Craig Anthony Filicetti will blow your mind.
Not in a casual way. Not in a “that was cool” kind of way. In a way that lingers. The kind that makes you replay the moment hours later, trying to solve something your brain cannot quite land on.
Because Craig does not start where most people do.
“I perform as a mentalist, and as magicians, we start at impossible,” he says. “If it feels achievable, it’s not interesting. You start with something that shouldn’t be able to happen and then you figure out how to get there.”
It’s not just a philosophy. It’s how he sees the world.
“I’ve had people come to me and say, I need to walk across the Nile, float above a pyramid, disappear in the middle of a live broadcast… and the question isn’t if it’s possible. The question is how do we make it happen.”
He says it like it’s obvious. Because to him, it is.
“Any true innovation looks and feels like magic the first time you see it.”
That line lands differently once you understand what else he’s built.
Craig is the mind behind PitchCom, the communication system now used across Major League Baseball. Every team. Every game. Every pitch.
At its surface, it replaces hand signals. The catcher presses a button, and the pitcher hears the call instantly through a receiver embedded inside his cap. Pitch type. Location. Immediate delivery.
No signs, no decoding, no second guessing.
But that’s only part of it.
PitchCom isn’t just used for plays. It’s used for mindset.
“They’re allowed to use it for whatever they want to do,” Craig explains. “They do motivational things… good job, nice job, get back in the game, get your head in the game.”
It becomes internal dialogue.
“They’re not thinking about the process anymore. They can focus on execution.”
That’s the shift.
Before PitchCom, Craig says the game wasn’t just physical, it was mental overload. Catchers memorizing layers of signals. Pitchers trying to decode in seconds. Entire at-bats shaped by hesitation, doubt, and noise.
“Catchers are sitting there trying to figure out what inning it is, how many outs there are… and they have two seconds to make that decision,” he says.
Now, the moment slows down.
“He throws the ball back, hits a button, and now he knows exactly what’s coming. Now he has time. He can think. He can visualize.”
Now, the game is nearly forty minutes faster, but according to Craig, the real impact isn’t speed, it’s integrity. The layers of sign stealing, video recording, and decoding that once created constant suspicion are gone, replaced with something direct and secure where players can trust the call and focus purely on execution.
“They really, really trust us,” he says.
That’s what Craig does at scale.
Then you meet him.
And realize he’s doing the exact same thing, just on a smaller stage.
He asks you to think of something personal. A memory. A name. A place.
You write it down. You seal it in an envelope.
And somehow… he knows.
“I’m not a psychic,” he says. “I use observation, persuasion, and a certain amount of gut feel to give kind of an illusion of mind reading.”
He’s not guessing. He’s reading.
He’s often asked the same question.
Do you look people up beforehand. Do you research them. Do you already know everything before you walk into a room.
“No,” he says.
“I don’t do any social media research. I don’t know who’s going to be in the room.”
What he does happens in real time.
“The information is already there,” he says. “People are giving it to you constantly. You just have to see it.”
“People think I’m listening. I’m not. I’m watching.”
That’s where it shifts.
Because what he’s doing isn’t mystical. It’s behavioral.
“You are always giving off information. You just don’t realize it.”
And if you sit with him long enough, he’ll show you exactly how.
It starts with the eyes.
“If you look to the left, that’s the past. If you look to the right, that’s the future,” he explains.
It’s subtle. Not something you’d notice on your own, but consistent.
“If you look up to the left, that’s something happy in your past. Up to the right, you’re thinking about something that hasn’t happened yet.”
Then it sharpens.
“Down to the left, you’re processing… or thinking about how you’re going to get out of something.”
That’s where people slip.
Not in what they say, but in what happens just before they say it.
“There’s always a moment before someone speaks,” he says. “That moment is where everything is.”
Micro-expressions layer on top of that.
Blink rate. Eye tension. The smallest shifts in the face.
“That’s why they measure blink rate with presidential candidates,” he says. “If they blink too much, they’re over-processing.”
Trying to calculate. Trying to control. Trying to manage perception.
Your body gives that away, even when your words don’t.
And then there’s something almost no one pays attention to.
Feet.
“Your feet are definitely showing your intention,” he says. “Where you’re going next.”
Body position matters, but not in isolation.
If someone is slightly turned away, it can signal disengagement. If they’re open and aligned, it usually means the opposite.
But context matters.
“Everything is relative,” he says. “You have to understand the situation.”
It’s not one signal.
It’s patterns.
He’ll show you.
He asks you to think of a number, then hands you a die and tells you to turn it so your number is facing up. A private thought becomes something physical, and once that happens, it’s harder to conceal.
“Once you physically do something, it’s no longer just in your head… now it shows,” he explains.
Then he runs through numbers one by one, asking you to say no to all of them, even the correct one. Your answer stays consistent, but your body doesn’t.
“You’re telling the truth five times and lying once,” he says. “But once we pass your number, you release.”
That’s what he’s watching.
The release.
A breath. A shift. A drop in tension.
He sees it.
“It’s a two.”
And it is.
That’s when it stops feeling like magic and starts feeling like precision.
“I truly believe anybody can probably learn to do what I do. I don’t feel like I have a special power.”
What he has is attention.
And it started long before any stage.
Craig grew up in Scottsdale, near Thomas and 62nd Street, and went to Scottsdale High School.
“I was always intrigued with the way things worked,” he says. “That’s what I liked about magic.”
He spent hours in magic shops as a kid, then left it behind for twenty-five years in engineering until one moment brought it back.
“My son had bring your dad to school day… and I just said, this is horrible.”
So he pivoted.
“I drove to Isley’s, bought a few tricks, and went in and did a magic show.”
It wasn’t a plan. It was instinct.
“They remembered it a year later. That impacts you. It makes big creases in your brain. You keep thinking… how.”
That question never left.
It just evolved.
And in many ways, it’s a return.
A return to the younger version of himself who was curious enough to keep asking why, and patient enough to keep looking for the answer.
Not reinvention, but reconnection.
The reminder that the things that pull you in early, the ones you can’t quite explain but keep coming back to, are usually the ones worth following.
Because whether it’s a pitcher on the mound or a stranger across from him, Craig is doing the same thing.
Understanding behavior.
Removing friction.
Creating clarity.
And reading what most people don’t even realize they’re showing.
“You just need to start noticing something,” he says.
“And once you do, it builds.”
That’s what stays with you.
Not just that he got it right.
But that you begin to understand how.
At least a little more than you did before.
Craig still performs today; private events, corporate rooms, audiences who aren’t just looking to be entertained, but to be challenged.
To see something they can’t explain.
To feel something they can’t unsee.
He smiles.
“Believe in magic.”
Want more? Tap into Craig Anthony Filicetti on the nationally syndicated Now with Nadine podcast and rethink everything you thought you knew. Streaming everywhere.