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Johnny Carson style of “
Karnak
” or “El Mouldo”. Along
with the persona, Mark wore a rigged vest to convince people it helped
him read minds. Worn under
his jacket, it contained switches and LED lights used as a rationale for
his ability.
Many high-profile mentalists were put off by his comedic
approach to what they considered a serious craft.
Ballentine took Mark aside and told him the presentation style
was confusing. Mark would do
a strong mentalism routine and then throw in a comedic bit, which
lessened the impact. “Carl
convinced me to go one way or the other,” Edward recalled.
“Either be a comedy performer or a serious mentalist, but
don’t confuse the audience with both.”
The persona Mark now uses is best described as
“psycho-drama” and borrows from the iconic gallows’ humor of
Alfred Hitchcock. “You
still have to show that you are vulnerable and display humanity, but my
style is a controlled paranoia,” Mark said.
He induces a psi-conducive atmosphere where participants will
more easily allow their imaginations to create the magic, where
incidental and unplanned occurrences can be interpreted as possibly
paranormal. “You learn
to take total advantage of the moment and improvise,” Mark
explained, “Everyone believes in ghosts a little bit.
Something’s going to grab them; like a sudden draft, a squeak
in a chair or whatever.”
Besides the long list of notables with whom Edward
worked with at the Castle, Mark was also heavily influenced by Tony
Andruzzi, Tony “Doc” Shiels and Docc Hilford during an era when
bizarre magic was forming with the Invocation and Weerd
Weekends. The bizarre
format for a routine gives the audience a reason for strange things to
occur, where in most magic there is no reason for the green silk to turn
from green to red. “In
my world, it’s the very believable (for many people) intervention of
the spirit world that gets all the credit,” Mark said.
The advantage for Mark’s bizarre magic is
partially that he doesn’t need to carry around a load of tricks and
props like a conventional magician to do psychic effects.
In its place, he creates a strong story line, striving for
unplanned things to happen spontaneously and naturally, putting “the
frosting on the cake” with a few killer routines.
“It’s
okay to miss once in awhile if you are a psychic.”
The séance performer must create an environment so
that unusual things can happen and be interpreted as paranormal, rather
than focusing on a “magic show in the dark.”
Mark points to Ted Lesley who may do a center tear to
obtain information, but who uses solid psychological methods to acquire
bits of information through conversation, restoring to glimpsing the
center only when “natural” or possibly real telepathic means are
exhausted. In the golden age
of spiritualism, this was termed “mixed mediumship.”
“It’s okay to miss once in a while if you are psychic,” Mark
said.
Mark’s close ties with the bizarre magic
fraternity were highlighted by a conspiracy created with Tony
“Doc” Shiels in 1999. Mark
and Tony decided to float the prediction that whales would soon
communicate with aliens living in the ocean.
They theorized that the aliens were deeper in the ocean than
submarines were going, and would break the interspecies code with humans
using telepathy with the whales.
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