Reviews of products by Unnamed Magician
2 ★★★★★ reviews
1 ★★★★★ reviews
3 ★★★★★ reviews
All Products Bundle
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by John Kauth (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Friday 10 October, 2025)
What an incredible value to support a great cause! It appears after a quick run through of the files that most, if not all, of these are card tricks. What makes these exceptional is the Unknown Magician's attention to detail. He goes into great depth, not only explaining a trick but also delving into the mathematics behind it and its variations. There are many card tricks where a portion of the deck is cut off. Most instructions leave it at that. The Unknown Magician explains in great detail why a specific range of cards is needed and the ramifications later on of having too few or too many cards in the pile. (See ACAAN, Another Approach to an Age-Old Plot) The instructions are interesting and exceptionally clear. There is plenty of depth here, and the principles explained can be adapted to create new tricks. I have never encountered tutorials with this much depth, written in an understandable way. I have looked at many of the tutorials, and none require knuckle-busting slights. Highly recommended, and please support this great cause.
All Products Bundle
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Michael Lyth (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Wednesday 08 October, 2025)
As a 66 year old magician who myself suffers with health problems I hope to find many great routines over the winter months to keep mind and hands active and that many wise magicians will purchase to aid raising funds for your family member as I read and learn from each one I will post reviews. I wish your family member a supportive hello from this old man in the UK
The DWS Principle
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Richard Weber
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Tuesday 25 March, 2025)
I used the DWS Principle as the method for my closing effect in my audition act for The Magic Circle yesterday evening. It fooled a room full of magicians. I have been fooling magicians with this method for the past five months. Only once has a magician returned to tell me a close guess.
You can have a lot of fun with this. As I presented it, each of two spectators chose a card from a small packet. These cards were replaced in the deck in such a way that ruled out any possibility that I could have been using any standard methods, such as breaks, crimps, marks, etc. Then each of the spectators shuffled and cut the cards. The quality of my spectators' shuffles were varied. I spread the cards face up, and in about 5 seconds, I had cut the cards back into my hands with the spectators' cards top and bottom. I then produced them as I tossed the deck from one hand to the other. This was all wrapped up in a story about a trick I might have shown Queen Elizabeth II when I sat next to her at lunch. The cards were horses from Her Majesty's stable and we were simulating The Grand National steeplechase.
The Unnamed Magician was kind enough to share this creation with me and involve me in helping him to investigate its workings by computer simulation of shuffling.
Bath Towel Mentalism: on steroids
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by hal barlow (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Thursday 20 February, 2025)
The ad copy should tell you that you need to buy 2 gimmicked decks and one regular deck. [Lybrary.com: Strictly speaking one can get the necessary cards in one particular gimmicked deck plus one regular deck.]
One of Card Magic's Best Kept Secrets
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Maher Alhammad (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Thursday 19 December, 2024)
I am familiar with many methods of working with cards and locating a card, but when I watched the video describing the effects, I couldn't figure out how it was done. Then, one principle came to my mind that might be used, although I couldn't find a way to achieve the same result. I thought these effects were done using a specific principle (which is not well-known), but I was wrong.
The principle used is something I've never encountered before. You will see a full historical overview of this principle in the e-book. So, most of it covers this historical overview. The effects are easy to do with little practice, and they will probably fool many top card magicians and laypersons.
If you are looking for a magician fooler, buy this.
My rating: Effectiveness: 5/5 (especially if it's done to a magician) Easy to do: 4/5 (Not very hard, but not too easy. It'll require some practice) Creativity: 4/5 Secrecy: 5/5 Practicability: 3.5/5
The Exception
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by John Paul (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Saturday 14 December, 2024)
I purchased this effect after coming across discussions of it on a few magic forums. It really does live up to the hype. Often one will find themselves purchasing effects that don’t live up to the hype, or where the ad copy is misleading in some way. Neither of those things was the case here. I can totally see why this fooled many top-flight card guys. As someone who is a fairly knowledgeable card magician themselves, I didn’t have any proper ideas on how this was accomplished when I saw the trailer. The method really surprised me, in a good way.
While I won’t be using this often, simply because I don’t perform for magicians often, this would make for a great performance piece to show your magician friends. It’s meaningless to perform it for lay spectators because they won’t be able to appreciate the impossibility of it, at least not in a way that a magician would be able to.
Even if you don’t ever perform the trick, it’s worth purchasing just to learn the method, which, with some thought, has other uses as well. It’s a powerful and deceptive tool to add to your knowledge.
The Exception
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Tom Vella-Lott (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Friday 13 December, 2024)
I've been a hobbyist magician for nearly 20 years. I've read a lot of books, watched a lot of lectures and tutorials and purchased a lot of products. This has got to be one of my biggest regrets of all time. If it wasn't for the fact some random dude messaged me on reddit asking him if I knew how it was done, I'd have never found this trick. I watched the live performance twice and was intrigued by how fair it seemed so I bought it, I read the PDF and I am actually angry. This is not 100% reliable. There are at least 3 factors that could easily go wrong. The method is impractical and convoluted. I can't say more without hinting at the method but do yourself a favour and don't spend your money on this; Just do Vernon's Emotional Reaction (from Dai Vernon's Inner Secrets of Card Magic) and don't worry about trying to fool magicians. Even if you pulled this off, the effect is so mediocre they'll forget about it in two minutes.
One of Card Magic's Best Kept Secrets
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by martin iraizos
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Friday 06 December, 2024)
I didn’t purchase the PDF, but I emailed the Unnamed Magician asking him if my guess on the method based on watching the trailer was correct. I had my suspicions because I read this method in a book published ages ago. He told me that my guess was correct.
