Hi,

I got a show coming up and I'm angling it as a sort of mentalist-style show for the first time. I'll be doing things like the Invisible Deck, the Tossed-Out Deck, Second Sight, and of course the Invisible Touch.

The show is a busker-style performance at a festival where I'll have an area to draw a crowd of those who desire to watch.

I was wondering what other tricks would fit with things like this as part of the same routine and:

Does anyone have any unusual or creative ways of presenting the Invisible Touch (A.K.A. the PK Touch)? Do you have a good story to go with it? Do you have any subtleties to make it that much better? All your help would be greatly appreciated, thanks a lot!

Dillweed, you wrote:


ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR COTTON PICKING MIND!!! Do yourself a favour, QUIT NOW, do not do this show. What you are asking is "how do I do mentalism>" A good mentalist act is rehearsed and rehearsed until you can not make a mistake. You have to know what to do if your subject lies to you about something. Yes it can happen even with the invisable deck. I had a woman tell me she picked the queen of hearts one time with a svengali deck when the deck was set up for the eight of clubs.

Look, you elitist Edited wad. No need to get all hot and bothered over something I didn't even suggest. I have my own routines for the tricks and have them rehearsed perfectly. I offered up this question to see if other people have a different take than I do, to maybe see some takes on it that I haven't already considered. Thanks for not-addressing the topic AT ALL but instead telling me to quit.

I must be doing something right if I get paying gig after paying gig so I don't really care what you say regarding that matter. I have people lie to me/try to trip me up all the time and I'm 100% prepared for it.

The Invisible Touch is such a versatile routine it can be angled many different ways, I was looking to get a well-rounded view on it and maybe add to my performance. You haven't helped at all and on top of it, you're an annoying, angry, elitist loser that sounds like a bi-polar 8-year-old with a superiority complex. I think it'd be a good idea if you just shut your e-mouth.

Thanks for not helping in the slightest and over-reacting to your misunderstanding of my aim, which was due to your poor reading comprehension.

Thank you for your own over reactions. You just proved my point. As to being accused of being an "elitist." Yes, I am. I believe that magic should be performed, not just doing tricks. Dogs and hookers do tricks.

As to the other screaming that you are doing, I speak and understand 8 languages with English being one of my cradle languages so I can interept what you wrote. I will agree that you may not have expressed your thoughts in a correct manner to get across the idea in your 2nd post. However, your first posts screams exactly what I wrote about. That you are inexperienced in mentalism but are going ahead with a show anyway.

Perhaps you can rewrite the question to express what you really meant to convey. Sorry if I misunderstood Mr [edited]....er dillwad....er dillweed.

Actually your point was that since I'm inexperienced as a mentalist, I shouldn't do the show at all. My post didn't prove that at all.



Firstly, I didn't do any "screaming". It was you who wrote a sentence in all-caps, widely considered to be yelling in internet communications.

Secondly, you are participating in a 100% English forum. Everyone participating posts in English and is expected to understand English. The fact that you speak 7 other languages is moot. The only bearing it has is that your grasp of English is weaker than mine as a result of the language center in your simian brain being split 8 ways.

Thirdly, I think you mean "interpret" but who knows, if you won't take the time to run a spell-checker, how can you have any credibility as a hard-working non-lazy magician? Disgusting.



No I expressed myself in a 100% clear manner. I was looking for thoughts and workings of the Invisible Touch routine additional to those of my own. I didn't state the reason why I wanted them, and you just assumed it was because I have no current workings for the routine. It was your assumption that caused the problem. It was not a result of any ambiguity on my part.

And yes, I am inexperienced in performing mentalism, and that's why I wrote here looking for potential ideas people may have thought of that I have not yet considered and have not yet been able to learn due to my lack of experience. However, you are suggesting that I back-out of getting my first experience BECAUSE I have no experience. Your logic is, as usual, extremely flawed. I'm 100% confident I can deliver a great show that the client will be overly-pleased with, as I have experience with performing in general, and will just be applying a mentalism filter to that framework. I wrote here seeking knowledge from those that do have the experience in hopes of delivering an even better show, because I care that much about delivering for the client.

The response to my request was an overly-energetic, fully negative, completely useless post from an ego-ridden self-absorbed elitist boner that only intends to make himself feel better about his empty life rather than to cultivate the budding talent of the future.



No, I expressed exactly what I wanted to. What I didn't express was the reason I was asking. I didn't express it because it was unimportant and had zero bearing on what the response should be. Perhaps you could re-write your answer to provide useful advice instead of simply attempting to discourage people from broadening their horizons.

Ok, duckweed, you need to calm down, get some anger management, and go put your "moot" where nobody can find it. He was trying to help, you could of said " don't worry, i'm quite experienced in the field of mentalism. I was just asking for suggestions". No! you couldn't do that could you!.


Fancy talking meany!

Ducking, running for cover............


