Latest / The Magic Guys / Christopher Carter and the Art of Mentalism! #263

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Christopher Carter and the Art of Mentalism! #263 · The Magic Guys

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They're guys. They do magic. They are the Magic Guys.
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Oh my word. I tried to do a pressure fan there for our intro and it did not pressure. There we go.
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I should have got Nick to do the fancy stuff. Ladies and gentlemen,
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welcome to episode 263 of the Magic Guys.
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I'm one of the Magic Guys, Josh Norbedo, but to my left we have...
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We have another magic guy called Nick K.
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Woo! And together we make two magic guys.
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Doug, of course, is running the Tricks of Life store right now.
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It's really busy in there, he said, right now.
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And he may pop up at some point. So let's see. It's always a mystery here live on the podcast.
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Nick, we've got some friends that seem quite excited for today.
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Who have we got in the chat?
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We have some friends in the chat. Good to see you, Scotty Link.
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We have the mystery box studio scotty p red
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aces we know that's you gehan just use your real name your
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weirdo tim asking them questions good to
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see you and we have oh kelly taylor that's a new face uh
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friends welcome to the live broadcast
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of the magic guys uh where we interview really cool people
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and talk about all things magic and of course as you
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are in the chat if you do have questions you can
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pop your questions in there and we'll answer them live here
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on the show that being said is there any other
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news we want to talk about before introducing how
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awesome yeah look things are going well no particular
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news comes to mind today i'm just excited to yeah hear all about this man and
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i'm sure we're all going to be big fans by the end of this because we've talked
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to him backstage a little bit and just a very thoughtful thinking guy in the
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world of mentalism how heavy real quick how heavy are you on mentalism in your.
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Acts well i study it thoroughly i
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can tell you that much and i did read his
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amazing book which we'll talk all about on today's show and
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i was completely enamored with it like it i basically
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every single routine in this book i was like this could go into my
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show tomorrow it is so phenomenal and now
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with having the theater of magic to perform so frequently we
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now have these forums to be able to perform in
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so you know i blend the mentalism
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game or the the sort of psychological forces and
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controls in my close-up so we actually
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have oh david rhodes who's skipping work to be
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part of today's i've never
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we're skipping school to hang out with the cool kids man like how cool is that
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let's not waste another moment do it he's asking why does that book the bookmark
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yeah there is a bookmark in here because i am rereading a couple of portions
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in the book i'm rereading the three bullet routine, bullet routine.
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So yeah, so I made a couple of notes there when we were talking to Chris backstage,
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but there's people skipping school for this.
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I literally was fanboying for 30 minutes backstage to get it out of my system
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in order to be able to function in front of you people today.
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Josh laughs at me because he knows it's very, very true. So let's begin because
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friends, today's guest is someone who doesn't just perform mentalism.
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He redefines what it can be.
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He's a creator of a critically acclaimed show called Out of This,
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out of my mind, a performer known for turning simple moments into unforgettable experiences,
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and the author of In the Spotlight, which just took Penguin Magic's 2026 book of the year.
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This performer sits somewhere between magic psychology and theater, his theater.
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And honestly, the less you try to explain it, the more powerful his magic becomes
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and his mentalism becomes.
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So please join me in welcoming the amazing Mr. Christopher Carter.
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Bye.
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Wow. What an intro. Hi, I'm Christopher Carter. I am a professional mentalist, have been for 36 years.
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I also love traditional magic, but professional mentalism is my sole focus.
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And of course, that's what the book is all about.
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You know what? First of all, I just got to say, we've done 263 episodes and
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you're the first person to read Nick's mind and answer what he was going to say,
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which is who are you and what you just boom so
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look at that he's already breaking
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uh he's so good so so
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let's get into it look you know i have so many questions okay some very some
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my questions are probably a bit too deep so let's just take it back to a simple
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question of like the beginning and how you got into this game you know though
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you did mention in your book that there was a particular person who influenced
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you to do your magic as influenced you which was.
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Glenn Falkenstein. Tell us about that. Tell us about that.
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Yeah. Tell us about all about that and how you got to where you are now.
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So I was 17 year old kid magician.
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I was doing manipulation acts and I was competing in contests.
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And I ended up at a Midwestern United States competition called the Midwest
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Magic Jubilee by chance.
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And on the stage, one of the big shows was Glenn Falkenstein.
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Now, Glenn Falkenstein specialized in the Blindfold Question and Answer Act.
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I had only read a little bit of mentalism.
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I had a book that featured a little bit of mentalism, and it talked about cold
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reading, which I really didn't know very much about.
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So I'm watching him on stage, and he is just destroying the crowd,
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revealing details about people.
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And all I'm thinking at this point is, this guy must be the best cold reader
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in the history of the world. There's no possible way he could know any of this stuff.
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And then in the middle of his act, he made a little slip that I wish I could
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go into, but I don't know how public the audience is and I don't want, it would reveal it.
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But anyway, it revealed for me exactly how he was getting the information.
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This light bulb went off in my head and I went, wow, you mean you can get that
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kind of impact from this very, very simple technique.
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I got to do this. And so I immediately went out to the hardware store and got
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the necessary material, duct tapes.
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And I went to the bank and got coins. And I set about creating a blindfold question
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answer act. That has been a staple of my act since then.
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That has been over 40 years. So it gives you some idea of how long that I have
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been doing this kind of thing. Wow.
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That's staggering because, and the thing about it is that it seems like the
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impact wasn't so much that it was the actual effects, but there's an actual
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theater that comes along with that.
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Because I always, I said that before the show that your work feels less like
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magic and more like theater.
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So at what point did you consciously decide to move that from being a trick
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into an actual theater experience?
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Well, was it, did it happen that soon at the age of 17? no
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no in fact i learned to do it technically but
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as far as the performance went i stunk it was just
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this ponderous awful thing and part
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of what happened was that i just wondered why am i
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not getting the same kind of impact that i
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saw him get even though i'm doing effectively the same method what am i doing
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wrong and i realized that it it had very very little to do with the method and
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everything to do with the way you stage the interaction with the audience and
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the way that you hold a conversation with them in which it seems like you're reading their mind.
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Now that took me years and years to perfect. It also actually took me into the world of theater.
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I worked on a PhD in theater, thought I was going to be a theater professor,
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never ended up finishing my dissertation.
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So I, I, but I taught for four years and then I decided, no,
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I don't want to do that anymore. I want to become a professional entertainer.
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So all these things kind of, you know, went together.
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But I think the real impetus was that I wasn't getting the responses that I
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thought I should get based on what I'd seen.
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Do you think it's because mentalism is strongest with the audience when they
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don't know what to believe?
