So much could be said about what has been propagated in this thread. So much in fact, I have had great reservations about adding my post. Having said that, here I am.

First, please understand where I am coming from. I am a very devout Christian. I have graduate degrees in philosophy and theology and over the past 7 years I have dedicated a great deal of my time to publicly debating atheist and naturalists on college campuses. I have served as a college pastor for a few years as well. Still, by profession I am a mentalists living in Orange County and performing world wide. As a side I have been blesed with my success as a mentalist.

I care a great deal about basing my world-view in the teachings of scripture and making my life a reflection of God’s grace and mercy through Jesus Christ. I care very little about what I may feel or what I may not feel from time to time when it comes to these subjects. I care about what God has revealed to humanity through scripture and this is what I maintain to be my guide in all endeavors in my life, including my presentation of mentalist.

This is what I find lacking. A clear presentation of either view as discussed thus far is wanting in any true biblical reference or thought. What I have seen so far is much more of a posture than a position. So many on this forum are quick to spout off at the mouth without any real thought, or worse yet, without experience. I don’t see how this is productive for any of us. What would be productive, at least in my mind, would be some real thought expressed by those who have a vested care and concern for these issues and better yet, real world experience performing professionally for some time now. We owe that to each other as fellow believers.

The following seems like the best place to start, but seems to have been overlooked a bit. What is mentalism and further, what does our Christian faith say about mentalism and those of the faith performing it. Moreover, what does our feelings really have to do with any of this. Let us not slide into the horrid philosophical or hermeneutic relativism and emotivism of our current postmodern culture.

I want to know what your thought are on these questions from a biblical world-view..

Having said so much thus far prompts me to wait for your reactions before I truly get involved in this. I don’t want to waist your time if you are not interested in my take on this matter.

(As a side note, I have read A Purpose Driven Life and I think in many ways it is sophomoric, misguided and is ultimately destructive to the Christian faith. I do not believe this was the authors intentions. I have visited his church before and feel that his heart is in a good place. I just believe his thinking needs a lot of work.).

-Brandon Cross

I totally undeerstand your view noumena, Though I'm a fan of James Randi I don't believe in debunking everything, well at least anythign that's is not hurting people. In Ireland we have lots of old lady fortune teller thaat no doubt believe totally in what they do, and I'm not about to throw a tantrum because the do unconscious cold reading, their clients enjoy themselves and they make a little money for provoideing some entertainment. I'm born catholic and met a priest once I was sure didn't believe in the whole dofma thing but he used it as a means to better humanity, in his own words , he believed in the good of man, I quite like a lot of forms of buddhism as it encourages questioning, My best friend is a wiccian witch and believes in nature and things like aroma therephy, I'm not about to upset her by telling it's all bs, For a lot of people their beliefs get them through the world.
As a mentalist with cold reading somthign I'm especially good at I offer differant explaination to suit the client, I never lie, most of the time I say as little as possible so as not to give my methods away but at the same time not to foster any incorrect claims.
I is difficult at times I have to admit, thredding the line between good psychic entertainment and acting and deception.
As a Hypnotist Turned mentalist I have a unique understanding of the subconscious mind, I can have people believe I am basically anythign I choose But I gave up that in favour of using my skills in mentalism.

When it comes to Religion I think it should be a personal thing for every one, some times I think there is are 6 billion religions, one for every individual on the planet
When your only reality is an illusion, then illusion is reality.

That's my line.

Hypnotic Winter,

Thanks you for interacting with my post. I was quite sure it would be either given the same lact of respect most users of the Café give eachother or simply passed by due to lack of interest.

I have not wanted to give much away about my views and their aplication to my style of mentalism. I will say this in response to your post. I am not a religious pluralist I am a Christian exclusivist.

