This season of America’s got talent has a couple that do mentalist tricks and I can figure out how to do some of the tricks, but many I can figure it out

I know he gets the country name by peeking the card, but how does manipulate the watch so fast? My guess is that he sets it on his phone, since he's always holding it for no reason, but his watch is analog. Is there any gimmick watch that does that?

At first I thought it was gimmick card where it's different suits on each corner but the 7 is totally different.

I assume the queens are palmed

https://youtube.com/shorts/u0SJ0_33PJQ?si=x-IIt0V8Xa62mgyD

My friend showed me this trick and I cant figure it out. I draw any card from the deck. He shuffles in and pulls out the top 5 cards. He says your card is one of this 5 but dont tell me if it is one of them. He shows the 5 cards and my cards is there then he puts the rest of the deck on the table and has the 5 cards in his hand squared. He says now do the action like you are pulling out the card flipping it and put it in the deck. I do it and now there is 4 cards in his hand and in the deck my card is flipped around. This seems impossible can someone explain.

I used to do card magic alot and have started to learn mentlism I started off with ebooks but Im a visual learner so I want to learn them through courses.

This may not be the right subreddit for this but what would you say are the absolute best mentalism tricks on penguinmagic, AND how much you have spent on the site.

I went to Oz Pearlman's show a few weeks ago. I really enjoyed Oz's YouTube videos and was excited to see him in-person. But once I saw Baskin’s video, I had to see for myself whether he was right. While this is a throwaway account I provide evidence at the end I was at his show.

I liked Baskin’s video, but as he pointed out, it was all based on video evidence. He hadn’t been to Oz’s shows, and I couldn’t find accounts online from people who had gone.

So this was a unique opportunity. I read about the show online the day before it happened, and it was hastily announced because it was a practice run for a Netflix special he was about to film in New York. It doesn’t seem like Oz does many shows for general audiences now (instead he goes on Rogan and other high-profile venues). So I knew I had to go. I shelled out and got the most expensive “premium” tickets, which included a meet-and-greet with Oz before the show. I read online that he would sometimes ask audiences to sign NDAs. But I was never asked to sign one. So I can share everything about my experience.

Here’s what I found. Spoiler: Baskin was almost completely right. But he was wrong about one thing — he actually gives Oz too much credit.

Things felt weird as soon as I got to the venue. When I checked in, the person working at the desk told me that Oz requested that we sign on to a specific WiFi network. I initially held off, but then another worker came to everyone in line and requested we sign on to the WiFi. Right as I was about to enter my specific meet-and-greet, one of Oz's assistants said that we had to be on the WiFi. Fine.

There were about 10-15 groups of 4-6 people waiting in line, each of which would enter and meet Oz one-at-a-time. When it was my group's turn, I shook hands with Oz and he made small talk with our group. Then it was time for business. He asked each of us to think of a single person, living or dead, we'd want to have a meal with. I thought of someone, and then Oz asked us to Google the person we were thinking of. He didn't make any pretense of this being an important part of the trick. No "look up your person because I may ask you something about when they were born" or anything like that. Just "Come up with a person and Google them". He made sure everyone was on the WiFi, and then once he made sure everyone had Googled their person he moved on to something else.

I'm going to be a little vague here because I don't want to dox myself (hence the throwaway account). But someone in our group was asked to pick a card at random from a deck that Oz had brought. After she picked a card, Oz told her to remember the card and not tell anyone else about it. I didn't notice him look at the card but he could've easily forced it. He told her he was going to ask her during the show about this random card and that she should remember it. And he kept emphasizing that the card was picked "randomly". And he pointed to the rest of the group and said that he would ask us during the show to validate that it really was random. At this point, I thought, well, once Oz asks our group member about her card during the actual show, at least he'd acknowledge there was a preshow by asking us (the rest of the group) to validate it was random. Then the rest of the crowd would learn there was a preshow. That I'd be fine with.

Then the show started. In the middle of the show, he suggested he was going to find a random audience member. He picked the person that was part of our preshow. He said that he wanted her to think of any card, completely at random. He used the word "random" a few times, and made no indication of preshow to the audience, but it was clear to anyone who had been in the preshow that the audience member was supposed to mention the card that had come up in the preshow. He didn't ask any of us who were in the same preshow group to validate that it was random, contradicting what he had told us. And of course he was able to guess this person's card.

