How to Learn Mentalism Techniques

Instructions

• 1

  Cold reading
  
  Familiarise yourself with the art of cold reading. You can get to know signs and signals that can inform you things about certain subjects before they tell you anything. For example, if you see a wedding ring on her hand, you may infer that she is married or if you spot redness around his eyes, you can deduce that he cried a little while ago. These are very basic signs: a talented mentalist can pick up on great small signs to deduce all manner of myriad details, allowing her to act precognitive or in possession of second sight.
• 2

  Use of blindfolds
  
  Create a code for blindfolded vision or use a present one which you are aware of already. This process of mentalism needs an assistant, who goes in the audience and carry the objects given by people while the mentalist is on the stage with blindfolded vision. The assistant asks the mentalist what he can see and the mentalist reveals the true identity of the object.
  
  This trick is performed with the help of a very complex secret code: the exact words the assistant say to ask the mentalist about the object tells her the answer. For example, “what do I have in my hand now?” can mean a watch, while “can you see into my mind and tell what this is?” may mean a pencil. The top blindfold tricks use amazingly complicated codes which tell small details about the object. Both the mentalist and the assistant need to know the entire code if they want the act to work perfectly.
• 3

  Question and answer
  
  Distinguish the secrets of the unknown question. In this, a person from the crowd writes a question on a paper and puts it in an envelope. The mentalist answers the query without opening the package, and then tells that the answer is correct by opening the envelope. This trick is similar to the old magic eight-balls trick. The mentalist just gives an indistinct enough answer to fit a number of expected questions.