I'm a practising mentalist and I was just wondering what the main difference is between Mentalism and Bizzare magic??

Bizarre tends to use the Paranormal and strange events. Mentalism is more reading minds (yes...that is paranormal...but not ghostly or anything).

Cheers, so would a bizzare magician use mentalism effects as well as magical effects or just one exclusively.

The site http://www.dragonskull.co.uk has a number of opinions of what bizarre magick is. This might help you in getting a feel for it and what differences there are between bizarre magick and mentalism.

And bizarre magick need not be strictly mental effects or strictly magical effects. There's no reason a bizarre magickian can't mix and match -- what makes bizarre magick what it is, is the presentation and meaning to the magic.

Cheers,thats actually quite a good site. If a little cheap looking.

I think mentalism adds a great element into the bizarre.

I've often felt that Bizzare Magic, as a term, can be a rather broad idea. It can include mentalism, PK, escapism and even a little geek magic. In many ways, I've been morphing into a Bizzarist just from my own personal interests and from what I feel is amazing.

Bizarre magic and mentalism are related closely enough that both are represented in the Psychic Entertainers Association (PEA). At their convention, the Meeting of the Minds, there is usually one bizarrist show period, usually consisting of close-up bizarre magic.

When properly presented, both of these fields strive for an audience theatrical experience (and perhaps an emotional one as well), rather than challenging them to figure out how the tricks work, which is unfortunately how some conventional magicians approach the craft.

Bizarre magic is a very broad field. The early practitioners, such as Charles Cameron and Tony Andruzzi sought various goals. One was to cause "phenomena." Another was to link magic to ritual once more. Another was to scare the bejesus out of people.

Mentalism can fit into a bizarre presentation quite well, but is only one aspect of it.

The late and brilliant Gene Poinc, in his bizarre lecture and on the Dragonskull site, said:
"The majority of magicians and lay people, have a misconception of the word bizarre. They equate it with soul selling, demons, witches, ghosties and ghastlies and things that go bump in the night, other than one's lover. Compounding the problem, contributing to the onus on the word are some of the bizarre performers who are never offstage. They ever play the 'mysterious' role, dress the part: all in black, wearing silver pentagrams, skull rings, all the 'weird' stage trappings that should have been left backstage after the performance."


In my own first lecture on bizarre, I point out that bizarre magic is not necessarily ghoulish, ghostly, or ghastly but it must touch the spectator at a higher emotional level.

In fact, you can do bizarre comedy (if that's not an oxymoron). As a couple of examples, check out some of the offerings in my Bizarre Bazaar column in the e-zine Visions (www.online-visions.com).

What bizarre is not is probably easier to answer; it is NOT magic based on plastic junk!

cheers,
Peter Marucci
showtimecol@aol.com

I certainly do both.

I've always assumed that the essential difference was that while "mentalism" refers to a type of effect, the term "bizarre" really seems to describe a certain approach to presentation. You could use that approach to perform mentalism, coin magic, card magic, or any of the other types of effect often performed by magicians (although I'm not sure how you would handle a bizarre approach to balloon animals... ). Conversely, you could definitely perform mentalism effects in a non-bizarre manner.

-Reg {*}

For me the bizarre approach has a stronger emphasis on theme and story, an emphasis I think all schools of magic would benifit from.