ADDITIONAL TELESEMINAR NOTES

(To be read in conjunction with the materials discussed in the live broadcast of the
teleseminar or the MP3 recording of the event.)

Copyright ©2010 by Bob Cassidy

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 The Act – Post Teleseminar Notes

Beyond Fundamentals – The Act Post-Notes

Michael, Jheff and I would like to thank all of you for attending the “Beyond
Fundamentals Teleseminar – the Act.” I am very happy with the positive feedback that
I’ve received from many of you and I hope to “see” you at future teleseminars or at my
live workshops/lectures.

For those interested, I will be lecturing at the 2010 MINDvention in October of this year.
(2010) For those interested, visit http://www.mindvention.net.

Following are some of the questions that were posted by attendees at the teleseminar
together with my extended answers:

Could you describe how you go about linking one effect to the next in an act, so that the
effects come across as flowing naturally from one to the other rather than being slapped
together in a sequence?

As I noted in the podcast, there’s nothing I dislike more than hearing the abrupt
transitions and endings used by far too many stand-up performers. There must be a
natural flow and continuity to a performance.

Starting with the first thirty seconds (see “The Thirty Second Rule,” the entire
performance should be structured as if it was just a single effect. And it is, if you think
about it. The effect is YOU – the stage persona that you’ve carefully prepared – and the
routines that you use are simply a means of enhancing and illustrating that overall
illusion.

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Those familiar with my work know that in my act I continually use the idea of projecting
and visualizing thoughts on an imaginary movie screen. In my subscript this is the way
my character does just about everything. (At the end of my act, when I demonstrate the
Card Memory, I present it as an example of how I learned the visualization techniques
that I later expanded into the “sending and receiving” used in the program.

This, of course, is not the only way to go about it. As long as you create a subscript for
yourself and then base your act around it, you will automatically create some sort of
continuity that can be polished and refined over hundreds of performances.

The important thing to remember is NOT to claim too many abilities. Just as “adding
props to your act causes your price to go down,” demonstrating several psychic “abilities
can easily cause your credibility to diminish.

Many of the mentalism acts I've seen seem to be geared toward hitting the same
emotional notes again and again - amazement, occasional surprise, and humor. I would
like to be able to elicit a larger variety of emotional responses from the audience during
an act. Do you have any insight into how to go about doing this?

The best advice I can give you here is to get the audience to “mirror” your own emotions.
This is accomplished by drawing them into your world and way of thinking. It also can
be elicited by the plots you use in your presentations.

Suspense and Fear, for example, can be created by effects such as Russian Roulette, Bank
Night, Murder Mystery routines, etc. Again, though, it is important to remember to keep
those presentations within the confines of your persona and your character’s abilities. For
example, when I presented Russian Roulette, I had the audience visualize (as they did
earlier on the imaginary movie screen) the positions of the number cards hanging on each
of the pistols.

A few stories about yourself can also effectively be used to create an emotional
connection. They also serve to create a good context for the effects you perform. (And if
the stories are wild or memorable enough, they will often cause people to “remember”
seeing you do things that you actually only talked about. A good example is the story
Kreskin tells before presenting the linking finger rings in which he describes how he once
formed a linked chain of rings that stretched across the stage.

Don’t be afraid to make up stories about yourself! Excessive modesty is not necessarily a
good thing for a psychic entertainer.

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You've talked about the importance of keeping the effects one performs consistent with
the ability one claims to have. Are there abilities that might seem closely related enough,
at least in the audiences' mind, such that they can be performed together in the same act
without compromising believability? For example performing a telepathy effect with the
subtext is "I know what you are thinking" and then performing a precognition effect with
the subtext "I know in advance what you will think."

This is basically what I have been talking about already and what we discussed at length
in the teleseminar. There is absolutely no problem in demonstrating variations of a basic
ability – in fact it is something you HAVE to do to create variety in the act.

The “abilities” demonstrated, however, must have a logical connection, i.e. the
visualization required in sending and receiving thoughts is essentially the same as what is
used in memorization. The ability to subconsciously transmit thoughts and influence
actions can be used to provide consistent justification for prediction style effects without
the need for you to additionally claim precognitive powers, etc.

Is there such a thing as being too overt in describing what exactly your abilities are or
how they work? Is there value in creating a persona in which all the questions about
oneself are not answered for the audience, in order to create a greater sense of mystery?

There is no need to go into great detail about “how” your abilities work. The key is to use
a consistent presentation. There is, of course, nothing wrong with occasionally dropping
in a “bit of business” that adds to the mystery. Just don’t overdo it to the extent that it
overshadows or contradicts your underlying theme.

