Cheap Trick: Debunking the "Magic" of Mentalist Oz Pearlman

Summary

Pablo Torre Finds Out

Episode: Cheap Trick: Debunking the "Magic" of Mentalist Oz Pearlman
Date: May 19, 2026
Host: Pablo Torre (The Athletic)
Key Guest: Stevie Baskin (Amateur magician, YouTube analyst, lawyer)

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Overview:

This episode of "Pablo Torre Finds Out" is a meticulous exploration and debunking of Oz Pearlman—the self-described "world’s greatest mentalist." Torre and guest Stevie Baskin (creator of a five-hour YouTube breakdown on Pearlman) seek to understand Pearlman’s techniques, examine why his magic tricks work so powerfully on sports and media figures, and argue that his brand of “mentalism” blurs ethical lines by misleading audiences about the nature and mechanics of his performances.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Who is Oz Pearlman? What is Mentalism?

• Pearlman has achieved fame by performing mind-reading feats, especially in sports media, newsrooms, and television, creating the aura of supernatural abilities.
• Mentalism is described (by Baskin and Pearlman himself) as a branch of magic focused on psychological manipulation, reading body language, and exploiting human perception, rather than possessing real psychic abilities.
  • "Mentalism is the next level of magic, where a magician has trained and learned things like sleight of hand, but the mentalist...branched them out of the world of sleight of hand and into the world of sleight of mind." —Stevie Baskin (04:02)
• Pearlman openly claims in his TED Talk:
  "I can't read minds. What I can do is read people...I do not possess any supernatural powers. I am not a psychic. This is a learnable skill." —Oz Pearlman (06:05)

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The Mechanics Behind the “Magic”

Classic Tricks in Detail

• Pearlman’s feats, such as guessing someone's thought-of contact on their phone or deducing a PIN code, are systematically broken down by Baskin.
• Phone Contact Trick: Oz appears to mind-read a contact Bijan Robinson lands on while scrolling, but in reality:
  • Pearlman secretly reads the name from the screen when he briefly possesses the phone, then disables the screen so the contact list doesn’t change, despite subsequent "scrolling" by the participant.
  • "The move that we're seeing there is that he gets the phone out of their hand...shows it to the rest of the audience...he's looking at the phone screen which allows him to read the name." —Stevie Baskin (17:08)
• PIN Code Trick:
  • Participants believe they're creating a random code, but during pre-show, Pearlman sets up a scenario where participants enter their real code or a "fake" one through a calculator or an app, which logs inputs and is recoverable by known exploits or tricks.
  • "Before the show...let's make up a fake pin code...we just open up your calculator...at one point he just needs to say, okay, now subtract your real pin code..." —Stevie Baskin (30:58)

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Dual Reality & Pre-Show Deception

• Pearlman's routines often rely on dual reality—phrasing things so the subject interprets instructions one way (often based on pre-show arrangements or instructions), while the TV audience believes everything is happening live and spontaneously.
  • "He exploits the fact that human minds are interpretation machines...there is a kind of unwritten rule book with magic tricks that you do the whole trick on camera...Dual reality puts people in such a weak position..." —Stevie Baskin (25:53)
• Lamentation from professional magicians: Pearlman breaks established magic ethics, including “no off-camera edits” and “no pre-show set-ups,” casting doubt on the credibility of the art form.

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Debunking High-Profile Pearlman Appearances

• White House Correspondents’ Dinner: Pearlman is placed next to the US President mid-chaos, underscoring his access and celebrity.
• On The View: Host Sarah Haynes later explained on a podcast that she was asked to meet with Oz 40 minutes prior to air and run through the “random” PIN code trick, undermining the illusion of spontaneity.
  • "We were asked to meet with him like 40 minutes prior...I've never had to pre-meet with any magician before." —Sarah Haynes (28:25)
  • "You reassured me three or four times in that room: 'We're not going to use your real pin number. We're coming up with an imaginary one.' I have never felt so violated on air." —Sarah Haynes (29:28)
• Sports Podcasts & TV: Pearlman uses pre-show “random” selections, manipulates Google search or calculator apps, and leverages tech exploits to seemingly perform miracles.
  • Example: On “Bussin’ with the Boys,” a misentered football player's name gets sent from a faux-Google page to Oz, who reveals what the participant typed (not necessarily what they were thinking).
  • Example: With Charles Barkley on March Madness, Oz uses sleight-of-hand to force two player names during pre-show, then has Barkley “randomly” pick one live on air—though the outcome was pre-determined.
    • "He deletes the idea of a pre-show...if you don't know who you're going to choose right then in that moment, there's nothing planned." —Stevie Baskin (49:19)

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The Ethics and Impact of Pearlman's Methods

• Pearlman’s strategy: He publicly disclaims having supernatural powers, but his feats are staged and engineered far more than audiences or even participants assume.
• Magician community disapproval: His use of tech, pre-show, and dual reality is so frequent and visible it risks devaluing the art form, akin to "bad plastic surgery."
• Legal and financial critique: By making audiences genuinely believe mentalism is a teachable "superpower," Pearlman is arguably misleading consumers, reminiscent of financial strategies—pushing the boundaries of what’s legal or ethical.
  • "All the steps for fraud are there." —Stevie Baskin (54:47)
  • "What is the sort of unifying theory of a guy who has carried himself through this series of unwritten rules and violated them...well, guess what I'm gonna do. And that's the story of finance as much as it is legal strategy." —Pablo Torre (57:11)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Is this real?" —Pablo Torre (05:15), capturing the core question mentalists drive audiences to ask.
• “There is such a thing as taking a second glance...There is a tremendous value in recognizing the weaknesses in our own psychology—and O has undoubtedly done that.” —Stevie Baskin (64:30), stressing the educational upside of being fooled.
• "I don't see myself [as] a cult leader, but a con man is very similar in many regards to what I do...using these skills in what I would describe as an unethical way." —Oz Pearlman (60:08)
• “Like, maybe that is the best defense O has for all of this. Just in a nutshell, that there are no rules if the goal is entertainment and that the audience actually wants to be conned in order to be entertained.” —Pablo Torre (60:31)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:26] — Pablo introduces obsession with “unsolvable” characters like Oz Pearlman.
• [03:36] — Demonstration of a mentalist routine with Stevie Baskin (“basketball friend” revelation).
• [06:05] — Oz’s TED Talk: “I do not possess any supernatural powers.”
• [13:26] — Pablo’s stance: Loves magic as art, but is troubled by ethical breaches.
• [17:08] — Dissection of Pearlman’s phone contact trick.
• [21:32] — Oz’s PIN code trick on The View; dual reality explained.
• [28:25] — Sarah Haynes admits to pre-show setup, breaking the “magic” for TV.
• [34:59] — Ethics of using pre-show and tech “cheats” in magic.
• [37:15] — “Bussin’ with the Boys” & use of spoofed Google page to harvest answers.
• [44:57] — Charles Barkley March Madness “random” player trick fully deconstructed.
• [49:19] — The illusion of spontaneity via sleight-of-hand and dual reality.
• [54:47] — Stevie Baskin: This is approaching fraud if marketed as real.
• [60:08] — Oz on the Joe Rogan Experience: “A con man is very similar in many regards to what I do.”
• [64:30] — Stevie Baskin: There’s educational value in “having your heart broken” by exposure to trickery.
• [66:09] — Pablo’s closing reflections on truth, self-deception, and the journalistic imperative.

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Conclusion

This episode powerfully illuminates the mechanisms, ethics, and implications behind Oz Pearlman’s mentalist feats. Through expert breakdowns and behind-the-scenes revelations, listeners are encouraged to reconsider what’s actually happening in their favorite “mind-reading” TV moments—and to recognize the vulnerabilities Pearlman exploits in both participants and audiences. It’s both a celebration of magic’s artistry and a warning against its unchecked commodification and ethical overreach.

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For listeners seeking a richer appreciation of magic, skepticism, and the boundaries of entertainment, this episode delivers both enlightenment and a challenge: Can you spot the trick? And does knowing the trick change the magic?

Transcript

[Pablo Torre]

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre and today we're going to find out what this sound is.

[Stevie Baskin]

Where is the person with the balls to just like flat out accuse this

[Pablo Torre]

guy of fraud right after this ad.

