The Mentalist Psychs You Out
Some television seers — like Crossing Over's John Edward or that Pet Psychic lady — claim to have psychic gifts. As in for real. Not Gerry McCambridge, who stars in NBC's hourlong special The Mentalist on May 12. This guy at least admits to cold reading his audiences! "I'm not a mind reader," he says. "Everybody is like an open book. It's just how much of a poker face do you have?"
McCambridge counts the disciplines of "psychology, hypnosis, observation, linguistics, non-verbal communication, interpretation of body language, statistics, leap-of-faith guessing and memory" amongst the tricks of his trade. In other words, this dude's very good at sizing up his marks, whether they think they've mastered truly blank poker faces or not.
"I have been doing this since I was an 8-year-old kid," he says. "I've always had the knack for getting into people's heads without them realizing what I was doing, twisting their words, manipulating and redirecting their thoughts." At 10, he became a popular kid by showcasing his talent at friends' birthday parties. As an adult, he went on to earn top-dollar paydays, entertaining at celebrity shindigs and mind-melding with live audiences all over the globe. And all because he's just got a way with folks.
As for those other TV fortune-tellers, McCambridge doesn't dismiss them outright. "I make outlandish claims myself, so I am open to everything," the 42-year-old insists. "I only get insulted by it when I see them not delivering. When somebody says they can talk to the dead, I'm open to watching it and saying, 'Show me.' Some people who claim to do it are using mentalist techniques, but not really talking to anybody. They're figuring out who died in somebody's life, and then taking that information and twisting it around. That p----s me off. That's not right."