Kenton Knepper's
"Krystal Visions"

Peter Marucci's
"Bizarre Bazaar"

Craig Browning's
"Cranial Consternations"

Michael Matson's
"My Magic - My Way"

Michael Jay's
"Thoughts on the
Passing Scene"

Rich Tenace's
"Stage Stuff"

Scott Guinn's
"Pro-Files"

Jon Thompson's
"Thinking Allowed"

Shane's
"One Eye, Inward"

Dan Paulus's
"Real Magic"

Michelangelo's
"Stages of Illusions"

Andi Gladwin's
"Close-Minded"

Andy Leviss's
"Shared Thoughts"

Tyler Wilson's
"More Than Words"

"At The Shop" Reviews

"In Your Hands" Effects

"Proving the Impossible"
 Challenge

"Other Visions"
Guest Contributors

Free Visions

Visions Store

Visions Links

Contacting Visions

Submitting an Article

Privacy Statement

Administration Info

Hey gang, I'm back! It's been a crazy year so far, but after taking some time off, it's time to hit the keyboard once again. And boy, do I have a bit of a rant coming on....

A while back, on one of the various mentalism discussion groups I'm a member of, somebody put out a request for various pieces of trivia about the way the human mind works to offer as an explanation of the vast potential the mind has, after which he would do his thing as proof of these capabilities. As an example of the sort of thing he was looking for, he cited the commonly known "fact" that humans normally only use 20% (even more common in the misquoted figure of 10%) of the brain.

Now, this is a noble pursuit, at its base, and you're probably wondering what my beef with this request was, right? Well, my problem is that this "fact" is absolutely, positively 100% false! It's been tested time and again, and proven to be ridiculously far from the truth. Yet, performers like this gentleman insist on spreading this misinformation further, despite the fact that a thirty second search on the internet would provide countless studies to dispel this myth!

Of course, once this was pointed out, the performer in question gladly thanked the provider of the correct information and took this piece of "trivia" out of his act, right? NOPE! In fact, this guy was so bold as to state that the fact that this piece of information was false was no problem. Heck, we're mentalists, and we should "never let the facts interfere with a good presentation!" This guy insisted that as long as what you say is believable to most of your audience, it doesn't matter whether it's true or not. I couldn't believe it!

Among other reasons for why this is a really bad idea, what happens when somebody calls you on it and you lose all credibility because your only response is, "Well, it may not really be true, but hey, it's just a show, and it sounds better. Facts, shmacts!"? Our whole goal as performers, especially as mentalists, is to strive for credibility and believability. If you get caught on even one wrong fact like this, it's quite likely that at least some folks will not believe another word out of your mouth. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!

As this discussion escalated, this performer offered a whole list of other well-known urban legends that are commonly mistaken as fact, as if somehow the fact that these are so well known makes it okay to keep telling them. It doesn't. Period. There's no reason to further the spread of misinformation like this, especially in the face of solid evidence of the fact that they are wrong.

The next defense was that because they're so widespread, most people in your audience wouldn't know that it's not true. Who cares if only one out of every five people will know you're wrong, right? Or one out of every hundred? I do, that's for sure, and if you care about how you're perceived by your audience, you should, too! To those people, you seem like one of two things. On the one hand, you could be seen as a charlatan who's knowingly lying. On the other hand, you may come across as a naive and uninformed person who speaks about things with seeming authority when he in reality has no idea what he's talking about.

Either way, it may not hurt your credibility with every single person you perform for, but it will hurt your credibility with some. And even if it's just one person, that's more than I'm willing to have-especially when I can just as easily avoid it by making sure what I say is true. It's not like it's hard to do. Ten minutes research in a library or even online (although that needs more work to verify it's truthfulness, of course) will give you tons of equally interesting TRUE facts to use. Why the heck use false ones then? Can you really not spare ten minutes of your life to make sure that what you're saying is correct? Your audiences deserve better than to have you make facts up or knowingly perpetuate facts that you know (or should know) are false.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking. "Andy," you ask, "how is it that you're okay with lying or stretching the truth about how you do what you do onstage, but you're not okay with these other false facts?" Well, to put it simply, when I use a less than true explanation of how I do the feats in my act, I also offer the proof (i.e., the act itself) to back up those claims. I can offer believable proof for it, and beyond that, there are scientific studies to back up such things as reading body language and voice inflections, influencing people, and even psychic phenomena. There's a big difference between stretching the truth on things in a way that there is still evidence to back it up, and outright statements of incorrect facts that can and have been readily disproved beyond a reasonable doubt.

To restate it a bit more concisely, I have no problem lying or stretching the truth on things I can't be called on. It's when it comes to things that are blatantly incorrect and that I can be easily proven wrong on that I draw the line, and I'd encourage you to do the same.

Now, I know some people out there won't want to be bothered by this, because it might take that one extra afternoon to do some research (heck, the guy who first posted the request was given a direct reference to a specific book that had some great true facts of this nature to use, and he still insisted that he'd much prefer to keep making stuff up, despite the risk that even an average person who's read a basic "pop psychology" book could call you on it. Of course, I know that this type of person isn't the type of person who'd have kept reading this column for so long, right?

I hereby make a motion that the mentalism community as a whole stop spreading such myths as the aforementioned "20% Myth", the idea that the CIA is using remote viewing to track down Osama Bin Laden, the effects which radiation has on telepathic ability, and all the countless other incorrect tidbits that some of us feed our audiences. Our audiences deserve better than that, so let's give them their due!

That's it for this month's tirade,

Andy

P.S. - I do want to interject a quick shameless plug, if you'll be so kind. First, along with fellow mentalist Quinn Pearl, I'm proud to be co-producing a new convention for mentalists in New England this October 11-13. Called 72 HOURS: The Ultimate Mentalism Gathering, it's promising to be an incredible event. Right now, our lecture lineup includes Banachek (our guest of honor for the weekend, in a rare lecture appearance), Rick Maue, Visions' own Craig Browning, Quinn Pearl (doing an incredible demo/lecture on séances), Michael Phillips (an actor/director/writer who's also experienced in mentalism, and will be leading a killer workshop on theatricality, staging, and acting as they apply to mentalism), and a panel discussion led by yours truly and featuring some of the lecturers along with a few surprise guests (possibly even a few other Vision-aries, although I can't confirm that just yet).

As a bonus for all attendees, we're also including a book featuring contributions from Banachek, Rick Maue, Craig Browning, Ted Karmilovich, Ray Haddad, John Riggs, Quentin Reynolds, Greg Arce, Bill Cushman, myself, and many more to come. This book will only be available at the convention (and it's free for all attendees), so it's bound to be a collectors' item (some folks have even said that it'll be worth the price of the convention itself, even if you didn't have all the cool lectures and workshops)!

We're not quite ready to announce the registration costs or the exact location, because we're still negotiating the best deal, but I can promise that it'll be a lot less expensive than you might be thinking-a "steal", if you will! If you want to find out more about it and be the first to have a chance to register, send an e-mail to 72Hours-subscribe@yahoogroups.com and you'll be added to the official newsletter for the event.