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Fundamentals
by Bob Cassidy


#2 Patter, Plots & Scripts author
$29

(1 review, 22 customer ratings) ★★★★

PDF | by download [0.70 MByte]  
Fundamentals by Bob Cassidy

"I consider this my best and most favorite ebook I ever wrote." - Bob Cassidy

The foundations of mentalism. Acclaimed as "a definitive resource for all who are interested in mentalism and probably for most in magic generally." Bob's list of 39 most important books to read, which is included in this ebook, is by itself hugely valuable, because you not only get a list of books but the reasons why each one of them is so important. This allows you to judge for yourself if you should read a particular book or not. Fundamentals can be seen as Bob's extraction of the most important concepts from these 39 books.

This list of 39 books, or as Bob calls it "The 39 Steps to Mentalism" can be read here.

Bob mentioned during an interview that this ebook has an unfortunate name, because many will look at it and think: "Fundamentals - oh I already know all the basics." However, these are not just the fundamentals for beginners, these are primarily the fundamentals that intermediate level and advanced level mentalists need to understand and internalize. Most questions mentalists have are answered in this ebook.

1st edition 2002; updated 2005; 89 pages

  1. Preface
  2. Introduction
  3. How it All Began
  4. A Few Members of the Original Cast of Characters
  5. Overview
  6. The Psychology of Mentalism
  7. Plausibility
  8. The Path to Mastery
  9. A Note on Rehearsal
  10. Fundamental Structures
  11. Common Misunderstandings
  12. The Opening Effect Comes Second
  13. Some Fundamental Principles
  14. The Bulldog Deck and The Scary Movie Routine
  15. A Fundamental Psychological Ploy
  16. A Thought to Ponder
  17. The Shuttled Newspaper Test
  18. Get the Lead Out
  19. Three Canisters and a Bill
  20. An Essential Secret
  21. Handling
  22. Quiz
  23. An Introduction to the Interaction of Physical, Psychological and Presentational Principles in the Performance of Mentalism
  24. "A Startling Thought Reading Effect"
  25. An Interesting Fact
  26. Activity Time with Dr. Bob
  27. A Startling Thought Reading Effect
  28. Commercially Available Effects and Gimmicks
  29. Persona and Subscript – the Keys to Believability
  30. The Subscript
  31. Riding the Web
  32. The Thirty-Nine Steps
  33. Some Thoughts on Performing

word count: 32314 which is equivalent to 129 standard pages of text


Reviewed by Chet Cox (confirmed purchase)
★★★★★   Date Added: Sunday 15 July, 2012

My only complaint is that the rating system here at Lybrary.com only goes up to "good." This should be rated "outstanding" at the very least.

There are only two books you NEED to read to become a good mentalist. This is one of them. Add Osterlind's "the Principles of Mentalism" to Cassidy's "Fundamentals" and you have available to you the best advice gleaned from the best experience of two lifetimes.

If I had to pick just ONE to start with, it would be "Fundamentals." (But don't cheat yourself. Get both.)

Within these pages, Bob recommends a different book for those who want to really learn to perform mentalism well. He's wrong, but it wasn't his fault. "Fundamentals" hadn't been published yet - and "Fundamentals" is the first book you want.

Best of luck finding a mentalism book BETTER than this one.