The Archive
What used to be premium-only is going public in weekly stages. Past posts are being updated regularly, so check in.
The Words Are the Work: Scripting Mentalism for Emotional Precision Without Killing Spontaneity
June 11, 2024
Watch a mentalist blow a moment and you'll usually see the same failure. Not a fumbled prop, not a technical miss. A word choice that...
Part 1 of 2 · Designing the Seance Room
Lighting Design for the Séance Room: A Working Framework for Every Effect
April 8, 2024
Most performers think about lighting once, on the day of the show, when they walk into the room and realize the overheads are fluorescent and...
The Confederate Question: Working with a Plant in Modern Mentalism
February 22, 2024
Every working mentalist has heard the accusation at least once, usually from another magician who wants to sound clever at a bar. "That's not real...
Part 4 of 4 · The Mentalism Persona
Part 4: Where the Mask Meets the Method, Connecting Persona to the Ethics of Belief
December 26, 2023
Part 3 covered the moment your persona puts you in an ethical bind you never signed up for. If you haven't read it, start here:...
The Ghost Hunters Effect: How Paranormal Reality TV Reshaped What Audiences Expect From a Séance
December 5, 2023
A sitter walked into a private event in the Louisville area a few years back already holding her phone up, recording for what she called...
Reading the Room in Real Time, Adjusting a Bizarre Magic Set Without Breaking the Frame
November 10, 2023
A room lies to you before the show even starts. The promoter tells you the crowd skews older, reflective, ready for slow reveals. Then forty...
The Return Engagement Problem: Managing Repeat Audiences, Memory, and the Illusion of Fresh Impossibility
October 18, 2023
There's a moment I've experienced more than once at a private event in Louisville. You walk in, you're setting up, and someone across the room...
The Specificity Problem: How the Claims Your Persona Makes Create Obligations You Did Not Consent To
October 1, 2023
I don't claim to have this figured out. I've built personas that made promises I didn't mean to make, and I've sat with the consequences...
The Six Faces of Belief: Common Performer Archetypes and What Each One Actually Signals
August 8, 2023
Every performer is already playing a character. That's the part most discussions about mentalism persona skip past entirely. Before you choose a costume, before you...
The Book Test Reconsidered: Construction, Psychology, and Why No Other Effect Generates the Same Silence
July 23, 2023
Most performers who do book tests can't tell you why the effect works. They know it lands. They know the room goes quiet in a...
Part 3 of 4 · The Mentalism Persona
Part 3: The Promise You Didn’t Mean to Make, When the Persona Puts You in Ethical Situations You Never Planned For
June 30, 2023
The previous installment in this series, Part 2: The Mask That Makes Promises, made the case that your mentalism persona doesn't just shape how you...
After the Curtain: Managing Belief, Discomfort, and the Conversations That Happen When the Show Refuses to End
May 13, 2023
The show ended forty minutes ago. Everyone has their coats, there's laughter near the door, and she's still standing near the edge of the room,...