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You have most likely heard of card tricks and magic tricks, as well as their magical and fun way of entertaining others. Often, these forms of entertainment are used for birthday parties, events, circuses, or state fairs. Being someone who uses this magic, or a Mentalist can mean guessing what another person is thinking. This might raise the question, “How do you guess a number with Mentalism?”
Generally, your observation skills, ability to read people and understanding of others’ body language can lead you to guess the number they chose, making it appear like you have read their mind. Some Mentalism tricks you can use to predict numbers include The Swami Pencil and The Great Math Trick.
To some, a Mentalist can appear to have a higher mental ability when compared to the average person. Mentalism comes from a psychological origin, which in tum means to predict numbers it is important to understand the basics of psychology. Do you know how to leverage the psychology of others? Do you want to learn how to predict a number using Mentalism? Keep reading to find this out and more.
Number Predictions Using Mentalism
In a prediction, you appear to predict the future or a specific answer before being provided any information by the participants. When it comes to Mentalism, this prediction is typically a word, number, or event that is formed when a participant is asked a series of questions. Or it is something the group spectating thinks of or comes together to generate the answer to the questions that the entertainer asks.
In other words, Mentalism number predictions are the entertainers using various tricks to divert their audience's attention and guess the number. Here is a list of tricks that Mentalists use to do number predictions.
The Swami Pencil
This Mentalism trick involves using a Swami Pencil, or an indiscreet fake thumb cover that matches your skin tone with a pencil lead attachment for writing without being noticed.
Here is a list of steps you can take to predict a number using Mentalism and the Swami Pencil:
- Step 1: Ask someone in the audience to guess your cell phone number, then ask the person selected to think of your number and repeat it in their head.
- Step 2: Pretend to write the number down on some sort of piece of paper. This would then give the impression that you are reading the person's mind.
- Step 3: Have the person write the number they believe is your phone number down and show it to the audience.
- Step 4: Use a Swami Pencil to quickly write down the phone number the person showed off.
- Step 5: Show the piece of paper you wrote on, and it should match the phone number the person wrote down.
Now that you know how to successfully complete this trick, let’s move on to another number prediction Mentalism trick.
The Great Math Trick
In this trick, you can use simple math calculations to be able to trick others into thinking that you knew the number the person was thinking.
To predict a number using The Great Math Trick, follow these steps:
- Step 1: Have an audience member think of any number
- Step 2: Add the higher number to the first number
- Step 3: Add nine
- Step 4: Divide the number by 2
- Step 5: Subtract the results of this number from the original number
The result will always end with the answer being 5, which will make anyone think the entertainer knew their number from the very beginning.
In both examples, the Mentalist ensures that they are getting the correct answer but acts as if they are just guessing the answer correctly during each scenario. To be successful at this, the Mentalist has to be able to entertain the audience, distract them, and make sure they do not realize that they are being tricked into an answer because it is the only possible option.
How to Predict With Mentalism
There are few key things that you need to know how to do to be successful at predicting using Mentalism. These skills do not require you to know any specific magic tricks, but rather focus on the understanding of people in general.
In order to predict with Mentalism, it is essential to learn these skills:
- Heightened observation
- Reading people
- Entertaining people
To hone on this trick, you will need to make sure that you spend time with people and around people a lot. You need to be able to watch and learn from them. It is also essential to understand how people work, this way you can make it so you can relate to them.
The Basics of Predicting With Mentalism
Mentalism comes from a psychological origin and is a skill of understanding a person’s behavior. These behaviors can include their body language, understanding their thoughts, and understanding how people react to certain things. Keep reading to find a few things for you to pay attention to when predicting with Mentalism.
Watching the Lips
One example of watching the lips would be when the entertainer would ask people to think of a particular item or word and would, in return, guess which item or word it was that they were thinking. The entertainer would pay attention to what the audience was doing.
In most cases, they would be able to see people muttering the word under their breath. These are the different signs that need to be closely watched by the entertainer.
Using Misdirection
When someone is using misdirection, they are planting an idea into a person's mind, without them realizing that it was not their idea. The idea being that you are telling the person to think a certain thing, so when you guess the word or item you will be correct because you put the imagery in their head.
The entertainer would do this by mentioning keywords repeatedly throughout a conversation. If your keyword is an item, it can be even more beneficial to use whatever that item while using the keyword.
Asking for Behavior
The best way to be able to get a predictable response from someone is to be able to understand who that person is. The entertainer needs to be able to predict what their thoughts are, what their actions might be, and be able to do this by asking leading questions.
Think of it as an attorney leading the witness to answer a question a certain way while getting questioned during a trial. These questions need to allow for them to agree or disagree. If they agree then the entertainer can say that they are correct. If they disagree then the entertainer can provide an example as to why they thought that they would. As a result, they still come off as being correct.
These are various things that you can pay attention to while watching an entertainer perform their act. Is the entertainer using keywords? Are they using agree or disagree type questions? Are they planting ideas into the participant's head?
To be able to be successful with practicing mentalism you need to be able to under these skills, which will require you to be able to learn more about the psychology behind people's behaviors.
Mentalism Number Prediction Easy to Accomplish
Mentalism is a form of a trick that uses key observation and the ability to entertain to trick people into thinking that they are able to predict numbers, objects, or events. It is a way of leveraging human psychology into believing a certain level of the unknown exists, even when the question is directing them into a certain answer.
