There is a line I used to say at the beginning of my mentalism pieces that I now regard as one of the worst things I ever scripted.
“What I’m about to show you is based on real psychological principles.”
I thought this was a smart move. I thought I was establishing credibility. I was telling the audience that my mentalism was grounded in something real — not just tricks, but genuine psychology. I was setting the frame before the effect, making sure they would interpret what followed through the lens of legitimate science rather than mere cleverness.
Here is what actually happened every time I said it: a small percentage of the audience — the skeptics, the analysts, the people who instinctively distrust claims — immediately locked in. Not in a good way. They locked in the way a prosecutor locks in on a defendant’s alibi. The moment I made a claim, they had something to evaluate. And evaluation is the enemy of magic.
I could see it in their body language. Arms crossed. Heads tilted. A slight narrowing of the eyes. They were not thinking: “How fascinating, this is based on real psychology.” They were thinking: “Is it? Let me watch closely and decide for myself.”
I had given them a job. I had announced my power, and in doing so, I had invited them to assess it. And an audience that is assessing is not an audience that is experiencing wonder.
The Problem With Declarations
Derren Brown identified this problem with surgical precision in Absolute Magic. He describes the dynamic like this: bold statements about your abilities are questioned. The audience’s natural response to a declaration of power is skepticism. The louder the claim, the stronger the resistance.
This is not cynicism on the audience’s part. It is basic human psychology. We are wired to evaluate claims. When someone tells you they can do something extraordinary, your default response is not belief — it is inquiry. You want evidence. You want to test the claim against your experience. You want to determine whether this person is genuine or whether they are overstating their abilities.
This is useful in daily life. It protects you from fraud, from manipulation, from people who promise more than they can deliver. But in a performance context, it is devastating, because it places the audience in an analytical mode that is fundamentally incompatible with the experience of wonder.
Wonder requires a temporary suspension of the analytical faculty. You cannot analyze and be astonished at the same time. They are mutually exclusive mental states. And when you make a bold statement about your abilities, you activate the analytical faculty at the exact moment you need it dormant.
The Alternative: Tiny Cues
After I stopped making declarations, something interesting happened. The effects did not change. The technique did not change. The scripts barely changed. What changed was the volume of my communication, and by reducing the volume, I increased the impact.
Instead of telling the audience that my mentalism was based on real psychological principles, I simply began the piece. No preamble. No claims. Just: “I’d like to try something with you.”
Instead of announcing that I could read body language or influence decisions, I would demonstrate it through action and let the audience draw their own conclusions.
Instead of setting up the premise with explanatory language, I would set it up with behavior. A slight pause before a correct guess — not dramatic, just a fraction of a second of apparent concentration. A knowing glance at the volunteer that suggests I already know the answer before they say it. A small, almost involuntary smile when the prediction matches, as if this is exactly what I expected but I am pleased it worked anyway.
These are tiny cues. They communicate the same information as my old declarations, but they communicate it through a different channel — through behavior rather than words, through implication rather than statement. And the difference in audience response is not incremental. It is categorical.
Why Implied Power Is Believed
There is a reason for this, and once you understand it, you see it everywhere.
When someone tells you something, you evaluate it. You ask: is this true? Is this person reliable? Do I believe them? The statement enters your consciousness through the front door, and your critical faculty is the doorman.
When someone implies something through behavior, you absorb it without evaluation. You do not ask: is this true? You do not even recognize that a claim has been made. The information enters through a side door that the critical faculty does not guard.
Think about the difference between someone saying “I am confident” and someone simply being confident. The person who says it has made a claim that you will automatically evaluate. You will look for evidence of confidence. You will notice any contradictory signals. You will form a judgment about whether the claim matches the reality.
The person who simply is confident — who communicates it through posture, pace, eye contact, vocal steadiness, and calm in the face of difficulty — has not made a claim at all. There is nothing to evaluate. The confidence is simply a fact about them that you perceive, absorb, and respond to without conscious analysis.
This is the power of tiny cues. They communicate beneath the threshold of conscious evaluation. They are absorbed rather than assessed. And because they are absorbed without assessment, they are believed without question.
