Mentalism is a performing art in which its practitioners, known as mentalists, appear to demonstrate highly developed mental or intuitive abilities. Mentalists perform a theatrical act that includes special effects that may appear to employ psychic or supernatural forces but that is actually achieved by "ordinary conjuring means", natural human abilities (i.e. reading body language, refined intuition, subliminal communication, emotional intelligence), and an in-depth understanding of key principles from human psychology or other behavioral sciences. Performances may appear to include hypnosis, telepathy, clairvoyance, divination, precognition, psychokinesis, mediumship, mind control, memory feats, deduction, and rapid mathematics.
Mentalism is commonly classified as a subcategory of magic ...
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Photograph of the American mentalist Joseph Dunninger.
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Marvelous feats in mind reading. Poster print, lithograph, B&W, 70cm×53cm
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Simon Baker in Paris at the French premiere of "I Give it a year"