hi,

I am fairly new to mentalism but have just read through corindas 13 steps and annemanns practical mental magic. I have also just bought E.I. and Skullduggery by Luke Jermay.

The kind of mentalism i am interested in is the type that Derren Brown does on the show Trick of the Mind.

Would anyone be able to name me a few books that could help me actually learn the processes of how to do those sorts of tricks, or the kind of books Derren Brown may have started with.

Thanks a lot, any advice greatly appreciated.

The boooks you have are all perfectly useful for doing the kind of thing Derren does. Most of Derren's patter about psychology and showmanship is just that, patter. It's a fiction that he tells his audience to misdirect them from the simplicity of of the actual trick.

This my friend is the absolute beauty of mentalism and indeed all magic.

Please also do us all a favor and NEVER start out wanting to be Derren. Almost every second person who stumbles upon this site for mentalism purposes, is here to learn to be like Derren. Please make up your own character that does not sound like him, dress like him, or even use the same words as him (magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship come to mind).
If you would like some books to make you a better mentalist. Then re-read 13 steps and look into the following (I'm not saying buy them, I'm saying look into them):
1) PRISM - Max Maven
2) Nothing - Max Maven
3) Theatre of the Mind - Barrie Richardson
4) Mind, Myth, and Magick - TR Waters (? not sure if he's the author or not)

that's in order by the way. PRISM first, then nothing, and so on. But again, cause I cannot stress this enough, do not become another Derren wanna-be, you are going to be sadly sadly disappointed when you begin to perform and people do not react to you like they do to him even though you are using the same patter and accomplishing the same thing. It's 90% presentation and 10% work for mentalists. Derren just so happens to be an amazing mentalist because he has perfected presentation.

Nothing? Seriously? I really wasn't impressed with anything on there. As far as affects go nothing on the dvd actually did anything for me but there is some good performance theory on there. Swiss army mentalists, need I say more.

It's worth the performance theory. Plus you get to see how a real professional mentalist handles his crowd and situations and such. I also liked how the effects were so easy to do and cost almost... dare I say it? nothing!
Almost as corny as my first joke was going to be "you really got NOTHING out of that dvd?"

It wasn't all bad, the individual affects were in my opinion a bit weak, but the show was structured well and you saw Maven think on his feet like with the star sign reveal. I agree about the theory, frankly there needs to be a lot more of that out there as performance theory is something a lot of people need to read up on.

Hi Colaj,

Corinda's 13 steps to mentalism is a good start and a lot of what Derren does is based on these sorts of tricks.

If you want to cover the more psychological areas of mentalism I would recommend Banachek's Psychological Subtleties. This includes how to make psychological forces.

Derren has written a few books. The one that springs to mind is called "pure effect". It's not cheap, but it includes a section called "direct mind reading". I suspect anyone reading this thinking that Derren's stuff is mostly pscychological will be a bit disillusioned to find that in fact most of what he does is pure trickery. Nonetheless imo he's very good at it and a great showman.

Hope that helps.

I enjoy Darren's approuch to mentalism by presenting it in a way to demonstrate that it is not real. It is fake; and that it was used by many to con others, and then he proceeds to do incredible illusions and demonstrations of powers; almost contradicting himself.

It makes it more fun to watch, knowing that you should NOT take this seriously.

In that respect I want to be like Darren Brown, but in all others I am myself; with all the mania and eccentricities and patter that makes me. This allows a balance I think, and I hope it comes off well


Tom
xx

P.S

In "An Evening of Wonders" Darren asks audience members to just purely imagine questions at him, while he is blindfolded. He then "picks up" on a question: Should I shave my ***tum? And answers yes.

The miricle is how he can possibly know what question you are thinking of. The only solution to this I can think of is either stooges or some tv editting, where they cut out some important part of the trick. If anyone knows differently however, tell me all. :p

Three points about your most recent post thomas:
1) children read these forums, I suggest you maybe edit your post (even though it is not graphic word-wise, this is supposed to be a place where they don't read things like that)
2) Derren does NOT use stooges or tv editing in any way to accomplish this effect, it is 100% possible with known mentalism principles... some even contained in 13 steps.
3) Do NOT ask for exposure, it is against the forum rules, even if being said sarcastically.

Actually I have a fourth point but this applies to all people in this thread:
His name is spelled "Derren" not "Darren"... I realize this is not the traditional spelling but look at the cover of any of his books. Get it straight people.

From what I see every one spelled it right but one... One guess who...

hey, dont bother him hes got dyslexia....

/facepalm

:p


Anyway, editted the post now, hope thats better

I saw the show live, it happens exactly the way it does on Tv. I know how it was done.

I won't give away details just an anecdote, during the intervaul anyone who wanted to take part was asked to write down a question and place it in the basket. I was chatting to a woman outside in the foyer and she couldn't think of a question. So I said what about...

"what's my mother's maiden name?"

During the "think of a question segment this lady was picked out and the question she was thinking of was the question she'd wrote on her card.

In the show "Evening of Wonders" they even show people putting the envelopes into the bowl. It's not merely thought of.

Derren is just doing a Question and Answer Act. He is using a mixture of methods. It's one of mentalism's oldest effects. And when done good is just about as real as mentalism gets. Derren's presentation is amazing though. There's a lot to be learned there.

I think I posted this in one of the other mentalism threads.

If you want to learn how to do a good Question and Answer Act. There's a whole chapter in Corinda about it. Also check out Bob Cassidy's The Artful Mentalism of Bob Cassidy. It has a lot of cool Q and A stuff in it.