[Stevie Baskin]

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[Amy Archer]

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[Stevie Baskin]

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[Amy Archer]

A new season of 90 Day is upon us and little miss recap has you covered. My name is Amy Archer. I am a writer, I'm a Libra, I'm a mom, and most importantly, I'm a lady of a certain age. I grew up on a steady diet of soap operas and I've now taken that lens and applied it to reality television. Together with a bunch of my friends, we talk about some of our favorite reality shows, including sister wives, 90 day, fiance, love is Blind, and more. And don't forget Reality Roundup on Fridays where we talk about the latest happening on and off screen of our favorite trash reality shows. Come and join us at Little Miss Recap. That's Little Miss Recap. Listen anywhere you get. Podcasts

[Stevie Baskin]

Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere acast.com.

[Pablo Torre]

I do want to make clear that I am a guy who becomes obsessed with characters that confuse me, that I find on some level unsolvable. And when I unilaterally bring up the name O's Perlman, O's the Mentalist, there are two sort of reactions. One is who the is that? The other is we're about to have perhaps a five hour conversation about this guy and Stevie Baskin as the preeminent authority on o's the mentalist and the decoding of what makes him so irresistible. How would you explain O's to the first group that has no idea who he is, has never seen him, has no sense of why I would even care?

[Stevie Baskin]

Well, maybe. Maybe there's an argument to say that the most useful way to introduce him is that he's sort of someone who has mastered the art form of mentalism, which I think then would be immediately followed by the question of, well, what is mentalism?

[Oz Pearlman]

You go back in time and you look into the face directly of somebody that you have not thought of before today in years. You don't know why, what reason, or why, but you're seeing this person in your mind at this very moment. Open your eyes. You and him used to play basketball together, didn't you?

[Pablo Torre]

What the. Yes. What's his name?

[Stevie Baskin]

Pernell.

[Oz Pearlman]

Davis Pernell.

[Stevie Baskin]

What the.

[Oz Pearlman]

Are you kidding me,

[Stevie Baskin]

bro? This is, like, the craziest. Mentalism is the next level of magic, where a magician has trained and learned things like sleight of hand, has learned things like misdirection. The mentalist has learned all of those kind of subtleties, but branched them out of the world of sleight of hand and into the world of sleight of mind. If we think of a magician as someone who's gone through medical school, a mentalist is someone who is now a plastic surgeon.

[Oz Pearlman]

Tell us all, out of that whole deck.

[Stevie Baskin]

Don't move.

[Oz Pearlman]

What card you think of. Say it. Three of diamonds. Three of diamonds.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, hold on.

[Oz Pearlman]

Tell us. What'd you think of?

[Stevie Baskin]

I was a goldfish.

[Oz Pearlman]

A goldfish? Yes. Seriously?

[Stevie Baskin]

Yes.

[Oz Pearlman]

I got you. Look in your hands. Aaron.

[Stevie Baskin]

What if you would have picked a giraffe? Though.

[Pablo Torre]

A great mentalist and a great plastic surgeon share something in common, they are so skilled that they successfully deter the audience from lingering on a potentially explosive question. Is this real? And if you watch O's the Mentalist, as I have for hours, you will hear him disclose something important. That he does not have secret superpowers. In his popular TED Talk, Oze very explicitly says that he performs these viral revelations by simply noticing things. Noticing clues about a person's body language, their eyebrows, their pupil movement, these nonverbal cues. That, in short, is what mentalism is. And Oze, who used to work on Wall street at Merrill lynch, sells this as a learnable skill.

[Oz Pearlman]

I am billed as the world's greatest mind reader, but guess what? I can't read minds. What I can do is read people, and people ask a question all the time. Which is, were you born with this? And the answer is no, of course not. Absolutely not. I do not possess any supernatural powers. I am not a psychic. This is a learnable skill that I feel anyone could do. But I've applied for about roughly three decades at reverse engineering the human mind. If I know how you think, I know what you think. And I want to ask each and

[Pablo Torre]

so Oz the mentalist has become part mentalism evangelist and part Sherlock Holmes. This guy who barnstorms into rooms all across the country and all across sports especially, collecting millions upon millions of views and fans and dollars.

[Stevie Baskin]

The most honest thing to say would be that he is an absolutely incredible performer who has developed a unique kind of way of interacting with studios, whether that be a news broadcast studio or a sports broadcasting or the studio of a successful YouTube podcast or someone like Joe Rogan. He has deeply understood how those things work and he is prepared to manipulate those environments to create absolutely downright impossible effects that do have your mind pushing itself to start to consider, does this guy have something supernatural going on?

[Oz Pearlman]

If I told you right now to make up a random number, I'd say get out your calculator, I'd love that. And you add it up and you do a random number. You know, I'm screw calculator. I want it to be spontaneous. Would your wife know your ATM pin code? No.

[Stevie Baskin]

No, lie to me.

[Oz Pearlman]

Do not tell me your real ATM pin code.

[Stevie Baskin]

Okay.

[Oz Pearlman]

Obviously, unless you want to make up a fake four digit number off the top of your head. What feels to you utterly spontaneous when I say go, 1, 2, 3. Four digit code, random go.

[Stevie Baskin]

Okay, say it.

[Oz Pearlman]

20, 20, 20, 20. Okay. So you ask me, how do I do what I do? I'm going to write down 2020.

[Stevie Baskin]

Okay? For those that don't know the trick, he asks Joe to come up with a four digit number that is not his pin code, just kind of a random four digit number of what or what Joe would believe to be a random four digit number. Jo O's then proceeds to analyze the individual digits of 2020 and kind of do this on the fly. Psychological analysis, statistical analysis, non verbal cues analysis to reverse engineer that 2020. To get back to what Joe Rogan's pin code was.

[Oz Pearlman]

I'm showing this to you. Is there a camera behind me? I don't want to make sure. I'm not going to show it to you. It's not 2020. How'd I do? Joe, is that your ATM pin code?

[Stevie Baskin]

Yeah. That's weird. I'm skeptical because I've got that pin

[Pablo Torre]

code in the mail.

[Stevie Baskin]

You know, he's calling his bank, right? When I saw the comments, it was particularly one, I think the one that got me was just one saying, man, no one has debunked this guy, right? No one has put up a video explaining how he does it. And that bothered me. And then there just became like a little sort of V in the back of my head where I thought it was as if the universe itself was kind of cajoling me into saying, are you gonna. Are you gonna do it, Steve? Are you gonna make this video?

[Pablo Torre]

And so an amateur magician named Stevie Baskin did just that a few months ago, publishing a five hour analysis of the guy who calls himself the world's greatest mentalist on an otherwise empty YouTube channel. And I watched all five hours of that as well.

[Stevie Baskin]

I work in a law firm, so 9 o' clock every day I'm in a general practice law firm where we're doing everything from criminal law to family law to succession law. What I would say is I get to solve problems all day long. I get to think about different ways to solve a problem for someone in a very real world context. And that might seem wholly disconnected from watching someone like Oz Perlman and figuring out what he's doing, but I actually felt it was. It was kind of the same thing.

[Pablo Torre]

And if you want to know how high Oz has been flying here in the United States, just last month I also found myself watching this. Once again, we want to tell you

[Amy Archer]

what you're looking at.

[Pablo Torre]

If you're just joining us, this is

[Amy Archer]

footage from the White House Correspondents dinner when suddenly shots were fired and heard and people ducked for cover underneath the table. And when all this chaos began, the person who was closest to the President in that moment was the entertainer for the night, mentalist, Oz Pearlman, who you can see in this video talking with the President.

[Pablo Torre]

And I just got to say, I was in D.C. while that was happening. I wasn't going to the event, but I was there for some of the events before. And a lot of the people there, including reporters, like journalists, were like, how does this guy do it? You know, everyone was sort of like whispering about, is this guy a witch?

[Stevie Baskin]

I think the reason that owes Parmanen, why he gripped me in the way that he did. And then when I saw that he was deceiving other people to the extent that he was, it provoked something in me where I had to correct that situation because I want people to see the world clearly. It is a misconception to say that you can think in the back of your mind. Oh, yeah, sure. There's this skill where someone can spend 30 years reverse engineering the human mind and can now study someone's eyebrows and can study sort of how they stutter when they're speaking or how they hold their hands in front of their waistline and they're able to discern this information. If that is something that you genuinely believe, it is absolutely going to affect how you interpret the rest of the world. The exact same way is if you genuinely believe that on December 24, a man comes in in a sleigh with flying reindeer and is able to go all around the whole planet and go down everyone's chimney and put presents there for the morning. That if you, if you genuinely believe that happens, that doesn't exist as a kind of isolated belief in your mind because it has implications for a huge amount of other things that are going on in your world. Which is why that illusion can't sustain itself for very long before people start saying, hey, like, why aren't we all flying around in sleighs? Or like, oh, wait, how many houses is he supposed to visit in one evening, you know, beforehand? And then the ordered complexity of the rest of the world starts crashing in and then the illusion has to die. Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And I don't think there's a better comparison. If you're not familiar with Oz Perlman, then what we're about to do on this episode is basically debunk the modern day Santa Claus.

