How does Oz Pearlman do it?

If you have not seen the magic of Oz Pearlman, I don’t know how much this article can help. It’s almost too hard to describe. My suggestion? Check out a video on YouTube, TikTok or wherever else you watch your videos.

My goal in writing this is to figure out how Oz actually guesses the stuff that he does.

He calls himself a mentalist, not a magician. OK, fine. He reads body language, movement cues, etc. to help him guess what people are thinking. Fine, but none of that explains how he comes up with amazing things from a person’s past.

I have read the explanations from the “experts.” They say he does pre-show interviews, or he has people working for him digging up information—or even that he persuades folks through the power of suggestion to give certain answers.

I don’t buy any of those explanations. What he comes up with is too amazing for the explanations above. 

Subscribe to Chicago Star’s Weekly City Buzz Newsletter

When he asks for the person to think of any obscure person from their past, and then he is able to guess exactly who the individual was—sorry, that cannot be explained by “pre-show research.”

Another example: When he asks one of his “victims” to imagine you’re at the grocery store and you can pick out one item, and to think of that one item. Then Oz guesses an orange, and the guest tells him, nope, it was M&M candies. The crowd then thinks Oz finally got one wrong… but he then produces an orange out of his coat pocket, and proceeds to cut it in half. It has been hollowed out, so as he turns it upside down, a whole load of M&Ms comes spilling out.Tell me how that happens?

It certainly cannot be done by any “pre-show preparation.” How does Oz know which grocery item he is going to pick? It truly is unbelievable, and this is just an example of any number of unexplainable guesswork tricks.

Read more on Chicago Star:

• Don’t take our recess away!

• Just like that—a new Chicago sports star is born 

• Move over, NASCAR! RPM Raceway plans 90,000 sqft go-kart venue, longest in the Midwest

• Fighting Illini gets glow-up: Illinois among Big Ten schools to launch $30M jersey patch deal

• Full moon: Third Ward Moon Fest brings one of the world’s best art pieces to the Midwest 

My only explanation? And I have heard precisely none of the experts even suggest this possibility: hypnosis. That’s right, good old-fashioned hypnosis.

Maybe he talks to guests beforehand (or one of his “associates” does) and they plant these obscure answers in each person’s head, and then through some kind of mental persuasion, they convince the person to never remember their earlier meeting. When prompted later, they will then come out with the response they had been given earlier.

It’s the only explanation I can come up with.

Do you have a better explanation? We would love to hear it. Email us at this address.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, if you have not seen the work of Oz Pearlman, check it out. You will be part fascinated, part aggravated, part mesmerized and fully entertained.