Mind-bending entertainer performs at Fitton Center

Contributed photo Craig Karges, who calls himself a "psychic magician" performs at the Fitton Center Saturday.

ENLARGE PHOTO

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By Eric Robinette, Staff Writer 12:34 PM Friday, November 13, 2009

HAMILTON — Craig Karges makes his living bending metal, but what he really wants is to bend minds.

Karges, who will appear at the Fitton Center for Creative Arts on Saturday, Nov. 14, calls himself a mentalist, which he defines as a “psychic magician.”

For Karges, who has appeared on “The Tonight Show” with Jay Leno, that’s just a way of saying the audience is really the star of his shows.

“It’s a total audience participation show. Minds will be read, furniture will float around on stage and silverware will be bent,” he said.

What makes him different from a magician is that “Everything in my show is themed toward the mind. I’m not going to saw a person in half or pull a rabbit out of my hat,” Karges said.

Instead, Karges will perform various tricks based on the power of the mind.

For instance, he tries to read the minds of his audience and make predictions – and has been known to risk his performing fee if he’s wrong.

Karges got his start under the tutelage of his uncle, Alain DeLyle, a vaudevillian that Karges described as a “high class fortune-teller.”

Karges learned that the mind is “like an iceberg. The conscious mind is what’s above the surface, but most of it is below the surface.”

It’s the subconscious mind that Karges wants to master, and he does that partly by observing his audience.

“There are patterns of behavior people follow and you start to observe how people respond to situations.

“Everybody does that to a certain degree on a subconscious level,” he said.

It’s those responses that fuel Karges.

“I love the audience reactions and creating a mystery for people to solve if they want to.

“I’ll get a guy in the audience with his arms crossed thinking ‘He can’t do that with me,’ and he becomes a raging convert by the end of the show.” Karges said.

A post-performance reception with Karges is included in the ticket price.