How do these ‘miracles’ happen, what is mentalism?
Apart from Karan Singh, Suhani Shah also revealed the names of the anchors’ children on live TV. Told the problems of the relatives of the people sitting in the audience. However, while doing all this, he repeated one thing again and again – he is not a superman. All these tricks of his are a part of mentalism or psychoanalysis. It is a type of performing art that focuses on things like mind reading. Magic tricks and psychological elements are also thrown in with a lot of drama. People’s body movements, visual cues, even slight changes in response to a question are noticed. Mentalists claim that it is a very psychological form of art. Most mentalists are self-taught but they also rely heavily on neuro-linguistic programming (NLP).
I am not questioning anyone’s belief. I am just saying that you should not become a blind devotee of anyone. You should ask questions.
Karan Singh, mind reader and mentalist
What is NLP?
NLP emphasizes understanding the language of the mind, with a particular focus on visual cues. Akshay Kumar is a trained psychologist and senior research fellow in the Indian Council of Medical Sciences (ICMR). He told our colleague ‘Times of India’, ‘If I tell you to think of a gun, you will not think about the letters of that word, you will visualize it. You may speak any language, but when you think, you think in pictures. In NLP training, the emphasis is on catching such visual cues. Usually a mentalist asks a question or asks something to be done, so that a counter picture emerges in the mind of the people. They sense changes in body and face and tell the answer.
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eyes tell a lot
Mentalists are trained to pick up on even the smallest of changes. According to Kumar, when something is going on in the mind, the eyes move in different directions. If someone is remembering something from the past, then the eyes go towards the top right corner. If an event is being remembered, the eyes move to the top left. If there is an attempt to remember an old sound, then the eyes shift to the right. The inclination of the eyes towards the bottom right indicates that the conversation is going on with oneself. Humans do all this unconsciously, Mentalists catch such things.
Performing Mentalist Narpat Raman from Bangalore has been performing for over 11 years. Many times people accused him of doing black magic. Now, starting his performance, he gives a disclaimer, ‘The first line of all my shows is that what you are about to see is not real. Then I create something that looks and feels like genuine mind reading. Raman says it is like watching a movie.
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