It's a good question! It's not normal is it? To meet someone who claims to be a mind reader? It's even more strange than someone saying "I'm a magician", but at least you know what to expect when a magician walks in the room! You'd be right to have a bit of apprehension with a mind reader? What will he discover? Will he know what my PIN code is? Will he be able to see that dream I had last night?
Mind reading, magic and hypnotism can all be placed under the banner of "Mystery Arts", and yet they are all slightly different.
A magician might show you a "trick" - he or she might make a coin appear or disappear, or make themselves levitate. They may be able to seemingly bring a dead fly back to life, change water into milk or make blank pieces of money suddenly turn into £50 notes. It can be amazing, but they are still performing a "trick", something truly impossible that you know lies nowhere in the realm of reality.
A mind reader is slightly different. A mind reader may also use trickery, but only so that the psychological and suggestive nuances of the greater effect can work. A mind reader works purely with the mind, it is a team effort between the participant and the mind reader. They may tell you secrets that you have never told anyone before, be able to tell you your PIN code (With your permission of course), correctly predict a drawing you have not even made yet. Ultimately, these performances lie with their origins in the reality of thought. Yes, some trickery is at work, but we're also using suggestion, intuition, body reading, psychology, linguistics and and a whole host of other tools to show you how it's possible to 'read a mind'!
Some mind readers, or mentalists, claim to be real, they claim they genuinely have some kind of psychic ability, such as Uri Geller and his ability to bend metal with the power of his mind.
Other famous mind readers include people like Derren Brown, Keith Barry, David Berglas and Colin Cloud to name a few! Like these performers, I do not claim any special psychic ability! Just the ability to entertain you and your guests at your special event.
The best way to really understand what mind reading is, is to see it for yourself. Check out some videos of me performing and reading minds here
Until next time,
Sam