Four Things I Never Say Out Loud
Brown describes four beliefs he holds in mind during every performance. He never states them. He communicates them entirely through behavior. I have adapted these into my own practice, and they have become foundational to how I perform.
The first: this demands your undivided attention. I never say “Please put your phones away” or “This requires your full focus.” Instead, I take my time. I wait for the room to settle. I begin only when the silence is complete. I look at the audience with the calm expectation of someone who knows they will be listened to. The behavior communicates the message: this is worth your attention. And because the message arrives through behavior rather than instruction, it is accepted rather than resisted.
The second: you will treat my performance with respect. I never say “Please be respectful” or “This is serious.” Instead, I treat the audience with genuine respect — I remember names, I thank volunteers sincerely, I never mock or condescend — and the respect is reflected back. The cue is in the treatment, not the instruction.
The third: this is real. I never say “What I’m about to do is genuine” or “This isn’t a trick.” Instead, I perform with the absolute conviction of someone who believes in what he is doing. No winking at the audience. No ironic distance. No self-deprecation that signals “we both know this is just a bit of fun.” The seriousness is felt, not declared, and because it is felt rather than declared, it is not questioned.
The fourth: I am going to surprise you. I never say “You won’t believe what happens next.” Instead, I let a slight confidence enter my manner — a warmth in the eyes, a small forward lean, a fractional increase in energy — that communicates anticipation without stating it. The audience picks up on this unconsciously. They mirror it. Their own anticipation builds. And when the moment arrives, it lands harder because the buildup happened beneath the surface of conscious awareness.
The Practical Lesson
If I were to distill this into a single operational rule, it would be this: never say anything out loud that your behavior can communicate more effectively.
If you want the audience to take you seriously, be serious. Do not ask them to take you seriously. The request undermines the very quality you are trying to establish.
If you want the audience to believe something extraordinary is happening, let it happen. Do not announce it. The announcement converts magic into a promise, and promises must be evaluated.
If you want the audience to feel that you have unusual abilities, demonstrate them quietly. Do not claim them loudly. The claim triggers skepticism. The demonstration triggers wonder.
This applies far beyond magic performance. In keynote speaking, I have found that the presenters who announce their credentials at length are less credible than those who demonstrate their expertise through the quality of their insights. In business meetings, the person who says “I have a great idea” is scrutinized more harshly than the person who simply presents the idea and lets its quality speak. In every social context I have observed, declared authority is weaker than demonstrated authority.
The Temptation to Tell
I understand the temptation to make bold statements. When you have worked hard to develop a skill, you want people to know. When you can do something extraordinary, the natural impulse is to announce it, to set expectations, to make sure the audience understands the significance of what they are about to witness.
But this impulse serves you, not the audience. It is born from the performer’s need for recognition, not the audience’s need for wonder. And the paradox is that by serving the impulse — by announcing, by claiming, by setting expectations — you actually reduce the recognition you receive, because the audience spends its energy evaluating your claims rather than experiencing your effects.
The most powerful performers I have studied — Derren Brown, David Blaine, the mentalists who leave rooms genuinely shaken — share a common trait. They say less than you expect. They claim nothing. They let the effects arrive unannounced, and the effects land with the force of something that was not supposed to happen.
Because that is what magic should feel like. Not something that was promised and delivered. Something that was not supposed to happen but did.
The Cue I Use Most Often
If I had to choose the single most effective tiny cue I have developed, it would be this: the pause before I reveal an answer.
Not a dramatic pause. Not an actor’s beat. Just a moment — maybe half a second — where I appear to be receiving information rather than recalling it. A slight narrowing of focus. A barely perceptible shift in my gaze. The look of someone who is perceiving something that is not visible to anyone else in the room.
I never mention this moment. I never draw attention to it. It lasts less than a second and most audience members probably do not consciously register it. But it communicates, beneath the threshold of awareness, that something is happening that is not performance. That something real is occurring. That the reveal that follows is not the conclusion of a trick but the product of a genuine perception.
This tiny cue — half a second of apparent reception — does more to create the experience of real mentalism than any script, any setup, any grand declaration of psychological principles ever did.
Because it is not stated. It is shown. And what is shown is believed.