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SPRINGFIELD — Get ready to be read by America’s “Master Mentalist.” When Jon Stetson takes the stage at 52 Sumner in Springfield on Friday, he will begin to read his audience revealing details such as names, hometowns, anniversaries, and wild wishes from audience members, and much more. Showtime is 7 p.m. The inspiration behind the hit TV show “The Mentalist,” Stetson blends the art of mystery with the study of psychology, the predictability of human nature and the power of intuition, with a disarming sense of humor. He has entertained several U.S. presidents, the King of Sweden, and the Royal family of Monaco, as well as around the globe. His show last winter at Great Awakening Brew Co. in Westfield was sold out. For tickets, ranging in price from $35-$45, visit www.HotMicEvents.com. Read what Stetson had to say to The Republican in a recent interview. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. Q: What do you say to someone asking what a mentalist does? A: I tell them that I demonstrate extrasensory perception, while having a great, clear, and concise understanding of the human mind... how things work, how people work. Different people will have different definitions of the word “mentalist.” And, let’s be honest, most people don’t know what a mentalist is. I am much more interested in having people know who Jon Stetson is, because what I am doing transcends conventional mentalism, magic, comedy, and entertainment as for as the experience that I provide for people. I do have a great understanding of the way people think. I have a great sense of intuition, which I’ve developed, and it’s not something unique to me. Anybody can do this. What I do is based on my philosophy and brand of “the art of knowing.” The art of knowing is knowing that you don’t know anything, meaning it brings yourself to total presence and total self-awareness. So, what I do in my work is I listen. I listen when people speak, more importantly. I listen when they don’t speak because that’s when they tell you everything. And when you are in the present and in the now, if you don’t believe in an actual sixth sense, which I do, I pray you believe in the other five. And when they work together in concert, they’re firing together, they’re really waking up extraordinary abilities that we have. Q: What can the audience expect at your show? A: What we’re doing in Springfield is going to be basically just a fun, fun evening of intelligent, interactive, somewhat sophisticated fun. There are people who are going to say, “Oh, okay, you are a mind reader, so this is a mind reading show.” There are people who ask if I’m a hypnotist. Yes, I am. There is hypnotic technique being used in my performance... being used in my everyday life. One thing you won’t see in the show is people clucking like chickens. We don’t do that kind of stuff. I don’t like it. I’m not in the embarrassment business by any stretch of the imagination, because I’ve been doing this for a very long time and learned a few things. There is no art in embarrassing someone. You don’t need it to have fun in what will be a wonderful evening of audience participation, audience involvement. So, to sum it up, it’s a great evening of feel-good fun that is very much a comedy-based experience. Q: Let’s talk a little bit more about the show. One description heralds “an evening filled with comedy, magic and mind-reading.” Which is it? A: I oftentimes downplay the magical concept of the show. It is a very magical experience in the sense that there are things that I do that are hard to do and magic is a good way to describe them. I believe in being impeccable with my words, in my practice and all. However, I don’t really care what people call me at this stage of the game. So, again, you will laugh during the show, be amazed, and be somewhat inspired to realize that maybe you don’t know everything about everything, which is a great way to be. I live in the miracle camp. Einstein once said there are two ways to look at life. One is that everything is a miracle, and the other is where nothing is a miracle. I live in the miracle camp for several reasons. First, I’m selfish. It’s more fun. It’s more colorful. I can use my imagination, and I can be amazed at everything. We take miracles for granted. I like to point things out. I love to offer people a blinding glimpse of the obvious, and that is their own extraordinary abilities. I love it when people, when it’s happening to them, are learning to essentially read minds during just a fun, light environment. So, people will come out to the show and find that there is full audience involvement. Everybody in the room gets involved to the degree that they would like. Everyone is invited inside, and everyone is participating in one way or another within 30 seconds of my taking the stage. So, I go back to the description of intelligent, interactive, sophisticated fun. People will see things that are ‘quote, unquote,’ impossible. And then sometimes realize that maybe they’re