I do a few card tricks that would qualify as mentalism, sort of, involving prediction - they blow the audiences out of the water just as swiftly as the other stuff. The people I often deal with aren't always so sure about whether magic is real or not, honestly. They trust what they see (I daresay too much), and when what they see looks like magic to them, they think they saw magic.
I think that is you get the spectators to think through the patter that mentalism is real (Trust me its not to hard, people believe psychic hotlines are real) you have an impressive trick in a different way to an impressive magic trick. At least in stage magic and mentalism people understand that its not physically possible to cut a lady into 20 parts and put her back together as good as new, and they accept that because they are there to be entertained however I believe that same audience would be more likely to believe mind reading is real rather then a Zig-Zag lady is real for example.
Do you feel naturally drawn to mentalism? If not, then don't do it.
I'd say choose a path and stick to it. Either magic or mentalism.
I feel a draw to both really and feel comfortable with both (Though a full length Mentalism show seems like it would be harder to pull off), was just wondering what everyone else's opinions of the matter were. So thanks for sharing yours