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No, actually, I don't. Because I will work for people who are eager to really believe in it.
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And I will also work for people, there's nothing you could do to convince them to believe in it.
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And the goal is to create a mystery that's so compelling that even though they don't want to,
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there's that little involuntary part of their mind
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that goes maybe i'm wrong maybe i'm wrong
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and and that's actually the best thing there is
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is that person who just i don't want to believe but
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maybe i'm wrong when you get that it's golden and so i don't think you know
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i don't think they're the belief that they bring with them is really significant
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i really think it has everything to do with how well we act out the role of the mentalist on stage.
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Do we really commit to the action and do things that are consistent with whatever
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a real mind reader would do?
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And I think when you do that, people love to fall into the narrative and just be pulled along.
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And I think that a lot of times they find themselves believing even when they don't want to.
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Could you liken it to, say in the in the magic world when people watch david
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blaine do ambitious card routine and have jeff bezos lose his mind and then
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someone has just learned it with no character.
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Creation and wonder why people are thinking, oh, that's a fun little trick.
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This is a totally different reaction, technically same routine.
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Is that kind of- Yes, I would liken it exactly to that.
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And in fact, although, you know, primarily David Blaine does magic as opposed
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to mentalism, I think he's more like mentalism than a lot of mentalists.
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And the reason I say that is because my definition of mentalism is magic that
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is presented as if it were real.
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And if it's presented as if it's real, it makes sense.
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The person really acts out the creation of that magic in a way that hits you
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on a gut level that's highly believable.
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And I don't think it really matters as if whether it's a coin trick or whether
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it's a mind trick, if it's presented with that level of conviction,
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then it can be perceived by the audience as something real. Now,
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I'm going to back up a little bit.
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When I say perceived as something real, I am not in the business of trying to
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make my audience believe that what I do is real. That's not what I mean.
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What I mean is that it feels so real in the moment that they just give up and
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they allow themselves to go with the flow of the performance.
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Yeah. So it sounds like the audience either like believes that it's real or
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the flip coin is that they want it to be real.
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You know, that's a good part. A good point. I think a lot of people who come to it.
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I don't believe any of this. I don't believe any of this really do actually want it to be real.
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Yeah now my my opening line
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completely downplays my abilities as a
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mentalist in fact it's in my introduction my introduction says
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he's been called the world's greatest mind reader but he's not psychic he
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has no special powers he's just in the business of freaking people out
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and it just it disarms
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the audience when that happens and the first thing i do when i come out
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is i say this is my favorite part of the day because the moment
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you find out what i do for a living half of you will never make
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eye contact with me ever again and this gets
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a lie and i say that's not how this works i can't literally pluck every little
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thought out of your brain but i can make it look like i do and then we dive
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into it so i'm not entering into any of this with a heavy presentation but i
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call that fair warning it's like watching i don't know fake professional wrestling.
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You act as if it's real and people will follow and they will get invested in it.
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And for the period of the performance, they will enjoy it as if it were real.
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So when we look at this side of the coin, we have this like one part of the
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audience that perhaps believe that this is genuinely a real skill set.
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And then there's others that want it to be real.
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Do you think that they give a preference or do you think that one side of the
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coin is more? Yeah, I do. I do.
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Actually, I think I prefer the people who want it to be real.
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I think that for me, they're the most fun to play with.
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I don't feel like I'm guiding them in some direction that I feel uncomfortable guiding them.
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And of course, everything I do is purely theatrical. It's only in a show.
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I don't carry any of this outside of it.
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But yeah, I find them more fun.
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So when you're like basically playing with these minds, for lack of a better
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word, do you ever have these moments, like you're effectively searching for a moment.
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What is that moment? What is that sort of like holy grail that you're going for with these folks?
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That's something that's a little indefinable, but I'll work on it.
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The best moments happen during my question and answer routine in which I am,
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I call it the group audience mind reading. So I'm just standing people up and
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revealing all sorts of details about them.
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And it is about 60% set in motion. I mean, I know exactly what 60% of it is.
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About 30% of it, what I call strategies that allow me to either get them to
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give me more information than they know they're giving or to get them to kind
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of agree that what I'm saying is right.
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They're, they're sort of misdirective and manipulative strategies.
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And the final 10% is just raw guesswork.
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And I don't know, some nights you are on a roll and you spit out things.
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You just take wild guesses and you hit.
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And when all three of those things are firing together, that is the zone.
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I mean, that, that is when you do things that even people who are hugely in
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the know look at and they scratch their heads at and think, I can't possibly figure that out.
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Or you know that you must have some other hidden techniques involved and and
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the answer is no it's techniques that every mentalist knows plus strategy plus
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luck or rapport i would say better rapport wow,
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Those are the days you've got to really question your own skills.
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You're like, hang on. Can I actually read minds?
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Yeah, you do that. You do that, Josh, until the day that you tank.
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Yeah. Well, I guess what happens when, you know, method aside.
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So would you say with what you've achieved, like when you're aiming for this,
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especially in the context of a Q&A, which seems to be the holy grail of every
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mentalist. They're almost defined by whether it has the greatest Q&A is the greatest mentalist.
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But do you think the magicians hide behind the methods instead of developing
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meanings to their reveals? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
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I think that's the biggest problem with mentalism. And I think it's fed by so
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many people moving from the world of magic into mentalism because there's a
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different kind of mindset.
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Magic can be about the props and it can be about the trick, but mentalism is
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entirely interactive and it really is about the nature of the relationship between
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the mentalist and whoever's mind is being read.
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I think it's hard for some people to make that jump.
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I think it's worth, by the way, trying to make that jump.
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As a matter of fact, that's one of the reasons I wrote the book was to give
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people a different mindset or perspective than what they were getting from a
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lot of mentalism that was being published or sold, but I.
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I think I've also gone completely astray. Let's get back.
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Could you remind me what the original question was? Because I think I've run away.
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The question was about magicians hiding behind methods instead of developing meaning.
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And I think that I'd like to sort of extend upon that, if I may.
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So let's pretend that we're talking to someone under your tutelage.
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And let's pretend that we've got someone who's going to be a magician attempting
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a mind-reading effect for the first time.
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Whenever I've seen magicians go into this foray, for
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me it just seems like they could say whatever
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script they want but i'm gonna tell you what i hear hi there
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would you write this down on a piece of paper so i can look at it later and
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write and just say what you said that's all
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you feel when you see someone who is not well versed in this realm so let's
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reframe the question by saying like what advice do you have for folks who are
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going to start thinking about adding more meaning to their effects of this nature,
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Well, yeah. Let's start with attacking this word meaning.