Although it’s been a while since I’ve used this principle, I did perform effects using it quite often back in the day when I first learned it. It’ll require some practice to get the hang of, but nothing too shabby.
It was good to be reminded of the principle after so long. I’ll start incorporating it into my performances again.
One of Card Magic's Best Kept Secrets
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Robert Taxin (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Thursday 05 December, 2024)
I've been performing magic for decades, including in the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus. I've performed in the corporate world and in hotels and theaters. I've busked and performed all over Europe for 3 years during the 1970s. I've been a long-time supporter and client of lybrary.com and have purchased many products. They all presented possibilities for performance; some required a fair amount of practice.
In most purchased explanations we can see video demonstrations of the effect done in real time. Not so in this one. We get written and videoed explanations of the method and a historical account of other references to it. I believe this effect is undoable under performance conditions. I'm very disappointed.
The 'Holy Grail' of Phone Effects
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Wesley Schield (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Saturday 23 November, 2024)
So many tricks do not live up to the hype, this one surpasses it. No misleading wording in the ad, everything is exactly as described. You may present it as written or you have the freedom to personalize it. I’ve performed magic for over 50 years and I have never seen anything like this method used before. I can honestly say that I believe this will fool everyone who sees it, just like it did me.
The Exception
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Darren Purshall
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Friday 14 June, 2024)
I want to preface this by saying that this routine was taught to me by the creator. So, while I did not purchase it, I am in possession of the method. The creator provided me with a review copy.
And it most definitely is the “The Exception.” This trick fooled me so badly. I spent about four weeks on and off trying to crack it, with no avail. When the creator finally taught it to me, I thought to myself, “I’ve never seen anything like it”. Even though part of the method isn’t new, I’ve never seen it used like this before. It’s an exceptionally fooling card trick with lots more potential making it more fooling than it already is. I’ve already added bits myself to make it even stronger and easier to perform for me. The Unnamed Magician is definitely on top of the game with this ingenious gem. So so fooling.
- The best impossible card location I’ve ever seen.
- Great method and a well thought out routine.
- Easy to perform.
- In the PDF you get a second effect and a bonus effect.
- Great Value for the money.
- What more could you ask for?
You will enjoy reading and performing this effect, which will fry the brains of all the onlookers.
The Exception
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Chris Chambers (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Monday 10 June, 2024)
This trick is a great combination of ideas, but only under very specific circumstances which the creator does a reasonably good job of explaining, but not quite well enough IMHO. I am an enthusiast, not a pro, so was very intrigued by the intro and video and subsequently bought the product. About a third of the way into the document I realized it wasn't suited for the way I perform. I do close up card tricks where I am often surrounded by people or outside. This trick is not good for those scenarios. It is best on a single person, or small group who are in front of you, ideally seated. It may be great for others, but isn't for me.
The Exception
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Richard Weber (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Friday 17 May, 2024)
I am familiar with many methods of working with cards, and locating a card, but the method used in this effect is one that I had not come across previously. I purchased this on the first day of release and have enjoyed reading the pdf. The method is indeed devious. The author goes into interesting discussions of why the method is so fooling, and how it compares to other effects using tangentially related ideas.
The effect is primarily designed to fool magicians. Lay spectators would perhaps not appreciate why the conditions are so much more challenging as in a run-of-the-mill card location trick (Dai Vernon's Emotional Reaction, for instance). However, I performed it today for a nonmagician friend and he was greatly entertained. He has seen many of my tricks and told me this is one I should definitely include in my repertoire when performing for friends. He truly believed that I must have been able to divine his card in an extra-sensory manner, especially since I revealed it just after saying "I hope you are still concentrating hard". The video of course only shows the bare-bones procedures of the effect. It can be dressed up to be more entertaining than the video might first suggest.
Behind the Back Divination
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by brian draven
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Wednesday 20 March, 2024)
The owner was kind enough to share the workings of this with me over a recent video session. I own his effect Behind the Back Location which is similar in theme, and I quite like that effect. This one is better IMHO as divinations have a certain presentational hook to them that locations just don’t. My spectators have been enjoying this effect ever since I began to perform it.
It has my highest recommendation. Quick & easy reset and very hard-hitting magic. The demo video is accurate!
Behind the Back Location
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Barrie Segal (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Wednesday 21 February, 2024)
Incredibly complicated from my point of view.
Behind the Back Location
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Tommaso Guglielmi
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Thursday 30 November, 2023)
I was sent a review copy of this not too long ago. It’s an excellent card location effect. It isn’t one for the strolling magician, but for those one-on-one situations where you really want to fry a sharp spectator or stump a magician buddy, this is perfect. Choose your venue wisely and this will be a knock-out as a closer. The effect is just as clean as the advert describes it to be, which is a breath of fresh air among today’s adverts.
Behind the Back Location
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Michael Cook (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Thursday 30 November, 2023)
This isn’t a bad trick at all. For the price it’s a steal. I just wish that in the description it would state that a certain something is needed because not everyone has this. I’ve been into card magic for over 25 years and I’ve never owned what’s needed to perform this. A little disappointed but otherwise a great trick. I just wish creators would specify what’s needed to perform certain effects because it sucks to download a trick then after getting it realize you can’t perform it.
Behind the Back Location
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by brian draven (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Sunday 19 November, 2023)
I purchased this today and it’s exactly as advertised, nothing amiss. It’s exactly as one might visualize it to be. Without giving too much away, I can say that you will definitely be fooling both lay folks and your magic pals with this. I’m surprised a secret this good is being sold for only $5. This is worth a lot more than that. There are 2 very different principles in the mix here that make this mystery possible.