minds

It all started with a cup of coffee … and a blindfolded clairvoyant.

As he sat beside me in a cafe booth, mentalist Thommy Ten asked me to take out some items from my bag at random.

Rummaging through pens and chargers, I wanted to find something that Amélie van Tass, his stage partner and wife, might struggle to predict as she faced away from us. I handed Ten my passport, my wallet and a bag of almonds.

Talking toward the wall, Van Tass said, “It’s an ID … is that a passport?” She was right. “And it expires April 2033?” I didn’t even know that — I checked and apparently, it does.

Van Tass quickly guessed the bag of nuts. It was when she started accurately rattling off my license and Visa card numbers that the phrase “sixth sense” came to my mind.

The Clairvoyants perform mentalism, the branch of magic that encapsulates all things mind-reading, precognition and extrasensory perception. The duo’s performances are theatrical and often break the fourth wall. They choose audience members at random and can accurately guess their birthdays, their hotel room numbers and the exact dollar amount they won after a night in Vegas. Many shows incorporate their dog, crowd favorite Mr. Koni Hundini. Of the trio, he messes up the most, but the people “still love him,” said Ten.

Ten and Van Tass are best known for coming in second place on Season 11 of NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” in 2016. They also appeared on two “AGT” spinoffs. Since then, they’ve headlined tours and Vegas residencies, drawing international recognition in the magic world.

The couple took a brief break from performing in late 2024 to expand their family. “It was always clear, we don’t want to give up our job,” Van Tass said. “They’re just part of the whole circus. We love to call it a circus because now we have two dogs and one baby.”

Amélie van Tass and Thommy Ten at home with their baby boy, enjoying downtime during their Vegas residency.

(Lukas Rauch)

Ten and Van Tass’ 8-month-old baby boy joins the Clairvoyants in their travels, but not on the stage. “We try to be as normal as possible when we’re at home. We’re just Mom and Dad and not the Clairvoyants,” Van Tass said. Ten added, “Of course, we try to keep it comfortable for him, for the dogs and for us. We don’t go crazy with seven shows in seven states a week. We limit it to weekends now.”

It’s only fitting that the “circus” headed to Vegas for the Clairvoyants’ U.S. comeback. The duo recently joined “AGT” champion magician Shin Lim in his Las Vegas residency with an act that merged their mental magic with Lim’s sleight of hand. The Clairvoyants will hit the road once again in late October for a winter tour, which includes a Dec. 20 show in San Jacinto.

Beyond their innovative psychic acts, the Clairvoyants have always challenged stereotypes about magic shows. “There’s always this picture of a magician and the assistant bringing tables in and out,” Ten said. “That’s the basic understanding of a magician. Our thing was always that we wanted to be equal on stage.”

Ten and Van Tass, both 38, bring different talents to the act. “You do more of the magic, magic stuff,” Van Tass said to Ten. “And I’m more the mind reading and feeling and sensing things, which I think is a female thing too.”

The couple first crossed paths on a set in 2011 — they started brainstorming a two-person magic act the next day. Less than a year later, the duo performed their first show, “Second Sight.” It was the first step in carving out their niche, the modern, theatrical mentalism that has since become their signature act.

The Clairvoyants soon began touring Europe, expanding their routine into a full-length show within the year. In 2014, they brought the tour to America, where they joined “The Illusionists,” the world’s largest traveling magic show. Two years later, they went even bigger: “America’s Got Talent.”

Over four months on “AGT,” the Clairvoyants performed eight times and beat out more than 100,000 other contestants. The duo came in second, behind singer Grace VanderWaal. Every episode of their season of “AGT” ranked No. 1 in its NBC time slot. “Suddenly, our season was watched by 16, 17 million viewers,” said Ten. With so many people tuning in and voting from home, the Clairvoyants became a household name.

They also returned in 2019 for the spinoff “America’s Got Talent: The Champions” and in 2024 for “America’s Got Talent: Fantasy League.” They were eliminated in the preliminary round on both shows.

“In our genre, mentalism, mind-reading, it’s normally very small. Like in a parlor setting or a face-to-face thing,” said Ten. “Our dream was always to make it big so we can perform in front of thousands of people. It should still feel like everybody’s part of it; everyone can be involved.”

