I performed a mentalism piece at a corporate event in Linz last year that went exceptionally well. The effect was clean, the reactions were strong, and the audience seemed genuinely moved by what they had experienced. Afterward, during the networking portion of the evening, a woman approached me at the bar. She was in her fifties, well-dressed, clearly senior in whatever organization had booked me. She leaned in and said, very sincerely, “I always knew there were people who could actually do this. Thank you for proving it.”
I smiled and thanked her. And then I spent the next two hours feeling deeply uncomfortable.
She believed I was psychic. Not in a “wow, that was amazing, how did you do it” way. In a “this confirms my existing worldview about paranormal abilities” way. She walked away from my performance with her belief in genuine psychic phenomena reinforced, possibly strengthened. And I had done nothing — absolutely nothing — in my presentation to disabuse her of that notion.
This is the ethical problem that every mentalist must wrestle with. And the research makes it even more uncomfortable than I expected.
What the Science Actually Shows
When I read Gustav Kuhn and Alice Pailhes’s work on the psychology of magic, I was expecting the sections on misdirection and attention to be the most relevant to my practice. I was wrong. The section that hit me hardest was about framing effects — specifically, how the way you present your performance changes what your audience believes after they leave the room.
The research is unambiguous. When audiences watch a magic performance framed as mentalism — when the performer implies or suggests that what they are doing involves genuine psychological insight, intuition, or mental abilities beyond normal human capacity — a measurable percentage of the audience leaves with increased belief in paranormal phenomena. Not just a vague “that was cool” feeling. Actual, measurable shifts in their stated beliefs about whether psychic abilities exist.
This is not a trivial finding. This is not about whether someone goes home and tells their spouse “I saw an amazing show.” This is about whether your performance materially changes what people believe is true about the world. And if you are a mentalist, the answer is: yes, it does. For some portion of your audience, you are not just entertaining them. You are confirming their belief in something that has no scientific basis.
The Spectrum of Framing
Here is where it gets complicated for those of us who perform mentalism, because the framing exists on a spectrum, and most of us live somewhere in the murky middle.
At one end, you have performers who explicitly claim psychic abilities. They present themselves as genuine mind readers, genuine psychics, genuine holders of supernatural power. This is the easiest position to evaluate ethically. It is dishonest. It exploits vulnerable people. It is, in my view, indefensible.
At the other end, you have performers who frame everything as tricks. “I’m going to show you a card trick that looks like mind reading.” This is the safest position ethically, but it also strips away much of what makes mentalism powerful. If the audience knows from the outset that everything is a trick, the sense of wonder is diminished. The cognitive conflict that makes magic magical — the tension between what you experienced and what you believe is possible — is weakened before it even begins.
Most of us live in the middle. We use language that is deliberately ambiguous. We say things like “I’ve developed a sensitivity to nonverbal cues” or “I’ve trained myself to pick up on subtle signals.” We imply abilities that go beyond normal human perception without explicitly claiming supernatural powers. We let the audience draw their own conclusions.
And the research suggests that this middle ground, which feels so comfortable and reasonable from the performer’s perspective, still shifts beliefs. The ambiguity itself does work. People who want to believe will hear your careful hedging as confirmation. People who are on the fence will be nudged toward belief. The framing does not need to be explicit to be effective.
My Own Uncomfortable Reckoning
When Adam Wilber and I were building Vulpine Creations, we had many conversations about the line between entertainment and deception. Adam, who has spent far more time in the performance world than I have, was always clear-eyed about this. “You’re not a psychic,” he would say. “You’re a performer. Never forget the difference.”
But forgetting the difference is easy when you are on stage and the audience is responding to your mentalism with genuine awe. There is a seductive quality to being treated as though you possess abilities that transcend normal human experience. When that woman in Linz told me she had always known people like me existed, there was a part of me — a small, embarrassing part — that enjoyed hearing it. That wanted to be the person she thought I was.
This is the trap. And the research tells us that the trap has real consequences.
Consider the person in your audience who has recently lost a loved one and is vulnerable to claims about psychic communication with the dead. Consider the person who is making important life decisions based on a belief in intuition that your performance has reinforced. Consider the person who, because they saw you “read minds” at a corporate event, is now more susceptible to the claims of a fraudulent psychic who charges hundreds of euros for a private reading.