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It's a good word, but I don't think it really captures what the process is going to have to be.
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Meaning comes out of the process. It's an end result.
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So the first step of the process, I think, is defining what the premise of the effect is.
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And that's a little different from what is the effect, the premise of the effect.
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I would suggest that people try to define the premise in a single declarative
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sentence that starts with the words, I'm going to try.
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Because when you do that, you can come up with some very compelling premises that are very simple.
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And the simpler and more interesting the premise is, the more ultimate meaning
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will come from it. And I want to give you an example.
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So there's a marvelous effect called Pegasus Page, and I have a version of it
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in my book that I call Horsefly.
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And a lot of people are now using this version because it gets to the heart
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of what is the premise here.
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And so many times when this
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trick is done it's a page somehow disappears
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from a book and is teleported elsewhere and and people don't really get that
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but but i decided what the premise needed to be is i'm going to make you see
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something that doesn't exist or let me go back to my original framing i'm going
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to try to make you see something that doesn't exist.
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That's interesting. Can you
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actually make me do that? Now, listen to the way that premise is stated.
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There's two parts. There's me acting and there's the person I'm going to act
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upon. And then there's the thing that I'm going to try to achieve.
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So now I have something that I have to work to achieve.
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That's the theater of it. I get to build a play around me trying to achieve this.
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And all the stuff that's interesting is that play.
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So I'll make a big deal about suggestion effects and trying to influence them
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through the power of suggestion.
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I'll even do a hypnotic induction on them that has absolutely nothing to do
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with the outcome of the effect.
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But theatrically, it's interesting. And the audience is leaning into this thinking,
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ah, this must be what's going to cause this to happen.
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So that's the first step I am going to try.
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And the more interesting you can make that premise, the better.
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I do a version of an effect of TA Waters. The effect is called Kino.
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And in that effect, a person offers up a three digit number,
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which turns out to be your old apartment number, which is inscribed on the back of your key.
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It's a beautiful effect. My version is really simple. It's in my second Penguin lecture.
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But what's the premise? The premise, ultimately, I have a person in the audience
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call somebody on the phone, and I have them talk secondhand to that person,
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asking them for a number, asking them to imagine that they're in an apartment building.
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So it's me talking to them, talking to somebody on a phone, who knows where.
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And the premise is I'm going to try to influence the mind of somebody secondhand
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over the phone. That's an interesting premise.
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So when you, when you can simplify a premise, but still make it interesting
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and compelling, then you start to have meaning and the meaning comes from the
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obstacles that you put in the way.
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It comes from the difficulty. So the second thing I would advise somebody to
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do is to have an absolutely clear view of theatrically how you're going to accomplish this.
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I don't mean the method, but I mean theatrically.
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So I'm going to ask you to concentrate on somebody.
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How am I going to get this? Well, maybe I can only do this if I have you concentrate
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on somebody that you've known and maybe somebody that has impacted you extremely
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powerfully personally,
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or maybe only if it's somebody that you've lost.
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The more clear that I make that, the more we get away from, hey,
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I'm going to have you write this down. That's incidental. That's just a recording.
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Now it's the interaction that matters. And I have something to play.
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So I ask you, Nick, to think of a person's name, somebody you lost,
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somebody you maybe knew from your childhood, but you've lost track of them over time.
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And I would say, I want you to say their name in your mind, definitely not out
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loud, but I need you to hear that tone of voice that goes with the loss.
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Hear your inner voice, say it, but allow your inner voice to feel that emotion
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and express that emotion.
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Just try it. Right.
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No, you're still too detached, Nick. Really dig into... Got it.
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Okay, now I'm playing something, and what I'm playing gives life to the experience.
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And even better, the act of playing it, really theatrically digging into it,
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will get that person to respond in a way of just incredible emotional force
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that they wouldn't have done if it's just, think of the name.
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Okay, I see a T, and i and n and a is
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it tina and they go yeah yeah yeah somehow you figured
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out what i wrote but we put that that that
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play in between and use that play to give life to what the process of mind reading
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looks like that's what gives it meaning hmm even as you say that i'm in my stomach
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i'm like if i hear you say the words and because you know even as a spectator
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i'm thinking of my own person I've lost touch with.
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And I can even feel it as you're creating this, this world.
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I'm like, if I fricking hear him say this name, I'm going to lose my mind,
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you know? So I can only imagine in a real world setting.
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It makes me wonder too, as a mentalist, what.
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Is the vibe at a corporate event because you are a
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seasoned pro in the in the corporate entertainment world yeah and like when
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nick and i do a corporate magic show it's very much like oh that was super fun
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or that was freaky and then they tell us all the dynamo tv series they've watched
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you know but like what is the like do people take it more seriously are people like do they have,
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personal questions like can you help me remember my crypto password like what what is it like.
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It's, it's a little more complex than, than doing straight magic,
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but it's not necessarily a lot more complex than, after all,
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I'm there as an entertainer.
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I'm not there to, I'm not there as part of some sort of religious revival.
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You know, I'm strictly there as an entertainer. At first, they're actually a little scared of you.
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And I always eat with the client. I always do because my very best networking
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comes from having dinner with them.
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So I make it a point. I will be, in fact, I will ask whoever's booked me who
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the important people are that I want to be seated with so that I make sure that
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I can sit and have a conversation.
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But I come and I sit down at a table. Everybody at that table at that point
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is going to be, oh my gosh, I better be careful what I say because he's watching,
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he's observing, he's picking up on every little body language clue,
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whatever they think mentalism is. So at first they're kind of scared.
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But I'm pretty good at drawing people out of their shell.
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And after a while, they lighten up and they get to like me. And because the
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first part of the show is very humorous, it just draws them in.
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Afterwards, you will have a few who come up and maybe ask if you can,
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I don't know, find that photograph of their grandmother that they lost or whatever.
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And I'll be honest and say, no, I can't do that.
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Everything that you've seen is part of a show. Think of this as a kind of a psychological game.
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I've set you up like little dominoes and now I've pushed
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you down and that's what's happened if I
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could really do this I wouldn't be here but yeah
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there are some but most people at that point just give in I I try to apply what
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I call the two by four theory of mentalism take a big wooden plank and just
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whack them over the head with it over and over and over until they submit so in other words,
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just hit them with the strongest things I can so fast and so furiously that
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eventually they give up.
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And it's the best way I know. In fact, it's really the only way I know.
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My routines are maybe theatrically kind of subtle, but another way,
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they're not at all. Another way, they're just extremely direct.
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And they always go for the straightest path toward the conclusion. I don't meander ever.
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So it just becomes fun.
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I think you just written your next book called brute force mentalism by the sounds of it.
