Hello Mr. Banachek:

As a great mentalist as you are, which is your opinion about this game, lottery prediction? (sorry, but i don´t know the real name in english for this game).

I ask this, because, in a few days in Spain, will be the great lottery of Christmas. And the most known mentalist in Spain, Anthony Blake, has said that he will predict lottery´s number.

I think that one thing is to do magic to people, and other to fool people. I explain. This kind of prediction is so miracle, that people don´t believe it, and begin to ask: if you know the number... why don´t you buy the ticket with this number? And people think that everything is a deception, and don´t believe in this kind of magic.

And i think that the best point of mental magic is that people never know if they are true or not these power. But i think that with this kind of "tricks" people leave believe in this kind of mental magic.

That´s my opinion, but... what´s your?

All the best Mr. Banachek,

Pablo Tejero

Well, these are all good points. But it depends upon what you the performer are tying to get across. I think sometimes we spend too much time trying to figure out exactly what lay people think of what we do, rather than doing it. Let me clarify that point as I do think to a point what that we need to think of what they audience thinks or we could be deceiving ourselves, plus it is good exercise.

As in your post, you state Anthony Blake is the top mentalist in Spain. Also it sounds from your post that everyone is talking about Anthony. So it seems to me that Anthony has the right idea. He is doing what we all wish we were doing. Instead of worrying about what a few people may or may not say about his lottery prediction, he is getting ton's of publicity for it. Heck, if a few people think it is a trick, so what. They have no proof and he has plenty of other things in his arsenal to impress them with while he is doing that 13 episode TV special he gets as a result.

Now we do have to be careful. Sometimes we can be so clever, we ask for exposure to happen to us.

Is mental magic bad? Not if that is what you want to do. The bottom line is we are entertainers. If we are entertaining, then we are doing our job. Mentalism, mental magic or tricks. Take your pick.

I hope that all made sense. I have a million projects I am trying to take care of as well as host

Thank you very much for your answer and your time, Mr. Banacheck.

Long Live For Mental Magic !


And all the best for you, Mr. Banachek, from Spain.

All the best magic,

Pablo Tejero

Hi
Let me add my 20000000000000000000 cents
As usual Banachek got it the same way I would answer if I was a VIP guest of honor in the Café.

I did a big lottery prediction on 1993
and it was the biggest amount off money at that time in Israel.
Everybody were talking about it and I became
very famous after that.The rating that the TV show which I was more then 80% (Eighty)
Believe it or not : Every day and I say again :Every day there will be not less then 3 people in the street,or were ever I go ,
that will ask if they can send a Lotto with me.
Almost 9 years has past and no one forgot it.
I did many TV shows and did many Election predictions and many publicity stunts.
The only people that are against it are you magical friends.
I always claimed that what I do is normal and I do not have any powers.
But some magicians want to have some publicity like you have and they will do
stupid things to gain it.
One week after the Big Lottery prediction ,there was a magician that tried to expose it on TV.
The audience hated him.
and very few saw the program,
The TV producer of that show told me after 3 years that many
magicians called him and offer to expose... (and most of them copied my act...and they still do)


Anthony Blake is one of my best friends and he is one of the great minds in mentalisem of our age.
I think the "Envy" is the right word to say about all this magicians that feel that only a double lift is something that
you can lie with.

Just try to learn from the people that have success
don't try to fight them
try to understand why the public like them
(and try to think why they don't like so much..)
and maybe you can buy your wife a Pagero Jeep or a Mercedes

Lior Manor
(When people ask me why I don't send Lottery I tell them
that it is against the low for me to do it.
The money that I got from shows after I become famous is
much more then the Lottery prize>>>>)
Love you all
and keep on the way you choose

Dear Lior:

Very cool you post and funny but let me tell you a few things.

First of all you will be surprised if you know how many different types of magic i learn, practice and do. You will be surprise about the mental magic i usual do, and you will be surprise with a lot of things about my thought or magic personality, which you have given for supposed and judged without knowing them, and me.

Second i like mental magic, i did mental magic, and people get shocked with my mental magic. Apart all of these points, i think that lottery prediction is so impossible, so miracle that normal people, i mean people with a little bit of common sense and culture, don´t believe it. Because it is impossible. It is just my theory about magic.

I think that you could do magic, miracles, and so on, and people could believe it or not, but they accept them. But if you do one impossible effect as lottery prediction, people say "it is so impossible, that have to be a trick inside".

But of course is my opinion, not yours. But i try to expose it without offending anybody either with succinct affirmations or generalizations.

I don´t have any envy of Anthony or any magician. You are wrong if you think this. I could have envy of Copperfield, because it is the best magician in the world (for me), but don´t worry, i do not have any envy of him, indeed i apreciate him a lot.

I think i could tell my opinion without having any envy of Blake or of any magician.