Watch out! FLAME WAR!

Someone's going down, and it ain't going to be paddy.........

Potty mouth

BTW way [edited]

Dont insult paddy....he knows a lot

when i first started here on the forums i got into a fight or 2 with paddy, ive learned how stupid i was to fight with him

he actually is REALLY helpful and even though he is VERY straight forward with his thinking, you shouldnt take it to heart.....he is only trying to help even though his approach to it might not be the best

You say yourself that you are inexperienced as a mentalist.



So paddy, as usual, was right. Plus the fact that if you are asking for effects for an upcoming show means that you accepted a job without a planned routine and script.



This was a poor attempt at an insult, and directed at a full time professional magician. So much for respect. He is giving you the right advice, as much as you don't want to hear it.



One spelling mistake doesn't make someone's advice any less credible. You have a grammar error in the first sentence of your original post. Big deal, it happens.



If you had done your research, Banachek, Knepper, Jermay, and Osterlind all have material on enhancing any mentalism act. And if you have Banacheck's Psychokinetic Touches, he pretty much covers everything you need. Stories and patter need to be original to the performer, otherwise the performance becomes stale and boring.



You're inexperienced in a field, are asking for effects after you've accepted a show, and are looking for scripting and stories for an effect that allows pretty much endless possibilities. That doesn't show much dedication to the art or your client's wishes.

He's not saying, "Don't perform mentalism because you're inexperienced." He's saying, "Don't do a PAYING gig with material you're inexperienced with." Therefore, paddy's logic holds.



You asked: "Does anyone have any unusual or creative ways of presenting the Invisible Touch (A.K.A. the PK Touch)? Do you have a good story to go with it?"

If you can't be bothered to come up with your own scripting and presentation, how are we supposed to take that? At face value, it certainly looks as though you're lazy and don't want to do the work. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. You have to be specific on these forums, as we don't know who you are or what you're capable of.

As far as other "tricks" to use in your routine, I'd recommend Corinda's 13 Steps and Anneman's Practical Mental Magic. They both have a ton of effects, and I'm sure there's some in there that could suit you.

At what point did I appear anything other than calm? I'm never angry or stressed out, and I haven't yet portrayed anything to the contrary here. You're the one that seems to be getting upset about something that doesn't involve you at all.

If you ask me, that speaks more to a need for anger-management than does refuting a fallacy with pure reason and a few flecks of derogatory material thrown in for spice.

He was trying to help? Sorry but "ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR COTTON PICKING MIND!!! Do yourself a favour, QUIT NOW" isn't helpful at all. Especially when he doesn't even have the full story. I have my own presentation for the Invisible Touch and I have performed it MANY times for non-paying audiences. I was merely asking if anyone had their own spin on it that was creative and maybe I hadn't considered yet. Why does everyone assume I don't have my own routine for it? I never said "OMG I GOT NO IDEA HOW TO DO THIS CAN SOMEONE PLZ TELL ME HOW IT WORKS". I simply asked if anyone has some of their own ideas regarding the effect.

You learned how stupid you were to fight with Paddy because that is exactly the case: you are too stupid to fight with Paddy. You do things without good cause or reason, Paddy has a modicum of reasoning/argumentative skills and he uses them to tell you how big of an idiot you are, and you can't refute it because A) You are in the wrong and B) You don't have any idea how to form a logical, coherent argument.



As helpful as he may be to others at other times, in this instance he has not helped at all. He *is* very straight forward which is a great thing. Just in this instance, he made an assumption, jumped to a conclusion, and he is in the wrong. I'm not going to cry because someone yelled at me, or told me to quit life and kill myself. However, I will point out their flawed logic and show them why it is incorrect.

You should probably discontinue trying to defend him because in the process you make yourself look a little "slower" each time, and you aren't really helping him at all. He's far more intelligent than you are and thus, he is far better equipped to fight his own battles than you are.

You still aren't addressing the fact that you asked for more tricks for your routine. If you accepted a paying job, you should have a set routine, with patter, presentation, and everything. Changing things last minute adds more risk than is necessary. Live performance already has enough chance for something to go wrong. The same applies to looking for a new presentation for PK Touches. If you have one that you have performed for audiences before, why change it now?

Also, you did get angry, as calm people usually don't resort to immature insults like "Edited wad" and "loser". No matter the grandiloquent adjectives you put in front of them, it still remains that you went on the defensive right away with name-calling.

You openly state that you are inexperienced in mentalism, and ask for our suggestions for a paying show. We'd offer the same advice to anyone...don't do the show. You say he doesn't have the full story, but how is he supposed to know the full story when you don't supply it? As I said before, we have to take things at face value here, and you gave us a very unpleasant impression to go off of.

*sigh* Wheres DaveV when you need him.

You see why I stay away from the magic sections now? All this is happening. Every topic I go to people just find a way to argue...


-Rob