So… what exactly is “mentalism”?
You think you know. Everyone thinks they know. A guy who guesses your card, another who reads your mind, a TV show with a consultant who's a little too sharp.
The Patrick Jane effect
You remember the calm smile, the instant read. The Mentalist made the word famous.
But what Patrick Jane didn’t tell you is that what you saw on TV was only one version—one slice—of an art that’s far older, and often far more unsettling than a 42-minute case can show.
What actually happens in a room
Before definitions, let me give you a moment.
A theater. Three hundred people. I’ve never met any of them. A woman stands up. I ask her no questions. I don’t stare her down. I simply ask her to think of someone—someone important, someone nobody in this room could possibly know.
Thirty seconds later, I say a first name.
The right one. Now the only question that matters is: how?
THE MENTALIST’S EYE
This show doesn’t try to prove. It tries to shift a certainty—then lets you decide what to do with that feeling.
The two schools of mentalism
There are two ways to approach mentalism. Two schools. Two contracts.
The psychological school
This is the modern, media-friendly school—popularized by performers like Derren Brown. It’s built on psychology, influence, and suggestion.
Cold reading. Body language. Micro-expressions. Subtle suggestion. Conversational hypnosis.
This is the side I use in corporate keynotes: structured, explainable, actionable.
The psychic school (“the real thing”)
And then there’s the other side. The one you can’t put into a slide deck.
Telepathy. Psychometry. Clairvoyance. Precognition. Direct thought reading. Experiences that resist satisfying rational explanations—and leave the deepest imprint.
Remote viewing programs explored in the 1970s (the Stargate project) tell a simple story: tested, debated, then deemed too unreliable for operational use.
Which is where stage mentalism begins.
What if it were true?
The question everyone thinks
“So… is it real?”
That’s the right question. And the honest answer is: the border isn’t as clean as people want it to be. Some leave convinced it’s masterful psychology. Others aren’t quite sure of anything anymore.
Both reactions make sense.
On stage, I present the experience as it’s lived. The explanation belongs to the audience.Convergence
Today, I also teach in engineering schools—and have for fifteen years. I’ve anchored my work in Brittany, and I operate across France and internationally.
If I had to summarize in one line: what’s invisible often governs more than what’s visible. Making it visible is my job.
And me?
In corporate settings, I start on the psychological side—decision traps, influence, perception.
But as the show goes on, the line blurs.
Because part of what happens on stage stops being “psychological” in a satisfying way. Telepathy? Intuition pushed to an extreme? Something else?
I won’t pretend I have the final answer. Not even me.
Not the same kind of … magic?
A magician tells you it’s a trick and invites you to play along.
A mentalist tells you what you’re thinking—and leaves the room with a question still hanging in the air.
That ambiguity is the point.
Ready to doubt?
Mentalism doesn’t give you answers. It gives you questions—about attention, certainty, and the gray zone between what we can explain… and what we can’t quite shake.
If you’re deeply rational, you’ll call it masterful psychology.
If you’re open-minded, you may start wondering whether reality is as stable as you thought.
Either way, you won’t look at the world quite the same.
And that’s the point.
YOUR LEVER
Mentalism isn’t an answer.
It’s an elegant doubt—and sometimes that’s exactly what the mind needs to become clear again.
What if your next seminar or corporate event became the moment people actually talk about? Discover how mentalism transforms your teams' experience through my Keynotes, Team Buildings and show Signature Experiences.
Ekman, P. (2003). Emotions Revealed. Owl Books. [The foundational reference on facial micro-expressions and how to decode them]
Sinclair, U. (1930). Mental Radio. Foreword by Albert Einstein. [A historical document on telepathy research, notably endorsed by Einstein himself]
Corinda, T. (1958). Thirteen Steps to Mentalism. [Widely regarded as "the Bible of mentalism" by working professionals]
Brown, D. (2006). Tricks of the Mind. Channel 4 Books. [The psychological approach to mentalism explained by its most prominent ambassador]
Looch. "What is a Mentalist?" looch.co.uk. [A contemporary definition by an award-winning corporate mentalist and founder of My Mind Rocks]
Cooper, M. "What's a Mentalist?" mattcooper.com. [A reflection on the fundamental ambiguity between what is real and what is illusion in mentalism]
Finch, J. "How Mentalists Read Minds." finchmagician.com. [An analysis of mentalism disciplines and the distinction between the psychological and psychic schools]
Wikipedia. "Mentalism." [A historical overview and taxonomy of performance styles, from Girolamo Scotto to Derren Brown]
