What is mentalism? Before we Embarq on this journey, let us clearly understand what Mentalism entails and how you can become one.  Mentalism is an art in which the individuals involved appear to exhibit supernatural powers such as mind reading and fortune telling. A mentalist is that guy who believes in mentalism or has highly developed mental abilities. Mentalists tend to leave people wondering if they are really from this world if they are humans. Mind reading is cool, that’s why there are lots of people who wants to be a mentalist. If you are one of them, You have come to the right place, this complete article guides you through on how to become a mentalist.

What is ESP? ESP stands for Extrasensory Perception popularly regarded as the sixth sense. It involves acquiring information through your mind without using physical senses.The term was invented by a psychologist from Duke University called J.B. Rhine. Mentalists are believed to have Extrasensory perception. However, some people have come out strongly to oppose the existence of Extrasensory perception. I will not dwell on what is right or wrong about ESP, I will let you decide on your own when you complete your journey of how to become a mentalist.

Mentalists are different from magicians, in that they want people to believe that what they do does not involve any form of trickery, unlike magicians who may tell their audience that they will play with their imaginations or beliefs of reality.A real life example of mentalism at work is from our friends at Criminal Investigation Department who use mentalism in interrogation so that they can get the truth from suspects. If you are reading this, you are either that guy who believes in mentalism, you are already a mentalist, or maybe you are just curious. Whichever the case, let’s get started on how to become a mentalist

WHERE DO YOU START?

Many of you may be astonished by the word ‘superpowers’ that I have just used, but remember, I did not say mentalists have superpowers but rather appear to exhibit them. For you to become a mentalist, you must have a sharp mind to observe and deduct as well as be knowledgeable. By knowledgeable, I mean mentalism is a course just like any other that you learn from books, articles, journals and my best alternative, the internet! In short, learn mentalism. You might also be interested to know that one of the best books you can use to learn mentalism was written by a former FBI agent. So, the first tip on how to become a mentalist is to learn how to become one. Go to your local bookstore and buy books that talk about mentalism. But I have to warn you to be very careful when searching for these books. There are very many fake books out there that won’t really help you. My advice is you should start from the internet. Actually, everything you need to know about mentalism can be accessed from the internet. Conduct serious research on it, read articles, watch YouTube videos and get to know experienced people who have written about mentalism.  Search for interviews that involve famous mentalists and watch them. You will definitely learn a thing or two from them.These people will also serve as role models or what some may call idols.

PRACTICE! PRACTICE! PRACTICE!

Mentalism is like a sport. The more you practice, the better you become. Before showing off your skills to others, try by convincing yourself first that you are good at what you do. You can do this by standing in front of a mirror and studying every bit of your face. Some of the things to look for are pupils. Constricting pupils mean you had a bad experience while dilating pupils means you had a good experience. Try to see if that works for you by imagining bad and good experiences. If you succeed in that, go to your close friends or relatives. This might seem absurd because you think you already know much of their lives, but trust me, you don’t. Tell them beforehand what your intentions are and also ask them to be very honest with and you will be surprised the ton of things you don’t know about them. There are other best practices I have compiled just for you to enable you to become a good mentalist. These basically are things that you should do on a daily basis on your journey of how to become a mentalist. Let’s get started. 

1. LEARN HOW TO MAKE EDUCATED JUDGEMENTS.

One of the ways of becoming a good mentalist is learning how to trust your instincts, trust your own judgment before making any conclusions or remarks. You have to be and feel in control of the situation. This is how FBI agents make good detectives. They are very observative which enable them to interpret even the slightest body changes, facial expressions and also human nature. There are very many general evaluation techniques that you can use on someone. For instance, if you notice a slight tan line on the left ring finger, this probably means that the person is divorced, and so trust your instincts and tell them that, they will see you as a god, but both of us know you just used your observation skills. Isn’t that cool?

To expound on this topic, there is something called cold reading. This is a simple trick that works on people by making high probable guesses that will make them believe you are psychic. Let me give you an example, how many people, mostly men have a scar on their knee? Everyone has a scar on their knee right? Tell them that and you will be surprised how they will open up to you. 