I maintail personaly and publicly that there is only one name under which man can be saved, Jesus Christ. I also maintain that all other faiths and philosophies are false being both spiritualy and intellectualy self-referentaly incoherant. I find the works of Plantinga, Augustine, Dooyeweerd, VanTil, Markham, ext. to be very great, although incomplete, defenses of this possition I find to be biblical.

Having said that, in my own performances, which are for major companies and colleges for the most part as well as 2 dinner theaters of mine a month, I never stray from this possition. That is not to say that I get in peoples faces and preach. My own persoanl beliefs are artisticly expressed through my show. My choice of effects and interaction with the ideas that arise are strictly from a Christian world-view.

As for cold-reading, I use it to a very great degree in my close-up shows. I call them personality readings, and am very quick to interprit everything through the backround information as expressed in my faith. This is done artisticly however, and with gentlness and respect.

So much more needs to be said about this and I am waiting for an interaction of ideas.

For those who have ears let them hear.

That is not mine.
-Brandon Cross

That may be true, but a Christian's beliefs get them through eternity.

See John 3:16 and John 14:6 for what Jesus has to say about the idea of "6 billion religions".

Craig

Now Craig,

You have to understand that this is NOT about the Good News? Or haven't you noticed yet that the push is to keep it off a very simple point about our will vs God's will?

Or how people talk about "posture" then use words like "misguided" or "destructive" but do not provide the evidence of same, while saying none of us are providing same.

The truth in this is people want to do it because of how it makes them feel. They love the power they feel when people REALLY think they have those powers above mortal man. Were this not so they would have no problem with the audience NOT believing same when the show was over. After all, when Cyrano was finished, I didn't expect my audience to believe I was really dead.

Cold Reading is even more to this problem. People with excuse it by saying they are "helping" people. If you want to help them, then go to school, get the degree, and then do so. To claim you can give them advise and be helpful so that makes it ok to let them believe that you, and then of course others, really have the powers you pretend to have, is a lie to everyone.

From the view of a Bible believing Christian, this position is against the teachings of the Bible. They need to believe and have faith in the Bible, not someone doing cold reading. The plain truth is the cold reader moves them from that spot.

Now, this is going to get flamed, and that's fine. It won't change the core truth I just posted. Or the fact that many people posting on this thread are NOT true Bible believing Christians, but are here to support their choice to let people think they are "real" in their psychic abilities.

It really IS simple, WWJD...

Mark,

Thank you for interacting. First, let me say that I did not give my refutation of "A Purpose Driven Life" because this thread isn’t about that. My criticism where directed to the topic at hand and your lack of response to my criticism is a bit suspicious. What is more is that I never said anything about your appeal to Warren’s book being without warrant, rather my contention was once again with the topic at had. Hence, how is your second paragraph anything more than quarrelsome. Nonetheless, I believe there are many doctrinal problems with the book and I would love to discuss this issue if you are honestly open to it. Just PM me.

As far as our true topic, your understanding of Cold Reading seems very narrow. Perhaps you could offer your understanding of its meaning. True, if mentalism is nothing more than conning people into believing false claims of having real supernatual powers, then mentalism and cold reading in particular is at odds with the Christian world-view. I find this presupposition to be wrong. Cold reading does not need to be about persuading people to believe the mentalist is real. In fact, many practitioners of cold reading do not play the part of a psychic. It seems that the ball is in your court to prove this starting point or give up your conclusion.

This is where we can truly apply ourselves as Christians to the art of mentalism. If we choose, we can be faced with the challenged to open our minds and find within us the creativity to utilize the techniques of cold reading to entertain others while expressing the Christian message.

Let me get a bit more involved with what you have said. You wrote, “The truth in this is people want to do it because of how it makes them feel. They love the power they feel when people REALLY think they have those powers above mortal man. Were this not so they would have no problem with the audience NOT believing [sic] same when the show was over.” This is a very loaded statement. Do you really pretend to know what motivates the majority of those practicing cold reading? Even if this was the case, your conclusion does not follow. The logical conclusion would be nothing more than there are those that are motivated to perform mentalism by very unhealthy beliefs. You could not logically conclude that menalism should be abandoned by all Christians. If this is not your conclusion then I apologize, but you are not very clear on this.