Years ago in the late 70s I did some standup comedy. I should have never stopped. But
that's another story.

Anyway one of the great things budding comics had back then and still do to a certain
extent are the myriad small comedy clubs and bars (especially surrounding large cities)
where they can work out their material. One of the startling things I learned is that the
same material, done in the same place, can kill one night and bomb on another night.
Such is comedy.

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My impression with mentalism is that there is less variance in audience reaction. (I can't
imagine any crowd yawning at Osterlind's Two Cards in Pocket, for instance.) So far, so
good. But what I assume will happen in the beginning of my career is that my act will get
varying responses because of my own variances: Chiefly my own mistakes, or the failure
of a prop or gaff, or an audience volunteer who doesn't cooperate (due to my lack of
judgment or audience control and so on.)

So as the subject line asks, where are the venues where a beginner in the business can go
to stink up the joint? Now understand that I'm going to do everything in my power to
prevent that from ever happening. I am learning and practicing (I'm not at the rehearsal
stage yet and I haven't written a script for the act yet) diligently and my ego is big enough
that I will rehearse relentlessly before I get my first booking (some kind of benefit for a
local organization or an open mic night I imagine). I am just assuming that Murphy's
Law dictates that despite my diligence and many hours of rehearsal, my first few
performances will be at least a bit rough and that something will go wrong sooner or
later. And sooner rather than later.

So my question is when I'm ready to start performing professionally, where are the best
venues at which to start? Should I go outside my local market by 20 or 30 miles? Are
bars better than benefits? Is something else better than either one of them?

I should add that I'm in my 50s so I feel I have the additional burden (and perhaps
advantage in some ways) that audiences will assume I'm a seasoned performer. I've been
a wannabe for years now and I want to change careers (I'm a writer) and make this my
last career. I've told myself that I will do my first paid performance in 12 to 18 months
and I want to be making my living at this (with a good chunk of change in the bank for
promotion and living expenses for the first year) within two years. I sometimes think this
is a crazy fantasy of mine. At other times I feel it's inevitable. I'm guessing that's not
uncommon.

I get this question very often and all I can do is tell you how I went about things at the
beginning of my career.

They key things (as in much of life) are “being there” and “networking.” I accomplished
this early on by joining a Masonic Lodge. (I imagine any similar organization would
provide the same benefits.) Once the “brethren” became aware of what I did for a living, I
soon became a much in demand act at lodges throughout the state. The money wasn’t
great (at my home lodge I performed for nothing) but the contacts I made with influential
people in the business and corporate world were invaluable. In fact, it was through the
lodges that I became acquainted with the man who would eventually get me work on the
cruise ships.

I also did many of the comedy clubs and open mike gigs, but those didn’t work out as
well for me, probably because I was perceived as “one act out of many.” In the lodges I

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was the only act in any particular show, and as such, I stood alone and didn’t have to
compete with anyone else.

What role does the structure of your act play in connecting with your audience? In other
words, does the way the act is structured affect the audience in different ways and either
hinder or enhance a connection to you? If you could speak a bit about connecting with
your audience, I think it would be very helpful.

We covered a good deal of this in the teleseminar, but I would like to add that connecting
to an audience means talking TO them and not AT them. To get an audience to interact
with you, you must initiate the interaction. Don’t make the mistake of adopting the
patronizing “That was great,” “You are just fantastic” infomercial style of interaction that
too many performers seem to be using nowadays. Just start out as authoritative, then let
them see you as a likeable and interesting person. Once you’ve accomplished that you
can get away with just about anything.

SOME CLOSING THOUGHTS (adapted from “The Artful Mentalism of

Bob Cassidy” and “Fundamentals”)

Everything you do should be original or uniquely presented in an original way. If anyone

watches you perform and says later, “I saw a guy on TV do that,” you’ve failed. (Unless
you are the one who invented the effect and the guy on TV copied you; in which case you
might say “Yeah, he does it almost the way I taught him to!”)

If you are the kind of performer who sees something on TV and immediately runs off to
the magic shop to get the props to do the same thing, you are reading the wrong book. If
you should one day decide to take this art seriously, please feel free to come back. But for
now you may return to the faceless crowd of wannabees where you may all gripe about
not getting any breaks even though you can do the same things the guy on TV does.

