3 Ways To Use Misdirection in Mentalism & Mind Reading
Before I give you the 3 main ways of using misdirection in mind reading & mentalism tricks, let's get the definition of misdirection from Wikipedia -
"Misdirection is a form of deception in which the attention of an audience is focused on one thing in order to distract their attention from another.
Misdirection takes advantage of the limits of the human mind in order to give the wrong picture and memory of a mentalism mind reading trick. The mind can concentrate on only one thing at a time.”
This is a very concise definition of misdirection and basically says what is is. But, how can you use misdirection in your magic tricks?
The mentalist/mind reader can use this to their advantage in a range of different ways. I've listed the top 3 ways.
1. To cover a move – For one on one mind reading tricks, this is really easy as you only have to distract one person. This can be achieved by asking them a question, the question needs to be built into the effect and be relevant to your mind reading abilities. The reason for asking a question is that the volunteer has to 'go inside' their mind to retrieve the answer. This is what will momentarily distract their attention where you can casually perform a 'move'. Most mind reading tricks are self-working and are based on pure showmanship and have very little moves so asking a question is usually all that is needed as the move is usually built into the trick to be casual and 'make sense'
For example - a body language 'mind reader' could ask the volunteer, “In your mind, when you recall past events in your life, do you mostly see your memories in colour or black and white?” This will cause them to 'go inside' their mind and will most likely not know the answer. This distraction will give you a chance to perform a 'move'.
2. To hide the method – You can use a form of misdirection whereby you give a false explanation to the phenomena they are apparently witnessing. This false explanation is very important in mind reading and mentalism magic tricks as it guides them away from the real method you are using. TV mentalists have built careers on false explanations – Derren Brown, David Blaine & Criss Angel use fake explanations in almost all of their tricks, whether they say it's real magic, conversational hypnosis or uncanny body language reading abilities.
3. To give them a false memory of the trick – This is a more advanced form of misdirection and is used by professionals. All professionals script their tricks and know almost word for word what they are going to say. The reason being is that they are carefully scripted to build suspense and also to leave the spectator with a false memory of what actually happened. It usually involves talking through what has happened but changing a slight detail. A basic version of this is asking the spectator to cut the cards but a little later on in the effect you will say, “Ok, so you mixed the cards..”, then later repeat what happened but change it to “so you shuffled the cards”. This is just a basic overview and it takes proper script writing of tricks and trial and error in what works and what doesn't. This is why the real magic is in the performance..
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