What Is Mentalism, And Will It Go Over Well At Your Next Corporate Event
- Eric Thirstin
- Jun 9
- 3 min read
Are you considering hiring a mentalist for your event? Having trouble picturing how it would play out? My top piece of advice would be to find a professional with branding that seems to match what you have in mind, as well as a track record of success entertaining for major corporations, and then get them on a call and explain your event in detail. A good mentalist will work with you to coordinate all the little details that can change a bad performance into a good one, or a good performance into one that will inspire your employees for years to come.
For most discerning executives who are looking to be genuinely fooled, mentalism is definitely the style of magic that promises to match a company’s high-level of sophistication. Particularly in the past couple years, with luminaries like Oz Pearlman making a name for himself entertaining NFL players and being featured on 60 Minutes (and almost entertaining the entire country at the 2026 White House Correspondent’s Dinner), mentalism is particularly en vogue right now. If you want a better sense of what a mentalism performance may be like, watch some clips of him. You will notice that he commands the room, captivates his audiences, fools the hell out of them, and punctuates the experience with plenty of laughs.
But what is mentalism exactly? In a few words, mentalism is theatrical mind reading. I say “theatrical,” because most mentalists do not claim to have true psychic powers, though they might dance along the line of what is real and what is fake. For example, they may claim to have heightened senses or an acute ability to read body language, a la Sherlock Holmes, and perhaps they do, but in almost all cases they utilize ingenious methods to fool and delight audiences to a nearly supernatural degree.
Many of the foundational methods used in mentalism were developed during the spiritualism movement, when the supposed goal was to contact/summon dead spirits. Seances were conducted with candles, bells, and unexplained rappings (knocks) on a wooden table, and strange contraptions like spirit cabinets were used to bewilder audiences, where a medium would be bound in ropes and yet strange phenomena would occur around them. Even as the genre developed into more moder day mentalism, many themes tended to veer into the bizarre/occult, which was always a slippery slope, because true believers would try to commission the mentalists to contact their departed loved ones. This is why mentalists like Pearlman steer clear of that aspect of the work entirely, and keep their performances upbeat and appropriate for a clean cut corporate crowd.
Second sight is another branch of mentalism, invented at least as far back as the mid-1800s by a French magician named Robert Houdin. This is a 2-person routine where one member of the duo is blindfolded, yet somehow able to “see” objects around the room. This incredibly difficult form of mentalism has only been mastered by a handful of pairs over the years. Mind2Mind and The Evasons are the two most famous acts of this type today, but my wife and I (The Cosmic Romantics) are working very hard to be in the top echelon as well. Like Pearlman, we aim to keep the experience fun and light, while still highly fooling, to balance out any darker undertones associated with the work.
If you’re considering hiring a mentalist for your next corporate event, check out some clips of Oz Pearlman and Mind2Mind, find locals in your area with a great track record, and chat with them about the type of experience you are trying to create. Mentalism is an elegant type of magic that intelligent adults can deeply appreciate, even if they have no idea how the hell it all works.