2. LEARN TO IDENTIFY PHYSICAL CUES

Who hates being lied to? If your answer is yes, learn mentalism.  A  Mentalist’s work involves being in a position to get information from someone without them necessarily opening their months. You do this by noticing and identifying their physical cues.  When you are in a tense situation, you may find the right words to smoothen things out, but does your body agree with you? This is because how you stand, sit or even gesture can tell how you really feel.Like for instance, a person who is lying will show one or more of these signals;

• Verbal/non-verbal disconnects. …
• Throat-clearing or swallowing.
• Behavioral pause or delay.
• Hand-to-face activity
• High rate of perspiration
• Grooming gestures
• Hiding the mouth or eyes.

Have you ever noticed that football coaches always chew gum when their players are in the field?  If you did notice, what do you think is the reason that causes them to chew gum that vigorously? As a mentalist, you should answer that question in the blink of an eye and say that the coaches are nervous and chewing gum is just a distraction. That is the life of a mentalist, seeing, noticing and interpreting body language.

So, on your journey of how to become a mentalist, learn as much as you can about physical cues and what they mean. Trust me; you will leave people in disbelief when you have a session with them. The best thing about learning physical cues is that you also get to enjoy every aspect of it. 

3. IMPROVING YOUR SENSE OF OBSERVATION

How can you improve your sense of observation? Improving your sense of observation not only improves your memory but also enables you to be extra cautious on the small details that other people would miss. Improving your observation is an easy task to accomplish but it requires some commitment to achieve it. Let me give you an example of how you can improve your sense of observation right away. When you are walking down the street either from work or school, look around you and try to see if you can notice things you had not seen before. Remember, this should be a route or area you constantly use. Continue to do this for a while, maybe a week or so. If you do this, you will become used to it and it will become something you subconsciously do. Isn’t that cool?

To get better at this, start testing yourself. Try this, when you walking down a road, look behind you for a second and take a note of what you see. If you realize that you can identify the color of the clothes the people behind you are wearing without looking back again, then that is a major breakthrough on how to become a mentalist. If you fail, try again until you get it right, After all, Rome was not built in a day. 

4. ART OF MIRRORING

Mirroring is self -explanatory.  This is when two people sit facing each other. In order for a mentalist to hypnotize someone, they need to mirror with their clients in order to build a deeper connection with that person. This way, the other person will feel more comfortable talking to them. You can also mirror their body language without them realizing it. For Example, when they touch their chin, touch yours also. Do other things that they are also doing, you will be astonished to know that 9 out of 10 times, the other person does not realize you are mirroring them. Mirroring does not only involve imitating their body language but you can also mirror their breathing patterns and speech tone too. Mirroring can also be done when you are not physically together e.g. through phone conversations and texting. You will realize that after a short while, they will be willing to give you more information and feel at ease when they are around you.Mirroring is not a subject most authors talk about but personally when you are learning mentalism; put it on your to-do list.It will be an important step on how to become a mentalist.

5. THE MORE YOU LISTEN THE MORE YOU ARE ABLE TO HEAR

This saying is self-explanatory. It basically means that you should be a good listener. If you want to become a good mentalist learn the art of listening and also reading between the lines. People tend to reveal more about themselves than they realize. So, what does a mentalist do, they listen, listen and listen until they capture something that was revealed to them indirectly. They do this by joining the dots and making connections in regard to what they have been told.Your audience may be surprised when you tell them something about their lives. What they don’t know is that what you told them was revealed to you by them subconsciously. If you want to learn mentalism, prepare to listen to very long boring stories and you have to pay attention to each and every word that is mentioned. Failure to do this, you risk missing out on very crucial information that may reveal something about a person’s life. Because of that, enduring long boring stories is part of learning how to become a mentalist and you should embrace it

We can take a case of psychiatrists who spend most of their times listening to people’s fears, worries, and problems. For them to be good at what they do, they must pay close attention to each and every word that is said. This way, they are able to get a deeper understanding of what their clients are going through. In case a client is dishonest or not telling the truth, they are in a position to notice and take the necessary action.

6. WORK YOUR MIND

Mentalism is like a maze. You have to be very careful when going down this road otherwise, you will get lost and don’t achieve your goals. Part of learning how to become a mentalist involves knowing how to work your mind. So, how do you train your mind?  You do this by playing mind games such as Sudoku, solving complex puzzles or playing chess.  You will also find meditation is to be very helpful; I call this being ‘in the zone’. This is a state whereby you relax your mind into a state of consciousness, turning away your attention from distracting thoughts and putting your focus on the present moment. Meditation makes you smarter; it changes pain while relieving depression, meditation is so good to us. The best thing about learning mentalism is that most of the things you will learn will help you to become a better person. You can learn mentalism, not for show, not to please other people but for your own self. That is why I said earlier that mentalism makes you a better person when you master and understand it. Meditation is the reason why monks are always so focused and jovial. Many mathematical formulas have been invented by monks.

