Mentalism

Mentalism asks nothing of the audience except attention, and gives back the single most unsettling experience in performance: the sense that someone knows something they could not possibly know.

The technical demands are lower than in sleight-of-hand magic, and the presentational demands are far higher. A card trick can survive an indifferent performance because the visual does the work. A prediction cannot — the entire effect lives in how it is framed, how long you wait, and what you say when you are wrong on purpose before you are right.

What follows ranges from self-contained prediction props to utility devices that underpin whole acts. Almost all of it packs small and plays big, which is why mentalism dominates corporate and stage work.