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Just come charging on a horse. That, that comes in part from the audience where I really cut my teeth.
26:08
I spent over 20 years of my career as a performer who works almost exclusively
26:15
on university and college campuses.
26:17
And over the course of my career, I performed well over 3,500 different university campuses.
26:24
Well, not different campuses, because I would get the same one every year, but shows.
26:27
And this is an audience with a relatively short attention span that is not remotely
26:33
afraid to tell you what they think.
26:35
And if they are bored, they will let you know. And so I just evolved approaches
26:40
that were as straightforward as I could possibly make them.
26:44
Let's explore that real quick, because over the space of 20 years,
26:47
we're talking about generations of young, up-and-coming students and future
26:54
doctors, future lawyers, etc.
26:57
Has there been a sort of difference in audience with regards to attention spans
27:02
and things of that nature from 20 years ago to audiences today? Yeah, absolutely.
27:08
Absolutely. I'm trying to think when I first started. Actually,
27:11
it's been more like 30 because I first started performing on university campuses
27:15
in 1996. So it's been 30 years.
27:18
I would say for the first 10 or so of those years, there wasn't any noticeable change.
27:24
It really, I mean, this will sound like a cliche, but the introduction of the
27:28
smartphone really did start to shorten people's attention spans.
27:32
So when I first began, I was performing a 75-minute show, and then I shrunk
27:37
it to 60 because 75 was just way too long.
27:41
You have to do at least 60 in that field. You can't do any shorter than that.
27:44
But yeah, you could definitely tell attention spans were starting to shrink.
27:49
But I don't know that that has a lot to do with the imperative of being very
27:54
direct and having a fast-paced show. I think that's always been pretty consistent.
27:59
But now, if you don't get to the point early, you're definitely going to lose your crowds.
28:05
I'm, I'm curious seeing that soon we're talking about audiences and performances,
28:08
we probably have an opportunity to talk about sort of gig stories and so forth.
28:11
So let's just sneak into that real quick with this question.
28:13
Have you ever had a performance go too far where your experience with you was
28:20
just a little bit too real for someone?
28:24
Not so much the performances themselves well
28:28
i can think of one expectations this is something that's changed
28:31
quite a lot when i first began in the
28:34
mid-1990s up until the very early 2000s
28:37
it wasn't entirely uncommon to encounter very religious people who were deeply
28:44
offended by the whole concept of the show they had actually made up their mind
28:48
before ever seeing the show I remember walking into one performance that I gave at a university,
28:54
and there were all these people holding hands in a circle and singing and praying,
28:59
and they were having a prayer vigil.
29:02
And so I said, so, you know, what is happening? What are you having this prayer
29:06
vigil for? Well, we're trying to drive evil out from the area.
29:10
Really, what do you mean? Well, this show that's about to happen tonight,
29:14
this is, you know, communing with Satan. And I was a little flabbergasted, to be honest.
29:22
So I didn't say anything. I just walked into the building and went and set up my show.
29:28
But I also had another time when a woman walked onto the stage and demanded
29:32
that I release the audience from Satan's grasp immediately, and she would not
29:36
leave the stage. And they actually had to call security to come and get her off the stage. Yeah.
29:42
I don't get that anymore. That does not happen anymore. We just don't get that
29:47
same publicity anymore, you know?
29:52
That's exceptional. So I guess it just goes to show that Christopher Carter
29:56
could not have had a career in any other decade or century other than this one
30:02
because it had been burnt to the stake.
30:04
I can only imagine what someone experiencing a
30:08
pk touch routine was like back then before there
30:10
were iphones and people saw clips of
30:13
like people had even less knowledge of anything even further
30:17
back i i can man i wish i was performing back then i was still bloody learning
30:23
to walk that well i i do want to hesitate i don't want to hesitate to say that
30:26
was rare that was not something that happens that often yeah it's certainly
30:32
look i i've experienced that sort of thing myself.
30:34
And then I tell them that I'm a Christian. The guy, you're really, I go, yeah, man.
30:38
And then we'll say a prayer together or something. Like I've done that with
30:40
audiences before, which is so weird. But we have a question from our audience.
30:44
The question is friend, can you ask him if he has a favorite multiple outs routine?
30:51
Yes, I do. It's, it's in my book.
30:55
Don't consider that purely a plug, but it's my staple gun routine,
30:59
which is a really ultimately a four-way multiple out effect.
31:06
Let's talk about the book, buddy. Let's do it. So the book is called In the Spotlight.
31:12
It has won the 2026 Penguin Magic Book of the Year.
31:18
I love this book. I've read it in several moments. And again,
31:22
yeah, like I've always struggled with the Pegasus Page Principle.
31:26
And this for me, like finally made me go, now I love it. Like it's always never felt right.
31:31
So it's been an absolute killer book.
31:35
Now, we spoke about this backstage before the show, where this has been a six or seven year.
31:42
Like a labor of love, correct? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
31:48
So the book started with the idea that I would just assemble things that I'd
31:54
published, but I had published in very limited form.
31:58
I had published in amongst the Psychic Entertainers Association,
32:02
which is a very small, relatively closed group of mentalists.
32:06
I eventually put a few things in MUM, which is the Society of American magicians.
32:12
And most things that you put just disappear. Nobody pays any attention to them anymore.
32:18
But I thought, well, it wouldn't be fun if I just collected a few of these things.
32:21
And as I began to collect them, I began to think about, if I'm going to put
32:26
these in a book, what would I really want the book to be about?
32:29
Because my favorite books were never ones that were just tricks.
32:34
They were the thought behind the trick and the purposes for the trick, every nuance behind it.
32:40
My favorite books were also ones that were written by professional entertainers.
32:44
I loved Al Coran's professional presentations.
32:47
I loved The Uncanny Scott by Ron Wilson, because these were people who had done
32:51
this material so often that you knew you were going to get a level of detail
32:56
in there that couldn't be duplicated by just dreaming up an effect,
33:00
doing it four or five times.
33:02
So that's what I wanted to write. But I
33:05
also began to think about all the magicians who were sort
33:08
of wanting to make a transition from magic into mentalism and wanting to try
33:13
the best i could to show them the kind of thought processes that they might
33:19
want to go through or that would be necessary to make mentalism feel alive and
33:24
electric and vital for their audiences because.
33:28
I do believe that on the whole, even though mentalism is obviously a branch
33:33
of magic, it's also in many ways very distinct from magic.
33:36
It operates by some different theatrical rules, and you can't approach mentalism
33:42
thinking exactly the same way you do for developing your coins across routine.
33:47
They're theatrically very different things. So I wanted to come up with a book
33:52
where the magic theory, if you will, was hidden underneath the effects.