[Stevie Baskin]

Yeah. Yeah, 100%.

[Pablo Torre]

Something I feel obligated to tell you before we go any further here is that I love magic. I buy tickets to magic shows. I have friends who are magicians, including one who is the proprietor of a physical magic shop here in New York City. So I do not think that tricking people in this context at magic shows is wrong. I think it's fun, actually, like a mystery of storytelling and technique. And Oze is very skilled at both storytelling and technique. In fact, before we dissect how Oze's manipulation of the audience goes too far and actually breaks certain ethical codes, this according to three magicians that we spoke to. I want to show you one of Oz's basic and relatively non controversial tricks, which he did to the Falcons, all pro running back Bijan Robinson and the show's host, Kay Adams.

[Oz Pearlman]

Bijan.

[Pablo Torre]

Yep.

[Oz Pearlman]

You ready?

[Stevie Baskin]

I'm ready.

[Oz Pearlman]

Let's go.

[Stevie Baskin]

All right.

[Oz Pearlman]

I have a fun idea for you.

[Stevie Baskin]

Okay.

[Oz Pearlman]

Grab your phone out.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, my gosh.

[Amy Archer]

Oh, gosh.

[Oz Pearlman]

He's like, quick, delete browser History. Bijan, go to hold, so I can't see it.

[Stevie Baskin]

Okay.

[Oz Pearlman]

Go to your contacts.

[Stevie Baskin]

All right.

[Oz Pearlman]

And tip it. You know, I want you. Okay, I want you to start scrolling through Bijan, and I want you to look over his shoulder. Do a little eavesdropping.

[Amy Archer]

Look for contact.

[Oz Pearlman]

No. Come on. You're gonna see.

[Stevie Baskin]

Is it okay?

[Oz Pearlman]

And tip it so I can't see it.

[Amy Archer]

Don't let him see.

[Oz Pearlman]

Tip your phone down.

[Pablo Torre]

Okay.

[Oz Pearlman]

And K, look. Is it scrolling?

[Stevie Baskin]

Yes.

[Oz Pearlman]

Bijan, I don't want you to look. So this is the key. I want you to be scrolling without looking. So you take it, and whenever you want, you're gonna stop, hold it, start scrolling. Just scroll, scroll, and then make sure. And you're gonna see K. There's gonna be a whole list of names.

[Amy Archer]

I mean, he's got short shorts on.

[Oz Pearlman]

I'm looking everywhere, trying not to look everywhere. I'm done.

[Stevie Baskin]

I'm done.

[Oz Pearlman]

That's it. Bring it close to your heart. Look where you landed. Look at the name at the top.

[Stevie Baskin]

Oh, shoot.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, no. He got rid of it.

[Stevie Baskin]

Oh, no.

[Oz Pearlman]

We got it.

[Stevie Baskin]

We got it.

[Oz Pearlman]

We got it.

[Stevie Baskin]

We got it.

[Pablo Torre]

We got it.

[Stevie Baskin]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got it. Okay.

[Oz Pearlman]

Okay. Do you see someone in there?

[Stevie Baskin]

Yes.

[Oz Pearlman]

Did you have any idea who you're gonna pick?

[Stevie Baskin]

No.

[Oz Pearlman]

Right. Is there any way in the world I could know something you didn't even know? No.

[Amy Archer]

Cause we were scrolling.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah.

[Stevie Baskin]

Absolutely not.

[Oz Pearlman]

All right. Put your phone down.

[Stevie Baskin]

Okay.

[Oz Pearlman]

Okay. I'm gonna have you sit here. We're gonna kind of. I'm gonna tag team this. I'm gonna see who I can pick up things from first.

[Stevie Baskin]

Okay.

[Oz Pearlman]

Look at the body language, the tension. I think it's a guy. Is it a guy? It is a guy, but here's what's funny.

[Stevie Baskin]

Oh, shoot.

[Oz Pearlman]

You were confused. That didn't make sense. There's no context. Listen to me. That didn't make sense. Do you know why?

[Amy Archer]

Because it's not a famous person.

[Oz Pearlman]

Nope. Because if the name was Michael, she would have known it was a guy. She was confused. She didn't know if it was a guy or girl. It's a name that could go either way. Okay, this is funny. You just gave it away. You didn't realize. Chris. Is it Chris?

[Stevie Baskin]

Yes.

[Oz Pearlman]

Do you understand what just happened?

[Stevie Baskin]

No.

[Pablo Torre]

Because you can't get in heroes.

[Oz Pearlman]

Think of his last name. Cause I know a million dudes named Chris. Think of Chris, last name.

[Stevie Baskin]

Okay. I thought his last name.

[Oz Pearlman]

And you mix up the letters in this person's last name and you just stop and you grab out anyone you want. You just grab it out. You got one?

[Stevie Baskin]

Yeah.

[Oz Pearlman]

Did you grab one too?

[Stevie Baskin]

Yeah. A letter? Yeah.

[Oz Pearlman]

Yeah. All right. I don't think you did a vowel. You didn't do a vowel, did you?

[Stevie Baskin]

No.

[Oz Pearlman]

You thought, it's too easy, I'm not gonna do the vowel. And then I think you did different letters.

[Pablo Torre]

B.

[Oz Pearlman]

Are you thinking of a B?

[Pablo Torre]

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold up.

[Stevie Baskin]

I wasn't.

[Oz Pearlman]

That wasn't hers. I told you. You're thinking of different letters. Chris. Chris. Chris. I love when people watch these videos and say it's set up cuz you didn't know who you were going to pick. How could I know this?

[Stevie Baskin]

Hey, this is crazy.

[Oz Pearlman]

What's his name? Tell us.

[Stevie Baskin]

Chris Gilbert.

[Oz Pearlman]

Chris.

[Stevie Baskin]

No way. It was Chris Gilbert. Yo.

[Pablo Torre]

How did you do that? How did you actually. How did you do that?

[Stevie Baskin]

Like I want to know.

[Oz Pearlman]

That was.

[Pablo Torre]

That was awesome. What is O good at here? What is jumping out to you?

[Stevie Baskin]

This trick doesn't require any preparation. It's completely sleight of hand, which is closer to the typical wheelhouse of what a magician is good at. And then of course, all the psychology that comes in to doing a sleight of hand move with six different cameras on you and you know, a famous athlete that you're interacting with and holding all of that in your mind and still giving a great performance. So the move that we're seeing there, you know, is that he gets the phone out of their hand, which he does masterfully, you know, the excuse to, without even their sort of explicit consent to just kind of casually take the phone out of their hand and then to start showing it to the rest of the audience. Is it scrolling you all to think that it's really scrolling. So this isn't some sort of rigged setup, but right here you can see it for what it is. O is. He's looking. He's looking at the phone screen which allows him to read. I mean, it's sort of pretty undeniable I would hope.

[Pablo Torre]

Unless you pause the video there though. Unless you stop it to comb through. Like where are his eyeballs pointing? What's incredible is that you don't notice it at first blush. He's really good at, at misdirecting your eyeballs because he is secretly looking at the phone screen.

[Stevie Baskin]

It's phenomenal, as I say over and over again, ad nauseam in the five hour video. He's an incredible performer and a good magician and a good illusionist that even if you do kind of notice that, which has happened in previous ones where someone says, hey, what are you doing? You're looking at the screen. What happens next where he turns the phone down, that immediately, to your mind says, okay, well, whatever glance he did at the screen is completely irrelevant because now the phone is pointed down towards the floor and they're scrolling up and down. But when he puts it back in their hands and says, okay, now you do it, but I want you to do it without looking. And he points the phone down towards the ground, the sleight of hand move is that he's just going to press the power button on the phone, which is going to turn the screen off, meaning now that any kind of up and down scrolling that they do is not going to change the position of those contacts. So that that name that he reads at the top is just gonna stay

[Pablo Torre]

there and look, the screen is off. You can basically. We can now glance at it like, yeah, there's. The phone is off, the screen is dark.

[Stevie Baskin]

Oh, shoot.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, no, he got rid of it.

[Amy Archer]

Oh, no, we got it.

[Oz Pearlman]

We got. We got it.

