The Alakazam Academy is a live interactive course which is streamed directly into your Alakazam Account. You can sign in live to learn magic, ask questions and be part of our growing online magic community. The Alakazam Online Magic Academy has been designed to deliver these magic lessons in a fun, relax, friendly and interactive way. By signing up to an Academy course you will experience the best in magic learning!

Join us for the amazing two day course in Mentalism!

Who is the Academy Tutor?

Phill Smith is a UK based creator of mentalism and magic effects, author of mentalism handbooks Mitox, Yokai and Mokele, developer of the Quinta technique and designer of the world-renowned DMC ELITES playing cards. He has lectured across the world and for this course has carefully crafted and curated a range of world class material that fits the Organic Mentalism mindset.

What is Organic Mentalism

Organic Mentalism is a way of performing that is as close to real as can be - largely impromptu, with minimal props, zero gimmicks, and all underwritten with an appreciation for the *mindset* of mentalism. The performance is emergent, from the personality of the performer and their audience, and from the objects that naturally surround them. The organic toolkit presented in these two sessions will allow participants to create hugely powerful moments of compelling, realistic mentalism at the drop of a hat.

The Organic Mentalism approach covered in this unique Academy course eschews challenging methodologies, knuckle busting sleights or complex technology to create streamlined effects that are easy to perform and allow you to focus entirely on engaging and entertaining the audience. Everything in the Academy is accessible, doable and effective even in commercial settings - there's no risky gambles or chancy guesses, simply reliable miracles for real-world performance.

The course assumes minimal prior knowledge and over the two sessions will serve as a crash course in many of the concepts important to performing mentalism.

Day One

1:1 INFORMATION GATHERING

The first half of the first class is on information gathering - fast, organic ways to know EXACTLY what someone's thinking. These simple accessible methods will give you a great framework to perform a range of high impact deeply deceptive mind-reading effects:

You'll learn how to learn what word, name or image a participant is thinking of using Phill's own peek method, The Biz - and ungaffed ungimmicked live information gathering method using just regular business cards.

You'll learn Interl8ced Thief, a weird self-working reinvention of the classic 'Dead or Alive' effect that finishes with you knowing their chosen name, without any explanation how.

The first session will also cover the previously unreleased Fastext, a radical new way to perform a completely impromptu booktest with any borrowed book that has been part of Phill's underground toolkit for years - this Academy will be the first time an explanation has been published.

This first session will also cover key concepts for performing organic mentalism - creating a unique premise, the value of spectator-as-mindreader moments and the secret behind making the perfect reveal.

1:2 MIND CONTROL

The second session of the first class covers mind control - the art of controlling a spectator's choices and manipulating their outcomes to match your predictions.

Phill will cover classic structural forcing methods like Equivoque, PATEO and his own Quinta method with a range of unique and original presentations for each.

In addition to this he will also cover psychological forces and how to construct routines that will support and exploit them in a way that guarantees a big hit every time, no matter what.

Phill will also reveal Namerology, his go-to card piece for reading fortunes with a standard deck of cards, which uses a smart reinterpretation of a classic mind-control principle.

Along with these effects, the second session will also cover important theory ideas focused on scaling up effects and creating unforgettable moments by breaking the expected patterns of performance.

Day 2

2:1 THE WAY OF THE EMPTY HAND

The first session of the second class will focus on foolproof propless - direct mind-reading and prediction effects that require no physical props whatsoever, and that are able to hit hard and work every time, a vital part of a professional level performance.

Phill will teach The Universal, his number one framework for creating propless effects that audiences will never forget. The universal also includes Phill's work on environmental reveals, an amazing technique for creating TV magic style mind reading miracles on the fly.

He will also cover his own approach to using progressive anagrams, including theory vital to performing strong effects with this classic method; how to create the illusion of loose, free mind-reading.

This session will also cover using logical and mathematical principles to create powerful effects, including key theory on imbuing otherwise abstract ideas with deep personal meaning for spectators. Phill will teach his own Target Number effect, a great, effortless way to do BIG mentalism at the drop of a hat.

Along the way this session will also cover fake improv and genuine jazz, and the peculiar art and dubious value of crafting believable moments.

2:2 ALL HANDS ON DECK

The second session of the second class will cover a range of techniques, principles and approaches to creating the illusion of REALISTIC mind-reading and mentalism using a standard deck of cards. Phill will teach his favourite effects to perform when he picks up a deck: Corpus Lingua, a framework for engineering 100% believable mind-reading with any audience, Time Sight, a smart presentation for an overlooked classic, Visionary Journey, a modern fortune telling masterpiece and Power Memory, in which you memorise a deck in a heartbeat (apparently). This session will also touch on *real* card handling, freestyling with an audience and using a grounded hook to reel in an audience.

2:3 THE DESERT OF THE REAL

The final session of the Academy will cover real skills: demonstrations of genuine abilities that a mentalist can perform to create the impression of highly developed mental faculty. The secret is in maintaining a delicate balance between real real and fake real. The session will teach presentations and methods for deep memorisation, in which you are able to instantly capture information that seems beyond the grasp of normal thought. Approaches and ideas for rapid calculation that will blow your audience away. Phill will also teach his methods for superfast Rainman style estimation and handwriting analysis. The session should also hit: informal demonstrations done right, real real vs. fake real and teaching the real.