Mentalism is the branch of stage magic closer to reality. It is easy to interpret demonstrations of a good mentalist as rigorous experiments in social psychology. Many “positivist” mentalists encourage this misconception, considering it the very basis of the pleasure offered to their fans. Irish mentalist Keith Barry defines himself

a student of human behaviour, hacking into people’s minds

without references to magic tricks and conjuring. His definition is as true as those proposed three centuries ago by Daniel Defoe in Robinson Crusoe. In 1719 the English novel was the first to disguise fiction under the declaration that all the events described were true. In order to encourage this interpretation, Defoe removed his own name from the cover of the book, writing instead the one of a fictional character: Robinson Crusoe. In his scholarly analysis about “the Art of Immersion”, Frank Rose wrote:

What Defoe was saying in his preface was, This is not a novel. (1) 

Most mentalists, during their shows and in promotional material, offer the same message: This is not a magic show. How do readers and spectators react to such statements?

Naïve and Sentimental

In the autumn 2008 the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk dedicated to the topic his Harvard’s Charles Eliot Norton lectures. The title of the lessons – “The Naïve and the Sentimental Novelist” – divided writers and readers into two categories. Naïve readers are not aware of the existence of a technique behind the text, nor they are interested in what is artificial in writing and reading a book. Sentimental ones, on the contrary, are fascinated by the artificial elements in a novel and its gap with reality, and focus more on the techniques of writing and the way our minds work as we read.

This division dates back to Friedrich Schiller, author of the theoretical essay “On Naïve and Sentimental Poetry” (2) 

The taxonomy is useful also to approach the two types of spectators of a mentalistic show. Naïve spectators often enroll in NLP courses after seeing their heroes in the theaters, misunderstanding the origins of what they have seen during the show. On the contrary, sentimental ones often attend skeptical congresses – such as The Amazing Meeting!, organized every year by James Randi – where, in a strictly scientific environment, mentalists like Banachek and Jamy Ian Swiss gratify the rationality of the present through sleight of hands that seem paranormal – but woe to those who really believe it!

Reached a certain level of awareness, the mentalist understands that he should deal with both types of spectators. But how?

Seducing the naïves

In his On Love Alain De Botton defines seduction as a form of acting. To conquer a person, we often behave like actors, replacing our spontaneity with a

behavior shaped by an audience. But just as an actor needs to have a concept of the audience’s expectations, so too the seducer must have an idea of what the beloved will want to hear. (3) 

At the first appointment, the novel’s protagonist discovers that his beloved Chloe hates those who do not know how to appreciate chocolate. He hates chocolate, but he lies without shame, ordering a double portion of sweet cocoa, and thinking to himself:

I had lied. I had been more or less allergic to chocolate all my life, but how could I have been honest when the love of chocolate had been so conclusively identified as a criterion of Chloe-compatibility? […] Lying in order to be loved carries with it the more perverse assumption that if I do not lie, I cannot be loved. (4) 

Since the naïve spectators are not aware of the technical details of a show – and believe in the authenticity of the demonstrations – the only way to win them over is to blatantly lie. «There is no trick, no deception, everything happens through NLP, eye accessing cues and so on…» The result of this lie is an unconditional love from this part of the audience. Such love, on the one hand gratifying to the ego of the performer, is fragile, because it brings with it the echo of deception from which it springs. As in a love affair the liar faces the risk of being caught by the partner, the mentalist choosing this attitude should be ready to face the potential reactions of his audience, if caught using magic tricks. Avoiding this sort of deception, well before being a ethical issue, is a choice of intelligence and foresight.

In his Commencement Speech at Kenyon College “Pain Won’t Kill You” (2011), Jonathan Franzen pointed at the consequences of this sort of lies:

If you succeed in manipulating other people into liking you, it will be hard not to feel, at some level, contempt for those people, because they’ve fallen for your shtick. Those people exist to make you feel good about yourself, but how good can your feeling be when it’s provided by people you don’t respect? (5) 

A similar contempt can be found in the words of many writers having to do – against their wills – with naïve readers. Umberto Eco wrote:

In my novel Foucault’s Pendulum, the main character Diotallevi makes fun of Belbo who uses the computer obsessively, saying on page 45: “A machine does exist, to be sure, but it wasn’t manufactured in your Silicone Valley” A colleague who teaches science sarcastically observed that “Silicone” is not the correct translation of Silicon. […] I told him that, on page 45, first Diotallevi was speaking – not me – and he had the right to not know neither science nor English, and second Diotallevi was openly making fun of bad translations from English. […] My colleague (who distrusted the humanists) smiled with skepticism, believing that my explanation was a poor patch. This is the case of a reader […] unable to get irony [and] to distinguish between opinions of the author and opinions of the characters. The concept of “pretending” was unknown to him. (6) 

Derren Brown, or how to seek balance

I will not spend even one word about the mentalists addressing solely at sentimental spectators. I consider them not enough sensitive with blending reality and deception, forced to constantly remind the fictional nature of their performances, with a documentary style too far away from art and its atmosphere.