[Stevie Baskin]

We got it.

[Pablo Torre]

We got it.

[Stevie Baskin]

Yeah, yeah, we got it. Okay.

[Oz Pearlman]

Okay.

[Pablo Torre]

And then the other thing, of course, is that he is creating as to impart this notion of a skill. He is creating what would be the mentalist's logic of how he arrived at it?

[Oz Pearlman]

Because if the name was Michael, she would have known it was a guy. She was confused. She didn't know if it was a guy, guy or girl. It's a name that could go either way. This is funny. You just gave it away.

[Pablo Torre]

You didn't realize telling the story, that, of course, has nothing to do with the thing because he saw Chris Gilbert when he glanced at it and locked it on Chris Gilbert. And now he just needs a backstory for why it is Chris Gilbert was a thing K. Adams and Bijan Robinson had of course, arrived at, which is clever.

[Stevie Baskin]

It's so powerful. Like, you're guaranteed to fall for it. Because if you're there and you think, as you're scrolling on the phone, if you genuinely think that your finger is. Is affecting that contact, those list of contexts, you are guaranteed, like, you're done at that point. And then the rest of the trick is just gift of the gab.

[Pablo Torre]

How did you do that? How did you actually. How did you do that? Like, the thing about the magicians that I've been talking about that I've been polling, I. I know a couple of them here in New York City. Some of them are so protective of other magicians Right. Like, we shouldn't reveal tricks. That is, in fact, something that is so anathema to the premise of creating things that are special for an audience and magical for an audience. And the fascinating thing about Oze is that I would bring him up knowing that they had his prior position, and they say, that guy. There's something else going on here. And I have been spending so much time trying to understand, like, what is the argument not only for why Oze is not what he says he is, but why is it a problem? And the first trick that Oze has pulled off over and over and over again is the one you referenced with Joe Rogan. But I think the version that I want to spotlight here is the trick he did in this same genre on the View.

[Oz Pearlman]

But what if. If I asked you right now to think of your ATM pin code?

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, no.

[Oz Pearlman]

I love the tension in Sarah. She's like, we're on T. Don't say it. But if I guessed it, you know what people say? They say, he must have found that out. So if I ask someone instead to make up a random pin code. Well, how can I know? Because you didn't even know what you're gonna do. So imagine you lose your bank card. You call the bank. You made up a fake ATM pin code.

[Amy Archer]

Okay.

[Oz Pearlman]

Make it up right now. I couldn't have known it. Think of the first digit. You did it.

[Amy Archer]

Mm.

[Oz Pearlman]

Watch your mouth open. Watch when you go like this. Oh, it sounds like A W. It's A1, isn't it?

[Amy Archer]

The first one.

[Oz Pearlman]

The fake code. Yeah, it's a one. It starts with a one. Anna, here's the thing. If I guess her PIN code right now, would it be amazing?

[Amy Archer]

Yeah.

[Stevie Baskin]

Yeah.

[Oz Pearlman]

But here's the thing. Joy. Joy, look what it says on the front of my book. The last line. It says, the world's greatest mentalist. I'm not gonna do something amazing. I'm gonna do the most amazing thing you've ever seen. I'm gonna set the bar a different level. You asked me a question. What's his birthday? Are you ready? Whatever. Your ATM pin code, that fake one you made up, write it down on here. Make sure no one can see it. Hold it close to your heart. Close to your heart. No, no. Don't let them see. Don't let anyone see.

[Stevie Baskin]

Closer.

[Amy Archer]

I'm not letting anyone see.

[Pablo Torre]

For people who are just listening. Stevie, could you describe, like, what mechanically was happening there?

[Stevie Baskin]

He's talking about this idea of her giving him a random pin code by couching it in Terms of, hey, make up a random pin code, then it's going to be something that truly originates from her mind. And so then it's a genuine test of his mentalism abilities, his ability to study nonverbal cues. And you see that he weaves in this idea of her making this O shape, or worse shape, with her mouth, links that to the number one, and then says the first digit of this pin code that she has made up. But he's referring actually to a pin code that she's not making up in the moment. She's not generating these completely random four digits right there as the cameras are rolling. This is something that she has prepared beforehand before the show. And so when O says something like, hey, remember that pin code, the one that you made up?

[Oz Pearlman]

Whatever your ATM pin code, that fake one you made up, Write it down on here. Make sure no one can see it. Hold it close to your heart.

[Stevie Baskin]

If you really think about those words, those are clearly words that are designed to point you back to something that's happened in the past. But the human mind is so good at twisting interpretations to fit a preconceived narrative that if you look at this and you hear what he's saying, you're thinking, oh, okay, it makes total sense that she's just coming up with a random pin code right then and there. And so your brain is not poised in a good position to understand that when he says the one you made up, you're not poised to think that he's actually pointing her mind back to something that happened before the show. And this is what mentalists and magicians will call a kind of a dual reality effect, where he's using words that are gonna mean one thing to her, and it's gonna be interpreted completely differently by the audience who's watching the trick since the cameras have started rolling.

[Amy Archer]

You're making me a little nervous.

[Oz Pearlman]

In a good way. Hold it close to your body.

[Amy Archer]

I don't want the black.

[Oz Pearlman]

You challenged me. You said, I'm thinking of Ken. And then you asked me, what's his last. And then you asked me, what's his birthday? Like, how could I even know that? Watch this. Tell us, what is his birthday?

[Stevie Baskin]

December 25th.

[Amy Archer]

Oh, my God.

[Oz Pearlman]

1225. 1225.

[Amy Archer]

That's weird.

[Oz Pearlman]

And are you ready? Are you ready for this? Are you ready for this, Sarah?

[Amy Archer]

I'm done. I'm done.

[Stevie Baskin]

I'm telling you to make it the most amazing.

[Oz Pearlman]

Your real code, isn't it? What the.

[Stevie Baskin]

Again. Again? That's two times now. You can't take her if you win. No.

[Amy Archer]

Anyone knows my pin that

[Stevie Baskin]

you just

[Amy Archer]

said it on national tele. Why would you say it on national television?

[Stevie Baskin]

And do not announce my baby's name.

[Pablo Torre]

The idea that there was a backstage. The idea that there is language that does speak to the experience of the host, but not setting off the alarms of anyone who is in the audience or watching on a video. The dual reality thing, that's the thing that once you see that, suddenly things begin to click into place.

[Stevie Baskin]

I mean, that's where the money is for Os is in the dual reality. He exploits the fact that human minds are interpretation machines that we naturally seek to make sense of the world. I think he plays into the fact that generally speaking, there is a kind of unwritten rule book with magic tricks that you do the whole trick on camera. You know, that you can use sleight of hand, you can use misdirection, you can use whatever you want, but it has to be all on camera.

[Pablo Torre]

Right.

[Stevie Baskin]

So dual reality or pre show? Dual reality, where he's interacted with someone before the show is really where the money is here. Because it just puts people in such a weak position because it's so natural for them to assume that the whole trick is happening right then and there on the stage when the cameras are rolling.

[Pablo Torre]

Right.

[Stevie Baskin]

I think it's probably a little deeper and more complicated than even that. Where Oz will, in his pre show interactions with people, tell them that, hey, for the sake of the production value, for the sake of making sure that what happens on air goes smoothly, we're going to prepare an answer, like right here, right now. We don't want to fumble around. You know, this is show business, right? We got to make sure this is polished. And he can use that as a kind of meta deception that will lull them into a false sense of security. So it's just to do with greasing the wheels and making sure that the production runs smoothly.

[Pablo Torre]

And I think people probably on some level understand when they watch television, like, oh, certainly there are production meetings and all that. But with this, this part is not disclosed. You know, there is no disclaimer on any of this that says, and by the way, we happen to have a pre show meeting in which Ozamentalist got to effectively have extended conversations with the people that he would be tricking, seemingly for the first time out on camera, on set. And the way to hide it, of course, is to seemingly acknowledge it to the person that you were dealing with backstage. So it feels like to them you have now acknowledged it. But meanwhile the people at home are like not at all aware. But then what's so interesting and what's remarkably quiet relative to all of the viral noise is that Sarah Haynes, who was the host of the View, who was fooled in this way in that video, went on the Views Far Less Consumed behind the Table podcast and proceeded to say this.

[Amy Archer]

So the backstory that people don't know is we were asked to meet with him like 40 minutes prior to him being on the show.

[Stevie Baskin]

Yes.

[Amy Archer]

And by the way, in all of my years on any TV show, when a magician, an illusionist, a mentalist, whatever the people are, we've never had to pre meet with anyone.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, it's usually part of their shtick.