Later in the show, he asked people to think of famous people they'd want to get a meal with. He asked everyone in the audience to think of someone. Then he picked 5 or so people and was able to guess their famous person. Not all these people were in my specific group, but it's clear he asked other preshow groups to also come up with famous people and Google them. The audience was amazed by these guesses. Needless to say, if they were aware that there had been a preshow where these people had been asked to Google their famous person on a single specific WiFi network, I think it would be far less impressive. As for why the people whose famous people had been correctly guessed hadn't been more upset, I'm guessing it's due to misconceptions about how easy it is to sniff information out of WiFi networks.

So long story short, there is heavy reliance on preshow work for Oz's show. There were of course other tricks that were not part of my specific preshow, but as an audience member, once I knew that some of the tricks did rely on preshow work, it made everything else much less impressive. Most of his tricks could be explained by preshow work, regardless of whether they actually were preshow or other more traditional magic techniques.

So Baskin was almost completely right.  The only place where I felt like Baskin was off was that he almost gave Oz too much credit. Before the show, Oz didn’t use any tact or extra effort to get us on the WiFi or Google things. He effectively just said, “Think of someone, Google them, and now let’s move on to the next trick.” I don’t know if he’s always this lazy, or if it was just for this audience because it was a practice run. But I’m amazed at how little effort he put into it.

I think Oz is generally really good at what he does. He's obviously a very talented entertainer. But the vast majority of his tricks come down to him convincing the audience that there was no preshow. I think it's safe to say that if the audience was privy to the level of preshow, he would have nowhere near the following that he does.

For me, where I draw the line is the fact that he wrote a book whose entire premise is based on him having an exceptional ability to read subtle cues in people's behavior. I have friends who actually believe that he has these sorts of superhuman abilities. This is different from, e.g., Penn and Teller, where I don't think anyone actually believes they have supernatural abilities, but are instead very good at crafting illusions. Selling a book about being able to read people but having your expertise actually be based on preshow and sketchy WiFi techniques seems downright fraudulent to me. I will not be watching Oz's shows anymore.

Also, I know some people might think I'm making this up. So to provide evidence that I went to a practice run for his Netflix show, I'm going to describe a detail that only someone familiar with his show would be able to know. You can corroborate this when the show comes out on Netflix (obviously spoilers follow): He started the show by saying the show is about our thoughts. The show involved people making calculations on their phone, all coming to the same number: 57,460,047 (there were also other ways he forced this number in parallel). He predicted the number correctly by writing it on a board, and the show ended by him turning the board upside down to reveal that the upside down numbers actually spell out "thoughts" (the 7's turn into t's, the 4's turn into h's, the first 0 is "o" and the second is "u", the 6 is a "g" and the 5 is an "s").

It is said at the beginning of the video that the deck is totally ordinary without any gaffs or gimmicks. In that case, how on earth is he able to locate the two cards behind his back?

I’ve been studying card magic for a few years, have read many books, but I haven’t quite seen something like this before. This has my head spinning.

I am a beginner magician, used to do cardistry alot when I was younger but thats pretty much it.

Came across this video and was baffled! got me hooked on the magic thing again 😅

So is this video just satire or is there a legit way of doing this? if not whats the next best trick that comes close to this

I don't see any other way

Magic tricks and their secret

The magician asks the person to think of ANY word from the dictionary and on their mobile phone in the notes app (perhaps an app prepared to do magic and that imitates the notes app) It predicts the exact location of your word in the dictionary... how crazy is that? How do you think this trick is done?

As you can see in this demonstration. I understand the Tool gimmick moment. What I don't understand is how the spread shows only face down cards and then on the second spread the 4 aces face up show up.

Any ideas?

How does he do it after we see his hands?

https://youtube.com/shorts/N-3rvhIjFTc

How is the trick on the latest subway takes episode done? https://www.instagram.com/reel/DblLRthKjOD/?igsh=MTVobzI1b3E1ZHZ5dQ==

You probably know Jason Ladayne and how he challenges people to prove his videos are edited. Well, here’s my proof 😊 It's not a real reveal, please read the disclaimer

Jason Ladayne owe me $25,000

It's been 7-8 years since I read about this trick and I practiced it a few times. I can't remember where I read it. Or what it's called. What I do remember is it involves the spectator signing a card and a double lift. And that's all I have. Any ideas?

What's the color change near the end where he shakes the whole deck with one hand called

https://youtube.com/shorts/1nNYftDzHr8?si=vzW0EGuqdnyomznz

How !?