For years, Oz Pearlman — better known as Oz the Mentalist — has been inescapable. He has appeared everywhere: March Madness coverage, HBO’s Hard Knocks, Joe Rogan’s podcast, and most recently the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where he was slated to perform for President Trump. (Pearlman was mere moments into his set when gunshots in a nearby hallway evacuated the dinner; the suspected shooter was charged with the attempted assassination of a President.) Pearlman, an America’s Got Talent alum (he came in third place in 2015) is the most televised mentalist in the world and the most followed one on social media. His act — guessing names, PINs, memories, and private details seemingly extracted from thin air — has made him a fixture on talk shows, around locker rooms, and in celebrity culture. Now that act is under serious scrutiny.
Last week on Pablo Torre Finds Out, the Pulitzer Prize-winning ESPN alum Pablo Torre found out how Pearlman pulls off his most shocking tricks. Stevie Baskin’s findings are a real bummer for anyone who still believes in a little magic.
On January 15, the Aussie Baskin posted a five-hour, 11-minute exposé on Pearlman’s evident use of “meta-deception” in his “mind-reading” act. At its most basic (none of this is basic, hence the runtime of Baskin’s takedown), meta-deception is the practice of deceiving a mark as to how you’re deceiving them — and, in some cases, when you’re deceiving them. Oz acknowledges he’s not a true clairvoyant (because those don’t exist) and states he instead is a master at reading nonverbal clues like micro-expressions. That’s not entirely true, Baskin says.
If Baskin’s detailed explanations to Oz’s wonders are to be believed, Pearlman’s viral mind-reading relies on some combination of unaired pre-show work, pricey technology, some degree of surveillance, and even, in some cases, a purported final-edit clause in his appearance agreement. Pearlman, by his own admission, is not actually reading your thoughts — but at times he is reading one’s (limited) Google search history, Baskin contends.
Pearlman did not respond to The Hollywood Reporter‘s request for comment on Baskin’s findings.
Hi-tech techniques supposedly deployed in Oz’s act include coaxing a subject to perform a Google search on their own device, the results of which are transmitted to Oz’s phone. That usually happens in a pre-show meeting, Baskin says. Pearlman also reportedly uses “gimmicked” notepads and chalkboard tablets that transfer written information (sometimes written by an assistant, other times by the unwitting mark themselves) via Bluetooth to Oz’s device. These digital workarounds are not part of the presented act — they’re usually not even at the time of the presented act — even magicians believe there are ethical lines being crossed here.
It gets a bit worse when you consider Pearlman’s TED Talk, in which Oz breaks down what he calls “reverse-engineering the human mind.” TED Talks are expected to be educational, and Pearlman contends that anybody can do what he does, but he omits what he actually does (and definitely how he does it). Instead, Pearlman appears to have used the TED Talks brand reputation to validate an invalid act. He doesn’t use the moment to teach one of his considerable actual skills — Pearlman’s sleight of hand, conversation dominance, and other typical “tricks” are quite impressive on their own — rather Oz continues to push the false art of mentalism.
Pearlman has also written a bestselling book, Read Your Mind: Proven Habits for Success from the World’s Greatest Mentalist. Read Your Mind is packaged as an instructional book with practical uses in the real world, like how to “read” your spouse or your boss, but Baskin says it is capitalizing on an ability that doesn’t really exist.
It is Baskin’s video that should have been packaged as a TED Talk. Watch it below.