[Stevie Baskin]

It's like, I've never met you before. We've never seen each other.

[Oz Pearlman]

That's good.

[Amy Archer]

We've never, you know, said in this meeting, you know, kind of like we're gonna play like you came up with this. So it is funny that on the air you said, come up with a PIN and then just turn to me because I was the one that in a room he asked to do these math equations. He said, well, if we're not going to use your real pin, obviously. And then he repeated that a couple times. It's not like we're going to use your real pin, so we're coming up with like a fake pin. So he kept reassuring me that I'm trying to come up with. I think he used the word PIN because it's a four digit number. He needed a. There was a trick involved and he had to get me to a four digit number. So he kept saying, you know, well, again, this isn't your real pin. It's we're going to get to. But I had to. He made us get our phones, all of us, everyone that came in, he said, do you have your phone? Can you go get it?

[Stevie Baskin]

Yeah.

[Amy Archer]

So we had to type things into our phone. I don't know if that's where the trick is or what, but we're having. There's a point where he says, you have a number now, like subtract your real pin, but we're getting to your fake pin. We're gonna be creating this fake pin. And he kept reassuring me. And when, when we're on TV with these people, we have to play we're their subjects. And, you know, it's a trust thing. When we went out and he read the numbers, it was an impressive routine that he had been working on for 40 minutes or whatever. But the part that got me was my reaction. And I shouldn't be swearing on the air. Was not, oh, my gosh, you're such a good mentalist, or whatever it was. You reassured me three or four times in that room. We're not going to use your real PIN number. We're coming up with an imaginary one. I have never felt so violated on air. Someone meeting with you and saying over and over, like, play with me here and kind of like, I'll protect you.

[Oz Pearlman]

So what people didn't see is it

[Stevie Baskin]

was more than just the shock of it. It was deliberately countering something he had said earlier.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah.

[Stevie Baskin]

And.

[Amy Archer]

And we're playing along, and I think

[Pablo Torre]

that that part of like, oh, wait, no, you. You had me in your sort of, like, tacit agreement of we're gonna make good television, and then you did something that abused the trust that I gave you. That feels like, oh, he has been tempting fate over and over again. Insofar as there are people who might feel like their privacy was actually invaded, as in the case of Joe Rogan and now clearly, Sarah Haynes.

[Stevie Baskin]

Yeah. So the iPhone calculator is, I think, largely what he probably used with Sarah in this case with this pin code. And I would say with a. With a fairly high degree of certainty that it is what he used with Joe Rogan as well to get the pin code. The way that it will work is, again, before the show, there's a few different scripts that I think he can use. But let's say that, you know, Oz has gone on Joe Rogan, he's guest Joe Rogan's PIN code, and so that's what he's going to become the most well known for. So that when he goes onto a podcast, he might say to people, hey, let's do a pin code reveal. Because that's what the people want to see. They want to see me do another pin code reveal. But I don't want to jeopardize your situation. I don't want to expose your pin code on air. Let's make up a fake pin code. But, hey, I'm a mentalist, and you're probably not going to be able to generate a fake pin code as well as you think you are. You're actually going to leave some clues into what your PIN code is. Even if you give me a fake number. Like, that's what I did with Joe Rogan. Right. He said 2020, and I was still able to figure it out. So if we just open up your calculator, you can do a series of random calculations. You know, put in, put In a random 4 digit number here, multiply it 3. Subtract this. A whole series of calculations at which one point he just needs to say, okay, now subtract your real pin code or add your real pin code or whatever it is. Do some kind of calculation in the calculator that incorporates your real pin code. There's magicians who have published books going over all of the tiny little exploits with the iPhone calculator app. All these funny little things where, hey, look, do you know that if you press like equals, equals twice, you'll get the most recent calculation command that you've asked the calculator to do? You know, you can do that from the answer screen or you can press clear and it says zero and it looks like everything's gone. But if you press this combination, it'll actually show you the last number that you entered. Or, hey, do you know that Apple has just added this feature here where you can actually go into your calculation history and see every single calculation that you've done? Right.

[Pablo Torre]

A lot of my producers pointed it out to me and I felt like a idiot. I was like, wait a minute, every number I've ever entered, it's just there. It's. It's actually logged in my app.

[Stevie Baskin]

Yeah, exactly. Who's paying attention to something like their iPhone calculator app?

[Pablo Torre]

Enough. I know there's a clock button now in the top left that they added that. You can now look at the history. I'm like, I had no idea.

[Stevie Baskin]

You have no idea.

[Pablo Torre]

There is technology that is on some level in what we just described, just built into your phone. This thing that we think we know inside and out intimately, and so, of course we are comfortable with it is also insidious. But then, you know, I think there might be some people out there who are like, okay, but Stevie Baskin, this is, this is Oz's number one antagonist. Like, of course he's going to have all these conspiracies about how this could have happened.

[Stevie Baskin]

Look, I think that maybe the reason the magicians that you referred to earlier say, you know, that guy when they're thinking of, of Oz, is that he does kind of betray what maybe you might call like an honest magician. He does betray a lot of those certain principles. Even the idea that we spoke about before, this idea of not using a camera edit to hide a move that you've done, a sleight of hand move that you've done, or using pre show, which is, if you think about it, a pre show, hiding things that you've done before the cameras start rolling is really just like another kind of camera edit, really. That sort of seems to magicians who cherish the art form of perception manipulation is not particularly impressive. And so in order for their art form to have a kind of respect and a sort of credibility, they don't want people who are going to come in and tarnish their art form by using cheap tricks. And I think that's, that's what's happened with Oz. He's certainly Icarus flying too close to the sun for sure.

[Pablo Torre]

Hello, Pablo here with a very important message for all of you listeners, because this episode of PTFO is sponsored by Helix Sleep. Because there are very few things in life as beneficial as a good night's sleep. And I will be honest with you here, sleep used to be a bit of a struggle for me. I'd wake up in the middle of the night, toss and turn, sometimes just overheat, and then I would feel off for the entire next day. But this year I decided to upgrade my setup with the Helix Dusk Elite mattress. And it has made a huge difference. With enhanced zoned lumbar support and good motion isolation for couples, it's been a game changer. And what I like about Helix is that it's not one size fits all. They've got over 20 different mattress models, so you can really find something tailored to how you sleep. And they have a handy quiz tool on their website so you can match a mattress specifically to your needs. And with free shipping plus seamless delivery, Helix delivers your mattress right to your door. It is a ridiculously easy process, and with a 120 night sleep trial and limited lifetime warranty, you have time to ensure that it's really what you want. Since switching, I've genuinely noticed better sleep. I fall asleep faster, I stay asleep longer, and I wake up feeling more ready for the day. And right now, listeners can get a great deal during their Memorial day sale. With 27% off site wide, that's a huge savings for the most awarded mattress brand. So head to helixsleep.comptfo for 27% off sitewide. That's helixsleep.comptfo For 27% off sitewide. And make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know that we sent you helixsleep.com/ptfo. In terms of the biggest gap between what the audience is even aware is possible and what O's might be up to. Quietly, it takes us back to the world of sports podcasts. This is busting with the boys. This is Will Compton, former Nebraska NFL linebacker, and his co host, Taylor Luan, the former Tennessee Titan and I believe, Michigan Wolverine. And they couldn't be more excited.

[Oz Pearlman]

Let me ask you a question. I say to you, pick any player in the NFL. 32 teams, 53 players, right? And you close your eyes, visualize his face. Can you see this player as if he's sitting in the bus with you right now?

[Stevie Baskin]

Yes.

[Oz Pearlman]

Okay, open your eyes. I think that you started with the player's position. Is that how you did it?

[Stevie Baskin]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

Knowing Will is probably skin color.

[Oz Pearlman]

I think his skin color. He laughed at that. Now you gave me a hint. That was good. I think he started with position. Then you went to team. Then you went to player. 32 teams. All right, I'm gonna give this a go. Think afc, think nfc.

[Stevie Baskin]

Okay.

[Oz Pearlman]

Look at that.

[Stevie Baskin]

I know. Oh, my God.

[Pablo Torre]

I got to say something. I'm so nervous right now.

[Oz Pearlman]

You know what? Best offense is a good defense. He went defense, right? Yo.

[Stevie Baskin]

No, I'm trying. I'm trying to say just st. You

[Oz Pearlman]

see what's on this table? Look down. Do you see everything on this table? Look down. Cards. We got drinks. We got everything. When I say the number four, what does that make you think of?