I make a very good living performing as a mentalist and I have no interest in having people believe I am real. I think you understanding of the history of mentalism is quite flawed. In fact, some of the most successful mentalists did not want people to believe they where real. Just look at the work of Ned Rutledge, Banacheck or Derren Brown.

You further write, “Cold Reading is even more to this problem. People with [sic] excuse it by saying they are "helping" people. If you want to help them, then go to school, get the degree, and then do so. To claim you can give them advise and be helpful so that makes it ok to let them believe that you, and then of course others, really have the powers you pretend to have, is a lie to everyone.” Again you seem to be misunderstanding what cold reading is about and I challenge you to find a consensus of published work to prove your claim. If you can the I will apologize and recant. However, I have spent a great deal of time and have studied every text I could get my hands on and I have not yet found theme you claim is the truth in these works.

Still, I do believe there are people who misuse the techniques of cold reading and this is unethical. Having said that, the conclusion one should come to has nothing to do with cold reading it self, but rather the ethical employment of the techniques. I just don’t think your argument follows.

I do agree with you that using our skills as mentalist to convince people we are real is against the biblical world-view. I guess I just find a great challenge in this dilemma. I have many routines that clearly express my view about psychics. I do not perform a debunking show though.

The goal of mentalism, to paraphrase, one of mentalisms most foundational thinkers, Gene Grant, is to entertain and if you don’t understand that, get out of the game.” I believe Grant is right. Mentalism is about entertainment not convincing people you are real.

What it seems to boil down to is your own assumption of what other people believe and that what you believe is “the core truth.” You are more than entitled to your opinion. I just can’t see how you can claim it is a rational one based on what you have said so for. I am very much open to understanding you viewpoint more clearly if you could just offer replies to my comments.

As far as to what would Jesus do? I’m not sure. I am sure of what he has asked us to do. We are to love the lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind. And I maintain that one can do so as a mentalist. Take a look at Francis Shaeffer’s work “Art and the Bible.” All we need to do is start with the presuppositions of the Christian world-view, apply our artistic vision and we will be on our way in doing so.

Again there is so much more to be said and I hope we all get involved in understanding this important issue. In my opinion this is much more important that learning new moves and effects.

-Brandon Cross

I have full respect for other people's belief's, I'm also a total believe's in people should practice exactly what they preach.
I often think that instend of Focusing on what is differant we should focus on what is the same, I have a wonderful book called the parallel sayings of Jesus and Buddha, now don't worry it doesn't tey to intermarry the two or any thing of the sort, it simply quotes passages from the bible and simular from the Buddha's teachings.
The basic way to live life are very much the same, I mean in, Kindness.
I'm sure you believe in kindness, compashion, and relieveing the suffering od others and that you use your skills because they are a gift given you to make others happy.
I think Anger and hatred are simply like picking up stones to throw them at another person.
O and patchett, the six billion religions thing was just my atrempt at a joke about how so maney differant people have differant idea's, I appoligise if I gave the wrong impression in that statement.

Very nice. G_d is truly soveriegn and will use anyone and any means he chooses to deliver the salvation message.

I recently have come up against it with a restaurant offer. Donald has been a great help, (once again thanks). I use mentalism a lot and have to switch between that and once again being silly for my kids shows. When I use it for kids shows, it is full of color and humor.

I have changed my mentalism to mental magic or mind boggling magic in my proposals.

I will not debate the good/bad of gospel magic/mentalism/escapes.
All that I will say is that I like Kreskin's old line,"Any ten year old boy with 25 years of practice can do the very same things that I do."

It has been 5 years since I posted on this thread. A lot has changed in my performances since then. I try never to say I am the real thing. I think that being a lousy cold reader or mentalist would never give way to opposing one's belief system. On the other hand, there are many who think everything we do is real.

