1. Confidence and Stage Presentation

You need to be able to exude confidence when performing the art. Before you can even learn the skills and tricks of the trade, building your stage confidence is vital. It is only when you are able to speak and move around confidently on stage that people will listen and pay attention to what you show them or tell them to. This is the simplest and most basic “mind control” technique. Staging your presence and communicating with your spectators or audience is part and parcel of the trade.

2. Persuasion

Learning how to persuade is more important than anything a mentalist needs. Successful master magicians often speak in a certain manner and they ask directed questions that lead the audience to answer in predictive manner.

3. Misguide and Conceal

The skill of misguiding and concealment is a basic skill for someone who wants to pick up magic. All illusionists and magicians know that they need their audience to look at something which is an act of misguiding or misdirection, so that what you are really doing is concealed from their eyes and detection.

4. Mind Reading

Mind reading is an integral part of the skill set if you want to learn mentalism. What it does is to give the audience an impression that you know what he or she is thinking of when actually, it is just a trick. There are many basic to advanced tricks of mind reading you can learn. The basis of this skill lies in creating a setting and predetermined questions or steps that are within your control, not your audience.

5. Card Tricks

As a beginner, you need to understand that card tricks, no matter how cliché it may feel, are the pace setters in this trade. They prepare your audience, humor them and builds up the atmosphere towards your big act. As the first step to learn mentalism, pick up a few old magic and card tricks.

Books on mentalism or stage magic can be found in libraries, bookstores and even online. But quite frankly, not every one of them is easy to grasp. Many of the writers often write in their own understanding and assume that their readers are familiar with the trade itself. We are going to talk about what some of the books cover and what you should be reading if you are not a master performer yet.

For someone who is just starting out, it is important to learn the terminology of mentalism such as cold, warm, hot reading, mind reading, mind control, extra-sensory perception (ESP), clairvoyance, hypnosis and psychokinesis. These are often covered in basic books on the topic.

If you are already practicing some form of magic tricks whether out of leisure or professionally, then you should be moving on to literature that cover the technical part of the trade, ie the actual execution of these skills and hand tricks. Card tricks, sleight of the hand and misguide and concealment are some of the acts that should be second nature to you which means that at this stage you do need to know these.

For those who are more advanced in their learning and knowledge and in fact are doing shows professionally, intermediate soft core skills such as the art of persuasion, mind control, mind reading and manipulation should be acquired.

As for those who are beginners and intermediate magicians, books like “Killer Mentalism Manuscript” and “Master Mentalism” should be what you should be reading. These cover a whole range of techniques and secrets of the trade such as street magic, mind reading, levitation, card tricks, illusions, hypnotism, etc.