Metal Bending
Many mentalists claim that they can melt and bend metal
objects like a spoon, fork or key by using their ”extraordinary mental powers.”
The mentalist places one fork on top of another, showing that they fit perfectly into one another. He asks a volunteer to hold a fork with one hand by the handle and the spike end with the other hand. The mentalist stares intently at the fork, “hypnotizing” it.
He now asks the volunteer to reposition the two forks
together as before. The spectator is baffled to witness
a difference in the fork’s shape.
Secret: What happens is while the volunteer is busy watching his own fork, the mentalist is bending the
other one. With a good patter and misdirection, the volunteer doesn’t know which of the forks was his
and believes the fork he was holding had changed shape.
The One that Got Me
Just when we think we have it all figured out, something comes along to knock the life back into us.
I have studied mentalism since the age of eight and thought I knew everything. What a mistake. One day in Spain, I was taken to a special demonstration that now makes me laugh every time I think about it.
There was a woman on stage sitting in a chair and
holding a microphone with her back turned to the
audience so there would be no chance of lip reading or hand signaling. From the audience the mentalist said that the lady in the chair was his wife, and that through strenuous mental experimentation he had learned to transfer his thoughts to her. Anybody could come up and whisper a word into his ear that he would transfer to his wife through concentration; and to prove it she would say the right word. And it worked every time. My brain was racing. She wasn’t wearing an ear device; the people in the audience couldn’t be plants because I had participated myself. How were they doing it?
Secret: After the demonstration, my friend told me
that the mentalist was really a ventriloquist. Every time someone whispered a word to him, he’d say “OK.” That would cue his wife to move her microphone up as though she were about to speak. When everyone turned their head to watch her answer the question, he’d change his voice and say the word into the microphone. His wife never said a word.
He literally talked to himself for a living.
Real Control of the Blood
Again simple, but it has fooled many doctors when presented by fakirs with any degree of showmanship.
The hypnotist bares his subject’s arms and calls attention to them. Both are the same color. After a few strokes, the blood is seen to leave and the arm is pure white. At command, the blood flows back.
Secret: Sitting naturally in a chair, note the color of the
arms. Both naturally tinted. Now raise one arm above
your head and hold it there while you slowly count to twenty-five. Now lower the arm and you will find it several shades lighter than the one that rests on the knees. So in the act of stroking the arm, it is held over the head and nature does the rest! Simple? Yes, but quite effective dressed with showmanship.