As i said... you have supposed a lot of things about me, without knowing them.

And I am not going to begin to value Mr. Anthony Blake as magician. I only tell you, that I have more opportunities to see him live that you ... and my opinion differs from yours enough.

If you like the best mentalists in our times.. check people like Mr. Banachek, or the great Hans Moretti.

But as always, it´s only my opinion. Hope not offend anyone because of this.

All the best magic,

Pablo Tejero

Hello Pablo
My post wasn't against you at all
I am sorry if you got it that way
My English is very bad and sometime
I write things that other people read
in another way then what I meant.
(I think in Hebrew then translate to English then write it down
then you read it and translate to Spanish...there can be many
misunderstanding on the way..

When I wrote "Envy" I meant that many magicians are Envy
to see someone else getting so much success and their double
lift is not that good (I remember a post from Mike Power about
David Blaine Pass on the Opera Winfree (I know that I don't spell her name
the right way ) Show
This Mike power send photos of the Pass David did
and showed that you can catch it...)

By the way
When I do trade shows I will do magic and mentalisem
When I do special shows for High Tec Companies I will do magic and
mentalisem.
I did a lot of magic in my TV shows (24 shows of 30 min. each)
I have a lot of respect to magic and magician
But I don't have any respect for the magicians who
try to expose others (and this is not you ..)

I will call you next time I do a show in Spain ( very soon )

Lior

well said Lior. I also took it Lior was not talking about anyone in particular, but about the nay sayers about Blaine, Derren and others. To see my take on this find the subject heading that has Derren in it, you will find I say something similiar.

But, to Pablo, I think you are right too.. How can that be one might say, I think there are no absolutes in our craft, and the most important thing is we have to be true to ourselves. If Pablo feels that such a publicity stunt reeks of a trick in the long run, he may be right. At least from his perspective. And I would suggest that Pablo not do such an effect. On the other hand, Lior has got a great amount of publicity from it as has Anthony of late. So for them it works. There may be some sort of trade off and we need to decide for ourselves what trade offs are worth it. Then again, sometimes where we think there will be a trade off there is not, and at times when we think there will not have to be one, we are surprised to find out there is. Bottom line I think, no matter what we decide we need as entertainers to make sure we are entertaining. As a result, controversy is sometimes a good thing. Notice I said sometimes.

Excuse me too, if in my response it looks like i was angry and misinterpreted you. That was not my intention.

Excuse me too please Lior. And i will be very happy if i could see you in action... i love mentalism. Tell me please, when you come to Spain.

All the best, friend.

Pablo Tejero

Some people have issues with lottery predictions some do not. As Banachek points out, like with many things, there aren't any hard and fast rules. If I have a problem with anything in terms of believability I try not to dismiss it and think more in terms of "how can I make this work for me or more believable" - if you do this for the lottery prediction then even a hardened purist can resolve these concerns within themselves.

Anyway..Banachek is guest of the month, not me back over to you.

Regards,

Kris Sheglova

Absolutely right Kris, (on the 'no hard and fast rules'

I always say that. I can only tell you what is right for me, and I could very well be wrong, at least for you that is. I said that in my very first book Pre-thoughts an still believe it today, although maybe a few other things in that book I might think differently about now. I would have to go back and look

Wow, another pregnant topic! This one breaks down into a classic argument about "commercial" vs. "purist." Sure, a lottery prediction is so impossible that any intelligent person is likely to dismiss it as "simply a trick." On the other hand, I salute Lior for creating a cause celebre for himself with his own version. As P.T. Barnum famously said, "No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the public."

Clearly, Lior opened an awful lot of doors for himself and his act, doors which remain firmly closed to lesser performers...

I think Blaine is the current flashpoint for this debate. I'm always surprised when my close-up friends dump on him as "unoriginal," "semi-talented," etc. I think Blaine's the best thing that's happened to magic since Penn & Teller, mainly because he's kicked the field way "out of the box." He's actually made it hip to be a magician! Sure, he seems pretentious to magicians, but lay audiences (the *only* ones that matter) think he's some kind of genius.

My own take is that a little of Blaine goes a long way, that he's becoming too self-indulgent to continue on this current track. On the other hand, he's still young, and I think his persona is superb for the highly coveted (and lucrative) teen/young adult demographic he targets. And every adult I know who has seen one of his specials raves about him.

At the other end of the spectrum is the supernaturally talented Ricky Jay, a guy who (I've been told) regularly refused big-money gigs because he didn't like the way they degraded the nature of the magician. The result, after many years, was a successful Broadway show, acting and writing career.

So I guess this rant just proves Banachek's point: Everyone should follow his own path and don't bash those who follow a different one (as long as their path does no harm to others).

PeaceLove, Jonathan

wow, what a great post. I love the line "He's actually made it hip to be a magician"