For the past two months, the pace of things and the hectic, noisy nature of a given day has been, to put it mildly, strenuous. Or, to put it more forcefully, profoundly difficult. It’s what has me longing for silence, considering life underwater, and imagining journeys to cat island. This and staring at walls and their respective shelves, which is what I was doing this morning while I sipped coffee through bleary eyes, trying to prepare for the day. It was because of this stare that I noticed a gem of a strange book that I had bought along with some other magic books year ago. I had a minor character who was into magic, and although I was able to develop much of what I needed without needing to get bogged down in research, I keep the books on my shelf and turn to them from time to time. Doing so never fails to enlighten me in some unexpected way––which is, after all, what one wants when dealing with anything magical. The book I noticed this morning is 13 Steps to Mentalism, by the English mentalist Tony Corinda (1930-2010), who is widely considered to be an expert in the field.
My first question, when opening this volume was, “What is mentalism, exactly?” I had placed it in the family of magic, but I realized that I couldn’t exactly define the term. I quickly learned that Mr. Corinda wasn’t a fan of offering explanations to outsiders, as the book came with no preface, no introductory overview, and a table of contents that a newcomer may find inscrutable. For example, the opening page dives right into techniques for using an apparatus known as the “Swami Gimmick Writer” without any explanation as to what one of these devices actually is, or why someone who practices mentalism would want to know how to use them––or, needless to say, what it is that a mentalist is actually supposed to doing.
Perhaps the point was to get me to develop my capacity for conjuring hidden meanings. With this challenge in mind, I was inspired to interpret that the device in question, which has some lead in a point like a pencil tip, attached in a subtle manner by a tiny device that fits on the tip of an index finger, is used––I think–– to make surreptitious markings on paper. This can be useful, I imagine, in the event that a participant has just revealed that the number they were thinking was six and you mean to show that the number you anticipated they would be thinking when you pretended to write one earlier was actually also––“Tah-dah! Six!”
So, with slight help from ability to use context clues, and much greater help from Wikipedia, I now understand that mentalism is a performing art in which its practitioners, known as mentalists, appear to demonstrate highly developed mental or intuitive abilities. Performances may include hypnosis, telepathy, clairvoyance, divination, precognition, psychokinesis, mediumship, mind control, memory feats, deduction, and rapid mathematics.
And who couldn’t use more of this? So, in case you are wondering, I thought I would harvest a few pearls of wisdom regarding these various and related arts, because it is hard to imagine that such a wide range of skills would not be almost universally applicable to anyone in any field.
This proved harder than I thought, because in Corinda’s own words, “I am not a fan of teaching anything to anybody at any time, except if they are one of us.” Given that teaching is my stated profession, I was moved to appreciate the bald-faced, albeit somewhat pessimistic nature of his honesty. By around page 275 of the volume, in the Chapter “Mediumistic Stunts,” I found a few clues that I am choosing, by exercise of will, to deem immensely useful. Who couldn’t benefit from some mediumistic stunts? I read on eagerly, thinking as I considered the day ahead: Sign me up, Tony. Sign me up.
Here are some preliminary findings. First, the most important part is the dramatic delivery of speech. The element of surprise is always our friend, and some may be surprised to know what one can get away with in a setting like a séance. Note the importance of word choice. Instead of mind-reading, say Telepathy, or ESP. Rather than sight, refer to Clairvoyance. Instead of hearing, refer to your Clairaudience, and regarding matters of feeling, Clairsentience evokes the ineffable je ne sais quoi that any performer of mental–– um, Events (never, ever call these tricks) ––depends upon.
These people are not the audience, but The Gathering! Not Ladies and Gentlemen, but Sitters and Friends! Not tools or thingies, but Psychic Appliances with specific names: auragoggles, spirit trumpet, gazing crystal. Not Ghost, but Spirit; not Assistant, but Guide. The living are On the Earthplane, and the others are Beyond the Veil.
To vanish is to Dematerialize, and Apportation is when something is apparently brought into the room my supernatural means.
There’s more to be explained––much more, but after hunting so long for something I could understand, I am going to rest on my laurels here. On days like this, in times like this, when I’m acutely aware of the need for some magic or divine assistance with the details of the day, I am refreshed by the reminder that sometimes what is needed most is the opportunity to reframe a situation through language.
It is not overwhelming, but sensorily and spiritually fertile; not soul-crushing, but soul-strengthening as with an athlete’s weight routine; not desperate, but ready to transform.
