As opposed to a magician, a mentalist doesn’t employ tricks and illusions to deceive the eye but uses his advanced intuitive skills to detect the minutest verbal as well as non-verbal cues and from that deduces the information he seeks – whether it’s a number or name his subject is thinking of or a behavior he can successfully predict. A skilled mentalist can even influence his spectators on a subconscious level so that they might see or feel and even taste things that aren’t there.