What exactly it is that Senehi does is difficult to classify. He is certainly more than a magician, as his acts go beyond sleight of hand to incorporate mind reading, telepathy and telekinesis. His class of performers are typically referred to as 'mentalists,' but Senehi himself likes to take this term a bit further
The scientific performer
"The qualities that I aspire to is a combination of a scientist and a performer," he said. Senehi prides himself on being, as his website, www.experimentalist.com, describes it, "willing to boldly risk stretching the very fabric of reality to discover a place where entertainment happens in an altogether different dimension."
Senehi stretches reality through a stunning repertoire of astonishing stunts that include changing the time on audience members' watches, bending coins and spoons while they're in their owners' hands and levitating cigarettes borrowed from members of the audience. In his trademark act, he asks a volunteer to squeeze the stem of a wine glass. When he lets go, the stem is bent at an angle, defying the laws of physics.
What makes Senehi's performances so out-of-the-ordinary is the honesty with which he tries to make believers out of his audience. Allen Zingg, a fellow mentalist, commended his colleague's skill. "When Gerard performs, it's almost like the absence of a performance," said Zingg. Senehi's performances involve very little chit-chat and, unlike many in his profession, he doesn't double as a comedian.
Senehi offers an explanation for his abilities. "We all have experiences that we can't understand," he said. "Since I experiment with it more, of course it's going to happen to me more often."
Senehi's aura of mystery is also enhanced by his soft-spoken demeanor and the earnestness with which he answers the audience's questions. When Senehi is asked how he performed a certain piece, his favorite response is "I don't know." Senehi says that answer is actually factual. "There's a small percentage of things I do in my shows that require no skill whatsoever," he said. "You could call it intuition, definitely. Or maybe guesswork. But there are things that happen that I can't explain."
Up close and personal
Senehi is also one of the only mentalists who performs in the close-up atmosphere that he refers to as "walk-around" that makes his act that much more believable. Even more amazing is the amount of improvisation that Senehi brings to his performances. "I'm not the kind of performer who has his whole act lined up like in a play," he said.
In addition to these techniques, Senehi's performances are especially powerful because of the way he forces the audience to think. "The way that I perform, I try to do it in a way that the audience's theories are dispelled," he said. "I did one show for the most jaded New York group. The first two or three minutes they were sitting back in the chairs with the attitude, 'We're going to have to sit through this,' but by the end of the show they were all talking to each other."
Senehi's intimacy with his audiences helps him to get them talking. For instance, bending a glass through 'telekinesis' is much more believable if the audience member is holding the glass in his hand while it happens.
At a private party for a skeptical group, Senehi took a card out of a deck, throwing it face down on a table. Senehi then said to a man sitting across from him, "I want you to try to name that card. Name it. Don't think. Just name it." After a long pause, the man looked at Senehi and replied, "Three of clubs." Senehi instructed the man to turn over the card. Sure enough the man flipped over the card to reveal the three of clubs.
"No way. No way, no way, no way. How'd you do that?" the man responded incredulously.
"Honestly," Senehi replied, "I'm not sure."
He's even done it to me
When I was wrapping up my phone interview with Senehi, he told me he wanted to give me a sense of what he does. He asked me to think of someone close to me and then to think of the person's Zodiac sign. The only person whose sign I knew was my mother's since we were both born in July and are Cancers. Senehi asked me to mix up the letters and write them down. I flipped past my notes from the interview and scribbled 'naccer' on a new page. He then asked me to concentrate on what I had written. He started naming letters, first a "C," then "R" then "N." Finally, he asked me to visualize the Zodiac symbol. He immediately guessed Cancer. It was his first try. I have no idea how he could have known that.
Senehi's ability to leave audiences with a blend of amazement and bewilderedness has made him a successful corporate entertainer, commanding up to $10 thousand dollars per performance. He has performed all over the world and on television, in Last Call with Carson Daly. He has also appeared in front of Prince Andrew of England and Prince Albert of Monaco, pop stars Billy Joel and Diana Ross and corporate hotshots like the CEOs of Merrill Lynch, Starbucks and Deutsch Bank. He has received rave reviews wherever he has performed.
He wasn't always famous
While it would be nice to attribute all of Senehi's success to a B.A. degree, the story of how he came to his profession starts much earlier. Senehi was born in Paris to two Iranian emigres. His father passed away when he was a year old, and Senehi was sent to live with a governess in Switzerland. He received his early education there and by the time he moved to the United States at the age of 12, he spoke six languages.
By the time Senehi came to Amherst, he had already taken up an interest in magic. "I didn't make a big thing about my interest in college," he said. One person Senehi did discuss magic with was his Resident Counselor in Stearns dormitory, Bill Herz. As skilled as Senehi was, Herz was an even more impressive magician. "I thought I was pretty good," Senehi admitted. "But when I saw him I was totally blown away."
Despite this experience, and despite his studies in paranormal phenomena while at Amherst, Senehi did not start his career as a mentalist immediately after graduating in 1982. Instead, he worked as a teacher, and later as a graphic designer. Thirteen years after graduating, Senehi moved to Tel Aviv, Israel, where he found that the $3 an hour he was making as a graphic designer was not enough to support himself. To make extra money, Senehi began to perform on the streets. This led to the first break of Senehi's new career. "The first show I got came from someone who saw me on the streets," he said.
Soon after Senehi's act began to gain popularity, he moved to New York City to try his luck. At first Senehi tried to work in the streets as he had done in Tel Aviv, but he did not have much success. Finally, Senehi was able to get in touch with an event planner. After a brief meeting with the planner, Senehi managed to get his first show in New York. He would be performing at the Waldorf-Astoria. When Senehi got to the show, he discovered that one of the magicians that he was performing with was none other than his RC from freshman year, Bill Herz. "He was phenomenal. He's now probably the biggest corporate magician in the world," Senehi said of Herz. "We've become really good friends since then."
Since that performance at the Waldorf-Astoria with Herz, Senehi has enjoyed many successes and has come into contact with many old Amherst buddies. "I've had quite a bit of contact with college friends," he said. "I've renewed quite a few friendships because of my work."
More recently, Senehi has begun spending much of his time in Lenox, Mass. where he lives in a group house working with an organization called the Evolutionary Enlightenment Fellowship (EEF). The EEF is helping Senehi to begin to understand what spirituality really is. "You're supposed to know what you want in life," he said. "But a traditional education doesn't tell you what the purpose of life is."
Senehi described the organization as "a non-profit organization interested in the future of humanity and being able to meet that future from an enlightened perspective. It's about a commitment to living beyond ego. That's what the challenge is."