My mind-bending day as a mentalist's assistant

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My mind-bending day as a mentalist's assistant

Published: 23 Jun. 2025, 19:17 Updated: 25 Jun. 2025, 16:31

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Mind reader Joel Bentley holds the newspaper whose front page he attempted to predict. [JOEL BENTLEY]

In a country where newspaper headlines seem to shift by the hour — from a former president abruptly declaring martial law to last-minute Constitutional Court rulings that shake the nation — predicting the news in advance might seem like a fool’s errand. But 41-year-old Joel Bentley, who calls himself a professional “mind reader,” claims otherwise.

A former pharmacy employee in Britain for over 15 years, Bentley practiced magic on the side before earning a degree in psychology and becoming a full-time mentalist. He now performs illusions, mind reading and close-up magic, with shows staged across Britain, Australia, Thailand, Singapore, the United States and Dubai.

But recently, he took on what might've been his biggest challenge yet: He claimed, on Thursday, he could predict the headlines that would be on the front page of Friday's edition of the Korea JoongAng Daily.

Bentley's one-man show, “A Brave New Mind — Magic to Free Your Seoul” is running at Dialogue in central Seoul’s Yongsan District. Pitched as live interactive theater, the show blends psychology, magic, comedy and human connections into a pathway to unlocking audiences’ minds.

I had to see the spectacle for myself, which was how I found myself meeting Bentley's team at a cafe in central Seoul’s Jongno District at 1 p.m. on Thursday.

Bentley presented a small box, tightly wrapped and sealed with layers of tape. Inside, he explained, was a folded sheet of paper along with few other things on which he had written his forecast of Friday’s front page the night before. At that point, not even the newspaper’s executive editor knew what would appear on the front page. The trick would be a one-night affair.

“This works when two people are connected,” Joel explained.

To avoid any tampering or swaps, Joel and I scribbled our signatures all over the box, placed it inside an envelope and taped it shut several times over.

A box containing a piece of paper with headline predictions written by mind reader Joel Bentley [WOO JI-WON]

On Saturday night, I found myself in the front row of Bentley's show. I had brought my friend David — just in case this turned out to be one of those moments worth capturing. As in most magic shows, the lights dimmed and a rainbow of stage lighting flickered across the room, setting a mysterious tone.

Bentley warmed up the audience with a series of interactive and surprising stunts. “What you are about to experience goes beyond what is possible,” Bentley said. “I shall leave up to you to decide whether it is just a trick, whether it is magic, illusion or even synchronicity.”

What followed was a string of increasingly strange and captivating tricks or mind readings — but I’ll leave that decision up to future audiences. He invited two total strangers onstage and asked them to “concentrate” on one another, synchronizing. One volunteer secretly selected a picture from a small stack and the other volunteer, when prompted to describe their emotion, perfectly described the selected image. In another feat, one participant chose a word from a deck of cards and another, blindfolded, flawlessly named the very word they'd picked.

In one segment, Bentley asked David to share his average screen time, his phone’s battery percentage and his most recent Google search — to which David responded, in order: five hours, 66 percent and “card case.” Bentley wrote the responses on a whiteboard and moved on with the show.

Then came the moment we’d all been waiting for.

Joel called David and me to the stage. He asked me to unwrap the heavily taped box. Inside were two folded sheets of paper and a single folded playing card.

When I finally opened the paper with the supposed predictions, what looked like a mix of random words and numbers was written at the top. But looking closer, I realized they were the exact details my friend had given earlier and Joel had written on the board: 5, 66 and card case. I was stunned. David's mouth dropped open in disbelief.

Then I read the headlines written below. The phrasing wasn’t identical, but the content matched the front page of Friday's newspaper — accurately predicting that the government had approved a 20 trillion won ($14.5 billion) stimulus package, that 20 Korean nationals had been evacuated from Iran and even a photo of a bus surrounded by people.

It was mind-blowing. I thought maybe I'd missed something. It seemed impossible.

Joel Bentley's predictions placed on top of the Korea JoongAng Daily [WOO JI-WON]

After the show, I did have to try my luck. I asked: Which stock is about to skyrocket?

Bentley declined with a smile, saying if he told me, “the magic will be lost.”

For others who want to experience the mind-bending action, “A Brave New Mind — Magic to Free Your Seoul” runs every Saturday and Sunday through July 6, with a larger one-night performance at Funtastic Theater on July 11.

BY WOO JI-WON [[email protected]]