Did you know that there is a fine line between your brain and your mind? The brain is the physical organ that houses the mind. The mind is the manifestations of emotion, thought, determination, memory, and imagination that all take place within the brain.  Animals have brains but do they have minds? An animal is able to clearly interpret the environment it’s in, but it doesn’t understand it. The mind is what differentiates humans from other living things but that does mean all humans think the same. A good mentalist is able to blend both the brain and the mind to interpret ideas and also make decisions better than other people can.I personally believe that learning mentalism makes you a better person, whether you are learning it for the money or just for fun.

7. BELIEVE IN YOURSELF

If you really want to learn how to become a mentalist, build your confidence first.  Believe in yourself first before meeting an audience. By audience, it can be one person or a hundred people. Confident people achieve way more than timid people, I mean, look around. Who gets the ladies for instance? I believe you can answer that with a blink of an eye. Confidence is a winner, Confidence takes you places. A sales person who is not confident is better off sleeping than working. A mentalist is a sales person, the only difference as a mentalist is you are selling yourself.Good mentalists will talk to anyone with a tone that exudes confidence so that the other party believes with no doubt what they are being told. A good mentalist stands tall in front of other people and tells them exactly what they want to hear or rather what they think they want to hear. My friend, do you stammer when talking to your boss? Do you look at your girlfriend/boyfriend straight in the eye while talking to them? Answer these questions and you will find out where you stand as a future mentalist. The good thing is, you can learn to be confident, it takes time but the bottom line is, you can learn. Don’t let your confidence burn your dreams to the ground. Don’t say that because you don’t look at your girlfriend straight in the eye, you cannot become a good mentalist. Your dreams are still valid; you just need to work harder. Teach yourself how to talk to people, earning their respect and making them laugh. Yes, having a sense of humor and making people laugh is part of being a good mentalist. Whatever you do, just don’t be shy because it will not work out well for you. What are you waiting for? Learn how to become a mentalist and you will appreciate yourself even more. 

8. BE CREATIVE

What is creativity? Creativity involves a mentalist using their imagination to produce artistic work. Creativity plays a major role on how to become a mentalist.  You know, things don’t always go as a planned. What do I mean by that? Part of being a mentalist involves making intelligent guesses. These guesses are not always right and a mentalist knows how to divert from such situations to avoid embarrassment. To do this, a mentalist must keep calm in such occurrences, pretend nothing has happened and pray to God the next guess is on point. Unfortunately, learning mentalism does not teach you to be creative. This is something that you pick up when growing up and gets better with time. The more you practice mentalism, the more creative you become through experience. 

9. BE YOURSELF

Being you means acting naturally according to your instincts and character. Learning mentalism will not help you in this, sorry. This is something that you decide for yourself. It involves waking up one morning and becoming who you always imagined yourself to be. It’s not as easy as it sounds and not hard either, you only need to follow these three steps to realize who you really are:

• Develop awareness of your feelings and thoughts – This involves getting rid of negative feelings or thoughts from your mind. Develop an awareness of the quality of your thinking, let go of your old beliefs and live in the present.
• Follow your intuition – This is the biggest step to take in your quest to realizing who you really are. Most of the times we feel obligated to others, be it our parents, close friends or relatives and end up not following our dreams. Most of us have ignored our intuitions for the longest time and it’s time to stop and let go.
• Search for your inner child within you – Do you sometimes wish you would go back to being a ten year old? I always admire how children are always free and don’t care what other people think about them. They are jovial and always live in the moment. It’s not always easy to live a carefree life because unlike kids, we have responsibilities but I believe once in a while you can get in touch with your inner child because that is the real you.

Follow those three steps and your life will never be the same again. You will realize that life is not hard; it only depends on how you take it, and how you handle situations. Being yourself will also be a major breakthrough in your quest of how to become a mentalist. 

