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wikiHow to Be a MentalistThree Parts: Finding the Lies Convincing Others Going the Extra Mile

A mentalist is an individual who appears to have supernatural powers indivining the truth about an individual as well as many facts about that person'slife. A mentalist must be great at decoding, possess observational skills, andhave a highly developed ability to observe minute detail. Many people, fromcriminal profiles to magicians, all use mentalist tactics and a workingknowledge of psychology to interpret human behavior. Mentalists can not onlyget attention, but they can also entertain literally anybody in this planet.Wanna get your Simon Baker on? Here's how.

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Make snap, educated judgments. Part of being a mentalist is about trusting yourjudgment. Unfortunately, most people have turned their observation skills off.

General and non­overt assessment of an individual provides good backgroundinformation that is normally missed. For example, are the person's hands soft orcalloused? Is his musculature toned or not? Is the person dressed to stand out or tohide? Take yourself right now ­­ what might someone learn about you just from lookingat you?

There are dozens of general assessment information items that will help you toprofile the individual. Think of Sherlock Holmes ­­ he didn't have ESP, he justnoticed things. That's all. A slight tan line on the left ring finger. A pen mark onthe left hand. He would now trust that this person is either divorced or separatedand right­handed. Trust those snap judgments!

Look for physical cues in others. A mentalist's work lies in stirring memories andcausing the "tells" to appear, even if the person cannot bring to mind the

information. “Tells” will help you to observe what the mind knows but the memory cannotcall forth. Remember that although someone may say they do not remember something,the brain records everything. As such, the information is there, but just not accessible tothat person at that time. "Tells" include:

Dilation or constriction of the pupil of the eye (dilation is associated with positiveemotion; constriction with negative)Where the person gazesRate of respirationHeart rateRelative perspiration of the body

Use yourself as your first guinea pig. Knowing what tells to look for isn't helpful

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Part 1 of 3: Finding the Lies

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if you don't know what they mean. While each person is a bit different, tells are called assuch because they're usually consistent. So get in front of a mirror and start studyingyour own face. Here's a few things to look for:

When you think of a positive memory, your pupils should dilate. When you thinkof a negative experience, they should constrict. Imagine both of these scenariosand see what happens.Think of an answer to this question: What do you like about going to the beach?Once you've come up with your answer, note where you looked. If you saidsomething like fire, you probably visualized it and looked up. If you saidsomething like the sounds and the smells, you probably remained at eye level.If you said the sand in your hands, you may have looked down. Visual answersgenerally go up, aural stays level, and hands­on memories draw gazedownward.Make yourself nervous. How does it manifest in your body? What is your heartdoing? Your breathing? What are you doing with your hands? Now run throughother emotions too ­­ sadness, happiness, stress, etc.

Detect lies. Much of detecting lies is seeing the tells we just covered. In fact, that'swhat a polygraph does ­­ it measures blood pressure, pulse, and perspiration. The

higher these numbers, the more likely the person is lying. But you can also do things apolygraph can't do ­­ like see when people aren't looking you in the eye, twiddling theirthumbs, or being inconsistent in their verbal and non­verbal behavior.

A good thing to master is detecting micro­expressions. These are little flashesof how the person actually feels before they consciously cover it up. They'reoften feelings of distress or negative feelings they don't want other people tosee for one reason or another.Pay attention to their entire body ­­ how much they're gulping, if they're touchingtheir nose or mouth, what they're doing with their hands, fingers, and feet, andhow they're standing in relation to you. Are they angled toward the door? Theyprobably subconsciously want to get away!

Ask leading questions. Persuading people is a huge part of being a mentalist. Atthe very least, you're persuading them you are a mentalist! If a person is given

some evidence that one can “read their mind," they are easily confused betweentelepathy and observation/persuasion. A simple way to do this is to ask leadingquestions.

John Edward and other TV personalities are great at this. They start with, "I'mseeing a 19. Does that mean anything to anyone?" They start out vague untilsomeone latches on. Then, once someone does, he'll ask questions like, "Youwere very close to him, weren't you?" and the person answers, feeling likethey're understood. He's just asking very vague questions and the person isfilling in the gaps for him!

Practice casually sweeping the room with an observant gaze. Look for alldetail in the environment. Observe all human interaction, from the one­on­one to

how the room is grouped. Often just a ten second look into a room can tell you how eachperson is feeling.

If you see one or two people near the door, they may be socially anxious. See aperson whose body language is clearly focused on someone else? They'reinterested in that person, probably sexually. And if everyone is aligned towardone person in the room, you've found your alpha. And that's just threeexamples.If you can, record something. Start with small segments, observe, record, then

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view again several times to find what information you missed the first time.

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Memorize a “baseline” of behavior for the people you're dealing with. Thismeans how a person normally acts in any given circumstance. Since people are

different, you'll be a lot more effective in your readings if you have a baseline first. Andyou'll know how receptive they're feeling toward you!

An easy example is think of naturally flirty people. When they're comfortable,they may be touching, laughing, and poking away at someone they findattractive. Other people, while comfortable, might consider that a violation of aperson's bubble. Both people are feeling the same way, they just show it in verydifferent ways.

Be confident. 99% of getting people to believe/agree with you is confidence(statistic yet to be verified). How do politicians get elected? What makes a

salesman effective? Who gets the ladies? We may think it has something to do withsmarts or with looks (and those definitely don't hurt), but what it really boils down to isconfidence. When you're confident enough, it doesn't even occur to other people toquestion your judgment.

If you're nervous about professing your mentalist ways, you gotta kick that nastyhabit! What you're really selling here is yourself. People are looking to you to beconvinced ­­ they're not looking for the most accurate or logical information.When you realize it's not what you say, it's how you say it, a lot of the pressurefalls away.

