Mentalism is a performing art in which its practitioners, called mentalists, appear to show extremely developed user-friendly or mental abilities.

Performances might appear to include hypnosis, telepathy, clairvoyance, prophecy, precognition, psychokinesis, mediumship, mind control, memory feats, reduction, and fast mathematics.

Mentalists are often classified as psychic performers, although that category likewise includes non-mentalist performers such as psychic readers and bizarrest.

History of Mentalism
Much of what contemporary mentalists carry out in their acts can be traced back straight to "tests" of supernatural power that were performed by mediums, spiritualists, and psychics in the 19th century.
The history of mentalism goes back even further.

Accounts of oracles and seers can be discovered in works by the ancient Greeks and in the Old Testimony of the Bible. Amongst magicians, the mentalism efficiency typically cited as one of the earliest on record was by diplomat and pioneering sleight-of-hand magician Girolamo Scotto in 1572.
The efficiency of mentalism may make use of these principles together with sleights, feints, misdirection, and other abilities of street or stage magic.

Efficiency methods
The styles of discussion can vary greatly. Traditional entertainers such as Dunninger and Annemann attributed their outcomes to supernatural or psychic skills.

Some modern performers, such as Derren Brown, associate their results to natural skills, such as the capability to read body movement or to manipulate the subject subliminally through mental recommendation.

Others, including Chan Canasta and David Berglas, would make no specific claims however leave it up to the audience to choose.

Contemporary mentalists often take their shows onto the streets and perform tricks to a live, unwary audience. They do this by approaching random members of the general public and ask to demonstrate their supernatural powers.

Entertainers such as Derren Brown who frequently embrace this approach of efficiency inform their audience before the trick starts that everything they see is an illusion which they are not actually "having their mind read."

This has actually been the reason for a great deal of debate in the sphere of magic as some mentalists want their audience to think that this kind of magic is "real" while others think that it is morally wrong to lie to a spectator.

Mentalist or magician
Mentalists usually do not blend "basic" magic techniques with their mental feats. Doing so associates mentalism too carefully with the theatrical trickery used by phase magicians. Numerous mentalists claim not to be magicians at all, arguing that it is a different art type altogether.

The argument is that mentalism invokes belief and when presented appropriately, is offered as being "real"-- be it a claim of psychic ability, or evidence that supports other claims such as a photographic memory, being a "human calculator", the power of recommendation, NLP, or other skills. Mentalism uses the senses and a viewer's perception of techniques.

Magicians ask the audience to suspend their shock and enable their imagination to have fun with the different techniques they present. They confess that they are tricksters and performers, and understand the audience understands it's the magician and an illusion can not actually accomplish the difficult accomplishments revealed, such as sawing an individual in half and putting them back together without injury.

Numerous magicians mix mentally-themed efficiency with magic illusions. A mind-reading stunt might likewise involve the wonderful transposition of two different things. Such hybrid feats of magic are frequently called mental magic by entertainers.

Magicians who routinely mix magic with mental magic consist of David Copperfield, David Blaine, The Amazing Kreskin, and Eager beaver. Noteworthy mentalists who blend magic with mentalism include The Fantastic Kreskin, Richard Osterlind, David Berglas, Derren Brown, and Joseph Dunninger.

Source: https://mentalways.com/mentalism-definition-mentalism-learning-history-of-mentalism/