Vol 7. Psychological Forces.pdf

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Vol#7 Psychological forces

Introduction In this volume we will be looking at psychological forces. In this series we have already looked at psychological playing card forces, this volume takes a look at a range of different forces using similar psychological techniques over a range of plateaus. One of the staple books in mentalism (in fact staple series) is the psychological subtleties series. I have made a purposeful effort in this volume to ensure that I am not crossing over the content in those books. Psychological forces for me are a particular interesting subject and throughout this volume you will see the novel (yet entirely practical) ways in which to apply psychological performances and fit these performances into your own working repertoire without having to worry about them failing. I have spent a good number of years chasing down and inventing psychological forces, I will in this volume talk about a variety of techniques I have not shared in the past - I will try to give you a glimpse into how I create psychological forces. This all started, for me many years ago. Many years ago my friends and I (within the mentalism world) used to play a game in which one of us named an object/ item/ place/ thing and whoever was nominated by the group had to psychologically force that piece of information on the next person that was willing to participant in a ‘mind experiment’. This was not only fun, but it gave each of us the confidence to know that we could do this on the fly (should we need to) and at the same time helped us gain confidence in our ability should a routine not go to plan. That is the greatest thing I ever learnt, how to make a routine that had failed completely seem like a success. I personally learnt how to pretty much force anything. I will outline the game and the rules of the game later in this volume, before that, I would like to share a little history on when I first become interested in psychological forces. I remember first becoming enthralled in psychological forces after watching Derren Brown’s television series’. Once every so often (at the start of random episodes) he would perform an effect for the audience at home (to the watching participant) and remember being blown away, I was completely hooked. I took these psychological forces to Leeds city center, armed with a camera and tripod I filmed myself trying a series of psychological forces on random participant’s and NOT ONE HIT!

You hear me?… NOT ONE FUCKING HIT! I remember instantly dismissing psychological forces as being non-practical and instead of trying to work on them, I started studying other things. Years later after studying/ learning about other areas/ aspects of mentalism and how to use my voice as my strongest tool in my box of tools, I thought I would give psychological forces another go and after having a much different experience to the first time I had tried these forces. I feel this was down to my newly I realized just how little I knew when I had tried them out the first time around. I was not utilizing the forces wrong or the scripting, it was my mannerisms, my beat and my willingness to trust myself and then veer off into another course or direction should I feel that things weren’t going my way… In short, it wasn’t the force that was at fault, it was ME. I am very honest when I say that. A lot of performers tend to blame the force/ routine when it doesn’t work first time for them and dismiss the material – Learn how to test these moments in performance without the participant ever knowing if it was a miss. Then when these moments hit, you won’t believe the reactions. Things like this take time, they are just like any good other principle in mentalism - a tool. Think about it this way The first time you try to ride a bike, could you jump on it and off you went? The first time you attempted to walk, did you just stand up and start walking? The first time you attempted speaking, did you start fluently reciting whatever language it is you speak? The answer to all of those questions are no, no you di