Always a battle. I love performing but never want to deceive people.

Quoting a line from "The Mentalist: I am not psychic, I just pay attention."

Candin

MarkTripp,

I agree with most of everything you have said. I can't say everything because I haven't read everything. I also disagree with those who oppose what you say.

I am seeing more christian magicians who look for excuses to do what they want to do, rather than searching out what God wants them to do. They will even twist, or come up with new theories to support what they want to do. If one church disagree's with one of their views, they go to another church, and another church. What they are looking for is a church or another christian to validate what "they" want to do.

I also see more people coming up with their own theology, and trying to preach it like it's the truth, or what all christians should believe. Some miss the mark (no pun intended) when it comes to the meaning of absolute truth, and some christians will actually tell you that the "Truth" is open to interpretation.

I love performing magic as much as the next guy, but my purpose for using it is to reach people for Christ. It's a tool, it's not my lively hood. Even when I perform magic for churches, sure I enjoy it, but if my audience doesn't because something I performed offended them, then it was all in vein. Some christians will tell you to do what you want, while others know that Jesus wants us to surrender our selfish ambitions and desires and serve Him.

Hang in their buddy!

Posted: Jan 4, 2010 2:22am
Wow, I just looked at the dates on this thread. I was unaware that you, Candin could ressurect the dead. (lol) I can't believe I just responded to a thread 5 years dormant. (lol)

But if we look into the recent past of The Good News, it's obvious this thought is still around.

What gets me is that it always starts as "is this form of magic okay?" and degenerates into bashing certain churches or theologies and the people who hold to them.

While you will never convince some people who hold fast to superstitious beliefs (and I used to be one of them - I had the opportunity to tell a world-class magician he was using demonic powers for no otuher reaason than I could not explain what he did!), I think you can mitigate the possible negative effects of your performance.

The illustration of perfroming in a play ("Cyrano", in this thread) is perfect - your character dies and the audience cries. But they do not believe that you were the character, that you personally died, or that you have any abilities of your character when they see yu at the supermarket the next day.

If you set up your show to be all about entertainment (or teaching, or what have you), then the audience will understand that you are in a character, and all that flows from that flows from the character. And when the show is over, so is the character, and it's not you. Your character reads minds; you can not.

And, at the bottom line, if we are part of the Body, why should I do what offends my body? A trapped hiker cut off his own arm to save the rest of his body - but a normal person having a desire to inflict twists and pain on his own Body is not the model of Christianity.

Ed

Ed, I agree with most of what you are saying, but I'm not sure what you are referring to here:

Are you refering to the body of Christ? If so, do you mean that we should refrain from doing mentalism if it hurts some members of the body?

I agree that presentation is everything. If you claim to have special powers then watch out. If you present it as entertainment then great. An effect I use regularly is "Sketch-O-Magic." This has some great applications - e.g. God knew you before you were born, he knows the hairs on your head etc... Now this could be called a mentalism effect, however the way I present it and most people I have seen present it, I would hardly call mentalism. It's all in the presentation.

By the way: Ed, the link in your signature seems to be dead.

Yes, the Body of Christ. No, not the "universal Body". I am a part of a local congregation. If this is where God has placed me - this is the Body He has given me - then my relationship to this local Body is vitally important. For me to ignore the impact of "doing my own thing" on this Body is absolutely against the heart of Jesus.

I would say the same would go for performing in a church, although that would depend a lot on the nature of the relationship. For any decent business relationship, both parties involved ought to know as much as they can about each other - "what am I getting?" for the client, and "who am I performing for?" for the magician.

We've had evangelists and bands through our church over the years, brought in solely on the word of someone else, and they were not a good match for us. Not that they were "not of God", but mismatched in the same way a fast-paced suburban tech-oriented family might not be a good match for a slow-moving midwest farming town.

