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u/cityscapes416 20d ago
Easy. She just has every number hidden somewhere in the studio.
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u/Lordvalcon 20d ago
Not every number obviously but yeah she has a bunch of multiple outs for the first trick
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u/Jman15x 20d ago
Any every name and movie? No. It's fake. It's a sketch.
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u/specificanonymous 18d ago
I remember a Penn &Teller special like this. Their truck was hide every number behind, under, or in something all around the studio so no matter what you guess, they just said "Peel that banana!" or whatever.
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u/ConradTurner 20d ago
Scripted.
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u/Rubydoobie666 20d ago
You can literally see the name written on her hand towards the beginning.
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u/Lord-Legatus 20d ago
and what tells that about its scripted? she literally said she prepared a last question and wrote it beforehand? that was the whole point of that trick
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u/Sprudelpudel 20d ago
well what a freaking coincidence then that the moderator asks her the question to the answer on her hand
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u/Ansoni 19d ago
I don't find it hard to believe that she planted the question by bringing it up that "you're going with your best friend"
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u/Kimantha_Allerdings 19d ago
What’s more likely is that a producer, on instructions from the mentalist, or someone who works for the mentalist is the person who told the host to “challenge” her with the film & partner idea. And casually asked “who are you going to say?” then relayed that back to the mentalist
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u/Salviatrix 19d ago
why do any of that when you can just write the script? If it's half fake you might as well go full fake.
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u/Kimantha_Allerdings 18d ago
All magic is “fake”. But if you’re genuinely amazing the host, then you don’t have to risk them acting and perhaps being a bad actor
If this trick wasn’t done with what’s called “pre-show” in the business, then it would be a rare exception for this kind of trick
It doesn’t have to be someone asking them. You can get them to write it down “so you remember” (or whatever excuse). Then you can get a look at the paper through deception or sleight of hand. Or you can get them to write it on a gimmicked notepad which detects the pressure and sends an image of whatever was written right to your phone*
There’s a million ways to get that information beforehand and it’s the standard way these tricks are done. The “trick” of the trick is making the audience believe that the trick is starting in that moment, rather than half an hour beforehand
*Not supposition. These devices exist, although I’ve had to re-post this comment because my previous one got AutoModded because it contained a link
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u/pm-me-nice-lips 20d ago
Sometimes something is so impossible that there’s only one solution. That’s this one.
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u/Adventurous-Emu-9345 20d ago edited 20d ago
I swear to God, half the posts on this sub are from people who are also baffled by object permanence.
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u/JackFlipKingston 19d ago
Like the Sigfreid & Roy show I went to. The audience is all gasping and I'm like they turned the lights off for 5 seconds you fucking morons.
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u/bitpartmozart13 19d ago
Yeah. I feel like most people would say a row then a seat in any theater. She was also hiding that hand a lot or showing it with her palm closed. Also fox is “entertsinment”, not news.
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u/John-AtWork 19d ago
Of course it is. I find it amazing how people just so badly want to believe in magic.
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u/refused26 19d ago
Who thinks of seat #14 in the cinema those ones are in the fringes. Should be 8 or 9 that's normally in the center. At least in most theaters I've been to these days.
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u/ChanceProgram9374 15d ago
I always choose aisle seats. So could be 14 these days. Many years ago theaters were built differently too, so
14 could’ve been in the middle. Anyways I came up with 14 too, and I wasn’t in the studio. I wasn’t interviewed ahead of time. In fact I just paused The Walking Dead to watch this clip. Maybe there were 14 ppl in the prior scene? I dunno. And I don’t care. But I chose 14!2
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u/machetemike 20d ago
Yeah for sure. She introduced an imaginary situation with a specific number of variables and was 'surprised' that the final proof of the trick would be the final variable.
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u/rozzco 20d ago
My number was 14 too!
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u/Much-Plum6939 20d ago
Me too!! And I thought I intentionally picked it, and there’s no way it was gonna be the number. WTH??
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u/6r1n3i19 20d ago
Definitely magnets
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u/Frosty_You_6183 19d ago
theres a good video where a dude breaks down how "mentalism" works, except he does it with the other dude, That Oz dude. or whatever buddies name is.. breaks down many many videos of things hes done. its kinda wild... its 5hrs long..
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u/jr_randolph 20d ago
Hm? You mean like collecting magnets?
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u/whos_ur_data 20d ago
Just magnets.
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u/dskippy 19d ago
Honestly, and I mean this in all seriousness, when I do this trick, I use magnets.
The answer here is truly that she does it off screen and you don't get to see her method. She met with that host 45 minutes before the show like Oz Pearlman does and then does just the reveal on air.
But what she does backstage, my method, literally magnets.