33:58
And that turned out to be hard. What can I say? It turned out to be hard.
34:03
So I would write it. I would put it away for a while. I would reread it and
34:07
think, no, I didn't make it. Let me go back and redo it.
34:11
And about seven years later, I finished.
34:14
You know, some of the routines in here are just so practical and so,
34:20
I wouldn't say simple because it's the perplexity of the way you present them
34:25
and there's a depth and connection that you're able to do with these particular methods that you have.
34:32
Do you think that mentalism today is a little too safe in that sense?
34:39
No. I mean, there's all different kinds of mentalism, so I wouldn't say that.
34:44
I would say that mentalism today is by and large too procedural.
34:50
Too much stuff has to happen to get us to the end result.
34:55
If you can make procedure interesting, then you are among the rarest of the
35:02
rare in terms of your presentational skills.
35:05
Max Maven could do that. Very, very few people can.
35:09
Now, a lot of mentalism requires some level of procedure, so you do have to
35:13
deal with it. But the less procedure you can use, the better off the routine
35:18
is going to be. So you mentioned simple.
35:22
I think that overwhelmingly, the best mentalism methods are simple.
35:27
In fact, they're so simple that when you see them, they seem obvious to you.
35:31
You look at them and you think, of course, but then you backtrack and you realize,
35:37
I never saw that. I never saw that coming.
35:41
So that is a quality of a really great mentalism effect.
35:45
The best methods are in your face. if you were to step back and analyze,
35:51
you could probably pick them up pretty easily, but you don't because you're
35:55
so drawn in by the compelling presentation.
35:57
The best routines are simple, but making them simple is really hard.
36:04
It's really hard. It takes editing. You have to go back and do it over and over
36:09
again and just cut out everything that isn't necessary until you have the premise being played out.
36:17
So that's kind of what I wanted to show. I wanted to show people that you want
36:22
to create a compelling premise that's simple.
36:25
You want to add these theatrical elements that will help you connect to the
36:30
audience. And if you do that, and only if you do that, will you create really
36:34
cool mentalism effects.
36:36
You know it's it's the type of thing when you see folks perform it especially at
36:39
a very young age where they're trying to convince you that they're able
36:41
to do this type of thing and it's like you can't even remember to brush your teeth
36:44
before the gig or wear deodorant and i'm supposed
36:47
to believe that you
36:49
have all this amazing ability that you can read my eyebrow lashes and smiles
36:55
and my beard's gray so it says this and like buddy simmer down i i say this
37:01
to preface the question if we way to give a crash course for those folks who
37:05
are looking to make the process interesting, because for me,
37:09
a lot of times when I've seen mentalism done poorly, it's a wonderful 30-second
37:14
routine crammed into three minutes.
37:17
Or more, usually a lot more.
37:19
You're lucky if it hits down to three.
37:22
Okay, let's cram a three-minute routine into 30 minutes.
37:26
So my question to you is, what's the kind of crash course people could be thinking
37:30
about in order to make the process more interesting?
37:33
Like what are the sort of dot points you could suggest?
37:36
Well, you used a phrase earlier that I think actually breaks this whole safe open.
37:42
You said a lot of people try to act like or try to make it look like.
37:47
And that's our big problem. So many mentalists are trying to make it look like
37:52
as opposed to trying to do.
37:54
That's why I'm talking about the power of the premise and the power of acting. Now,
37:59
It might be difficult to relate to somebody who hasn't done any acting,
38:03
but an actor doesn't show. An actor does.
38:07
So an actor tries to elicit an emotional response from their scene partner,
38:13
and they respond to it. They're really trying to do it.
38:17
Even if it's something fictitious, they're doing as opposed to demonstrating or showing.
38:22
And understanding that difference really matters when it comes to creating something
38:26
compelling. So you're talking about, you know, trying to make it look like they
38:29
see with the eyebrow twitch.
38:31
Well, if you actually went through and you cataloged a list of tells that would
38:37
give it, rather than trying to make it look like it, you would watch somebody
38:41
and you would see those tells or at least something that you could attribute it to.
38:46
So you're thinking of a red card, and I know it's red, Nick, and I'm looking at you.
38:52
And I'm saying, think of whether it is red or black, red or black, red or black.
38:57
I'm looking for your pupils to dilate when I say the color of your card and you laugh.
39:00
And so actually what I'm, I look for your, your eyes jutted down to the left. You did it again.
39:06
You know, you're doing it as opposed to trying to show that you're doing it.
39:12
That may be, I may be making distinctions that some people have a hard time
39:16
following, but really it amounts to the word commitment. it.
39:19
If you commit to the action, it's just like when you're a little kid and you
39:24
were playing and you committed to, you know, playing army or whatever it is
39:29
you played when you were a kid, you dove in, you did it as, you know,
39:35
try to use that analogy, a child playing and, you know, maybe they're,
39:38
they're playing army and they're got their little pretend machine gun and go,
39:41
they're not trying to show that they have a pretend machine gun.
39:44
They're trying to use their pretend machine gun to shoot somebody.
39:48
I hope that makes sense because I know I'm talking in kind of a fuzzy way,
39:55
but committing, that is the key to all of this.
40:00
You know, it's interesting because you can't...
40:04
If we were to say like your mindset, it's like, do you have to tell them like,
40:08
you need to believe in that moment that you can genuinely read someone's mind?
40:12
Or do you say, you know, you can't generally read their mind,
40:17
but what you are is someone with a particular set of skills that can see things,
40:21
you know, like, or I don't know that you have to believe in the sense of, of,
40:27
you know, that we believe in our
40:28
religion, for example, but you have to commit, act as if you can do it.
40:34
I don't care whether you're using a psychic presentation or whether you're using
40:38
a psychological presentation. You definitely have to dive in and do, act as if.
40:45
That's what they call it in acting, acting as if.
40:49
So, yeah, belief is kind of a funny way of putting it, but sure.
40:56
If belief means committing to the action, then yes, absolutely.
41:03
Yeah the yeah so i it's it's
41:06
it's interesting thing okay so where my brain is going right now is that
41:09
like i think that there's an ethics that comes along with that where a line
41:13
needs to be drawn do you have any theories i think that's fair i i think that's
41:18
fair i think that if you were to take 10 mentalists and ask them where they
41:24
draw that ethical line you're going to get some radical divergence,
41:28
for me, the ethics starts with keeping it entirely in a theatrical context.
41:35
I don't carry it outside of the theatrical context in any way.
41:40
Now, as a kind of an aside, I am a professional speaker, and I do business presentations,
41:46
and I do teach body language, but I teach it from a different perspective.