Ed

Ed_Mills wrote:

I agree with this completely. The work we do should never harm the congregation. Thus to reply to the original question is probably always going to be a personal opinion rather than a doctrinally or morally definitive statement.

I can relate from personal experience that I have seen church fund-raising programs, conducted in the church basement, that included a "gypsy fortune teller" with a crystal ball along with other circus and carnival style acts. I have also seen mentalism performed by born-again Christians who gave the glory to God ---

--- But I have also seen congregations in which such forms of entertainment would not be a good fit, just as you say.

Just entered this conversation, but you might like to take look at my website in the Illusions of Power section.

http://www.colemanluck.com

Wow, there's a lot there to read, but I went and read, "Illusions Of Power". Very interresting. I agree with what he is saying there. But, at the same time as humans we may be able to deceive others into believeing we have supernatural powers, but that doesn't deny what satan and demons can accomplish. We know from the Bible that demon possession is real, and demonic influences are real too.

God created everyone and thus also gave each and everyone the talent that they posses, whether it be to sing opera or to rock a guitar, to play football or to run a 100 meters and even to do card tricks or a mentalism act. Every talent comes from God. Why would God give you something that He does not want you to use? He wants you to use whatever talent He has given you!

Now, if I have a talent to sing opera and I know that one of my friends do not enjoy opera, I am not going to sing opera for that friend. If the friend happens to be part of a larger group of friends that enjoys opera, I’m not going to deny them the opportunity to hear opera, just because I might offend or irritate the friend. We are all part of the same group of friends, and if the friend knows that I enjoy using my talent, the friend should put his own issues aside and support me. (In a church sense it is not about doing what you enjoy, but using the talent God gave to you, and God gives us our talent to enjoy).

I was part of a Christian mime group. It was not the "white face, stuck in a box" type of mime; it was more "contemporary" mime, kind of like a "toned down" form of dance. There was a lady that used to give a ride in to town, when I was still in college, and she asked our group to perform at their church. They had recently got a new minister and he was trying to bring a change to church. Now, this church is a VERY conservative church. A certain elderly lady was up in arms because of what this new minister was trying to do. She phoned the lady who invited us a few days before Sunday and complained! She and some of the other elderly folk were going to leave the church. This was not only because of us, but other changes as well. Sunday night came and by God's grace, so did the elderly lady. After our "performance" she went over to the lady who invited us and apologised. She said that had she not come that night, she would have missed out on what God did for her that night.

People will always find something offensive. I still remember something a previous minister of mine told me about the song Amazing Grace. People started singing it in a waltz beat and the church of old was against it. Today we are singing it in a rock beat, let a lone a waltz beat. How do you think the church of old would react to the worship music of today?

Now, let’s get back to mentalism. I see nothing wrong with performing mentalism as a Christian. Make sure the pastor of the church is aware of what you are going to do and that he approves of it, after all, he is "the shepherd of the flock". Show him a demo before hand. He will normally let the church know what is going to happen. Someone will ALWAYS be offended, no matter what. Even something as simple as change bag routine can offend someone. Even singing worship with a bit of a rock beat can offend someone. Even things Jesus did offended the some of the people.

If we have a calling, we cannot ignore it because we might offend someone. They’ll get over it. I’ll rather offend a person and obey God’s calling.

WV

What if my talent is exotic dancing? Or maybe I have a talent in directing and producing porno films? Just a few examples.

I know, sounds foolish, but my point is...

Not all our talents are of God. God's calling is never to offend. God's truth may offend those who are living in sin, but if our actions or selfish behaviour offends others, then we need to reavaluate are priorities.

I have no personal problem with someone who performs mentalism, or many of the things you listed. Just those who are insensitive to our weaker members of the body of Christ.

Exotic dancing and directing and producing porno films is more a way of taking talent to dance and direct and use it for Satan's doing. I understand your point and aggree as well, but my point is that no matter what, someone will always be offended.

As a side note, I read your amazing testimony and it was very encouraging to me!