While their “AGT” appearance opened doors to Broadway and tours worldwide, they aspired for more. From 2021 to 2022, the Clairvoyants performed 500 shows in one year. After the birth of their son, they performed five to 10 shows a week in Vegas. Their upcoming U.S. tour will take them cross-country over the holidays.

The fanbase they built from “AGT” added a layer of both excitement and pressure, but it isn’t necessarily what keeps the Clairvoyants moving at such an impressive pace.

“We have performed in front of 20 people and were as excited as we would have been in front of 20,000 people,” Van Tass said. “I’m most excited when I know that there are good friends and family in the audience.”

Amelie van Tass dazzles her audience on a swing, predicting the unknowable while blindfolded.

(Lukas Rauch)

The Clairvoyants didn’t just want a bigger audience, they needed one. Their spectacular stage performances couldn’t have possibly worked in the parlor rooms of the past. Performance highlights include Van Tass showcasing her mental magic while submerged in 2,000 liters of water, using a flamethrower and even being suspended in the air, à la Cirque du Soleil.

The Clairvoyants strive to make their show special to each audience member, every night. “They make it possible that we can do what we do. Every single person deserves the best version and 100%,” said Van Tass. Fans’ experiences are the key to keeping the magic alive — and keeping it confidential. Of course, the Clairvoyants can’t reveal their secrets, but that doesn’t stop viewers from speculating. One theory suggests that audience members are paid participants. But when a blindfolded Van Tass predicts what you have in hand, and you know you aren’t in on it, that theory falls apart.

Originally from Austria, the couple spends half the year performing in Europe and the other half in the U.S. — in Vegas or on tour. With German as their first language, English as their second and the “tiny bit of Spanish” Van Tass speaks, the Clairvoyants are prepared to acclimate. “It’s important that at least we have a couple of words in different languages to adapt to people and to new countries,” Van Tass said.

Performing worldwide has earned the duo awards from across Europe and the U.S. In 2015 they were dubbed the World Champions of Mentalism by the FISM, one of the most respected international magic organizations. In 2017, the Academy of Magical Arts and the Magic Castle Hollywood voted Ten and Van Tass Stage Magicians of the Year. In 2020 they received the Mandrakes d’Or — France’s “Oscar of magic.”

From their pre-”AGT” tours to their Las Vegas residency, the Clairvoyants have a long streak of reading minds and blowing minds too. And the pair shows no signs of slowing down. Their ambitious winter tour aims to spread holiday magic from coast to coast.

“We just want to take people and bring them into our magical world,” said Van Tass. “Just let them forget everything and feel like kids again.”

National Public Radio journalist Felix Contreras, best known for chronicling Latino music in his podcast “Alt.Latino,” will be honored this year at the 38th annual Hispanic Heritage Awards.

The Hispanic Heritage Foundation named Contreras as a recipient of the 2025 Hispanic Heritage Award for journalism on Thursday, one of several honors bestowed on notable public figures for their accomplishments and cultural contributions to the Latino communities.

Past awardees at the Hispanic Heritage Awards include Bad Bunny, America Ferrera, Becky G, J Balvin and others; Contreras is one of the few journalists to receive the esteemed honor, one he says is hard for him to accept.

“We learn early on that [journalists] are not supposed to be the story,” explains Contreras in a phone call with The Times. “That’s the largest stumbling block as to why I’m having a difficult time accepting this accolade.”

Known among friends and colleagues as “Tío Felix,” a familial term of endearment, Contreras has been a dedicated reporter for close to 50 years. Born and raised in Sacramento, he began his journalistic career as a TV news photographer for the NBC affiliate station in Fresno until 1998, later transitioning to NBC News in Miami.

“My point has always been to tell our Latino stories through the news, good or bad,” he says.

Contreras began working for NPR in 2001 as a producer and reporter for the news arts desk. In 2010, he co-created the innovative “Alt.Latino” radio program and podcast alongside NPR’s current immigration correspondent Jasmine Garsd. It was a way to fill the dearth of coverage of alternative Latino music — Spanish-language stations gave little airtime to alternative rock groups such as Los Fabulosos Cadillacs or Café Tacvba, says Contreras. Their first guest on the show was a young, then-burgeoning artist from Colombia named Juanes, who appeared just after releasing his debut album, “Fíjate Bien.”

