I am a new member to the ever-growing population of Mentalists. I have recently finished reading - 13 Steps To Mentalism by Corinda. And I am in the process of reading "Theater of The Mind"

As a "newbie" to mentalism I realize I have a lot to learn. There was this one effect that I always wanted to do after seeing a local mentalist perform it. A spectator seemingly forgets their name, card, etc.

I imagine this is something with hypnosis, and I would be interested in knowing the difficulty and if anyone in fact performs effects using hypnosis.

Hi there Joe,

This effect has several possible solutions. One is hypnosis, name amnesia is very simple to create when a spectator is in trance. However, you mention they forget a card also, which screams at me and says that they performance you saw was Luke Jermay's and is published in his amazing 7 Deceptons. This is not an easy effect to pull off and does require a fair understanding of linguistics and behaviour patterns. I say this because I have magician friends who have attempted this and the effect failed. For me the effect works all of the time. I think this is because I have training in Hypnosis and understand the behavioural patterns and linguistics being used for the effect.

Another method is that of Derren Brown's which may also have been employed by the performer you saw, which is not published currently.

Hope this helps.

Wonder Words by Kenton Knepper is another excellent source for an understanding of linguistics and behaviour.

Absolutly, this is amazing stuff!

Thanks for the help guys!

I've been hearing a lot of the word - linguistics...It seems that only really skilled mentalists are able to succussfully use it. What is a good beginner's source on it?

Thank you, again, for all your help!

Linguistics, the source I would go to, Kenton Knepper's Wonder Words, now available on CD! at last!

Kennedy