Reviews: Read What Others Are Saying: page 46
169 ★★★★★ reviews
120 ★★★★★ reviews
78 ★★★★★ reviews
122 ★★★★★ reviews
Silent Words
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Michael Lyth (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Monday 15 August, 2016)
A Mind stimulating idea with many possible presentation possibilities limited only by your own creative mind. After reading I made the effect up straight away to practice. Whats sleep?
The Funniest Three Card Monte in the World
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Larry Brodahl (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Monday 15 August, 2016)
What a cute, clever trick. The handling is easy-peasy, the jokes and set ups are clever, and it resets so quickly. Even the concepts and presentational ideas are transferable to other routines.
I like it!
Definitely a good purchase.
Number 5
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Christian Fisanick (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Sunday 14 August, 2016)
While Number 5 may look simplistic when cut down to the actual method of the effect, but when coupled with a good presentation, you'll have a powerful routine of Tarot reading or numerology--and an excellent prediction To say more would be to ruin the surprise of reading this wonderful ebook. I would ordinarily say that it's going right in my wallet for the impromptu act, but you don't need to prepare anything so you don't even need the wallet. (I think that I will alternate this with Lee Earle's Life Force, another self-worker that gives you great latitude to do a numerology reading.) All you need are two business cards or two slips of paper and a pen. How's that for nearly propless imromptu mentalism? This is clearly a professional routine devised by a professional. Amateurs won't spend the time to get the presentation down and will just jump right to the prediction. That would be a shame because as a previous reviewer said, the power of Number 5 is that it's about the reading and then the great prediction, which doesn't seem tacked on at all. For impromptu mentalism, you can't beat this highly recommended routine.
Silent Words
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Christian Fisanick (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Sunday 14 August, 2016)
This is a mentalism routine that you can do in two, three, or four parts. It's extremely smart, baffling, and versatile. In the first phase, an advanced version of a prodigal principle is used, or as the Unknown Mentalist puts it, it's done in a "turbo" way. That it is. Applause. Well done! This principle by itself is worth the price of the ebook. The second phase uses an old-school counting principle that I personally don't like. I will most likely use a sleight here--or you could a Scott Creasey-style gimmicked envelope or even a variation on Reg Blackwood's X-Way Pad--but it's up to you. This is all quite flexible, depending on how you want to do this. The optional third phase uses one of my favorite cool items that wasn't manufactured with magic in mind, but it's perfect for magicians and mentalists. And the optional "encore" phase is the fundamental or un-turbo handling of phase one. This really is a terrific routine, whether you do it the whole way through or only in a shortened version. While it's not complicated as these types of processes go, you will need a little bit of memory work and practice. Otherwise, you've have close-up mentalism at its finest. Highly recommended.
The Complete Eye-Openers
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Michael Lyth (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Sunday 14 August, 2016)
I almost forgot this book was missing from collection of books loaned to other magician only to never find its way home but this much easier to read, re read and practice and perform the quality contents
been sold sepperatly as PDF's at a higher price so more than definatley value for money
Psychic Match Divination
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Ronald M Levy
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Saturday 06 August, 2016)
An Astounding mentalism effect on a small personal scale. They will never figure out how the mentalist knew what color they picked. A classy pocket trick. Don't let the inexpensive props cause you to think that this is anything but very clever amazement. Devin has put together a good trick at a bargain basement price.
The Skeleton of Jekyll and Hyde
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Ronald M Levy
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Saturday 06 August, 2016)
This is a baffling effect where the performer and the participant, while separated choose the same word from the same page of dictionary, under conditions that should make this impossible. This uses a secret method that is old enough that today’s spectators would never think of it. This is an excellent effect for a house party or other small gathering when you want them to say: “How did you do that?”
Introduction to Coin Magic
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Chet Cox (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Friday 05 August, 2016)
This may be a classic example of "That's too simple to fool anyone" - but it does. It will fool your own self as you watch yourself practice.
The best part of the lessons is probably the lesson you learn almost unconsciously: you learn to enjoy practicing, and you see real improvement as you consistently practice.
It's not knuckle-busting - but it IS darned good magic.
Triple Play
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Christopher Weber
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Wednesday 03 August, 2016)
It is as always great to see new items from Paul Lelekis. The Triple Play does not disappoint! You'll learn something new about card conjuring and ways to improve your presentation as well. These three effects are fun to learn and as with all of Paul's card magic they are clearly explained and are very direct and straight forward. The slights Paul teaches are all very economical. No unnecessary moves so there can be more concentration on the provided patter, presentation material and the overall flow of the effect. My personal favorite is "Parallel Universe". This is a cool paradox effect that lends itself to inspire you to come up with some fun presentation ideas of your own. Have some fun with it! Paul's work on "The Bluff Pass" is outstanding and alone worth the price of this ebook. Finally a clear explanation that in addition teaches several great nuances that will eliminate any fears you have of performing this great utility move and enable you to perform it with 100% confidence. Triple Play hits a Home Run!