41:50
When I do a mentalism effect in the context of teaching body language,
41:55
I say, this is going to look like I can read somebody's body language.
41:59
What you're seeing is an illusion.
42:01
But the power that you're getting isn't from what I'm getting from them.
42:05
The power you're getting is from the way that I'm using my own body language
42:08
to make you feel confident and comfortable in me.
42:13
So my background was theater. My research project was theatrical movement.
42:19
And in the process of doing that, I dug into all of, at that time,
42:22
the current core legitimate research about nonverbal communication.
42:26
And one of the conclusions I came away with is that we can't read people like books.
42:33
People are not puzzles to be figured out. But our own body language and the
42:39
way that we send out what I would call silent signals have incredibly powerful
42:43
impact on the way that people connect with us and perceive us.
42:46
So in that sense yes i use
42:49
body language all the time but would
42:53
everybody do that would everybody say look i'm going
42:56
to make it look like i can read your body language i really can't in that context
42:59
no not everybody would and i don't want to go into any other
43:02
ethical talk about that that's just me i can't
43:05
do it i i lie
43:08
in the context of a theater piece just as
43:11
any other actor lies but i don't lie outside of
43:14
it yeah yeah and there's
43:17
something in that that i think that you need to be able to as a performer like
43:20
be proud of your work and to know that like we look there's no question that
43:24
like what we do is dishonest but we're very honest in doing so right now i'm
43:30
not the world's judge i i honestly if somebody wants to dive in and you know
43:36
portray themselves as entirely psychic there and after,
43:40
not going to get involved. It's not my thing.
43:43
I long ago concluded that I can't change the world. I can only affect how I work within it. But.
43:50
I knew pretty early on that I had to build a persona that I could carry outside
43:56
of it because I did not want to have to be reading people's auras when they come up to me.
44:03
That's not me. That's not who I am. It's not authentic to me. So I had to be authentic.
44:08
And the authentic me was a performer, a showman, not a sage or a mystic.
44:13
So the other aspect of that is, is authenticity matters, you know,
44:20
being consonant with your own personal beliefs matter.
44:22
And especially today, it matters more than ever. I think there was a time when
44:26
people, they would accept a performer sort of coming at them with a level of
44:33
showbiz and inauthenticity, but they don't now.
44:37
They really don't. So, you know, the more true to your own deeper beliefs you
44:43
can get, the better you're going to be.
44:45
Hmm. Now, to circle back to your book with regards to magic versus mentalism,
44:51
a lot of folks who do mentalism or the purists, if you will,
44:55
will really hate the notion of mental magic and so forth.
44:59
There are some wonderful effects in here, like your tossed out deck that,
45:03
you know, like basically, you know, a card trick type thing,
45:05
but it's, it's done so tastefully and so wonderful.
45:09
Do you have any sort of reservations with regards to mixing magic and mentalism?
45:15
Not reservations, cautions. I'll put it in toward the cautions.
45:19
I have a chapter in the book in which I address actually mixing magic and doing
45:25
things which are pure magic tricks, but connecting them to a mentalism routine.
45:31
I don't have a good answer for it because if you look back at the past masters of mentalism,
45:37
Al Koran, Dunninger, the amazing Kreskin, And these gentlemen all would feature
45:44
a magic trick in the context of their show.
45:47
Dunninger did the linking rings. Al-Quran did the linking finger rings.
45:51
Kreskin did the linking finger rings along with essentially a Svengali deck routine.
45:56
But it didn't compromise their perception as masterminds.
46:01
And I think the reason is because of how they introduced it.
46:06
I think if you were to come out of a comedy magic act and into mentalism,
46:10
you'd have a hard time making the mentalism really believable in that sense
46:14
that would get the kind of impact that a more traditional mentalist would get.
46:18
But I think if you were to introduce a magic trick in the context of a mentalism
46:23
show by saying, you know, I started out as a kid magician before I became interested
46:26
in this other type of presentation.
46:29
Let me share with you something that I began, or, you know, I still have a love for that.
46:34
People have no problem with that. None at all. As a matter of fact,
46:38
everybody loves a really good card trick in spite of what some naysayers will say.
46:43
So I will often at a corporate event say, you know, after a show,
46:48
people will say, can you show me something?
46:50
And I'll say, no, I don't do any of the mentalism show afterwards,
46:53
but I do really great card tricks. Would you like to see one?
46:56
Nobody has a problem with that. So I don't think you, it's not that you can't mix the two.
47:02
It's that the, the wisdom to mix them effectively is vanishingly rare.
47:07
And it, you need to understand what makes the mentalism effective and how that
47:14
differs from what makes the magic effective and find some way of bridging the
47:17
two because it is easy to compromise your mentalism by having done some magic before it.
47:23
It's not a idea of being able to say afterwards like read my mind now you know
47:30
like you're at the urinal and you're like yo this is what i do on stage by the
47:34
way yeah like yes i will but first uh,
47:40
it's only fair you have to send me you know ten thousand dollars that's how long is it.
47:47
Well speaking of situations like that you know being a seasoned pro you have
47:52
to have some interesting gig stories so i feel like it's only fair that we uh
47:55
roll into a little gig Big story segment. What do you reckon, Nick? Let's do it.
48:00
So gig stories is a section of the show where we like to talk about all
48:03
these magical moments either from our day to day or while performing award-winning
48:07
kick-ass shows like out of my mind so
48:10
chris i'm sure you have some pretty gnarly stories please do share really early
48:16
on in fact it was almost my first professional paid gig i in the real early
48:23
1990s comedy clubs were everywhere and every bar was just opening up a comedy night.
48:29
And there was an agent that I knew that was booking and he said,
48:32
all right, I want you to headline a comedy club.
48:35
Well, I was amazed. I mean, who on earth would have wanted me to headline?
48:39
I was unknown at that time.
48:40
And he said, it's in a town called Mud Fork, West Virginia.
48:45
And West Virginia is actually, it's quite beautiful. It's hilly,
48:48
it's trees, it's in the Appalachian Mountains.
48:50
And Mud Fork was this just little backwater in between two old coal mining towns.
48:55
Well, okay, here's the deal. It was a biker bar. I mean, it was... Okay.
49:00
They just decided they'd have comedy night. And it was one rowdy crowd.
49:06
But they were there to see a show. So I come out and I walk out on the stage.
49:11
Well, platform really. And this guy stands up.
49:15
Guy is just gigantic. He had to be 300 pounds, wearing a tank top.
49:20
And he just goes, okay, mind reader boy, tell me what I'm thinking.
49:24
And I just knew at that moment that I was going to die. The audience,
49:29
they were screaming. They were just laughing because they just waited for me to buckle.