[Stevie Baskin]

Do I say it out loud?

[Oz Pearlman]

Yeah. Does four make you think of something? When I said the table right here, do you see it?

[Stevie Baskin]

Corner.

[Oz Pearlman]

You're thinking of a cornerback, aren't you?

[Stevie Baskin]

Do I answer?

[Oz Pearlman]

Yeah. No, it wasn't.

[Pablo Torre]

Cornerback.

[Oz Pearlman]

Corner. Cornerback. Did this person switch teams in the last year?

[Stevie Baskin]

I don't think so.

[Oz Pearlman]

Okay, I got. I gotta preface this because I think we have confusion here. Are you thinking the same person? You've got one person throughout. You just pick a new person.

[Stevie Baskin]

I'm thinking of the cat.

[Oz Pearlman]

You.

[Pablo Torre]

You get me on across.

[Oz Pearlman]

Over. I had. You think it's him? Him? He's not a cornerback. Not a corner. Played for the jets last year. Yes, Just switch. Did you not know that? Just switch to the Buccaneers. Bryce hall, isn't it?

[Stevie Baskin]

Breeze Hall. Yeah.

[Oz Pearlman]

Is that not right?

[Stevie Baskin]

He's on the jets still.

[Oz Pearlman]

He's on the jets still. I think he just traded in last day of the bucks or.

[Pablo Torre]

Look him up. The thing, of course, that sticks out when you watch this clip is that there is a bit of leakage from Will Compton. Could you explain what is being signaled here? That if you're not going through this with a magnifying glass, you might have missed.

[Stevie Baskin]

So what's. What's happened? To give you the full peek behind the curtain is that he's interacted with Will before the show.

[Oz Pearlman]

Okay, I gotta, I gotta preface this because I think we have confusion here. Are you thinking the same person? You've got one person throughout. You just pick a new person.

[Stevie Baskin]

I'm thinking of the cat.

[Pablo Torre]

You.

[Amy Archer]

You.

[Oz Pearlman]

Yeah, over the. I had. You think it's him. Him. He's not a cornerback, not a corner corner.

[Stevie Baskin]

He's using that pre show dual reality meta deception. And he has gotten Will to enter into a Google search the name of the player that he's thinking of. And he disguises rather than just saying, hey, I want you to pull up Google and type something in. He gives him the excuse of, hey, can you look up a stat about this guy? I want you to like, maybe look up some sort of stat about him. And then he Googles that stat. He thinks he's looking up a stat. But in actuality, Oze has a few different methods that we can talk about of getting him to use a fake Google page, something that looks like Google. It will send you to a genuine Google results page. But in that process, the information that you enter is going to be sent to Oz's phone. The beautiful irony that unfolds here is that the name that Will puts into this Google search, he misspells it. Oz guesses Bryce hall, because that's the name that Will has typed into the Google search. The problem is, is that Will was actually thinking of Breeze Hall. So exactly what happens is this. Oze loads up Will's phone, leads him to this sort of fake Google page, tells him to look up the stat, he types in Bryce hall by mistake, autocorrect coming in for the win. It then sends into a genuine Google results page for Bryce hall. And he says, oh, damn, I've got to actually search Breeze Hall. And backspaces his answer, puts in Breeze hall, does it again. However, the way that the app works is once you sent in that first kind of search query, it breaks free, right? That's the information that is harvested. And then it just sends you to a genuine Google result. And then the beauty of course, is that mentalism in terms of body language analysis and nonverbal cues, that's not real at all. And so Oze, of course then has to, you know, he starts with the answer, as we know, and he works backwards.

[Oz Pearlman]

Played for the jets last year.

[Stevie Baskin]

Yes, just switch.

[Oz Pearlman]

Did you not know that? Just switch to the Buccaneers.

[Stevie Baskin]

He's starting with Bryce hall because that's what Will typed into the fake Google search. He has no access at all to Bribies Hall. Bryce hall is actually a player, which leads now O's into a false sense of security that when he's guiding Will through this process, that he's doing something that's actually material. He's like, wait, am I, Am I on track here? Yeah. Okay, wait, is it like, was it the. What was the, the team. The Jets. The New York Jets. He played for the Jets. You know, what's going on here? O's is legitimately confused, but thank gracious to him, right? He says, Bryce hall, and they say, oh, yeah, that Breece Hall. I mean, my mind's blown.

[Oz Pearlman]

Even though he got the. He was.

[Stevie Baskin]

Were you being serious?

[Oz Pearlman]

You thought I was thinking of cornerback?

[Stevie Baskin]

I thought.

[Oz Pearlman]

Were you thinking another cornerback?

[Stevie Baskin]

I wasn't thinking corner. I was always thinking running back. But the fact that you landed on Bryce all Breeze hall, and I mistyped

[Oz Pearlman]

and put Bryce hall first in my

[Stevie Baskin]

search bar and then landed on Breeze

[Oz Pearlman]

hall and I told jp I was

[Stevie Baskin]

like, I switched my player. I don't think he's going to get it right.

[Oz Pearlman]

That is wild.

[Pablo Torre]

And they're gracious because they, they, they don't know what's happening yet. They're still like, piecing together like, wait a minute, how, how is this our fault? How did we fuck this up? Because clearly, you know, he knows what he's doing.

[Stevie Baskin]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's. I mean, the power of the deception there is that Will is not thinking at all because he's totally bought into mentalism. So they're very gracious and they do say, oh, wow, okay. Yeah, you're only a couple of letters off. Yeah. Bruce hall, that's the one that you were, you were looking of. But then Will says it, right? He says, oh, and Bryce Hall. The fact that you even got Bryce hall, that was the name that I misspelled into the Google search. And in that moment, suddenly Oz knows exactly what's happened and I switched.

[Oz Pearlman]

Who was before? Don't know that one.

[Stevie Baskin]

Who was it before?

[Oz Pearlman]

Sweating in here.

[Pablo Torre]

The thing that you see when you go through the catalog is you have with like this fine tooth comb and you go through all of the instances, especially in sports, where guys on some level are just like, they're loose, right? The hosts are loose. And there is no more comfortable host in sports media ever, I would say, in the history of the medium than Charles Barkley. And so the setup here of just like, it's March Madness again. It's a pregame show. It's owes the mentalist. Ernie Johnson is swearing on his journalistic

[Oz Pearlman]

integrity, EJ on your journalistic integrity, you as a person, everything. Have you been in possession of this the entire time? Could anybody have gotten in, out, tampered, switched, or anything? Or have you had that? I hope Absolutely not.

[Stevie Baskin]

O's. Absolutely not.

[Oz Pearlman]

1,000.

[Pablo Torre]

And there's this envelope. Now there's this new prop that we haven't gone over yet. This envelope. And he asks Charles Barkley to do a familiar task, which is, please pick a player.

[Oz Pearlman]

Charles, if I had you pick a player. Okay, 64 teams started this, and I had you pick one right when I snapped my fingers. Now, be honest, because everyone says scripted stage on your life, you do not know which player you're about to say at this very moment, do you? I do not. Okay, but you gave me two.

[Pablo Torre]

Hold on, hold on.

[Oz Pearlman]

Yeah. Go back and forth.

[Pablo Torre]

Imagine you dribbling back, just Charles saying, you gave me two.

[Stevie Baskin]

I feel bad for O, man. I feel bad for O because he had this beautiful little word play of, you know, you're dribbling back and forth, back and forth. That's what he wanted to go into. You can see that that was designed to trigger in Charles mind, oh, this is the. The back and forth between those two players that we have landed on before the show that he has asked me to not choose one of these two players until we go on the show. Now, what's happening is when Charles says, you gave me two, that is not the case, that he thinks that Oze knows who those two are. Okay. What it means is that they've done something before the show where Oze has made it look like he's been given a random two players. So I have a deck of cards here on my desk. So an example of what that might look like. Could you say stop at a particular moment? Just any. Any, mom. Well, just say stop. Okay. And so if you were to look at that card here on the bottom. Yeah. Do you notice anything suspicious about what I just did?

[Pablo Torre]

I believe that where I hit stop, that wasn't where I stopped. That was like the bottom of the deck.

[Stevie Baskin]

Yeah. Okay. All right, good. It was. It was the bottom of the deck. Okay, cool. So let's. Let's do it a little bit more fairly then. Let's instead go this way. And I want you to say stop, and I want to make sure that I stop exactly where I've. Where you've said stop. Okay. All right. Have you got that card?