Listen. The fact of the matter is that people tell us things way more often than werealize. If we were better listeners, a whole new world would open up to us. Our

memories would improve and we would make connections we didn't see before. That'swhat mentalists do!

An important part of listening and being an effective mentalist is readingbetween the lines. Seeing what people really mean when they're talking. If yourfriend walked up to you and said, "Oh my gosh, I worked out soooooo hardtoday," they're actually saying, "Please give me a pat on the back. I need to betold I'm fit." It's this underlying text that will clue you in when people don't realizeyou're any the wiser.

Act natural. What it boils down to is that you're really putting on a show. Soinstead of pretending to be someone you're not and making this dramatic scene

about it, just be yourself! The genuine you is a lot more convincing than anything else.

If anything, be slightly amused. Think of those actors giving interviews thatconstantly have a slight smile on their faces and are prone to little bouts ofsubdued laughter. They're totally relaxed and they just seem, well, cool. Be thatguy!

Part 2 of 3: Convincing Others

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Plant ideas. And you thought Inception was just an awesome Leonardo DiCapriomovie. While you can't plant dreams yet, you can plant ideas. Let's say you want to

get someone to think of a word and the word you want them to think of is "watch." Youwould insert that word into your conversation beforehand, glance at yours casually(albeit briefly), and then ask them to think of something like an accessory. Boom. Mindread.

Start experimenting with this on small levels, like the example above. Grab afriend or two and see if you can come up with a few scenarios on your ownwhere they don't know they're getting ideas planted in their brains. Once youcome up with half a dozen or so words you can easily plant, you can impressanyone at a moment's notice.

Don't give away your secrets. If you've ever asked a magician to tell you how hedoes one of his tricks, if he's any good he never spills! He shouldn't even explain a

trick that any other magician does (or the union will kick him out). You should be thesame! If someone asks you how you do something, simply shrug your shoulders andequate it to your awesomeness.

Don't accidentally give it away, either. "Ah, I see you looked up and to the left,"gives away that you're monitoring their eyes, even if you don't tell them what itsignifies. You want them to think there's something extra­sensory about you,something that other people don't have. So be mysterious. You'll only increasetheir intrigue.

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Read, read, and then read some more about mentalists and how they work.There are many books on interviewing people and interpreting even the slightest

facial movements, body tells, and mind­manipulation. Annemann’s Practical MentalEffects and Corinda’s 13 Steps to Mentalism are two good places to start. As is T.A.Waters’ Mind, Myth and Magick. No one better to learn from than the pros!

Study up on different, yet related, areas. To give yourself more cred ­­ and justbecause you may also find it interesting ­­ venture into other related realms. Think

of reading up on dream interpretation, tarot cards, astrology, and telepathy andtelekinesis, just to name a few. Might as well make yourself well­rounded!

Consider learning new skills, too. Look into hypnosis, palm reading, and otherpeople­reading skills. Then when you're being your mentalist self, you couldalways truthfully say, "I could hypnotize you, but I shouldn't have to do that."

Train your mind. It's a muscle, really. If you don't use it, you'll lose it. So startplaying chess, doing Sudoku, and solving riddles. Do crossword puzzles. Spend

your free time reading and doing DIY projects. Paint (that's a good one for noticingdetails). Take an acting class (also good for detail and emotion). All of these are thingsthat can help you increase your mental power.

Use the Internet! Visit sites like Lumosity, Khan Academy, Coursera, andMemrise and make sure you train your mind regularly. Deductive reasoning andcritical thinking are two skills that aren't necessarily used while being a

Part 3 of 3: Going the Extra Mile

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mentalist, but they get the skills you do use going a lot faster! Sherlock may beable to notice that lack of a wedding ring, but if it takes him a day and a half toput it together, Watson's dead by then. So keep mentally agile and stay on topof your game.

Find a job where you can use your skills. Whether you're looking to be amagician or a criminal profiler or a TV star, why not make a little moolah off of your

mad observational skills and people­reading prowess? You'll hone your methods andlearn even more tricks of the trade.

If you haven't thought about it before, start! Get to reading How to Be aMagician, How to Be an FBI Profiler, How to Be a Detective, or even How toGet on TV. To learn from real professional mentalists, read about MasterMentalism. If Honey Boo Boo can do it, you certainly can!

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Becoming a credible mentalist takes dedication. It is not a quick oreasy process as there are thousands of variables in human behavior.This is a multi­disciplinary endeavor as it entails understandingadvanced psychology, advanced skills in persuasion, and countlesshours of observation and interpretation.

Be prepared for this to take years to reach a decent level ofachievement. It is not something any person can learn in a weekend ortwo.

Start small in terms of using your skills. It is better to be successful inmeasured steps than it is to fail by reaching beyond what you arecomfortably capable of doing.

Using your growing skills constantly will reinforce what you havealready gained.

Tips

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Be cautious of how you use any mentalist skills you have developed.Like most things, it simply is, and is neither good nor bad. How oneuses it, however, does determine its societal value.

If you are using friends to help you develop your skills, ask them inadvance if that is acceptable. During your first few years, mistakes cancost a lot in terms of human relationships when done withoutpermission or the result is negative for the person involved.

http://www.mentalismskills.com/tag/psychology/http://www.bu.edu/iass/about/approach/http://www.lybrary.com/the­thirtynine­steps­to­mentalism­a­10.htmlhttp://www.dummies.com/how­to/content/mind­magic­mentalism­for­dummies­cheat­sheet­uk­ed.html

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