Is skepticism a threat to mentalism?

[Fasto]

Hello, fellow JREFers,
I'll try to keep this short - this is really weird, I've been a member here for a few years, I've been an amateur mentalist for a few years, and also a skeptic.
Yet, I've never really seen this issue discussed:
So we're all in favour of a world where people no longer just believe in 'psychics' and people like Uri Geller.
We think that, unless these people produce better evidence of their abilities, we can dismiss them as fakes.
But of course, if we actually expect the rest of the world be skeptical, they won't accept our word for it, they'd like to see a demonstration of *how* the trick is done. Which is what people like Randi / Penn & Teller do.
So where do mentalists fit in?
In an ideal world, people would be aware of how cold reading and metal bending works, and they wouldn't respond to it.
They couldn't know the people they're watching are fakes, unless they know how the trick works. Unless they don't want to know, in which case they're irrelevant, because they're believers.
So my question is:
Is Skepticism compatible with Mentalism / Magic?

It doesn't seem to be, does it? If we managed to warn everyone about how people like Geller pretend to bend spoons, no mentalist would ever be able to bend a spoon again using the same method. And if he found a new method - well, psychics can be creative too.

[Marduk]

I'm guessing youre not from the Uk
Mentalist doesnt have the same meaning here that it does in the U.S.
;)
maybe you should read this
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mentalist

[SusanB-M1]

I wonder whether people would enjoy the entertainment more because they know it is a very clever and well practised skill. Their admiration and respect for the entertainer would increase, I think.

[six7s]

Is Skepticism compatible with Mentalism / Magic?Yes, of course - in the same way that scepticism is compatible with optical illusions... when you know that something is a 'trick', the 'fascination value' doesn't necessarily diminish ... sometimes it can increase :)

And sometimes... we just HAVE to know how they did it

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Grabula


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Grabs-U


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Grabula and Grabs-U revealed

[Kuko 4000]

Thanks for the vids six7s, that was actually way more interesting than I thought at first. Good stuff :)

[The Fallen Serpent]

I enjoyed those vidoes as well. Being skeptical does not mean forsaking all joy in illusion. I am uncertain exactly what you mean by mentalist but I am feeling you mean a stage performer of mental tricks? A performer does not necessarily need to explain how the trick is being accomplished and I have no problem with that as long as the person is only selling the entertainment value of being tricked or out thought to the audience. Attempting to sell advice or knowledge from beyond such as in a psychic hotline is where I draw a definitive line. I also draw a distinction between someone who claims to be a performer who does not want to explain their methods and someone who claims to have psychic powers that come from enlightenment/god/aliens/twinkies/ect.

[MRC_Hans]

I have always enjoyed various performers, illisionists, etc. I have never, even for a moment, not even as a kid, believed there was any kind of magic in it.

In a way, if magic was possible, and performers used it, it would be cheating.

Hans

[The Drain]

Those videos were fantastic - I can't wait to show them to my children when I get home from work this evening.

And I agree with other posters here, in answer to Fasto's OP question, it can be hugely entertaining knowing that you're being fooled and yet not knowing how. But it's a bore if the entertainer/mentalist tries to convince you that there is something genuinely paranormal going on.

So don't worry; skepticism is not a threat to the entertaining art of mentalism.

[six7s]

More vids:

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Cris Angels' Levitation Revealed

--------------------

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Criss Angel Walks on Water


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Criss Angel's Walk On Water Revealed

[Fasto]

Hello,
thanks a lot for your responses, and especially for those videos.

I'm afraid I don't fully 'get' what you mean. I think I worded my question rather badly. Most replies seem like answers to 'can skeptics still enjoy magic / mentalism'. That's not really what I meant to ask. What I meant to ask was supposed to come down to 'How can we expose psychics witout exposing mentalists?'.
Does that make sense?
If we want to convince people that so-called psychics are basically doing cold-reading, we usually have to give examples and explain how cold reading works. This is educational, these people will now be aware of that technique and hopefully no longer fall for it when psychics try to apply it. But aren't they also 'immune' to mentalists trying to cold read them, or be able to see through this being done in a mentalism performance, and in a way ruin the excitement? Same goes for one-ahead at dodgy churches and metal bending at Gellerings.
I could imagine someone arguing that 'well, we can tell them that it's a trick without showing them exactly how it's done', but then that would be more of a belief than a skeptical opinion, wouldn't it?

Again, I apologise for a topic that is now seemingly about the opposite of that I was going to ask about....

How can I convince someone that if I'm simply doing the French Drop, I'm not making the coin disappear, without showing them where the coin goes? I need another option - that may be ok for effects with 2 or more workeable methods, but for tricks that only use one?

/Fasto

[Akhenaten]

I can't help you directly Fasto (cool name), except to say that I'm sceptical of my own shadow and yet I love magic tricks and stuff like that.

I haven't been there much myself, but there's a sub-forum here for Conjurors and things.

Heres a linky (http://forums.randi.org/forumdisplay.php?f=22)


Cheers and Welcome, matey,

Dave

[The Fallen Serpent]

Part of the fun of watching performance illusionists is attempting to figure out how it is done. Or at least for some people some of the time. In a way I think that encourages the performers to keep on top of their game, crafting new tricks and honing the already known tricks to the point that we cannot sense it being done even when we hypothetically know how. Sometimes even the revelation that a trick was accomplished in a completely different way than was expected is pretty damn entertaining. The videos above showing how simple the computer interaction trick was without need of video manipulation was nicely entertaining. Good luck in your endeavors!

[gtc]

There is still a place for mentalists, they just have to update their acts to account for the fact that most of us now know how the simpler tricks are accomplished.

[Akhenaten]

When I watch Criss Angel do his stuff, I don't try to be the least bit critical about it. I'm happy to just go 'Wow!" and be entertained by a talented performer.

[gtc]

In a way I think that encourages the performers to keep on top of their game, crafting new tricks and honing the already known tricks to the point that we cannot sense it being done even when we hypothetically know how. Sometimes even the revelation that a trick was accomplished in a completely different way than was expected is pretty damn entertaining.

P&T have several videos where they demonstrate how to do a trick and then, almost as an afterthought, they do it too quickly for me to follow or do it in what looks like a completely different way.

For me, this makes it more entertaining as it demolishes my belief that I know how they do it.

[Akhenaten]

The doity double-crossers! :)


Is it some form of irony that the people who are best equipped to fool us, like P&T and the Amazing are the people that we find to be the most credible?

[Garrette]

There is still a place for mentalists, they just have to update their acts to account for the fact that most of us now know how the simpler tricks are accomplished.It is almost all simple stuff; it is just that the simple stuff is quite hard. Strip away the complexities, and what you have left is the real work*.


*I don't mean real paranormal things happening; I mean the things that mentalists call the real work.

[Garrette]

To the OP:

The answer is both yes and no: skepticism is a threat to mentalism, but it also is not.

There is not one type of audience member, either for mentalists or psychics. What ruins it for one will not ruin it for another. The real question is: how many believers will actually stop believing even if they are shown all the methods in all the world for all the mentalist effects ever performed? I suspect the percentage is smaller than either of us would like. For vague evidence, I point you to the Magic Cafe where a large number of skilled and experienced mentalists--quite knowledgeable in the ways of deception--believe nonetheless in "real psychics."

[six7s]

There is still a place for mentalists, they just have to update their acts to account for the fact that most of us now know how the simpler tricks are accomplished.Or perform to crowds of drunks ;)