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Stevie Baskin]

What do you notice about that card?

[Pablo Torre]

It is the same card that you showed me before. That was at the bottom of the deck.

[Stevie Baskin]

The point of that is that there are. There are ways for magicians to do things that look random, that look like they're a kind of free choice, that if you're not familiar, they're absolutely controlling what you're doing. Now, what he would have done with Charles, just to clear this out for everyone at instead of having a deck of cards with, you know, normal playing cards written on them, he has a deck of cards with NBA players on them. And then he says, okay, Charles, what we're going to do is we're going to. We're going to do a random sort of selection ahead of time. And if I was to say to you, Pablo, we're going to do this again, let's just say that if you land on the queen of clubs, that that is going to be LeBron James, okay? And so on. And so every, every card in the deck represents a particular player. And in order, because I'm a mentalist, I don't want you to choose someone because then I can, you know, I can look you up, I can. I can read your nonverbal cues, and I can figure that out. In order to make it more difficult for me, I'm going to make sure that you have a random choice. Okay? So here again, Pablo, I just want you to say, stop, Stop. Okay. And this time I'm not going to show you the card on the bottom. I'm going to show you the card where you stopped at. Okay, so have you got that card right there? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Right. And was that the queen of clubs that we said represented LeBron James?

[Pablo Torre]

It, in fact was. All right.

[Stevie Baskin]

Okay, great. So again, a sleight of hand move utilized here. Oz just has to do something like that with Charles before the show where he does that twice. Okay, so he does that, that trick twice, gives them two options, and rather than reveal it to them right then and there on the show and say, oh, was it the queen of clubs or Was it the seven? Or was it LeBron James or whoever? He just gives you those two tricks that we did and says, okay, Pablo, I just want you to remember those two. And then when we go on the show, I'm actually going to get you to choose one of those two. But I don't want you to choose now. I actually want. I want to be like a completely sort of free choice. And now, in your mind, if you are not alert to the fact that I've just used sleight of hand on you, what's your perception Your perception is that you've got two randomly chosen players in your mind and that you're now carrying those onto the show, which Oz does to manipulate the viewer. Because now what does this allow him to say? This allows him to drop another bomb, which is that right now, in this moment, you do not know who you are going to choose. And that is just the absolute genius way of disguising the fact it deletes the idea of a pre show.

[Pablo Torre]

Right?

[Stevie Baskin]

It completely deletes it. Because if you don't know who you're going to choose right then in that moment, well then there's no pre show thing, there's nothing planned. This is a genuine free choice that you're making in the moment. And so you can see the dual reality there. So he would have, he would have done two random choices with Charles that are not actually random, they're sleight of hand. So Oze knows who those two choices are, but Charles doesn't know that Oz knows who those two choices are.

[Oz Pearlman]

And when I snap my fingers right at this moment, you pick one of those players, you go back and forth.

[Stevie Baskin]

Wait, do I say it?

[Oz Pearlman]

Don't say it, just think it. Okay, watch me. You still don't know who you're gonna say, do you? No, don't say look at me. You just decided on one just this second. Is that right?

[Stevie Baskin]

Yes.

[Oz Pearlman]

64 teams, five starters down to this. Think of this player's jersey, his last name on the back. Look at me. Count the number of letters in his last name to yourself.

[Stevie Baskin]

Okay.

[Oz Pearlman]

It was quick, right? Yeah, I saw. You know what? Right now. So when people in the comments say no way, change your mind right now. Change your mind, other player. Change your mind right this second.

[Stevie Baskin]

Okay, Say it.

[Oz Pearlman]

Who did you just change to?

[Stevie Baskin]

Richardson, Michigan State.

[Oz Pearlman]

Yeah, in there. When you look, this was sealed two weeks ago. There's a photo. Can you look inside please? Is there a photo? Look inside before you do it. Grab. There's one photo. Take it out. Swear to God, you just change your mind, right? Live TV show. Michigan State would still be in the game.

[Pablo Torre]

One of the meta meta deceptions then seems to be that the revelation Charles has is real to Charles, but perhaps relatively limited if he has some suspicions around like, okay, but the very least there was his pre show thing. But because there's enough shock there, the audience is perceiving it as a biblical revelation. And so even there like the proportion of miracle is being confused. And so it is this incredible power to be like, look at the water being turned into Wine. Everyone agrees, including the person who was tasting it. It is in fact wine.

[Stevie Baskin]

Part of Oz's shtick is that he will get people to count the letters in someone's name. And that's really useful because he can lean to, oh, well, I'm observing your icercades. I know how many letters are in that name. Like, so he'll get them to count it silently in their mind. I just want you sit there silently and count the letters.

[Oz Pearlman]

Look at me. Count the number of letters in his last name to yourself.

[Pablo Torre]

Okay.

[Oz Pearlman]

It was quick, right? Yeah.

[Stevie Baskin]

And he'll say that I'm seeing how your pupils are going. And I'm so. Because I'm this Jason Bourne Sherlock Holmes character, I'm able to discern how many letters are in that name because of how your pupils, how your isocades kind of flicked across the empty space there. O's can now, now utilize something really interesting. If the two players that he has forced on Charles, let's say that one of them was Chris Paul and then

[Pablo Torre]

the other is Chase Richardson from Michigan State.

[Stevie Baskin]

If you, Pablo, right now were to choose either Chris Paul or Jace Richardson, and I say to you, all right, Pablo, count how many letters are in this guy's last name and let me know when you're done. Now he can actually do something where he can say that. Absolutely. He is relying on reading someone' body language of analyzing how long they take to give an answer. You know, and all the rest of it, however. Right. It's just to simply discern whether it's Chris Paul or James Richardson.

[Pablo Torre]

Right. And.

[Stevie Baskin]

But anyone can do that. That's not impressive. That's not going to take 30 years. We all understand Richardson's going to be a little bit of it, like.

[Pablo Torre]

But he's doing mentalism. But that's. But that's mentalism.

[Stevie Baskin]

And so that is actually what he uses with Charles.

[Oz Pearlman]

Change your mind right now. Change your mind, other player. Change your mind right this second.

[Stevie Baskin]

Okay. Say it.

[Oz Pearlman]

Who did you just change to?

[Stevie Baskin]

Richardson, Michigan State.

[Oz Pearlman]

Yeah. In there. When you look. This was sealed two weeks ago. There's a photo. Can you look inside, please? Is there a photo? Look inside before you do it. Grab. There was one photo. Take it out. Swear to God. You just changed your mind, right? Live TV lives.

[Stevie Baskin]

But it's funny because Oze even needs to clarify because Charles does count quite quickly. And he says, oh, it was short, wasn't it? It was a short name. He says, yes. And because Oze knows who those two players are, he immediately knows that Charles is thinking of the wrong player. So he's got to get Charles to switch to go into Jace Richardson, which he can now justify and he can say, you know what? Just so everyone at home thinks that this is, you know, staged or whatever right now. Change, change. Pick the, pick the other player, right? Change teen's minds, right? Go to. Go to the other one. And leads him to admiration, that that's going to line up with the envelope. What's really interesting about that strategy is that it allows him to then say that he is using body language, that he's using nonverbal analysis, that that is part of the trick, which is to

[Pablo Torre]

say that Oze knows what's in the envelope. And his thing is I need to get Charles to say the thing that is in the envelope. And I'm gonna do it by illustrating a seemingly random journey, a spontaneous journey that I'm actually again walking him through like it's a kid holding his parents hand. And the thing that you just mentioned is a thing that I've heard other magicians say, which is again this principle of like look, magic is all about tricking the audience. Yes, but one of the sort of like unwritten rules is the audience needs to be able to see some version of the trick that the people present for the tricker also see it.