10. MAKE MENTALISM PART OF YOUR CAREER

As I said earlier, mentalism is a course just like any other. It’s an art which you learn from books or the internet.Maybe our universities will include learning mentalism in the syllabus, who knows? The world is changing at an alarming rate.Almost all magicians are mentalists because it’s an essential skill in their career. Other people who have studied mentalism to a deeper depth are psychiatrists and Detectives. Growing up, my parents and teachers always advised me to choose a career from something I really loved.  For instance, you can become an FBI profiler and trust me; you will be the best detective in your area or department. This is because your career involves doing something you are passionate about. If you want to take your mentalist dreams to a whole new level, choose a career that will enable you to utilize the skills you learned as a mentalist. This way, you will understand it much better and also earn from it. 

11. ASK LEADING QUESTIONS

Leading questions prompt respondents to give the desired answers because of the way they are phrased. Leading questions point the listeners to a certain desired direction. Something worth noting is that leading questions cannot only be expressed by words but you can also lead people by body language or even your voice tone effects. Leading questions can be both desirable and undesirable, it is very important to know how and when to use them. Learning mentalism from books and other materials will help you gain the necessary knowledge on how to use leading questions.  Leading questions make respondents think or believe that a mentalist has supernatural powers. Why? The clients don’t realize that the questions being asked are vague and they themselves are filling in the gaps for the mentalist. 

12. LEARN THE ART OF ESTABLISHING IDEAS IN PEOPLE’S MINDS

Some may call it planting ideas in somebody’s mind. However you call it, its meaning remains the same. So, what is it? Planting ideas is a crucial part of how to become a mentalist because it’s very simple to achieve it and tough to avoid. When you plant an idea into someone’s mind, you are making them think of something without them realizing it. Let me give you an example of how a sales person can use this to their advantage:

Buyer: How much is a 4GB memory card?

Salesperson: 5$

Buyer: Will it be enough? I only need 2GB to store my files.

Salesperson:  4GB is more than enough for you as long as you don’t plan on adding more files to your device in the near future.

On the last sentence, have you noticed what the salesperson has done? He has planted an idea into the buyer’s mind that 4GB might not be enough for them. This is because the buyer will realize that with time, their files will increase hence the need for a larger storage space. Most probably, the buyer will end up spending more money for a larger storage space. Planting ideas is a very easy task to accomplish but be careful while using it; it can also be dangerous and should not be used for ill intentions. It’s better to make your intentions or thoughts known rather than use indirect methods that may mislead others.

CONCLUSION

The good thing about learning how to become a mentalist is you learn so many things along the way. If you are a student, you become more responsible leading to better grades. You also become more focused in life and thereafter achieving great things in real life. If you are already working, follow your intuition and learn how to become a mentalist, After all, you only live once.

The best advice I can give anyone who wants to Embarq on this journey of how to become a mentalist is not to give up. This will not be an easy journey, a few disappointments here and there are inevitable, but in this world, nothing comes easy. You have to work hard for it, Put your mind, heart, and soul into it and you will certainly succeed. If you complain now, how did people learn the concepts twenty years ago when the internet was not available to everyone? This brings me to my next point. Utilize the internet; everything you want and need to know on how to become a mentalist is at your disposal. Watch YouTube videos, buy books from amazon or wherever. Spend your time and money on this; don’t waste time trying to get content from the free articles and books available from the internet. Most of them, 90% are useless with no meaningful content.

You can also hire another mentalist to train but those guys don’t come cheap. Prepare to dig a hole in your pocket if you decide to go down this road and hire one. But I honestly believe that learning mentalism is best when it’s self-taught. You just need to put in your effort and some money into it. After all, you didn’t go to college for free unless you won a scholarship.

Another thing you definitely have to sacrifice is time. It takes years to master the concepts involved in mentalism, so you have to be patient so that you can reach your goals.Many people have asked this question of how to become a mentalist but after being guided through the process involved, they give up down the line. Are you that kind of person? I truly hope not, otherwise will have wasted both of our times.  Learning mentalism is supposed to be fun, if you don’t enjoy it, then it’s not your ‘thing’.  Don’t expect to learn mentalism within a week or month or you are going to be very disappointed and quit. Give it time and concentrate on perfecting your skills which might take several years. Before we end this awesome topic, let me give you the two ‘bibles’ of learning mentalism: Corinda’s 13 steps to mentalism and Anneman’s practical mental magic. These two books are a must have for all aspiring mentalists. They will provide a very good ground to start learning mentalism. They are very informative and provide accurate information.

What I have provided to you is just a tip of an iceberg. There is so much more on this long journey which I promise you to be fun and interesting.

Good luck.