MND//SET

The following essay is a modified excerpt from my book Digital Mentalism I: Hydra

In regard to crediting, I must thank Pablo Amirá’s wonderful essay Conversational Mysteries for pushing this principle from the back of my subconscious into conscious awareness. I first read Pablo’s essay in Jack Goldstein’s Panthera book, and if you’re curious about learning more about Pablo’s theoretical understanding of Magic, then The Path of Mystery may be the right book for you.

This is a fun and easy technique to employ in your performances. In my experience as a mentalist, I can remember unconsciously using this principle while being a casual performer about four years ago. Since then, I’ve observed the usefulness of this principle in professional settings when I transitioned toward doing professional work during the spring of 2022.

After reading Pablo’s wonderful concept of Conversational Mysteries, my mind made me aware of how a common human experience could be taken advantage of by mentalists, thus allowing us to hit on personally relevant and real-time thought processes of the laymen we are engaging with without having to be “on.” I imagine a lot of us have had this type of experience: you are talking to a family member, friend, co-worker, whoever; either individually or in a group context, when at some point in the conversation, one person will say something that will prompt another to say something along the lines of,

“Woah! You just read my mind!” or “I was just thinking the same thing!”

If you happen to be one of the rare breed of magicians that has a romantic partner, then you know shit like this happens all. the. time.

Now, when these moments happen in a non-performative conversation, the person who says the above doesn’t ACTUALLY believe the person who spoke before them read their mind. It’s simply a figure of speech that conveys the idea that people in a conversation are thinking along the same wavelength; boosting camaraderie, collaboration, and makes the conversation a bit more interesting.

I’ve just now reminded myself that Kenton Knepper has explored similar ways of thinking in his Mind Reading lessons. I would suggest investing in his body of work to get a comprehensive and true deep dive into this style of thinking:

https://www.wonderwizards.com/l/courses/mind-reading-lessons-complete-downloads

Imagine how powerful this common human experience can be if someone (or a group) were having a regular, non-performative conversation with someone they BELIEVED had the ability to read minds. In the hands of a competent mentalist, a throw-away figure of speech becomes a genuine moment of telepathy!

Here is a quick step-by-step of how this principle is structured:

1. Be aware of common figures of speech that mention how someone said something that was in another’s mind. Once this social phenomenon is known, forget about it and live your life as if you were a REAL mind-reader (however this manifests for you).
2. Have normal conversations with people you meet. If you truly live your life as if you are a real mind-reader, it’s bound to happen that you’ll have conversations with people who have either been a participant to an effect of yours, was a witness to another person’s experience with you, or who already believe such talents and gifts genuinely exist. With the third group of people, no effect or “convincers” are necessary.
3. Be an active participant in conversations. Don’t be one of those guys who tries to act all mysterious and edgy, but in actuality comes off as socially awkward.
4. Let laymen give you credit and make the claim that you spontaneously read their thoughts for you!Moments like this won’t happen in every conversation, but if you follow the four points they will happen more often than you expect. Noticing how often people use figures of speech that convey the idea of mind-reading, being on the same wavelength, or being the first to say what was on another’s mind is a lot like noticing drivers with the same car as you on the road.

Real-World Example #1:

One of the community-centered events I hosted at my university years ago was a Tarot and Palm-Reading event. A couple days after hosting that event, I was in the kitchen of my residence hall with a few other students, one of whom I knew quite well. He brought up to the others that I hosted that event, which began a series of questions about readings. I remember it being quite late at night, and not being in the mood to shift into “performance mode.” I decided to shift the conversation away from my interests in hypnosis and readings… despite the fact that one of these strangers was a really attractive brunette!

What’s important to note from this point is that the precedent has not only been set that I’m a credible mind-reader, but that their lens of the world allowed them to easily accept that such people and phenomena exist. At some point in our conversation, the brunette complimented my tattoos (how much more “mentalist” could I get?) and asked me about their meanings and my plans for future tattoos. Below is a rough transcript of what was said after I reflected her questions back to her. CP will denote when I’m speaking and B will denote when she was speaking:

B: “At some point, I’ll probably get a similar tattoo to what my dad did last year; he got my name tattooed across his chest. I’m just not sure where I would put a tattoo of his name, though”

CP: “Yeah, that makes sense to me. You probably wouldn’t want a name like ‘Steven’ tattooed across your chest…”

B: “WHAT! HOW DID YOU KNOW MY DAD’S NAME IS ‘STEVEN?!’”

For context, I randomly chose the name “Steven” and said what I said in a tongue-in-cheek tone. I had no intention for this to be a “hit”,” I didn’t harvest the name in advance, and this wasn’t some clever ploy to segue into a performance. However, when I noticed the beginning of such a reaction I knew I had to take advantage of it!

CP: “Clearly, your connection with your father is quite strong and I intuitively picked up on that immediately when you brought up that he has a tattoo of your name. In rare cases, when I sense such connections are especially unique, sometimes my intuition interprets those feelings into names, dates, and memories.”

I don’t think I need to spend time writing just how shocked the other people were with such a clean display of “mind-reading.”

End of Real-World Example #1

This principle also works quite well in different mediums of conversation. Recall moments in your own life when someone you were thinking of texted or called you! How magical did that moment feel to you?

Real-World Example #2:

After a short run of my first parlor show, a journalist for a New Age magazine contacted me for an interview. About two weeks later, he texted me questions he forgot to ask during our in-person meeting. A week after that, I texted him the best of luck in writing up the piece and that I hope his editors enjoyed it. He texted back in awe because I texted him mere moments before he was about to send the article to his editors!

End of Real-World Example #2

When reading and watching a lot of Mentalism products, I sometimes get upset that subtle principles such as these have not been championed by most in our community. In a market that loves to hype the “packs flat and plays big” and “easy to do” philosophy, I do find it quite confusing that the market is either forgetting or is scared of the most “packs flat and plays big” and “easy to do and use” technique of all:

AMBIGUITY!

I was inspired to pull and re-write this essay from one of my older published works after watching an episode of Modern Family with the girlfriend and our lovely cat. In that episode, Phil Dunphy is in awe of one of his peers being a mind-reader. This character did nothing but get lucky that he said what was on Phil’s mind. Watching this episode (Season five, Episode Eighteen) is what inspired me to include this neat prop-less principle in the blog!