49:35
And then I just started to feed back this guy's tattoos to him because he was drunk.
49:42
And I said, Tiffany, who's Tiffany?
49:44
You were involved with Tiffany, am I right? And he's, what the hell?
49:49
And Tiffany, were you cheating on her with Wanda?
49:53
Holy crap. And this just went on and on for about four tattoos.
49:59
And his friends, of course, were, they knew exactly what I was doing.
50:02
They were just laughing their ass off and it was great.
50:06
It's my first standing ovation. That's amazing.
50:09
In that context, you were actually reading his body language.
50:15
Literal. Yeah.
50:19
So the next one is a college campus show and a girl has been thinking of the name Tony.
50:28
I don't even remember if that was it, but I'm going to say it was Tony.
50:30
And I know this because she wrote it down on a billet and I knew it.
50:35
So I keep saying, who's Tony? And she kept denying it, but I know that Tony matters.
50:41
And no, seriously, who's Tony? And she just keeps denying it.
50:44
And I can tell that this is really uncomfortable.
50:47
So I just let it go. And about another routine into the show,
50:51
I just get this idea and I go back and go, did you spend the night with Tony?
50:56
And she goes, yeah.
50:59
And she sort of starts to sink into her chair. And then I hear this woman scream
51:04
on the other side of the room.
51:06
No and i are you tony's
51:09
girlfriend she goes oh yeah and then this guy gets up and he bolts out of the
51:16
room that was tony right oh my god wow so i i busted him out that was hilarious and that's just a.
51:28
Flying by the seat of the pants. You understand something matters.
51:31
And now your brain is just trying to figure out why it matters.
51:34
And you take a guess, turned out to be right.
51:37
I so love that we've captured these stories on our podcast for posterity.
51:41
Like, I love this. It's just phenomenal.
51:45
Because these aren't written down anyway, you know what I mean?
51:47
But these stories need to be told.
51:50
That's phenomenal. So yeah, those are my two absolute favorites.
51:55
That's insane now you as far
51:57
as shows go you have the show the critically acclaimed show out of my
52:00
mind so you it's been
52:04
very very well received you gave some beautiful pointers
52:07
earlier about how to transition from going you know doing a comedy magic routine
52:11
and so forth into that can you tell us a little bit about the show well actually
52:16
i i did want to step in there uh my show is not out of my mind my show is christopher
52:20
carter messes with your mind oh don't worry we'll I'm glad I did my research. Perfect.
52:29
Messes with my mind. Yeah. All right. I have. It's entirely possible that somebody
52:34
just attributed that to me at some point.
52:37
Right. I was sitting there listening to going on. I kind of want to correct
52:40
that at some point. Yeah. Could you?
52:43
Well, but my show, my, my theater show is a 90 minute full evening show that
52:50
is, you You know, classic mentalism with all my special spins on it.
52:56
And what I think is kind of interesting is that absolutely everything is in the book.
53:02
The entire show with one exception i have a pk touches routine that's not in the book,
53:08
wow so that means people can come and watch for two reasons like the public
53:12
can come and watch to get their minds blown and magicians can come and watch
53:15
to see how it's really done,
53:18
like they'll read the book and be super curious and actually see it live exactly
53:22
and to me that was really important i didn't want anything out there that i
53:28
have not used and used a lot i i
53:32
I just don't think you can say anything with authority about something that
53:36
you haven't worked through so many times.
53:38
And I also think it's really important to have somebody be able to read something
53:42
and then have an opportunity at some point to actually see it in action.
53:48
100%. Do you, and you don't sell your book after the show, do you like it? I do not, no.
53:57
I've only had one potential client buy the book.
54:02
Interesting yeah it's going to be an interesting feeling so far
54:05
at least that has told me so and they booked me by the way they said great i
54:11
was just really curious to find out how you do these things and then they bought
54:15
the book and went wow there's a lot of art just artistry in that let's bring
54:19
you to the show wow fascinating,
54:24
Yeah. I wonder if that's, is that a technique unexplored, like send potential clients?
54:30
I'm curious if you've ever. I think on the whole, it's not a good idea.
54:33
And I definitely was worried about that.
54:35
And I did pull down some videos of me doing some routines in their completion,
54:41
in their entirety, because I didn't want somebody then to use that in an expose video afterwards.
54:49
Right. Have you ever, you know, there's many ways to skin a cat.
54:53
And I'm curious if you've ever purposely changed the
54:55
method to do the same effect that people
54:58
possibly would know just to screw with them a bit you know i do
55:01
yeah i'm trying to think of
55:04
of well the the peak
55:07
at the beginning of my my tossed out deck
55:10
routine i have two different peaks that i use and one of them i i guess i use
55:16
by default because it's just i don't know easier it's muscle memory for me but
55:21
the other is very subtle and very delayed and it comes at a time when nobody's expecting it to happen.
55:29
And so if i have a magician in the
55:32
crowd and i know they're there i will use that peak because it just floors them
55:36
they don't have any idea and so i have a few other routines where i will switch
55:41
out methods definitely you know there was one question i would mean to ask earlier
55:46
in the in the chat and that was about like ambiguity and there's a lot of strength in that.
55:51
And I haven't really met many performers that sort of dabble in that.
55:54
You know, it was John Kerry that we really started jamming these,
55:57
these ideas of like ambiguity, but it seems to be something that you have like an amazing grasp of.
56:03
Could we explore that a little bit with our audience before we wrap up?
56:06
I'm certainly willing to try,
56:08
but I think you'll have to delve into more what you mean by ambiguity.
56:12
So it's the beauty of ambiguity is sometimes when you're doing a routine where
56:17
there's, they're making a choice, but they don't know why they're making that
56:20
choice. There's a level of ambiguity in that equation.
56:23
And there's so much strength in approaching the,
56:27
mental is more magic in that way because it seems so fair, but the ambiguity
56:32
of the questions allow you to really control the narrative through the routines.
56:39
Oh, okay. Yeah, I can see. I think that kind of ambiguity is strongest when
56:44
you have an implied principle behind something like, I'm going to influence you.
56:51
And now nobody knows the meaning or the purpose of those questions or that kind of interaction.
56:57
So just to use something of my own as an example, when I do my staple gun routine,
57:02
I get into it by saying, I'm going to try to psych you out.
57:05
I'm going to try to make every choice you make the one I want you to make and nothing else.
57:10
So when we're through with this, every choice that you made,
57:13
it won't be your choice. It will be my choice.
57:15
And then I just mess with the people. So I say, you could choose 1,
57:19
2, 3, 4, 4, 3, 2, 1, two, four, three, one, one, three, four, two, who gets it?
