He has been entertaining audiences for more than 15 years.
He was only 17 and living in Batu Pahat when he began delving into magic. His interest was sparked by watching a friend doing tricks.
“I didn’t think I was impressive enough as a kid,” he told FMT Lifestyle.
However, he confessed that it was the joy of eliciting wonder from others that fuelled his passion. “Performing a magic trick and having people ask me how I did it made me feel good about myself.”
At first, he worked part-time at a small magic shop in his hometown. A pivotal moment occurred when he got an offer of a full-time job as a magician at a resort. It changed the trajectory of his life.
But it was in 2015 that Tan’s journey took a turn towards mentalism. “All this while, magic to me as a kid was just about sleight of hand or some secret that I knew and others didn’t,” he said. “But with the internet, nothing is a secret anymore.”
It was the enigma of mind magic that fascinated him. “I got very interested in mind magic because it seemed like real magic to me.”
As he delved deeper into the mysteries of the mind, Tan discovered hypnotherapy. And that gave birth to his career as a stage hypnotist. According to him, it’s a learnable skill, much like doing magic tricks.
He has performed across nations and in front of large crowds and has had many memorable experiences. One of these was the transformation of an elderly woman into an alien during hypnosis.
“She was at the show with her children and was very interested to volunteer as a subject on stage,” he said. “She was hypnotised very quickly. When I asked her to imagine herself as an alien, she just went for it, talking in gibberish, getting louder and stranger with her gestures.
“Another time, I asked everyone on the stage to visualise that the audience was naked. When people opened their eyes, they became all shy and kept looking away.”
Speaking about the aftermath of hypnosis, he said: “Most of the time, people are in disbelief that they even did any of the things they did on stage.”
Tan also spoke about hypnosis in the real world, saying hypnotherapy could, for instance, help people quit smoking or overcome phobias.
“Our mind has a critical faculty which basically acts as a wall, filtering messages based on whether they’re logical or not,” he said. “The idea of hypnosis is to suspend that critical faculty and to have messages go in.”
He admitted that hypnosis didn’t work on everyone all the time, but he said there were factors that would contribute to its success, the most important being a sense of willingness from the participant.
He sought to dispel the misconception that hypnosis hinged on having a strong or weak mind. “There’s no such thing.”
He added: “Another misconception is that people think the state of hypnosis is sleeping. It’s not sleeping, but it’s not being awake either.”
Speaking of the allure of magic, he said: “People are so rigid with their thoughts these days. A great magician once said that the reason why you feel magic is amazing is that it brings you back to your childhood. In today’s world, those moments are very precious.”
He remains speculative about the true nature of hypnosis. “To this day, I still wonder whether it’s largely a psychological effect or whether hypnosis is real. I still don’t know. No one does.
“In the years ahead, I will continue to find out which is true.”