Critiquing a traditional rule of constructing Magic
A quick side note:
There are a couple of reasons as to why I’ve decided to make this blog a free resource for the Mentalism community. First, I don’t really consider myself a “creator” in the way that many would define the term. Everything that I create (whether that be a theoretical consideration, a subtlety, or an effect) is born from necessity and created to fit my methodological and artistic needs out in the real world. This allows for, as Phedon Bilek puts it, a process of “Natural Selection” to occur in which the ideas that are worth sharing with my peers are road-tested, worth a shit for laymen to experience, and genuine to my tastes and preferences. By formatting this blog as a subscription service, or having a “premium tier” that’s separate from free content, after several months of hosting this blog, I fear I’ll be forced to share material that is half-assed, not genuine to my artistic tastes, and only created to fulfill the Magic market’s “need” for new (and shitty) material.
Second, by keeping this blog free, I have no financial obligation to post content consistently! This is exactly what happened this month, with the last post being published on August 6th, and this one now being planned for August 29th! Thankfully, none of my subscribers is paying for access to this essay series, so I feel less bad about not having a consistent writing schedule! If I had premium access set up for EssayEsseEse, I would have to take time away from gigging; reading non-Magic books that interest me; exploring the new city I moved to; making new friends; jamming with my Magic buddies; hanging with family, and time spent with my lovely girlfriend and our cute (but dumb) dog and our cute (but snotty) cat! And as much as I love money and Capitalism, I don’t love them enough to glue myself to my desk chair. Now that I think about it, it also keeps the planned content for this blog more manageable to digest for readers, as your email won’t be flooded with a new post from opinionated ol’ me every three to four days! More time to read my thoughts, consider how they fit into your performance style, and see if they’re worth integrating into your casual and professional repertoires!
Thank you for subscribing. The support I’ve read in private messages and on public forums has been great to see! I hope my 23-day hiatus from posting hasn’t annoyed you too much! With all that said, let’s get into the topic for this essay!
A common piece of advice that novice magicians are told all the time is something to the effect of, “The methods don’t matter! What truly matters is presentation!” Recently, a friend of mine in a private group chat expressed his interest in Mentalism and was looking for resources on prop-less and billet work. Someone wrote back to the effect of, “Mentalism is 80% presentation,” which, I assume, is another way of saying, “Learning methods isn’t all that important as Mentalism is mostly just presentation.”
I believe this is one of those classic pieces of advice that the “old-heads” share and that many younger magicians blindly repeat after hearing someone who appears to be more knowledgeable say something similar. In my opinion, the “poetic” point this kind of advice is trying to convey falls apart under real-world scrutiny.
In both my formally published material and in private discussions with other magicians, I’ve often said that if the classic advice of ignoring methods and focusing on presentation was legitimately true, then the SECOND the 21 Card Trick was shared with the community, the Magic world had no reason to continue its never-ending journey in vomiting endless Playing Card Divination variants. After all, if methods don’t matter and it’s all about presentation, then a pretty script paired with the 21 Card Trick methodology should have been enough.
If methods truly don’t matter- and it’s all about “the presentation”- then so many creators, performers, and retailers should be content performing an ACAAN with a Svengali Deck.
Methods matter A LOT, as it’s METHODS that drive the aesthetic experience an audience gets from an effect, and it’s METHODS that give performers the opportunity to have artistic freedom with their presentations. Methods cease to matter, assuming you already have methods that give you the freedom to dress up the revelation in a manner that is expressive to your vision of Mentalism. This is why, as much as I love Prop-less Mentalism, I have yet to find or create a prop-less Name Divination that I think is worth sharing with laymen. A lot of them don’t match the emotional and artistic freedom I can get by divining a name with a Billet Peek. The published works of Phedon Bilek and Lewis Le Val are proof that a billet-based Name Divination can be hyper magical for laymen… even though there are many who would say a prop-less Name Divination is better because they use “genuine” psychology and are the closest thing to “real” mind-reading.
Another way that I feel this type of stock advice is misinterpreted is as, “If methods don’t matter, I can use whatever method simply accomplishes the basic ‘effect’ of what I want to guess from people’s minds!” So many magicians confuse the notion of presentation with the end result of simply guessing whatever thought someone was told to think of. This is why we have so many magicians who offer beautiful sounding theory, but will catch them performing everything with a simple Annemann-style pose, and telling people to SCREAM! the thought to them!
If methods don’t matter, then divining a playing card with a convoluted prop-less process is just as strong (or stronger, some people think) as having to use an actual deck. The only thing I have to say to this style of philosophies is, if you already have it planned that you want to divine playing cards, why in the hell do you not have an actual deck with you?!
In conclusion, so many effects and routines are ruined when performers don’t seriously consider the importance of matching methods to their artistic worldview and the kind of presentations they want to share with laymen. Methods are important to consider, as it’s the methods that essentially create the outline for the journey you would like to take your audiences on.
Something to consider:
Are the current methods you are using a genuine representation of the type of mind-reader you have in your mind, or are you presenting in a certain way because you saw Banachek and Bob Cassidy do it?
Are the methods you are using allowing for your inner vision of the mind-reader to come alive in front of laymen, or are you simply using the method that many consider “the best?”
Are you using more “streamlined” methods just for the sake of not having a book or billet in play? If so, consider if the result of this “stream-lined” method is congruent with the way in which a real mind-reader would go about divining and predicting thoughts?
Are the methods you’re using, and the presentations you are pairing them with, genuinely congruent with each other, or are you continuing to use them cause it “gets the job done” and you’re content with the end result of simply guessing information?
Best Wishes,
Christopher Parrish, Aug.29th, 2025.
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