Mental magic

A couple of days ago my dad listened a radio broadcast where they introduced this swedish guy (can´t remember his name right now) who had recently won the national championship of "mental magic". I hadn´t heard of that particular concept before so I got interested . I´ll try to describe it shortly. There´s no hocus pocus or supernatural abilities/practice behind it as you might have guessed. Magicians are a bit different since they almost exclusively play with visual illusions. The people devoted to this sport, entertainment or whatever you wanna call it, focus on psychological methods, subconscious associations and also stereotypical estimations of how a person might work mentally. When the mental estimation of the chosen person is done the "magic performance" can begin. Mostly it seems to be prepared like this, or simply like a genereal devious experiment on random people.

The practice is a bit tricky to explain so I´ll just show you a video of an example and you´ll get a clear picture. The swedish champion is apparently inspired by a quite famous british guy named Derren Brown. He´s incredibly skilled in his art. The truths or flaws he proves and the sensations he creates in his many experiments are both hilarious and scary!! If you have a few extra minutes to spare check out the video linked below. It´s a mind-game on a film student.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws54lrylm7c