What is Mentalism?

An intriguing art

Practitioners, known as mentalists, appear to demonstrate highly developed mental or intuitive abilities. Performances may appear to include hypnosis, telepathy, clairvoyance, divination, precognition, psychokinesis, mediumship, mind control, memory feats, deduction, and rapid mathematics. Mentalists are sometimes categorized as psychic entertainers, although that category also contains non-mentalist performers such as psychic readers and bizarrists.

Much of what modern mentalists perform in their acts can be traced back directly to "tests" of supernatural power that were carried out by mediums, spiritualists, and psychics in the 19th century. However, the history of mentalism goes back even further. Accounts of seers and oracles can be found in works by the ancient Greeks and in the Old Testament of the Bible. Among magicians, the mentalism performance generally cited as one of the earliest on record was by diplomat and pioneering sleight-of-hand magician Girolamo Scotto in 1572. The performance of mentalism may utilize these principles along with sleights, feints, misdirection, and other skills of street or stage magic.

Mentalists generally do not mix "standard" magic tricks with their mental feats. Doing so associates mentalism too closely with the theatrical trickery employed by stage magicians. Many mentalists claim not to be magicians at all, arguing that it is a different art form altogether. The argument is that mentalism invokes belief and when presented properly, is offered as being "real"—be it a claim of psychic ability, or proof that supports other claims such as a photographic memory, being a "human calculator", the power of suggestion, NLP, or other skills. Mentalism plays on the senses and a spectator's perception of tricks. Mentalism is an exacting art form…Alex Niyazov is a mentalist. His performances consist in predicting facts and defying the laws of chance. It also has a lot to do with suggestion and influence.

Brut.