At first, it was an uphill battle to get artists to recognize the podcast’s cultural significance. “ We had to beg people to send us their CDs,” Contreras admits.

Now in its 15th year, “Alt.Latino” has become a go-to hub for Latin music enthusiasts looking to learn more on the rise of musica mexicana, the rumblings of Latin jazz, the transformation of Latin rock and more.

“Independent artists, alternative artists, even some pop artists now consider ‘Alt.Latino’ and NPR as a viable source to get their artist seen or heard,” Contreras says.

To this day, Contreras continues in his role as co-host of “Alt.Latino,” now alongside Tiny Desk producer Anamaria Sayre, who says she cried when she heard Contreras was being recognized.

“ Felix created space for us in the music media landscape in where there wasn’t previously,” says Sayre, who has been working with Contreras since 2023. “He did it with no one telling him that what he was doing was valuable.”

The 38th annual Hispanic Heritage Awards will take place on Sept. 4 at the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C.

Researchers at Stanford University recently tested out some of the more popular AI tools on the market, from companies like OpenAI and Character.ai, and tested how they did at simulating therapy.

The researchers found that when they imitated someone who had suicidal intentions, these tools were more than unhelpful — they failed to notice they were helping that person plan their own death.

“[AI] systems are being used as companions, thought-partners, confidants, coaches, and therapists,” says Nicholas Haber, an assistant professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and senior author of the new study. “These aren’t niche uses – this is happening at scale.”

AI is becoming more and more ingrained in people’s lives and is being deployed in scientific research in areas as wide-ranging as cancer and climate change. There is also some debate that it could cause the end of humanity.

As this technology continues to be adopted for different purposes, a major question that remains is how it will begin to affect the human mind. People regularly interacting with AI is such a new phenomena that there has not been enough time for scientists to thoroughly study how it might be affecting human psychology. Psychology experts, however, have many concerns about its potential impact.

One concerning instance of how this is playing out can be seen on the popular community network Reddit. According to 404 Media, some users have been banned from an AI-focused subreddit recently because they have started to believe that AI is god-like or that it is making them god-like.

“This looks like someone with issues with cognitive functioning or delusional tendencies associated with mania or schizophrenia interacting with large language models,” says Johannes Eichstaedt, an assistant professor in psychology at Stanford University. “With schizophrenia, people might make absurd statements about the world, and these LLMs are a little too sycophantic. You have these confirmatory interactions between psychopathology and large language models.”

Because the developers of these AI tools want people to enjoy using them and continue to use them, they’ve been programmed in a way that makes them tend to agree with the user. While these tools might correct some factual mistakes the user might make, they try to present as friendly and affirming. This can be problematic if the person using the tool is spiralling or going down a rabbit hole.

“It can fuel thoughts that are not accurate or not based in reality,” says Regan Gurung, social psychologist at Oregon State University. “The problem with AI — these large language models that are mirroring human talk — is that they’re reinforcing. They give people what the programme thinks should follow next. That’s where it gets problematic.”

As with social media, AI may also make matters worse for people suffering from common mental health issues like anxiety or depression. This may become even more apparent as AI continues to become more integrated in different aspects of our lives.

“If you’re coming to an interaction with mental health concerns, then you might find that those concerns will actually be accelerated,” says Stephen Aguilar, an associate professor of education at the University of Southern California.

Need for more research

There’s also the issue of how AI could impact learning or memory. A student who uses AI to write every paper for school is not going to learn as much as one that does not. However, even using AI lightly could reduce some information retention, and using AI for daily activities could reduce how much people are aware of what they’re doing in a given moment.

“What we are seeing is there is the possibility that people can become cognitively lazy,” Aguilar says. “If you ask a question and get an answer, your next step should be to interrogate that answer, but that additional step often isn’t taken. You get an atrophy of critical thinking.”

Lots of people use Google Maps to get around their town or city. Many have found that it has made them less aware of where they’re going or how to get there compared to when they had to pay close attention to their route. Similar issues could arise for people with AI being used so often.

The experts studying these effects say more research is needed to address these concerns. Eichstaedt said psychology experts should start doing this kind of research now, before AI starts doing harm in unexpected ways so that people can be prepared and try to address each concern that arises. People also need to be educated on what AI can do well and what it cannot do well.

“We need more research,” says Aguilar. “And everyone should have a working understanding of what large language models are.”