00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:02 - Hemostatic is not as scary as you think.
00:04 You're not actually sleeping.
00:08 Open your mind.
00:12 Imagination.
00:18 Deeper and deeper.
00:27 Meet Cody Tan, an ordinary man with an extraordinary talent,
00:32 mind magic.
00:34 With more than 15 years of experience as an entertainer,
00:38 Tan is one of the few stage hypnotists in the country.
00:43 It all began in the small town of Batupahat in Johor,
00:47 where Tan, then age 17, found himself fascinated
00:51 by a friend's simple magic trick.
00:55 He went on to work part-time at a small magic shop, which
00:58 was the starting point for him eventually becoming
01:01 a full-time magician at a resort in Selangor.
01:05 It was only many years later, however,
01:07 that he discovered mentalism.
01:10 - It's got to be somewhere around there, 2015, 2016,
01:12 I started to be very interested with a particular category
01:18 of magic tricks, or should I say a field,
01:22 a particular field of magic, which is known as mentalism.
01:26 So that's more mind magic.
01:29 - Broadly speaking, mentalism is a performing art
01:32 in which its practitioners, known as mentalists,
01:35 appear to demonstrate highly developed
01:38 mental or intuitive abilities, and are seemingly
01:41 able to influence the perceptions of others.
01:45 - I got very interested with mind magic
01:47 because it seems like real magic to me.
01:51 - This sparked the birth of his career as a stage hypnotist.
01:55 Now 32 and having performed in various countries
01:58 in front of large crowds, Tan has countless memorable stories.
02:04 - This mom who came for the show,
02:07 apparently she brought her kids.
02:08 Her kids are all like probably 20s or something.
02:11 She went up, and very quickly she was hypnotized.
02:13 And then there's this part where I asked her to imagine
02:16 she's an alien.
02:17 And then she opened her eyes, and she
02:19 started to just jibble and just talking nonsense.
02:22 And she's like entertaining herself.
02:24 The louder she goes, the more weird the way
02:27 she talk and all that.
02:28 There were the other parts where I
02:30 got the whole stage of people to visualize
02:32 that everybody from the audience,
02:34 there were about 100 plus of them, they were all naked.
02:38 So of course they were not naked,
02:40 but they thought they were naked.
02:42 So people opened their eyes, and they got shy,
02:44 and they closed their eyes.
02:46 - For Tan, the appeal of magic is rather straightforward.
02:51 - I love the idea that magic does
02:53 questions people's common belief.
02:55 One of the greatest magicians once said that the reason
02:58 that you feel that magic is amazing
03:00 is because it brings you back to a childhood moment.
03:04 - And despite his experience, Tan
03:06 says he still contemplates the true nature of hypnosis.
03:11 Is it actual mind control, or is it purely psychological?
03:15 Whatever the case, he hopes that his mind magic
03:17 will continue to captivate audiences,
03:20 just as he too was once entranced as a young man
03:23 from a small town in Johor.
03:26 Divya Raghu, FMC Lifestyle.
03:29 (music fades)
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