Recommended mental magic. Magic tricks recommended for entertainment or performances.
A collection of mental magic ideas that make it look like you can control someone’s mind or read their thoughts.
There was a time when the mentalist Daigo performed these on numerous TV shows and became a hot topic.
If you learn mental magic that lets you feel like a psychic, it will surely become a brag-worthy special skill!
In this article, we also introduce simple routines that even beginners can try easily, so be sure to perform them at parties or when you’re asked to put on a show!
Recommended mental magic. Recommended magic tricks for entertainment or performances (1–10)
Guess the other person’s birthday and age
It’s a magic trick to guess someone’s birthday and age.
Prepare a calculator on a smartphone and display the person’s birth month.
Then you perform various calculations by adding and multiplying.
Finally, without letting them see, subtract “444”…
and—voilà! How mysterious!
Mental Dice
The spectator places a die into a small box with their chosen number facing up.
The magician takes the box without looking inside and writes a number on a piece of paper.
Mysteriously, the number written matches the one the spectator chose on the die.
Mental magic using banknotes
Have you ever taken a close look at a banknote? In fact, the front side of a banknote has a serial number printed in a mix of Roman letters and digits.
The trick I’m about to introduce uses this number! First, the magician borrows about five banknotes from the audience.
From those, a spectator chooses one and memorizes its serial number.
Here’s the thing: since the serial number is only printed on the front side, up to this point the magician has only looked at the back.
Yet, the magician then reads the spectator’s mind and names the memorized serial number.
The secret is that not only was the spectator subtly forced to choose that particular note, but the magician has already used a small technique to memorize its serial number in advance.
It’s a baffling piece of mental magic you can do even when you don’t have a deck of cards!
Guess the chosen word
It describes a setup where someone picks a favorite word from eight options, then continues selecting related words from successive sets of choices, and in the end, the word they imagined from the final set is accurately guessed.
The key is linking to related words: while the number of options remains the same as the initial set, the range of choices is gradually narrowed.
The trick is to guide the person while presenting the same number of options, without letting them realize that the path of associations has been predetermined.
If you increase the number of times you connect associations, you might be able to start from an even broader set of choices and still steer them toward a final answer.
Impromptu mental magic you can do with just paper and a pencil
It’s a magic trick where you predict the card the magician produces and lay down cards with marks on the table, and they end up perfectly matching.
The key moment is when a card different from the first one appears—then you start placing matching cards to align the order of all the cards except the first one.
After that, when you have a chance to “check” the order, you move the first card to the back to make it look like all the cards match.
If the same card comes up at the very beginning, the trick ends there, so use low-key patter that doesn’t hype things up to smoothly transition to the next part.
Mental Force
This is a magic trick where the spectator remembers one card from a spread deck, and you both correctly identify it and make it appear from behind your head.
The key is how you spread the cards: during a brief flash of the spread, you subtly display one card larger than the others to guide the spectator to choose it.
After that, you square the deck so that card can pop out, keep track of it, and use fingertip technique to extract it.
Focus on spreading in a way that makes the target card appear larger without feeling unnatural, and on smooth, seamless movements that don’t reveal you’re removing the card.
Magic that guesses the location of an object
This is a magic trick where, after rearranging three different mascots, you have the spectator put them away in a pocket or the palm of their hand, and then you correctly name where each one is hidden.
Because you weren’t watching, the rearrangement feels random, but by having them move each mascot in sequence, you actually create a predetermined order.
After that, you smoothly incorporate instructions like “the lighter one,” and have them place each item in its respective spot to complete the setup.
It’s also recommended to act as if you’re thinking about what instruction to give next, so they don’t realize the steps are fixed.