Thinking Allowed

Playing the Mentalism Card
by Jon Thompson

Why is it some mentalists insist that playing cards aren't part of what we do, that they mark the user out as a mere magician? If you have a deck of cards in your hand, so the argument goes, you're not a mentalist - end of story.

By hanging around enough online forums for long enough, it's my understanding that while playing cards are strictly off limits for many, most are no strangers to Rhine or Tarot decks. They'll rough them, mark them, create elaborate gaffs with them, and stuff them into countless envelopes all for the sake of the art, as well as using them in feats of both divination and mindreading. These cards, they'll tell you, are special. They're part of the tradition of mentalism, whereas playing cards are not because the audience thinks they're something a magician uses, ergo you're a magician not a mentalist.

I think we can agree that mentalism is about the manipulation of perception. It's the mentalist's job to supply the meaning to an effect as well as to any tools and techniques used to achieve it. In the case of playing cards, however, this seems to create something of a paradox. On one hand, the mentalist controls perceptions, but on the other, he also can't.

I'm naturally curious, and I'm not good at taking things on trust, especially not when there's a juicy paradox to solve. After searching my own mentalism library, I think I've found a solution to the "playing card paradox" at the heart of mentalism. The problem is, it might disturb one or two purists, so look away now if you're easily offended by unfamiliar ideas.

"I firmly believe that it does not matter what you use for a mental effect as long as you use it correctly," wrote Tony Corinda in step ten of his 'Thirteen Steps to Mentalism'. He goes on to say that it's wrong to condemn playing cards just because a field of magic sprung up around them. After all, they were divination tools long before the first card trick gave us a glimpse of the riches theoretically attainable by cheating at cards.

Everything depends, says Corinda, on what you do with cards and how you do it. His advice is not to show any form of overt skill while handling the deck, thereby creating the perception that you're as unfamiliar with it as the next man. He then goes on to describe nearly two dozen mentalism effects using mostly playing cards, and concludes with an index of card effects found in the other twelve steps.

In a similar vein, 'Practical Mental Magic' by Annemann carries a 49-page chapter on using cards in mentalism. The first effect, "Magic v Mentalism", even goes as far as to use a deck of playing cards to illustrate to the audience the difference between a magician and a mentalist! Here are a few further random examples from more recent authors:

In 'Red Hot Cold Reading', Herb Dewey gives extensive meanings to all 52 playing cards for the purposes of divination. "Whether doing an individual reading or for a group," he says. "The use of playing cards can be a very powerful routine." There's certainly no intention there that the playing cards are part of a trick.

Kenton Knepper, writing in 'Miracles of Suggestion' has the following to say: "Some mentalists shun [playing] cards, and the reason is suggestion." Ah! Now we're getting somewhere, or are we? He continues: "Playing cards, [mentalists] fear, have inherent within them the suggestion of a magic trick. I believe this depends on your own setting up of other suggestions, and labels."

The common theme amongst these writers is remarkably similar. It's your responsibility to control the spectator's perceptions, so your fault if people continue to equate your use of playing cards with that of a magician instead of a mentalist. Surely, Bob Cassidy doesn't think like that, does he?

For some, Cassidy is the high priest of mentalism, but in his '39 Steps to Mentalism', he describes Hugard's Encyclopaedia of Card tricks as containing, "quite a bit of believable mentalism with a pack of playing cards." This is Bob Cassidy talking about a book of magic tricks, not a newbie trying to impress with a review to get him into the secrets area of an online magic forum. Maybe Corinda really was right when he said: "It all depends on what you do and how you do it."

Cassidy often garnishes his work with card effects, and even describes techniques as they apply to mentalism. In 'Fundamentals', for example, he discusses roughing at length. The effect "Card Memory" from his 'Art of Mentalism' is an out-and-out card trick. Even if he says he doesn't personally care for the use of playing cards himself, he certainly never says: "thou shalt not".

These and so many other writers all seem to be saying that it's your job to control your audiences' perceptions of your tools and techniques, not the job of your tools and techniques to control the audience's perception of you. That logic leads to a rather uncomfortable solution to the playing card paradox, in which it's a lack of ability rather than the power of the audience's preconceptions about the cards that makes them taboo.

I said it was a rather uncomfortable conclusion to reach, but the alternative seems to be that highly intelligent people have accepted dogma without question for decades, which is also a rather uncomfortable idea. Some, however, espouse a completely different explanation for the existence of card magic in mentalism books, which seems to offer a much nicer, more fulfilling solution to the paradox.

The argument says that people publishing mentalism include effects for playing cards because if they didn't, they'd sell fewer copies. At first sight, this argument seems logical. The problem is, where's the data to prove it? Certainly, it's not in Corinda, or Cassidy or a host of others, and "well, it stands to reason" is not data.

The fact is that the magician already has a galaxy of familiar material he can adapt to a mentalism theme if he so chooses. He also has the advantage of being on "home turf". He can deliberately appear to "dumb down" and create the impression that he has no overt card skills while retaining very precise control over the deck, just like Corinda suggests. That being the case, Anneman, Corinda and the others seem to have wasted their time writing for playing cards if magicians are simply using their favourite techniques and tricks in mentalism contexts, and much of mentalism wilfully ignores the card sections of their books.

There is a hint, however, that the playing card paradox was already present in mentalism as far ago as the 1950s. Corinda tells of friends and colleagues urging him to skip step ten, and that he should ignore playing cards in the others. His answer, naturally enough, was that playing cards are tools. You have to learn to use properly if you're to use them well, by defining and establishing a believable context for them in your work.

Playing cards are a uniquely flexible and comprehensive tool, one of many on offer to both magicians and mentalists, but they're also unique in being instantly familiar to audiences the world over. Corinda knew that mentalism can define and establish believable contexts for a deck of cards. Whereas a magician might whack the bottom of the deck to move a randomly chosen card impossibly from the middle to the top, a mentalist might influence a spectator to name the random playing card sealed in the envelope she's been holding. As Corinda says: "It all depends on what you do and how you do it."

For the record, I do use playing cards sometimes in mentalism. In fact, I use a stripper deck when I do, but I don't do card tricks. That's why I don't mind handling out my deck for others to show me something after I've finished. By that time, the cards are too unimportant to warrant examination. I'm a mentalist, you see. I read minds, not do card tricks. That's the spectator's department if she has any to show me.

I'll patiently wait for her to set up the four burglars or repeatedly count out great piles of cards looking for mine, and I'll clap and grin at the end as if it were a bone fide miracle. After all, it's all about the effect, not the cause – even if it is my new USPCC stripper deck and she's just counted it out into a pool of spilt beer.

Jon Thompson