You know what's funny? Go to ebay and look how the folding coin is advertised. First
off, it is never a half dollar- always a quarter. It is not advertised as a folding half, but as
David Blaine’s “Biting a Coin in Half.” (Or, most recently, and amusingly, “Bite and
Spit”) Why anyone would want to present it Blaine’s way, or to do any of the effects that
Blaine does, is a mystery to me. Do they really think that by doing so they will get their
own shot at a television show? (Personally, I believe there is a sound psychological
reason behind this desire to imitate- the imitator secretly wants to BE the person they are
imitating. But stop and think- did you ever see an Elvis impersonator who you mistook
for the real thing?)

Are you an artist or a hack? Do you perform for money or for you own amusement? If
you love the art and can act, create, innovate, take risks, and work long hard hours,

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months and years, you may one day be known as [insert your name here] If you just want
to copy and let the artists do the creative work you will one day (soon, if not already) be
known as “that dude who thinks he’s David Blaine (or whoever it is you happen to be
imitating.)

Is mentalism an art or a business? Is show business a show or business? These questions

have the same answer: BOTH. To succeed both artistically and financially you need to
learn both ends. You can be a true artist who never makes a dime or a well-off hack
who’s never had an original thought. I sympathize with and love the former, but while I
may recognize the financial success of the latter I nonetheless realize that successful
pirates and parasites are equally well off.

I am often asked questions that reveal common misunderstandings of many beginning

mentalists and more than a few performers who really should know better.

(1.) “You’ve suggested that mentalists should limit the claims they make. You say that a
performer loses credibility by presenting a program in which he explains the various
forms of psychic ability and then demonstrate every one of them. So let’s say that I just
claim the ability to read thoughts and influence them and I ‘prove’ it by doing a billet test
and a prediction. Then what? I’ve already shown what I can do. Everything else would
just be a variation of the same thing. Won’t people want to see me do something else?”
Superficially, this appears to be a very simple query. It is not. It contains a false
assumption made by almost every mentalist and magician who puts an act together for
the first time. The same assumption is also hidden in the following question, which is
seen almost daily in one or another of the many Internet discussion groups devoted to
magic and/or mentalism:

(2.) “I am putting together an act. I own and have learned the following effects. [List of
effects follows] Which effects should I use and what is the best order in which to present
them?”

The stock answer to the latter question is - “Open with a short but convincing effect that
establishes your credentials and gets their attention. You want them to think, 'Now here is
a man who knows his business and is worthy of my attention.' Don’t make any
outrageous claims to supernatural powers. Just present the next several effects as
entertaining examples of science and psychology in action. That’s why even people who
hate straight magic are completely intrigued by mentalism."

The hidden assumption in these questions and answers is that mental effects are
inherently entertaining to intelligent audiences. This is false. Entertainment value comes
entirely from the performer. Its absence will indeed cause an audience to ask, “What else
do you do” after the first effect or two.

The following scenario provides a somewhat clearer illustration because it has nothing to
do with mentalism or magic, but with the concept of entertainment in general:

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A singer performs a song very well, thus ‘proving’ that he has the ability to sing. Will his
listeners then say, “So you can sing, what else you do?”

If the performance was an audition for a movie role or a place in the chorus line, the
answer is likely to be “yes.” But was there ever an instance where an audience member
said to Frank Sinatra, “Ok, already, so you sing. But can you do a Modified Elmsley
Count?”

[Actually this really happened on May 31, 1952, when Sinatra was a guest at the first
(and last) annual public show of The Hoboken Magic Club (defunct since June1, 1952),
but I still think that my analogy makes a valid point.)

The second assumption, that a variety of effects provides inherent entertainment value is
false for the same reason, although the demonstrator may get a way with a few extra
tricks before the questioner asks, “So, is that it then?”

Both of these assumptions evolved from an early statement by Ted Annemann that
“audiences go for Mental Tricks more than ever. It is more of a grown up phase of magic
and mystery.” The idea that mentalism, no longer referred to as “mental tricks ”or
"mental magic," was a “grown up" form of mystery, was embraced enthusiastically by a
later generation of mentalists, who realized that mentalism was hardly the same type of
“family entertainment” offered by traditional magic.

Thus, many mentalists began promoting their shows as the as a "sophisticated form of
mystery entertainment appropriate for intelligent audiences". This was, and is, an
excellent marketing strategy.

Audiences like to be treated as if they're intelligent and sophisticated.

The truth, however, is neatly summed up by comedian Don Marquis:

If you make people think they’re thinking, they’ll love you.

If you really make them think, they’ll hate you.

Think about it.

And if I've challenged your preconceptions about mentalism, try not to hate me too much.

Good thoughts,

Bob Cassidy

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