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Hello again -- "Shared Thoughts" is back after a brief hiatus. As promised last time, today I'm going to take a look at some perspectives on the idea of...gasp... mixing magic and mentalism in the same performance. Can it be done? More importantly, should it be done?

If you remember the very first article in this column, you'll realize that at their root mentalism is not the same as mental magic. This is where the problem can come in when you try to mix magic and mentalism -- it's very easy to make the mentalism turn into mental magic, where it's just a "trick". That may be fine for a magician (I hope not, but that's a discussion for a completely different time!), but for a mentalist, it's not good at all. Regardless of whether you are performing under the pretense of having real psychic powers, such as Kreskin, or a psychological entertainer, such as Marc Salem, you don't want what you're doing to be seen as a "trick".

That would seem to suggest that I'm saying that magic and mentalism shouldn't be mixed, wouldn't it? Well, that's not necessarily so. To an extreme level, we can take a look at the work of Derren Brown. As he explains in his book Pure Effect, his show is a pretty even mix of "straight" magic, mentalism, and hypnotism. He works on a premise that it is all psychological control (similar to the Banachek/Salem premise I explained in an earlier column), and thus easily progresses from one area to the other. The magic, he tells the audience, is based in the same pychological principles of manipulation that the mentalism and hypnotism work on, but those take it one step further. For him, the magic in a way acts to ease the audience into the "heavier" mentalism. If you want a more detailed view of Derren's style, I'll once again refer you directly to his book -- as I've said many times, it deserves a place on every mentalist's bookshelf.

On a less intertwined level, let's look at the work of Barrie Richardson. In his wonderful book Theatre of the Mind, Mr. Richardson mentions that he does perform some pieces of straight magic in his mentalism show. There's no particular explanation of the tie in the presentation, but again it seems to follow that it is all a part of the psychological manipulation. It's there as a sort of diversion, in a sense. There are a number of these items in the book, including Barrie's opener, a great handling of Patrick Pages bottle production. As with the previous example, I'd encourage you read Theatre of the Mind if you haven't already -- Richardson explains his views on mixing magic and mentalism in a bit more detail, as well as teaching some incredibly cool material.

Finally, we can look at the work of Kreskin. He claims to be a true psychic, and his shows are generally pure mentalism. First, though, there is the addition of the linking finger rings. This is demonstrated as some sort of mind over matter experiment, but to me it still seems to scream "magic" -- in the right framework, though, audiences do seem to buy it as mentalism. So technically, it's not a mix of magic and mentalism. Kreskin, however, has on occasion performed straight magic effects on various television shows. When he does this, he separates the magic from the mentalism a great deal -- he explains that magic is a hobby of his (with the unstated implication that his mentalism is not done by trickery). This only partially qualifies as mixing magic and mentalism, in my view, but it is one way to do it.

Other performers shun anything that's not pure mentalism. Marc Salem, for example, won't even use playing cards for mentalism, let alone do a magic trick in his show.

So, what's the answer? Can we mix mentalism and magic? If we can, should we? For once, I'm going to say that I don't know -- it's really a personal choice and, as shown by these examples, can be done quite effectively in many different ways. As for me, I'm not entirely sure where I stand on the issue. For right now, I am sticking with straight mentalism. That's just what I find myself enjoying performing right now. I also do straight magic, but at different times and places. Whether I'll always work this way, though, only time will tell. Now it's your turn to decide what works best for you...

Until next time,

Andy