ok so i have a few questions that i have been trying to figure out on my own but idk i think some input would be nice.
first off ive been looking into cold reading and i understand some aspects of it however i dont quite understand others lol i dont know how much about it i can really say here so if anybody knows who would be good to talk to about it that would help
secondly whats the deal with nlp? is it great? ok just iffy or not good enough to really bother getting into?
thirdly is geist any good? (yes i have sleight of mind)
anyway any answers or help would be greatly appreciated!

1) Cold reading:
Do you only have 13 steps and you looked in the Q&A sections? Sometimes people are set off track by thinking it's pure cold reading, but in fact it's some sort of effect where you have people write stuff (or not) and you awnser their questions without looking at the paper.

The best place to start cold reading is probably get a cheap book on any kind of divinatory system such as palmistry, my favorite divinatory system is probably the one called as Psychometry, my best reccomendation to learn it would be this Quick and Effective cold reading by Richard Webster availiable there: http://www.deceptionary.com/webster.html#pendulum

Now by learning this you will get a more in depth idea of how cold reading works, your next purchase would be Ian Rowlands full facts book of cold reading : http://www.ianrowland.com/ItemsToBuy/Co ... Main1.html

Much of cold reading is simply saying things that can involve a lot of things but making them look specific as you talk, there are other methods but I let you discover for yourself.

2) NLP

NLP stands for Not Likely Possible, this stuff is used for therapic work or people who want's to use it as a presentation for their effects, don't think you can make mentalism effects with NLP. Derren Brown use trickery too but he use NLP and crap for his presentations.

So NLP is BS for mentalism.

3) Geist

I didn't liked Geist, nothing compared to SOM, the effects are mathematical, and some effects doesn't applies for the style of performer that I am, I give it a 4/10...


A thing that I noticed, you seemed to go for methods which seems propless and clean, as you start off you should use methods which use pure trickery, make them show as the real stuff.

Keep it simple, my act is full of simple stuff and I use the magician force, yet it baffles everyone, IMO cold reading is cool if you are a psychic and you do readings, other than that... You migth look foolish on stage saying stuff that people doesn't link to.

IMO of course.
Max.

alright so i take it nlp is not as great as it seems and i was probably gunna use cold reading and whatnot on a 1 to 1 sort of setting o and another thing (yea i know i ask alot) but what are some good books for body language reading? cause as ive read through sleight of mind i really enjoyed the section of body language and such it just really seems to fit who i am lol. o and one MORE thing lol, if i wanted to try and convince somebody of something whats a good method of it? and i mean like making somebody think coca-cola is like lemonade or something

and yea so far you have helped out a ton blitz or max...or whichever you perfer

I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but check out Taste Conditions by Morgan Strebler. The method is pretty ingenious, and it makes water turn into mouth-wash... in THEIR mouth.

lol i hadnt heard of that lol but i ment more like a purely psycological effect rather then something else idk i have a goal in mind though is to kinda be able to get away with doing things through kinda messing with their head in a way lol i really would like to find a way to do this even if it is a bit far fetched lol

Some cool routines that use reading body language as the methods are

Imagine by Rick Maue
http://www.penguinmagic.com/specialorde ... hp?ID=9335


Prevaricator by Patrick Redford
http://www.ronjo.com/magic/bkprevaricator.html

Well there are books aimed to psychologist or open public that teach face reading, body reading etc. But again reading people movements are just part of the presentation process, however some effects do work with body language or psychophysiological phenomenon shuch as Muscle Reading.

It's use for readings is quite limited actually. I would reccomend you Quick and effective cold reading to begin doing readings.

But the best thing and I say it with a lot of affirmation, would be to buy 13 steps to mentalism and then move from there, you will learn a ton on that book, you will be able to make your own effects and whatever.

Cold reading, Muscle reading, Pre-show etc. All require a mastery on stage, you need to start small play big and then move onto more complicated stuff, mentalism is like card magic, you have to learn the basics and move onto harder stuff.

Hope this helps.
Max.

i already have 13 steps and have read through the parts that seem to intrest me, but just wondering what exactly do you mean by presentation purposes? and billets just kinda add a layer of there is somethin fishy goin on even though i have kinda made my own billet trick, and cards is the same thing unless u do some of the later effects that are shown in the devils picturebook and whatnot. but i just feel like body language could be an interesting feild to look at same with cold reading. but id wanna present it as o hey didnt this happen to u at one point to random people

and ya this is all helping

Again, these are based on reading body language. If you are interested in reading body language to produce an extremely clean effect, then pick these two up.

Read my essays:
http://www.penguinmagic.com/discuss/vie ... p?t=147319

http://www.penguinmagic.com/discuss/vie ... p?t=147936

The problem is, you are not a television mentalist, you need to understand that those effects requiring psychological techniques FAIL sometimes, and if you doesn't have OUTS you will look nothing but a fool on stage, on camera you can do edits and cuts if something doesn't work.

You can do much more than you think with a billet, props are not fishy unless you know how to use words and entertain your audiences, I have used pre-show before and I used force bags too, I can tell you that much of the time the audience prefers the routine with the force bag.

You can't be like Derren Brown in a year, let alone 10 years, stop looking for propless effects that use techniques which is nothing but complete BS. There are incredible routines out there using trickery, it's yours to make them or to create them.

Max.

fair enough fair enough and yea i do realize that you can get killer effects with props and whatnot and yea i know from experance that propless stuff has a tendency to fail alot but this all started out because of the effect in the devils picture book in which you have the spectator deal out a deck of cards thats imaginary and you end up predicting what their card is just due to what they do, and i wanted to try and find a way to increase how often i could get it to work because when it works it kills, and then some psycological forces and whatnot that i wanted to try and ,yet again, get them to work more often. and cold reading i just thought would be an interesting thing to learn and whatnot. but yes you are totally right that i should start off smaller and work up to less proppy more technical stuff. one other thing that id kinda like to add is that im more used to a close up setting and havent really done stage magic though i would like to try it out for a change of pace.

so do you think that cold reading is a bad thing to learn? or would it be ok if i was gunna use it for a less stage like and more 1 to 1 styled performance?

and yes i will try out some other effects that use notecards and whatnot because its kinda but not quiet proppy. i just feel akward at the end of a billet effect when im left with a billet and im like uuhhh what do i do with this now lol

srry for the long response but hey its a learning experence

Well very few try cold reading on stage, I know only a tad of performers which do propless Q&A's and cold seances, much of the time the performers get information from people during the pre-show work, with asistants etc. So they can be more precise with their readings, very very few do it completly cold.

I feel the same way than you about billets, however you need to work on a FEW routines that you are going to use for a long time, work hard on them to let nothing for chance, work on each points and on it's script, try to eliminate the weak spots etc.

Hope this helps.
Max

aight maybe i should just cary a lighter on me n burn the evedence lol but yea thanks a ton. o how acurate can u get completly cold?

lol so i was trying out some stuff and hot reading i think could be fun too... but its just how to get the info....i wonder if i could do some hustle ish effects through mentalism....odd idea

I did some cold reading for memebers of Penguin forum on MSN you can ask a memeber called clarissa35f I did a lot with her.

Max.