Magic and Mentalism. For the past few months I have been teaching my son new Jedi mind tricks.

Creative minds in the field of magic and mentalism are constantly finding better ways to trick the senses.

When it all comes down to the basics in magic, you only have a few principles that make Sylvia Browne and James van Pragh so effective in front of an audience. It’s the same things that make David Copperfield and Lance Burton seem capable of making things disappear and reappear before your very eyes.

One principle is that of misdirection.

For example, I perform a card “trick” (it’s an illusion) where a selected card disappears from the deck and appears under a plate, surrounded by strangers and no friends to help.

I am not a hand expert.

I just practiced the elements of this effect over and over again, hundreds of times. All the success or failure of the illusion stays in a one-second moment when everyone’s eyes must be off the plate.

Someday, I’m sure I’ll be discovered in this illusion (it really is magical to have not only mind reading but also telekinesis at the same time!). I’m just not that good.

Misdirection is the critical factor in many magic “tricks” and “illusions.”

The ability to know how your human brain will react and respond to your instructions… every time… or close enough to every time that you’ll never be seen as anything but amazing.

There are a few other factors in magic that can be called upon to make something appear out of nowhere. Concealment for example.

Concealment comes into play in many illusions and magic tricks.

The better it can be hidden, the more amazing the illusion.

Like these elements that give you the pieces to create and design a magic trick, you can also use generalizations about how people will react in certain environments, to certain stimuli.

Magic IS Persuasion.

Persuasion can be magical.

In both magic and persuasion of others, you *must* know what people will do in specific scenarios and be able to predict those behaviors or actions.

You have to be operating at a high level of certainty as both a skilled persuader and a magician. (I’ll spare you the argument that they’re the same…they’re close enough.) I know very few people who are extremely persuasive and who don’t have a great interest in magic.

I don’t know anyone in magic who doesn’t have a scientific mind… the ability to predict results given a certain set of controlled variables… and do it almost perfectly… and the ability to reverse engineer RESULTS and BEHAVIORS. and ACTIONS back into causes for effects…because THAT is what a magician is.

The psychic does this too. They are simply false about the story they present.

Research is the foundation of success for all magicians and all those who persuade.

Those who have the best information inevitably become better magicians.

Those who understand what the audience will look at, search for, and pay attention to will become teachers.

The ones who create their illusions in a way that creates a natural flow of occurrences so that the audience always feels that whatever is happening…is happening naturally…they are the masters…here the audience suspends criticism and lower your defenses . Now they want to be part of the experience.

And the same goes for the master persuader.

However, a natural flow of events requires the actor and the master persuader to work within the construction of how their audience thinks and feels. You have to know what they will look at and think and why. Only then can you create magic.

Successful persuasion is magic, and magic starts with understanding your audience.

It is absolutely necessary that the Master assume nothing and put aside all instincts and intuitions.

Like the magician, if the salesperson or manager “follows their gut,” they will fail.

We intuitively know that, as parents, we have the greatest influence on the “outcome” of our children. Yes?

And obviously a happy employee is a good and productive employee. Yes?

Certainly, if the customers are more satisfied with the company than the employees of the same company, you are going to make more money… right?

Obviously, it takes 367 people in a room before you can GUARANTEE that two people will have the same birthday. But how many people does it take in the same room before there is a 50/50 chance that two people will have a common birthday in the room? 183?

And when you place two quarters face up, side by side, touching each other so that Washington is facing directly left on both coins… now you flip one coin while it remains in contact with the other quarter cents. You rotate 180 degrees. (Moving from 9:00 to 3:00.) Washington is now upside down (so to speak) and looking to the right of him on a coin and looking to the left on the coin that didn’t move. Right?

The answer is, of course, that instinct is not very useful. In fact, people who follow their gut turn out to be the failures of life.

It doesn’t take 183 people in a room for there to be a 50/50 chance that two people will have the same birthday. How many does it require? 23

That’s it. Mentalists and magicians are all aware of this and when in a room of 40 people, the odds are overwhelming that two of the 40 share the same birthday…so they can create the illusion of coincidence, synchronicity. .. when it’s nothing like that.

People are very predictable because they think with their instincts… which is why they are 50 pounds overweight and as long as people embrace “follow your gut” or “follow your gut” it will be easy to fool them. rigged and made for a large audience for magic.

The two rooms? It would seem logical that if you carefully flip the coin 180 degrees while touching the other coin, without slipping, the flipped coin would now be face down.

But no, intuition is completely wrong again.

Both coins are again face up facing left. The spinner coin is actually upside down when it is at the 12 o’clock position (spinned from the 9 o’clock position).

As parents, you have a very modest share in the fate of your children. Not including genetics, the most significant factor is your friends. Then their schoolteachers… oh, and then there’s you finishing last.

If your customers are happier with your company than your employees, you’re probably losing money or not making what you could.

Oh, and happy employees are better, more productive employees? No. On average, the opposite is true.

Common sense and instinct may be good for some things… but they’re pretty useless for thinking.

People “think” in “rules of thumb.” They make wild assumptions that they “feel right” at the moment based on their gut feeling and little else.

Understanding how people think and what they will think is crucial to being an expert in persuasion.

If you ignore how people actually process information, how they behave, what they think in various settings and circumstances, and go with your gut, you will have no chance of effective persuasion.

You must know how people think and what they feel. Everything else rises or falls on this first hidden principle.

Next week, we’ll look at more hidden principles of persuasion.