If you are in Mentalism for some time now, you know who Dee Christopher is for sure. He is part of our family of authors (check his releases in HERE) and he also has several other digital and physical releases in his own site
His latest book called "Astral Psychometry" is our focus today. A book which features not just great thinking and routines but most important, a solid approach of understanding the subtext of your performance.
This book offers a new perspective in performance that Dee is taking, thanks to his latest personal explorations in mystical and esoteric practices. I am observing for some time now a new breed of creators and performers who are not afraid to offer realistic perspectives in Mentalism, and I truly love that. The "ethics" and "disclaimer" absurd debate is being challenged, letting people experience real mysteries.
How can you explain what you do? Do you have a clear subtext?
Dee in this book invites us to have a clear manner in how we do what we do, beyond our inner methods, but actually having an outer method that works as artifact of beauty and appreciation.
How do you read minds?
How do you predict thoughts?
How you do what you do?
In this book you will be challenged to understand that what you offer in performance must come from a real place, not just a superficial and deceptive one. Let your subtext communicate in silent ways.
If you want to achieve this, you must have a LOT of study and appreciation of your themes, in this case, the esoteric and mystical ones (if you don like this themes, you can still apply the philosophical aspects of this work into your Psychological Mentalism)
Be aware, that this is not just "fake mystical" or "a new way of deception".
Why being deceptive if you can make it real?
It is very important to understand that both in the inner and outer reality of your performance you are offering true understanding of the mystical aspect of our artform, not just pretending to know. By that I dont mean that we dont use Mentalism techniques at all, our techniques are beautiful and they allow us to create wonderful mysteries, but this is not just new "dressing" or just "do a classic trick with a net patter". PLEASE dont fall in that trap.
If you are really interested in this side of Mentalism, you REALLY need to study and understand the esoteric practices (be respectful about them). My experience as performer says that some people in the audience really knows about energies, chakras, Tarot, stones and other themes that you used in your performance, so be ready.
The routines are very good and offer good examples of the theory behind the performance. For example his "Ideomotor Coin Bending" is a nice routine in which you can offer fantastic realism for PKMB. I explore also these ideas in my book "Ideas about Pendulums", and if you know my "Master Bend" routine (from the Online Mentoring), you can apply it to this context.
One other nice routine is the "Astral Psychometry" routine, which is structured in a solid manner (you can sense that Dee has experience with this thanks to some staging fantastic tips) and it is a great example of the principles of realism that we discuss. You ARE guiding your participant into an "Out of Body Experience", using Mentalism as the "mysterious ending".
Again, dont think this as just a "new twist" in a classic. If you think it in that manner, you will lose a lot of potential.
By the way, if you know Luca Volpe routines (from one of his Emotional Mentalism books) that uses this same theme of OBO Experience, you can mix both in a very natural manner.
If you are open to new understandings of Mentalism and the Mystery Performance Arts, I cant recommend enough this book.
Thanks Dee (and Lewis as well, your Foreword was awesome and shows in a subtle and powerful manner your own explorations as well) for this great book!
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