DIY I-Pad: Do It Yourself Impression Pad
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Christian Fisanick (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Monday 01 August, 2016)
Excellent, excellent, excellent. That's all I really need to say about Scott Creasey's video instructions for making your own imp pad. All you need to do is get a bunch of cheap pads and a three-piece set of one special thing that you can buy on Amazon for about $12.50, but it's enough to make you at least a half-dozen DIY I-Pads. I currently use Mark Elsdon's commercially manufactured Spy Pad, which is very similar in concept. It costs $40, as I recall, and while refills are about half that, you have to use a refill after about 50 uses. With Scott's DIY I-Pad, once you buy your special thing pack for $12.50, you are pretty much set for years. All you have to do is buy up some cheap pads that cost a couple of bucks at OfficeMax. As soon as my Amazon order arrives and I use up my current Spy Pad, I'm a convert. This is the best impression device for the money.
The Single White Dwarf
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Christian Fisanick (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Monday 01 August, 2016)
Scott Creasey outdoes himself with the latest of his DIY gimmicked-envelope videos. If you have any of Scott's other ebooks and videos from lybrary, you already know that he (1) really knows his stuff; (2) has brilliantly creative ideas for gimmicked envelopes; and (3) produces excellent instructional videos with good production values. Expanding upon and refining a Bob Cassidy envelope concept, he shows you how to make--in about five minutes--a peek envelope. We're not talking window envelope, Shaxon envelope, or one using a tricky impression gimmick. It's a single opaque mailing envelope, plain and simple. And it's exceedingly clean and clever. In addition to the construction instructions--easy enough for a pre-schooler with round-nosed scissors and a glue stick to follow--he gives you three routines. Two are classic Cassidy routines--Name and Place and 4th Dimensional Telepathy--that once you see how the envelope works, you'll wonder why you've been doing the original versions with all the "moves" and "subtleties" all these years. Switch to the Single White Dwarf envelope, and you don't have to do much of anything to accomplish these mental miracles. The third is Scott's own routine which makes the spectator the psychic. If you build up the patter as he does, it's a cute and mysterious routine I like it.
Now truth be told, I know of an even lazier version of a Single White Dwarf envelope that takes no construction whatsoever, but let's just say it's a little touchy and not as clean. Scott's envelope, while ever-so-slightly more complicated, is better. Once you see how it works, you'll go, "Of course it logically works that way. Why didn't I come up with that? That's terrific!" This is highly recommended because you are going to want a few of these in your mentalism bag at all times. They are worth their weight in gold.
Triple Play
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Roy Eidem
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Monday 01 August, 2016)
Paul is a Card Guy's Card Guy. You will entertain with these magical gems. The work on the Bluff Pass alone is worth the paltry price.
The Ultimate Page Force
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Ronald M Levy
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Monday 01 August, 2016)
I have always wanted to learn a way to force a page from an ordinary book by riffling the pages and having the participant call: “Stop!” All of the methods I had tried either looked contrived, or were not what a real mindreader would do, like throw dice to get a page number. Then I read Devin Knight’s “The Ultimate Page Force “ and finally found what I had been searching for. This is easy, (although like good magic, practice in front of a mirror is needed), and it looks natural, does not appear contrived, and looks like what a real mindreader would do. The excellent photographs that illustrate the step-by-step performance of the method are priceless, and complement the clarity of his explanation.
Devin Knight has given a true Utility that opens the door to the performance of many baffling and entertaining effects.
Production from Any Ungimmicked Magazine
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Ronald M Levy
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Monday 01 August, 2016)
How often have you watched magicians amaze you by producing something substantial, seemingly out of empty space. Devin Knight explains how you can produce a glass of spring flowers or silks from what is shown to the audience as a flat everyday magazine. The magazine is unprepared and there are no body loads. Merely tear off the back cover, forming it into a tube, and right there on your hand you can raise the tube and amazingly produce a variety of items.
This is well written and clearly explained with Devin’s helpful diagrams. The audience will be amazed that so much could be mysteriously tucked somehow in a flat ordinary magazine.
Ostrakinda
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Gerard Zitta
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Friday 29 July, 2016)
Thanks for your review. What you are reviewing is the first effect ("OSTRA"). The last effect ("OSTRAKINDA") has nothing to do with TH. It is more similar to "CHEAT HAND".
Thanks for pointing this out to me. I have now added a summary of OSTRAKINDA and hopefully clearer explanations...
PS: I don't know how to rate my comment (-: so I am instead rating yours!
Ostrakinda
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Christian Fisanick (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Wednesday 27 July, 2016)
"Which hand" routines are popular these days. Even the great Derren Brown does a which-hand performance Probably the best known--at least best selling--version is Mark Elsdon's Tequila Hustler. One way of doing which hand is heavily process driven, and Elsdon seems to have come up with an excellent way of hiding the process so that it doesn't look like something that you'd easily suspect. Ostrakinda really is Elsdon's approach as applied to Max Maven's positive/negative. In other words, you use Elsdon's process to determine whether the coin is heads or tails.