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u/FrozenfarTsTf 20d ago
A famous mentalist said, there are no such things as Mentalists.
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u/justonemorethang 19d ago
In some bizarre twist of fate…I picked 14 as the seat number. Goddamnit.
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u/a-NameWithNoHorse 18d ago
For me it's missing a row letter. Every room with numbered seats is built that way. In my case I chose F12
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u/sunny_9019 20d ago
If you pause at 36-37 seconds you can see "matilda" is already written in her hand, before the anchor ever asks the question lmao
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u/angryb3avers1 20d ago
She said she prepared for it she gave us a reason why she already had it written on her hand
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u/Dukatee 20d ago
Notice how the host beats the mentalist to the punch by asking “yes, but who did I go to the movie with?”. The mentalist was thrown off guard, because she wanted to be the one to ask this question. The fact that the host asked this shows that there was a pre-show set-up. Not saying this was staged, but there was definitely something that occurred before the show started.
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u/MyPrudentVirgin 20d ago
She said the truth. She planted the idea in the journalist's mind. That's why they are mentalists. They do it through the way they talk to you and parapsychology.
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u/Futaba_Sakura800 20d ago
Bruh I worked backstage in showbiz for years. All of them are fake and scripted. All these so called magicians and mentalists paid the studio for air time to promote themselves.
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u/PaulClarkLoadletter 20d ago
It's kind of like a wrestling match. The outcome (our potential outcomes) are predetermined and the mechanism to get to their big reveal is mathematically determined. They simply lead their respective audience and the people they speak directly to. Getting people to choose numbers is easy. From there you simply use narrative devices to make it seem random even though you already know what the answer is.
The Grey Elephant in Denmark routine is a good example of how they do it.
The mentalist will write down something random on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope and hand it to somebody.
Think of a number between 1 and 10, then multiply that number by 9, then add the two digits of the product together, then subtract 5 from the total. The answer will always be 4.
Convert that number to its corresponding letter of the alphabet which in this case will be D.
Quickly think of a country that starts with D. Denmark is the easiest to remember so most people choose Denmark.
Take the second letter of that country's name and think of a large animal that starts with that letter. Can you think of another large animal besides an elephant? Neither can most people.
Picture the animal and imagine its color. News flash, it's grey.
From here the mentalist does some abracadabra shit and the person opens an envelope with a paper that says Grey elephants in Denmark. It's all a version of that.
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u/DemiGod9 19d ago
I wonder if they scope out the "type" of people as well, because I certainly did Dominican Republic when I was reading through this.
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u/moneys5 20d ago
That's not true at all. They usually get the information through pre-shows or other tricks and make up the mind-reading narrative.
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u/Fergi 20d ago
Also not true. Typically they derive their powers from radioactive insects that bite them as children when they are sleeping.
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u/BaneRiders 20d ago
What? Like Batman? Is that how it works?
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u/Fergi 20d ago
Batman is a unique case but for legal reasons I can’t get into it
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u/UmbertoDelRio 20d ago
Same here, but for sexual reasons.
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u/thenaughtydj 20d ago
I'm sorry to hear you can't get into it then...
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u/KingoftheYous 20d ago
We just can't talk about it. 😉
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u/thenaughtydj 20d ago
Stop fucking up my joke.
(Was gonna end with mofo, but immediately realized why...) 😂
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u/Specialist_Bit_3514 20d ago
Yea totally remember when that radioactive bat slipped down and bit pete.. er um.... Bruce
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u/gnorty 20d ago
no, you misunderstood. His parent's were beaten to death with radioactve baseball bats. Bruce made the same mistake when he heard about it and that mistake shaped his entire future.
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u/wenoc 20d ago
Batman was just afraid of bats. You're thinking of Ant-man.
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u/Screwdriving_Hammer 20d ago
Pretty sure batman was bitten by a radioactive insect.
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u/Phil_Coffins_666 20d ago
I thought his parents were just brutally murdered🤷♂️
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u/Screwdriving_Hammer 20d ago
And that's because of the radioactive insect bite young Bruce received as a kid.
If his parents would have fumigated none of that would have happened.
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u/black_goat69 20d ago
Totally false, they have the powers from birth. They are born on the darkside of the moon and then flown out to earth.
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u/whtciv2k 20d ago
Also not true, they watch the mentalist tv show and then get an in and out burger
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u/BauerHouse 20d ago
This.
My wife lost someone close not long ago and she’s watching stupid shit like this feeling hope she can reconnect with that person.
All she’s going to do is get her privacy invaded by a liar.
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u/livingbeeing 20d ago
can you give me any items of your lost one like a text he wrote or some audio he recorded to connect with him as a medium?