not and they think that they can do it. I like to point out their own extraordinary ability based on the ethicality of what I can do to emphasize things, and that is where the magic comes in. But don’t get me wrong. I love magic. I love conventional magic. I’ve been blessed to have privy to the keys to the kingdom where you will find the greatest practitioners of magic in my lifetime. Q: You were associated with the CBS television drama, “The Mentalist,” which ran for seven seasons beginning in 2008. It focused on Patrick Jane, a fictional character who is a famous psychic who outs himself as a fake and then uses his heightened observational skills and knowledge of the human psyche to assist the California Bureau of Investigation in solving crimes. How did that come about? A: Simon Baker, who played Patrick Jane, is a great guy and I am still in touch with him. Basically, the producers created an idea for a show and they wanted to speak to an elite group of mentalists. There are many of us who are the real deal. They wanted to talk to some of us to see what it is like. The more I spoke to them, the more they were talking about using bits and pieces from my actual life and putting them into scripts. The whole concept of the show, what they wanted to get across, is there is no such thing as a psychic. I remember hearing them talking in the other room and Bruce Heller, the producer, said: “Hey, I really like this Stetson guy, he really believes in all this stuff’.” Q: When did mentalism come into your life? A: It was in my family. My grandfather was a great practitioner and an incredibly wise and wonderful guy. So, I grew up around this stuff and I really knew what I wanted to do when I was five. I always say for the first five years of my life that I sponged off of my parents. I was useless. But I started developing this want for this thing. And it involved mystery. It involved magic. It involved theater, involved acting, it involved music, and involved writing. I did not know to what extent this was going to be. My grandfather used to walk me around downtown Boston and say things like: ‘Where do you think that person is going? Are they going to work or are they coming home?’ That kind of stuff. So, your mind loves games, and I like to bring that game-like element in when I am honing my skills. I will notice things, interesting statistics about people, and that just happens. And that is what I call flight time, the experience of being out there and doing it, doing it, doing it. Q: Is mentalism an ability or something learned? A: Absolutely both. Our natural abilities lend to all of this, but is it a worthy of practice? Absolutely. Are there skills that may be more theatrical? Yes. Technical skills? Yes, very much so. We are all born with extraordinary abilities. Unfortunately, we live in what I call a quick start society, meaning instead of the owner’s manual we want the quick start guide. We are living in a time when instant gratification is too slow for some. We want to just get on the road with our new Escalade. We want to just get online with our new phone. And in most cases the majority of us know just enough to do that, assuming most of us know just enough to get through the day. But all of our answers are indeed inside of us. So, yes, I am honing my skills, always practicing. Q: When did you first hit the road working, making money? A: I was about 12. As I said earlier, I knew what I wanted to do and everything involved in being a mentalist. As for when it became a money-making profession, I’ll let you know. I’ve always made a living. I chose not to go to a university because I was working. I was out doing things, circuses, carnivals, comedy rooms, in the streets, everywhere. So, there was always a flow of divine design, synchronicity. I’ve always been taken care of to a certain extent. The heat came off when I bought a new car. My mother said to me: ‘You don’t need money for this?’ I was something like 20 at the time. That was kind of like a validation for me. There was always a way to make a living, whether passing your hat or taking lesser jobs. And I always tell everybody, not just in show business, in particular, but everybody. Never apologize for working. You need to be out there. You need to be doing it. If f the whole thing is just simply on commerce, on making money, operating like a business, well, okay. That’s okay. That’s your thing. And I still do some clubs, just to make sure I still can, often at Comix Roadhouse at Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut. Q: You profess being in the now, ever present and engaged Where does AI fit into that world? A: AI is in some people’s court and makes others cringe. I love AI. I embrace AI. It’s my gym. But you have to time stamp it, because every time you talk about AI, tomorrow it is going to be different. It’s a wild, wild West. I am now consulting for companies because it’s about being human in an AI world... the human aspects of it which are based on presence and, in particular, things that I have and do.