Being sort of an afficiando of all these which hand and positive/negative routines, I knew almost immediately that this is basically nothing more than substituting some verbiage in Elsdon's routine. But admittedly, I didn't think of it first, and it works perfectly. Is it worth $12 instead of Tequila Huster? (It is indeed less expensive.) Probably not. I think this might have been better as a variant included at the end of the Tequila Hustler book. If you don't have Tequilla Hustler, buy that ebook because it has a lot of theory, variants, and performance tips for this type of process. If you do have Tequilla Hustler and want to apply it to positive/negative, then Ostrakinda will do the trick. But after you read it, you'll probably agree with me that this would have been better as a variant rather than a stand-alone effect.
Why A Magic Square Should Not Be A Magic Square
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Christian Fisanick (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Wednesday 27 July, 2016)
The Unknown Mentalist gives some excellent, practical advice on how to camouflage a magic square so that it doesn't look like a magic square or the dreaded mathe-magic. It's all in the presentation, of course, and he supplies you with a really good, straightforward, pure magic square routine that looks simply like adding random numbers, not necessarily selected as numbers. (Get the ebook, and you'll find out what I mean.)
Audiences are more sophisticated these days, and what was once astonishing in the gas-light era is just ho-hum in the Internet age. It's nice to read this thoughtful ebook. We need more writing like this to help us tweak classic performance tools for the 21st Century. I'm sure Martin Gardner would have been proud.
Why A Magic Square Should Not Be A Magic Square
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Michael Lyth (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Tuesday 26 July, 2016)
Do not be square learn to present the square with the authors creative look on this much under used item. As in the advertising words states ''This is not about construction of a magic square. This is about presenting and representing a magic square in such a manner that the audience cannot uncover your secrets by doing a simple search on the internet, which is what is happening to most of the magic square routines these days.'' Not just magic square routines but other magic effects presented to spectators should be given the same train of thought. Back to this work on squares it is vary easy reading and well thought out as is all the authors works in my increasingly growing collection of his mathematics based creative ideas. As a lover of the late Martin Gardner's works I find his ideas Must have some how influenced the unknown mentalist ? or some over mathematicians work. I would also recommend visiting markfarrar.co.uk and to study his Magic Square resource page it will stimulate like this work by the Unknown Mentalist's your brain too.
The Psychic Tarot
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by James Sadler (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Monday 25 July, 2016)
I've been looking for a book with a concise, no nonsense approach to learning the cards. I couldn't be happier with Bob Cassidy's The Psychic Tarot.
Heart Matricks
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by David Burmeister (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Saturday 23 July, 2016)
I had to read this a couple of times but it is another GREAT effect by the UNKNOWN MENTALIST. While MIND MATRICKS cannot be beat for entertainment value this is a great companion value. The effect CAN be done both humorously and seriously/emotionally. I'm glad to have purchased MIND MATRICKS, HEART MATRICKS, and TRIALOGUE from a great friend!!!
By the way, if you like the principle found in MIND MATRICKS and HEART MATRICKS, you might also want to purchase the ebook by Sam Dalal called 'Magic with an ESP Deck'. (Sold by Lybrary.com) The effect is called 'One in 14,400'. I have used it for quite a few years as it is very effective for the spectators as it makes THEM look psychic.
Thanks for updating this principle!
Again, my compliments to the Unknown Mentalist.
David W. Burmeister
Mind Matricks
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by David Burmeister (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Saturday 23 July, 2016)
The UNKNOWN MENTALIST has done it again. This is an old effect that is modernized. I would recommend buying this immediately. It is a great effect with a great theme.
David W. Burmeister
Trialogue
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by David Burmeister (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Saturday 23 July, 2016)
This is another great effect by the Unknown Mentalist. I have so many great effects of his that I can't keep up with everything but I know that this will keep the spectators in awe. I will definitely print these cards up in the future.
David W. Burmeister
Golf Ball in Glass
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Michael Lyth (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Wednesday 20 July, 2016)
Devin Knight has covered all that is important use items that spectators would not expect or have seen used in a magic effect routine with amazed responce. Following the instructions I have successfully put a golf ball into a jar myself.
52.13 ACAAN
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Michael Lyth (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Wednesday 20 July, 2016)
I purposely wont give a revue on this work instead I recommend purchase, learn, perfect, practice and perform for your self and you too will soon like this writers creative thinking mind. You wont be sorry for your small investment it will also inspire your own mind too
The Milky Way
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Ronald M Levy
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Wednesday 20 July, 2016)
These three entertaining effects with real drinkable milk ( Yes: real fresh cold milk! ) - in a real glass - have been revived and modernized from a lost U.F. Grant description. They can be performed for adults and children, and two of them are made for using at least two participants at a magic show. They are baffling. Devin explains how to inexpensively make the props yourself, and has figured out how to always keep the milk fresh and cold. His instructions for performance are clear and well written. This really is a lost and unattainable manuscript, and you will enjoy performing Devin’s updated versions of these three effects. Don’t pass this up. These effects could be the hit of your magic show.