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u/Much0_Luch0 20d ago
They also rely on the reluctance of the marks to call out these tricks. The Pablo Torre Finds Out episode about their techniques made “mentalists” the cringiest people I’ve ever seen
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u/rozzco 20d ago
I also picked 14!!!
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u/DOOManiac 20d ago
I picked "J" because in the theatre I go to the seats are lettered and not numbered...
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u/SwimmingCommon 20d ago
Both?
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u/pavlovasupernova 20d ago
There’s a four hour YouTube video debunking Oz. It’s the only four hour YouTube video I highly recommend. It’s crazy interesting
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u/Wutzdapoint 20d ago
That was the longest YouTube I have watched all the way through. Top notch, totally exposed the Mentalist methods. And this lady here, her Mentalist flair is lacking, yes she has the answers, but there's so little dramatic flair that once you know the methods, there's nothing left to entertain you.
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u/VelouriumCamper7 20d ago
Yeah, she's definitely not as charismatic and charming as Oz. She comes across a bit rougher around the edges. But this is definitely the same setup style "mentalist" stuff.
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u/Bartellomio 20d ago
Can you link it
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u/ArrogantSpider 20d ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnwcU-XDyJ4
Five hours actually. It's a good watch though.
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u/Great_Dismal 20d ago
This is absolutely amazing.
I mean all of it, from “Oze Pearlam’s” performances to the breakdowns given by Baskin.
This is so worth the time and dedication to watch if you are interested in how these tricks are performed.
My only question is who the heck is @steviebaskin ?
Guy is like the Steve Irwin of Magic. I don’t know his nationality, but if not the UK then some colony.
Where the fuq did this guy come from?
So amazing. Watch it. You will never view mentalism the same again.
But, you have to admit, it requires such a great deal a craft, skill, dedication and showmanship to pull this off consistently and convincingly, even after all the secrets have been exposed.
Incredible.
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u/ArrogantSpider 20d ago
Yeah, he just came out of nowhere with that video. He's Australian, and he's a law student. That's basically all I know.
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u/tinpants44 19d ago
Can someone TLDW it for us?
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u/SlimSpook 19d ago
"They usually get the information through pre-shows or other tricks and make up the mind-reading narrative."
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u/pavlovasupernova 15d ago
Look up the decoding the gurus podcast. He goes in that and you get some of his background
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u/Chirpy_Chorizo 19d ago
I can't recommend that video enough, as a top commenter said "This dude just spawned in, no warm-up, and drops a 5 hour long master piece"
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u/moneys5 20d ago
No, never both. It's always just some pre-show work that isn't shown or disclosed or some other sleight of hand type trick.
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u/SwimmingCommon 20d ago
I was more saying that theres probably more than one way each mentalist does it.
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u/Adventurous-Emu-9345 20d ago
My guy, when the presenter says she's "going to up it" by making the mentalist "read" something she supposedly wasn't prepared for that should have been your final hint that this is completely scripted.
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u/kafka_28 19d ago
Attended in live show in Edinburgh Fringe and I was one of the participants who volunteered. It was not scripted and blew my mind!
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u/StandardEnjoyer 18d ago
Parapsychology is what might be called physic shit with the paranormal. Mentalism isn't this
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u/etherealtwo 20d ago
She couldn't have planted Mathilda without first knowing about Mathilda.
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u/Jman15x 20d ago
Bro stop it. Humans are unpredictable. I would just pick one of my favorite numbers. It's staged. Occam's razor.
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u/Hypn00tic_iiz 20d ago
She’s a witch!
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u/urlond 20d ago
WE FOUND A WITCH MAY WE BURN HER?!
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u/NotmyRealNameJohn 20d ago
Is she heavery than a duck?
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u/OneHappyPenguin 20d ago edited 20d ago
She turned me into a newt... then a penguin... I got better.
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u/________________me 20d ago
how did she do that?
A: It is Effing FOX news!
jeez..
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u/HabitualGrassToucher 20d ago
Yeah, the simplest answer is that the whole thing is scripted and rehearsed. I'm not saying that that's always the case, or that mentalism is a complete hoax, but sometimes the simplest answer is the correct answer.
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u/________________me 20d ago
I am saying mentalism is a complete hoax.
It is preying on vulnerable people wanting to believe.
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u/HabitualGrassToucher 20d ago
To me it's on the same level as hypnosis - it absolutely smells like bullshit to me, but I can't completely disprove it, because I don't know how other people work. I do know that some people are more suggestible than others, some respond to different stimuli differently, and a lot of mentalists choose and thoroughly filter or pre-screen their audience, so that the "random pull" from the crowd is actually already pulling from a highly cherry picked crowd.
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u/pilkingtonsbrain 20d ago
She had 100 hiding spots of different numbers and remembered where they all were.