[Stevie Baskin]

Now if you think about it, if you just think about the Charles Barkley trick, does some portion of the trick in order to get to the final reveal, does it require some kind of analysis of Charles Barkley in order to get to the final reveal? Yes, it does. It's not a completely self working trick. There's gotta be some point where there's some sort of interaction with Charles that he figures out has he chosen the player with the short name or has he chosen the player with the long name. He has to do that. That then allows him to say very honestly that yeah, body language analysis is absolutely some of what I do. The problem with that is like Pablo, there's body language analysis in what you do, right? You're analyzing my body language now. We all do. Looking at people's facial expressions, how they react to things, what kind of mood are they in? We're all mentalists in that respect. I think that from a legal standpoint, you know, O sells this book, right? Read your mind. I, I'm like, where is the person with the balls to just like flat out accuse this guy of fraud? Like if you know the law, which is that we examine what's going on from the perspective of a reasonable consumer If I was just selling a book that, you know, he has this little disclosure that, hey, buy my book. I'm not going to teach you how to guess people's, you know, crush or, you know, what playing car they're thinking of or any of that kind of stuff, but I'm going to teach you how to use mentalist skills in the real world. Do we not think that a reasonable person would look at this, would digest O's and say, all right, he's this guy who can appear to be psychic, and yet his real skill is this nonverbal analysis. He can do this body language analysis kind of stuff. And he's now going to sell a book where rather than telling me how to use body language analysis and nonverbal cues in order to guess random pieces of information about people, he's going to teach me how to use those skills to interact with people sort of in my everyday life. But I'm going to get some sort of peek behind the curtain as to what's actually going on in this Jason Bourne, Sherlock Holmes, kind of a, you know, 30 years reverse engineering the human mind. Like, it's. It's so obvious to me that he wants people to have that interpretation of what he's doing, that that is his goal. He wants you to believe that that is what he is doing so that you will then go and buy his book. And, like, to me, all the steps for fraud are there.

[Pablo Torre]

But I think for me, as like a journalist, the realm I see it through is less the law at this point, and it's more finance. Because what is the sort of unifying theory of a guy who has carried himself through this series of unwritten rules and violated them to the amusement of America, but to the dismay of the people who had helped construct and protect the delicacy of these codes? He was a guy who worked at Merrill lynch, and if Oz the mentalist is like, hey, I see what works. I see what makes the number go up. I see what makes the green arrow point up and to the right, and all these other people are inefficient and or too afraid to press the button over and over again, well, guess what I'm gonna do. And that's the story of finance as much as it is legal strategy.

[Stevie Baskin]

Yeah, that's a really acute observation, Pablo. Kudos to you, man. Yeah,

[Pablo Torre]

foreign.

[Stevie Baskin]

Howdy, howdy ho, and welcome to Fantasy Fan Fellas.

[Pablo Torre]

I'm Hayden, producer of the Fantasy Fangirls podcast and your resident lover of all things Sanderson.

[Oz Pearlman]

And I'm Stephen, your bookish Internet goofball, but you can call me the Smash Daddy.

[Pablo Torre]

And we are currently deep diving Brandon Sanderson's fantasy epic Mistborn. But here's the catch. Steven here has not read Mistborn before.

[Oz Pearlman]

That's right. Hey. Hey. So each week you'll get my unfiltered raw reactions to every single chapter.

[Pablo Torre]

And along the way we'll do character deep dives, magic explainers, and Steven will even try to guess what's next. Spoiler alert. He'll be wrong.

[Oz Pearlman]

Newsflash. I'm never wrong. Episodes come out every Wednesday, and you can find fantasy fanfellas wherever you get your podcasts.

[Pablo Torre]

Hey, hold up.

[Stevie Baskin]

This is your minute, your day to play, to make, to move, to move through, to explore. It's your body to rest, to nourish, to grow. It's your mind, you know, it's your place, your life to love, to dream, to change.

[Pablo Torre]

It's your world to understand. The New York Times.

[Stevie Baskin]

Find out [e-mail] your world.

[Pablo Torre]

This is where I should say that we did reach out for comment from O Pearlman directly and through his representatives, disclosing that we had Stevie Baskin as our guest on this episode of Pablo Torre finds out. And they did not respond respond. But there is one more clip from the Joe Rogan experience that I do think is worth playing towards the end here, in lieu perhaps of any such comment. Because at this point in their conversation, Joe and O's have been talking about religious cult leaders, and O says there's

[Oz Pearlman]

a fine line between if you looked at a path in my life, again, I don't see myself cult leader, but a con man is very similar in many regards to what I do. Because that's using these skills in what I would describe as like an unethical way. Right.

[Stevie Baskin]

But don't you think they're the same thing? A cult leader is a type of con man.

[Oz Pearlman]

Oh, I'm saying what I do is like a con man.

[Stevie Baskin]

Yeah, but you are a con man

[Pablo Torre]

for entertainment purposes, right?

[Oz Pearlman]

Exactly.

[Stevie Baskin]

It's different.

[Pablo Torre]

Like, and maybe that is the best defense that O has for all of this. Just in a nutshell, that there are no rules if the goal is entertainment and that the audience actually wants to be conned in order to be entertained. But the question Stevie Baskin and I are raising about the logic here of Oz's brand of mentalism is if you explicitly say that there are no secret superpowers and that you're just noticing things about how a person acts, wouldn't the audience find all of this con artistry a lot less impressive and a lot less entertaining if they knew you were breaking your only rule and being dishonest about what the con even is.

[Stevie Baskin]

I was thinking about the principle that Penn and Teller, fantastic magicians, by the way, who would describe themselves honest magicians, who have a show for us actually where funnily enough, on the show, one of the rules that they have for the show is that people can't use pre show work, people can't use camera edits. Everything needs to be happening on stage. It needs to be a fair fight.

[Pablo Torre]

Which brings us finally to another, more self interested reason why still other magicians and mentalists consider Oze such a problem for their industry. Because O's did not pioneer or invent the secret superpowers of backstage devices and pre show deception. But nobody uses them more visibly at this point or with a larger platform. And so the concern among some of Oz's competitors is that the sheer frequency with which he calls these plays, spamming viral clips of them all across the Internet, could damage the market for mentalism in general, turning the whole practice into a form of bad plastic surgery. In part because there are some audience members, members who may or may not have YouTube channels, who love noticing things too, insofar as we are people who are now invested at the extreme end of the spectrum of investment and whether people know the truth about this. I suppose the only check on such a business is whether people hear what we're saying and whether they can actually get to know and find out. Oh, wait a minute. This explains the thing that I thought was truly mystical in its inexplicability.

[Stevie Baskin]

In many ways it feels like you have to acknowledge that like a really great con artist has a skill set. Absolutely, they do. And there is this kind of lens that you can sit in and you can maybe watch how a con artist weaves these webs of deception around people. And it's masterful to watch, but it doesn't, it doesn't change the fact that there's still an ethical question that needs to be asked here.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, I think if nothing else, like I think of the truth fundamentally as something that also exists in a bit of an ecosystem. And if you're going to sort of weave together all the concepts here, around harm, around supply and demand, around how is this guy getting away with this and what can be done about it? I do think that someone who decides to exploit these strategies so often that it's made him the most popular and seemingly well compensated and most platformed mentalist that there's ever been on online. The very success of that demands a market response. It is daring someone to come along and say, wait a minute, you can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't be everywhere and yet undiscussed and unexamined. And that's the thing of like where I, I've always thought of like journalism and the law as like sort of kindred spirits in that regard. It's like, like, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. You can get all the money, but it doesn't mean you can't be talked about. You can't be studied and investigated. That's also part of the game.

[Stevie Baskin]

I think that you've hit the nail on the head there. I would expand on that and say that this whole thing can be flipped into something positive. I think there is real utility in kind of having your heart broken. There is a kind of emotional utility in believing in Santa Claus and then discovering, oh damn, I was wrong. Well, at least there's an opportunity there. And the opportunity is to recognize the vulnerabilities in your own perception, in your own vulnerabilities in interpreting the world. And that to me is the pinnacle value of what magicians bring society is that magicians are capable of showing you, hey, how you perceive the world at first glance, at first blush, is not necessarily the most reliable perception and interpretation that you are capable of garnering from the evidence around you. There is such a thing as taking a second glance. There is such a thing as introspecting and thinking about things and wanting things, finding the isolated variables. There is a tremendous value in recognizing the weaknesses in our own psychology and O has undoubtedly done that. This is something that isn't isolated to magicians and mentalists. This is something that is being deployed by people, people all around you all the time.

[Oz Pearlman]

Right?

[Stevie Baskin]

It's a dog eat dog world out there in a certain lens of interpretation where people are more than happy to have you believe things that are completely untrue if it benefits them personally. So recognize those vulnerabilities. And that's where I think the O's Pullman story, that's maybe the saving grace. That's where this can become something really beautiful rather than something super pernicious.

[Pablo Torre]

Stevie Baskin, thank you for helping us end our own self deception. Thank you for helping us understand, I think the mentalist, the magician, the public performer, who in that lens might be the most perfect person for our era to come to grips with.

[Stevie Baskin]

Cheers, Pablo. Thanks for having me.

[Pablo Torre]

This has been. Pablo Torre finds out a Meadowlark Media production and I'll talk to you next time.

[Stevie Baskin]

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