57:24
And I will just riff in that moment as to things.
57:28
Now, I won't do crazy ambiguity, like what's the color blue mean to you and choose a person.
57:35
So I think that they don't know the meaning of the particular questions or the
57:43
way I'm asking the questions, but they interpret that there is some meaning to it.
57:48
And when I do, okay, for example, the Kino, and I'm talking to a person secondhand through the phone. So.
57:58
Josh, well, let's say that you had your phone out and you were talking to Nick
58:01
and Nick wasn't even in the room. He was somewhere else.
58:04
I'd say, no, it's very important that you repeat everything I say exactly as
58:12
I say it, because my words are chosen to influence, not you, but to influence Nick.
58:18
And then what I'll do, I'll just play with cadence. And, you know,
58:23
so I'll say, you know, say this and just play with me while we do this.
58:27
Okay, Josh, say Nick. Yeah.
58:29
Imagine you're in the lobby of an old apartment building. Imagine you're in
58:33
the apartment of an old, oh my God, I can't even follow that.
58:36
So we'd have to do it again.
58:37
And I would have you do it again. But then I would emphasize certain words.
58:42
In front of you is, and suddenly you're going in front and you don't know why you're saying it.
58:49
So in that sense, I'll add a level of ambiguity because once I've set up this
58:54
premise that these words are chosen, I really want them to begin to wonder why.
58:59
They were chosen in that way.
59:01
And at that point, it's just playtime. I don't have a rhyme or reason.
59:05
I haven't decided ahead of time what it's going to be.
59:08
So that kind of ambiguity I do use. I don't know if I use anything vaguer than that.
59:13
Definitely the ambiguity is in the service of trying to make people think that
59:18
there's more importance to a set of words than there is otherwise.
59:22
Yeah, it's just the ambiguity for me is just several levels above the very simplistic
59:27
magician's choice, if you know what I mean. Gotcha.
59:30
You know, if you made it just a magician's choice, it's just choose one.
59:33
And there's nothing important about that. But when you add this layer of ambiguity,
59:37
it has so much more meaning and it's so much more impactful.
59:41
And I just don't see that being done as well as compared to yourself.
59:45
Like, I think that what you do is fantastic. Even, even the line as simple as
59:49
going, was it your choice or mine?
59:50
And they go mine and you go, that's cute like that that's the best like i love
59:56
that i love that premise you know and i just think there's so much strength
1:00:00
in that and it's it's really nice when you read stuff like this and the way i kind of word it is like,
1:00:07
Like I can now say, and this is going to sound creepy, but Christopher Carter
1:00:11
is now part of my magic DNA.
1:00:14
Wow. That'd be impressive. I'm pleased. Thank you. Yeah.
1:00:17
Like there's things that I've learned from you that are now so imprinted on me.
1:00:21
And for me, it's like that level of the ambiguity, which again,
1:00:27
maybe it's the right word for it
1:00:28
because I just don't feel like magician's choice is the right word for it.
1:00:32
It's that, you know, and, and, and I was thinking of the staple routine when I,
1:00:36
when to ask the question but i just think that like when you
1:00:39
present it that way and you ask those questions and
1:00:42
even that that just that beautiful thing of going like
1:00:45
was your choice or mine you know there's so
1:00:49
much strength in that so i have another version
1:00:52
of that line i do a version of the trick eat at joe's and i don't know if you're
1:00:57
familiar with that but it's it's a beautiful beautiful effect by bruce bernstein
1:01:02
in which a big batch of envelopes are apparently mixed up and they're doled
1:01:07
out to a bunch of people and they're in just in random letters.
1:01:11
And I'll come up to the people and I'll say, now, my question for you,
1:01:14
do you think that your choice was based on fate or free will?
1:01:17
And most people will say free will.
1:01:19
So I'll go through there, fate or free will, fate or free will.
1:01:22
And then I'll get that last person, they say free will and I go, you're right.
1:01:26
But the better question is, who's free will?
1:01:30
And at that point they think, and then I have them turn the envelopes around
1:01:34
and rather than random letters, they spell out the words free will.
1:01:38
And then from the envelopes, they pull a prediction and it just,
1:01:42
you know, it's like layer after layer after layer.
1:01:44
But I love playing with those ideas and teasing the audience.
1:01:48
And I think that's one thing a lot of mentalists miss out on.
1:01:52
A lot of mentalists, they're afraid of having fun with their audience and just
1:01:57
playing with them and teasing them.
1:01:58
For me, it's a game. And I think the audience gets that. And I think that's why it's fun for them.
1:02:03
A hundred percent. And I just realized the time that we've gone over an hour
1:02:07
and we could talk about this to the cows come home.
1:02:09
So once again, thank you so much for being here. Before we go to the final word,
1:02:12
friends, the In the Spotlight book is right here.
1:02:16
We have a QR code right here on the screen for you guys to give that a scan now.
1:02:22
Again, thanks everyone for being here, asking your questions.
1:02:24
Christopher, thank you so much for responding to my emails and being a part of this.
1:02:28
Like I said, this has been such an impactful book for myself.
1:02:32
It has generally to become a part of my magic dna uh josh anything else you
1:02:35
want to say before we um wrap up and go to the final word no i mean i love it
1:02:40
i mean even from someone who is doing magic i mean now i've just got a lot of
1:02:45
learning to line up just to even learn how to play more and and add more.
1:02:51
Meaning into even my magic as as a performer but even those little details you
1:02:57
just mentioned for anyone doing corporate work like you know we skimmed over
1:03:01
it so quickly but the fact that you will...
1:03:04
At the client's table as a networking tool and like all these little bits that
1:03:08
you know you just do naturally but i'm hearing all of this goodness so i'm going
1:03:12
to have to go back and listen to this second time just as an observer but if
1:03:16
you're listening to this on spotify apple podcast,
1:03:19
all the links to christopher's work will be below and look yeah we just can't
1:03:23
wait to have you come back sometime and we're going to end our episode in the
1:03:27
way that we always do which is by giving our guest, The Final Word.
1:03:32
You know, I've actually spent the whole of this conversation trying to decide
1:03:36
what the final word was going to be.
1:03:38
And I think it comes down to what I said earlier, and that is the premise is everything.
1:03:45
If you take the time to really narrow down what is the premise of your mentalism
1:03:51
effect, and then cut away everything that isn't that premise,
1:03:56
it's going to be so much more powerful for you and for your audience.
1:04:00
And I think you're going to find that you're a much better mentalist because of it.
1:04:06
Thanks for listening. It's time for us to disappear now. Disappear now.
1:04:11
But we'll see you again on the next episode of The Magic Guys.