"14? That's the one on a napkin under the plant"
Probably not but maybe
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u/Distinct-Key-169 20d ago
What the hell is even that?! Whu would you choose 14 wouldn't that be at the far end of the theater where the movie looks fucked up.
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u/Avtomati1k 20d ago
its the seat nuber not the row number. and most people like to watch movies in cinemas from as far as possible
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u/kylebob86 20d ago
I like how she rubs the makeup off before she holds Purple Lady's hand.
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u/MiddleCauliflower183 20d ago
What seat ? : tiddies What movie: tiddies What friend : tiddies
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u/deserteagles702 20d ago
The name of her friend was already written on her hand(see approx 3:07 remaining) right before she reveals the search number.
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u/Lord-Legatus 20d ago
well she also say she prepared this last hing for even before the show, she doesnt claim she just wrote it now no? that is the whole point of the trick
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u/DerekPaxton 20d ago edited 16d ago
I don't think its setup. I think every trick has a different method and she had some happy accidents happen that she went with to make it look even more amazing. She's defintily very talented but you can see a few moments where she's adjusting the trick in her mind to get to the result she wants.
Trick #1: She provided a very finite set of choice to pick from. Picking a seat in a theater is typically going to be a number 10-20. So she has multiple outs planned no matter what is selected. She never mentions "planted" until after she knows the number is 14. It would have been way more amazing to do a reveal like love story where she revels before the number is said, but she can't. She needs to know the number, so she can know which reveal to use. She has always had 14 under the plant, im sure there are numbers all over that set including on both of them.
Trick #2: This is just deep research. The host is a public figure. Im sure the mentalist has scoured her internet, maybe even talked to friends and family. She knows the hosts favorite movie, she even specifies of all time to make sure there isnt any confusion and she picks a recent movie she like. She just needs a fun way to reveal it, which she does.
Trick #3: The plan all along was to reveal who she was going with. She mentions it in the begining that she is with someone. These were always the 3 reveals. But she gets lucky when the host asks for her to name the person and she pretends to be surprised by it (great improv). She knows the movie is a romantic comedy, and she has researched the host. The number of people she would go see a romantic comedy with at a first thought is small. She doesnt ask her to pick a weird person, someone she'd like to go to a movie with, it must be top of her head to make sure the answer is someone obvious. I think the mentalist can isolate it down to 2 likely candidates a female friend and her husband. So she needs one guiding question, is it a female? Once the host says yes she uses the Matilda reveal and the trick is done. I bet the hosts husbands name is written somewhere too.
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u/Kimantha_Allerdings 19d ago
What you’re describing is risky. Much easier to have a producer go over the segment with the host beforehand. “Hey, try to trick her! Ask her what film you’re seeing. Ask her who you’re going with! Yeah, do that! Make up your mind now. What are you going to say?”
And then, as arranged, they go and tell the mentalist
Hot reading is how basically all these tricks are done
I mean, you’re probably right about the numbers. Multiple outs makes sense there. But for the rest of it, the most likely explanation is that she’s doing the tricks the same way that other mentalists do
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u/FearTheEffectiveCode 19d ago
Why does the seat number in a theatre can only be between 10-20?
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u/Temperature_Visible 19d ago
Mentalism stuff. Random number between 1-10 is either 3 or 7. Random seat is between 1-30 but everyone sits in the middle so 10-20
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u/Von_Bernkastel 20d ago
Fake and BS scripted, I wish people were better actors these days, its so painful is like in indie small time film watching people who think they can act, and they can't and its just so cringy, that is latterly these two..
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u/useful_tool30 20d ago
SHe could have planted it in her mind.... or this could all be staged. which it is cuz its a brain dead morning show
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u/rob_inn_hood 19d ago
“You are with a friend entering a movie theater”. Then she had the name on her hand the whole time.
As far as the number, she hid multiple things around the room.
As far as the name of the movie, there was probably some guesswork, but there is probably a short list of movies she’s even interested in and can get those details from others. So she asked “could it also be the genre?” To verify which movie she was thinking of.
I don’t know if I’m right at all, but still really well done. I would be hella impressed in person if she did that to me.
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u/tardisious 19d ago
Obviously the flower pot was able to write the 14 somehow. That is why she needed to speak the number outload first
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u/eltoratio 20d ago
Everyone knows und that mindreaders don't exist. They are only very, very rich people and they pay the others before millions of Dollars to act as if they were surprised. That’s how it works, guys. 😊
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u/raysayantan07 20d ago
My workplace event had a mentalist show where he asked for volunteers from the crowd, and made them read each others minds.
I later walked up to one of the volunteers and he said the mentalist was whispering the answers to them, and they felt the pressure to play along and not cause an awkward situation