You did not intend any of these outcomes. But your performance contributed to the conditions that make them possible. That is the weight of the research finding, and it cannot be wished away with good intentions.
What I Have Changed in My Own Practice
I am not going to pretend I have solved this problem perfectly. I have not. But I have made specific changes to my performance practice since sitting with this research, and I want to share them because they have actually improved my shows rather than weakening them.
First, I have started including what I think of as “honesty moments” in my mentalism performances. Not disclaimers — nobody wants a legal caveat in the middle of a show. But moments where I acknowledge, with humor and warmth, that what I am doing is a performance. “I want to be very clear that I cannot actually read your mind. If I could, I would be doing something far more profitable than standing on this stage.” The audience laughs, the tension is maintained because they still do not know how the effect works, and I have planted a seed of honest framing without destroying the experience.
Second, I have become more careful about my language during the effects themselves. I used to say things like “I’m picking up on something” or “I’m getting a strong impression.” These phrases are technically ambiguous, but they lean heavily toward the paranormal interpretation. Now I use language that is more grounded. “Let me try something” or “Watch what happens when we do this.” The effects are just as powerful. The audience reaction is just as strong. But the framing is slightly more honest about the nature of what is happening.
Third, I have started thinking about the most vulnerable members of my audience, not just the average audience member. In strategy consulting, we talk about designing for edge cases. The same principle applies here. If I design my presentation to be safe for the person who is most susceptible to paranormal belief, I have not weakened the show for anyone else. I have simply been more responsible.
The Derren Brown Standard
Derren Brown, who I have studied extensively since moving into mentalism, navigates this territory better than almost anyone. He explicitly tells his audiences that he does not possess supernatural abilities. He frames his work as a combination of psychology, suggestion, showmanship, and misdirection. And his shows are among the most powerful and acclaimed in the world.
This is the strongest argument against the claim that honest framing weakens mentalism. Brown’s audiences know he is not psychic. They know he is using techniques and methods. And they are still astonished, still emotionally moved, still left with a sense of wonder. Because the wonder does not come from believing the performer is psychic. The wonder comes from the cognitive conflict itself — from experiencing something that seems impossible regardless of what explanation you attach to it.
If your mentalism only works when the audience believes you are genuinely psychic, then your mentalism is not strong enough. That is a hard sentence to write and a harder one to sit with. But I believe it is true.
The Broader Responsibility
There is a larger conversation here about the responsibility that performers bear for their audience’s beliefs. It extends beyond mentalism into any form of performance that trades in ambiguity. When a magician performs an effect that looks like genuine telekinesis, they face the same question. When a performer presents an effect that appears to involve communication with spirits, they face the same question.
The research from Kuhn and Pailhes does not tell us what to do with this information. It simply tells us that the effect is real and measurable. What we do with that knowledge is an ethical decision that each performer must make for themselves.
For me, the decision has been clear. I would rather my audience leave my show thinking “that was incredible and I have no idea how he did it” than “that proves psychic powers are real.” The first response preserves wonder. The second response distorts reality. And as someone who came to magic through a love of psychology and human cognition, distorting reality in a way that makes people more vulnerable to exploitation is something I am not willing to do.
The Practical Paradox
Here is the paradox that I keep coming back to: being more honest about what you are doing can actually make your mentalism more impressive, not less.
When an audience knows you are not claiming psychic abilities, and you still blow their minds, the effect is actually stronger. Because now they cannot default to the comfortable explanation of “well, he must be psychic.” They have to sit with the genuine mystery. They have to accept that a normal human being, using skills and techniques they do not understand, just did something that seems impossible.
That is a more interesting place to leave your audience. That is a more respectful place to leave your audience. And in my experience, that is a place that generates more lasting wonder than any false claim of supernatural ability ever could.
The woman in Linz wanted me to be psychic. But what I should have been was something far more interesting — a regular person who could do extraordinary things. That is the story worth telling. That is the story that does not require anyone to abandon their rational judgment in order to be amazed.
And that, I think, is the ethical standard the research is pointing us toward. Not a world where mentalism is weakened by honesty, but a world where it is strengthened by it. Where the wonder is real precisely because the claim is not.