads: Fundamentals of Professional Mentalism is rated 4.22 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.
Buy it now: You can buy this PDF ebook from Lybrary.com for $29 here – Fundamentals of Professional Mentalism
Bob Cassidy’s Artful Mentalism
Author: Bob Cassidy, featuring host Michael Weber.
About the book: This is both a PDF ebook together with an MP3. The most value comes from the MP3 actually, which is with Bob Cassidy giving a one-of-a-kind two hour teleseminar, which was hosted by his longtime student and friend Michael Weber.
In this two hours of pure Cassidy he answers questions and speaks about a number of crucially important points on mentalism. Some of the topics discussed in this teleseminar were:
- Persona: Selecting effects consistent with your persona; choosing a persona; credibility; the Dr. Crow persona.
- Rehearsing: How to practice mentalism.
- What is bad mentalism?
- Scripts versus Improvisation.
- Mentalism versus Mental Magic.
- Publicity stunts.
- Logical disconnect: The importance of preventing the possibility for spectators to back trace the method.
- Plus a lot more…
In this teleseminar Bob Cassidy also explained several of the points he wanted to make on concrete examples and effects he uses or used in his professional stage program. This included his Russian Roulette routine, which has also been performed by famous mentalist and star Derren Brown.
The PDF’s you receive with this seminar includes the pre-seminar lecture notes that everybody received before the seminar started. Plus the post-seminar PDF where Bob followed up on many questions submitted by listeners.
Buy it now: You can buy this PDF and MP3 seminar from Lybrary.com for $29.90 here – Artful Mentalism.
Boby Cassidy’s Artful Mentalism: Three Secrets
Author: Bob Cassidy – American born mentalist, speaker and author – the MP3 is hosted by Michael Weber once more.
About the book (and MP3): Like Artful Mentalism, this second version labelled ‘Three Secrets’ is also not just a PDF ebook,but also includes a powerful MP3 too.
With this 2 hour 20 minute MP3 you’ll receive two PDFs. The first PDF is the advance notes PDF and the second one is the post lecture PDF where Bob answers all the questions he could not address properly during the seminar, as well as a bonus routine.
The topics Bob and Michael cover are:
- A short recap of the last seminar (i.e. the one above) with the major points repeated.
- Whom do we seek to deceive?
- Peeks, Steals, Switches, Center tears, etc.
- Bristol board applications.
- A Pocket writing Subtlety.
- On Impromptu Mentalism.
- “The Vision” – a utility mind reading technique.
- The Third Method.
- The mixing of magic and mentalism.
- Distinction between object and prop.
- Meaning of test conditions.
- Script: written versus spoken English – how to get to a natural performance consistent with your persona.
- Issues with peeking.
- Recollections of Al Mann.
- How to get the attention of an inattentive audience?
- Bob relates two instances where he refused to do a show. And then explains how to get out of a show and how to not compromise your relationship with your client.
- How to get the wait staff on your side.
- When and when not to use a wallet.
- Bob describes his pocket writing device.
Buy it now: You can buy this PDF and MP3 seminar from Lybrary.com for $29.90 here – Artful Mentalism – Three Secrets.
More mentalism books for beginners
Other mentalism books for beginners have been covered in my previous article on mentalism books, which include the following books:
- This is 13 Steps to Mentalism – Corinda – Known as the bible for mentalists and mind readers ,
- Tricks of the Mind – Derren Brown – Derren Brown’s ‘Tricks of the Mind‘ takes the reader on a journey into the structure and psychology of magic.
- The James Bond Cold Reading – Julian Moore – Julian Moore and brings a modern slant to and old technique.
- What Every ‘BODY’ is Saying – Joe Navarro – He refers to his book as a way to ‘speed-read‘ people from an Ex-FBI’s perspective.
- The LIKE Switch – Jack Schafer and Marvin Karlins – This book has put skills together in a book filled with proven strategies on how to instantly read people.
- Practical Mental Magic – Theodore Annermann – The secrets are revealed behind nearly 200 astonishing feats of mental magic.
- The Artful Mentalism of Bob Cassidy Volume 2: Fundamentals – Bob Cassidy – use this book to perform incredible magic with skillful deception that will amaze your friends and family.
I hope you enjoyed this article about mentalism books for beginners
If you’d like to buy this course, please follow this link here: Master Mentalism Course – To learn mentalism in 30 days.
I’d love to hear from you. Tell us about your journey 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 mentalism books for beginners), 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!
If you’re keen to Master Mentalism – Take a look at this course here: Master Mentalism Course