"Blindfolded Driver [Shaun Tan] Amazes Crowd"
- The Sun

Mentalism is a fascinating and entertaining field, and it is not for the faint-hearted. Despite the public's perception of a Mentalist as a "Mind Reader", the field of Mentalism covers a wider scope than just reading minds.

The mind reading act itself has many variations. The most straightforward situation is where the Mentalist attempts to read the mind of a volunteer and do it successfully. The volunteer will be asked to focus his mind on the answer to a question posed by the Mentalist, and the Mentalist will then discern, via the thought waves of the volunteer, his answers. The Mentalist will meet the volunteer for the first time ever only when he is called up on stage. There is nothing more private than your own thoughts, yet when somebody can steal them at will, there is nothing more amazing. Shaun Tan does this regularly as part of his Mentalism Act.

The Mentalist can also send his thoughts to a volunteer. If the volunteer is unusually receptive to receiving the Mentalist's thoughts, then the volunteer's chances of succeeding are good. To ensure that the volunteer is successful most of the time, however, the Mentalist can transplant his thoughts into the volunteer's mind. Here the Mentalist facilitates the volunteer's thought reception, and when their thoughts match each other in all aspects at the end of the session, it often brings a priceless look of astonishment to the volunteer's face.

The Mentalist can also cause one volunteer to read another volunteer's mind. Here the Mentalist can be perceived as having received the first volunteer's mind, and then transplanting those thoughts to the second volunteer's mind. This is probably the most difficult act to do successfully, it being in reality two separate acts, although Shaun Tan has been quite successful so far. Then you have Prediction effects. Basically, a piece of paper that essentially contains the Mentalist's description of an event that will happen sometime in the future, perhaps two

weeks from the day, is handed to a trusted official for safekeeping. When the package is taken out and opened by the trusted official on the appointed date, it is found that the paper properly describes the event that is reported in the newspapers on that day! This is an extremely strong effect, with no room for error!

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