Exactly as Orhan Pamuk, I believe that the purpose of an artist is to synthesize the two categories:

Being a novelist is the art of being both naive and […] sentimental at the same time. (7) 

By doing so, a mentalist can encourage his audience to be the synthesis of both categories. The fundamental mistake, in many debates on the subject, is to assume that the two requirements are mutually exclusive. As explained by Umberto Eco in “Credulity and identification”,

We know that Emma Bovary never existed and yet we are moved to tears on her behalf. One recognizes a fiction as fictional, even as we immerse ourselves in the depths of a character. (8) 

Cultivating readers able to be both naïve and sentimental involves a more solid gratification, non-tinged by the shadow of deception. But since it is a sophisticated skill, spectators must be accompanied towards this balance with intelligence and care. Among the few mentalists able to do it successfully stands Derren Brown. A continuous mix of skepticism and deception permeates many of his performances. Here he is at work in a great variety of stimuli:

In the first 2 minutes, the mentalist describes a mathematical technique with which one can increase the odds of winning at blackjack, then he offers a practical demonstration of its working. To prevent the naïve spectator from actually believing it, at minute 2:09 Derren casts a doubt:

Luck certainly helps, but is exactly how I do it?

It is a tiny insinuation, not detracting from the impression of authenticity built in the first part. But it is a subtle warning, that rewards the sentimental spectator, confirming his suspicion that something completely different is involved. Soon after, the mentalist turns to an explanation at the same time charming and believable, by confessing of being able to use the old mnemonic “Roman Room technique” to memorize four decks of cards.

At minute 4:37 Derren tells a story from his childhood, telling of a card game during which he strongly wished to receive a card – and the wish came true by magic. From here he developed his passion for cards, training himself to develop manual skills out of the norm. At minute 5:04 he illustrates one his manual skills: he is able to pick any chosen number of cards from the deck – and to prove it, he announces that he will cut exactly 15 cards. He succeeds. For naïve spectators, it is difficult to ignore that, at work, there are manual skills as a manipulator – better suited to a magician than a psychologist.

At minute 5:23 he proclaims to be able to do more difficult things: he will be able to estimate, by eye, how many cards contains a bunch. A spectator cuts an unknown number of cards, and he can count 28 on the fly.

At 6:03 minute he begins to assume the role of the pure mind reader, guessing the number 17 thought by a spectator. It is, however, hard to believe – after seeing him in action with what looked like great magic tricks. He continuously raises doubts in many opposite directions, honoring at the same time naïve and sentimental spectators.

From the minute 6:34 onwards, he has no concern to get back into the character of the classical magician, who spreads the cards, pulls out some bunches, reassembles them, performs a one hand shuffling (6:52) and another, overtly theatrical (7:00). But if his body behaves like a magician, his words refer to pure mnemonic skills and the ability to memorize an entire deck of cards. The naïve spectator is subjected to a subtle cognitive dissociation, since there is no consistency between the verbal narrative and the shuffling procedure that destroys any order that may be memorized. But the same dissociation is music to ears of the sentimental spectator, who identifies in it the most shameless and elegant misdirection.

At minute 7:14 Derren asks for the name of a card, and the deck is cut exactly at that point.

In the grand finale, the mentalist comes back to the initial anecdote, pulling from his pocket the four cards with whom he had played as a child, when he wanted (and got magically) a fifth card. A spectator is invited to choose a random card from the deck, which is revealed – against all odds – the one that completes a royal flush.

The pleasure of blending fiction and reality

Mathematics? Luck? Mnenotechnique? Manual skills? Observation skills? NLP? Faced with Derren Brown, the naïve spectator has no way to describe the performance in a simple way. The sentimental spectator can enjoy the game of identifying its complex narrative and what is due to what. But faced with such a sophisticated scenario, only the viewer capable of both attitudes can tribute – to Derren Brown – the abilities of challenging perceptions, prejudices and preconceptions, with no need to fall into a simplistic positivist scenario or shamelessly lie about the methods used.

Why do so few mentalists attain such excellence? The reasons are few and obvious. Aiming for a balance of this kind requires first to appreciate its value and second to renounce to a easier and (short-sighted) profitable success. Choosing this nuanced border imposes a continuous questioning of oneself and of own work, and a continuous adjustment of direction.

Orhan Pamuk wrote about a walk in Istanbul, during which a friend stopped in front of a house, convinced that the novelist lived there. Pamuk replied: «I don’t live here.» Admitting the mistake, the friend replied: «Really? I figured from your novel that your hero Kemal lived here with his mother. I must have unconsciously assumed that you, too, had moved here with your mother.»

Pamuk commented:

Like old men who have reached the point where they can take anything in stride, we smiled at each other for confusing fiction with reality. We sensed that we had fallen under this illusion not because we had forgotten that novels are based on imagination just as much as on fact, but because novels impose this illusion upon readers. What we were feeling at that moment was […] the desire to be both “naïve” and “sentimental” at the same time. And now we also began to perceive that we liked to read novels precisely for this purpose: in order to blend the imaginary with the real. (9) 

In short, for the same reasons why I love mentalism.

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Notes