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The Effect

Put on a full hypnosis type act without actual hypnosis, stooges, trick props or set-up!

People may think they have become furniture, pantsless, forget their name/shirt color and many other seemingly hypnotic effects without hypnosis or paid helpers.

This is a full act as it has been performed all around the world by Enrique Enriquez so it has been tried and tested.

As a bonus, you get a wonderful effect where you can draw a portrait of any member of the audience selected at random AFTER your blindfold has been put on. This could be someone pulled in off the street. Plus Kenton tips his duct tape blindfold that is purely genius.

Cost

$40.00 US from www.wonderwizards.com

Difficulty
(1=easy to do, 2=No sleights, but not so easy, 3=Some sleights used,
4=Advanced sleights used, 5=Suitable for experienced magicians only)

I would say that this is about a 1 or 2 in difficulty. But most people will view it as a daunting 4 to 5 as with most work that comes out of WW. (It does take some gutspa and might seem impractical to many.)

Review

Well it has been a few months since I sent Kenton my hard earned cash. I must say it was well worth it. "Act of Imagination" is a brilliant act, if it suits you as a performer. This, like most works I have purchased from Wonder Wizards, is an aquired taste for those whose pallet is well trained and studied in the area of mentalism and suggestion. That is not to say that a novice wouldn't gain information from this work, but they will likely toss it in the drawer and go back to Ellusionist for the next coin in the bottle. Either way, I am happy as that means less people working with the same gold I sit on.

The work follows suit of Kentonism and Telepathy In Action (Orville Meyer). It is a collection of ideas that enable you to create some great stage faux hypnosis shows laced with suggestion, telepathy, and to a degree Mind Control. It tips not only a great stage show, but many concepts that can easily be applied to more personal close up performances and demonstrations. If you are one of those out there that own Kentonism, the ideas in this book would make brilliant additions to the material. (Actually, THAT material makes a great addition to THIS material.)

This material can be risky. It does require an ability to adapt at a moments notice and be flexible. But anyone familure with Kentons work should understand this.

Finally the blindfold portrait effect is well worth the price of the book alone. Especially when you add Kentons duct tape blindfold to give it that extra "impossibility" factor. Though you cannot use it for your next blindfold drive to find the ring effect, (as you really CANNOT see anything infront of you) it will add extra depth to any other blindfold effect that meet its conditions.

Overall

I give it a 10/10 as it is perfect for me and what I do. I do not recommend this book to the squeemish performer, or one with less experience under their belt. And it might not be the best book to start off with in the world of Kenton, but it was written to be able to be read independantly for the rest of his works. He equates it to "7 Deceptions" by Luke Jermay, and I think it will hit that same level of popularity, in this particular niche of entertainment.

Nice review, thanks for that one! I've been thinking about this one for a while now.

I put the book on order a few months back, knowing that it may not contain routines or even techniques suitable for my performance. Although much of Kenton’s material has been very valuable to me, such as with Luke Jermay’s material as well, often times he will publish works that may borderline strict requirements, detailed experience or persona.

Either way, I’ve learned not to be disappointed with the material using whether I can use it or not as my only critique. Simply getting inside the mind of such an imaginative person, and extracting the information that can be useful and applied to your own style is of great value to me. And that is exactly why I highly value Enrique’s Act of Imagination.

Great ideas and wording, (Ok, so I’m a sucker for wonder words that I would literally purchase ANYTHING that expands on its working ideas. Great marketing plan Kenton) and quite honestly I only pulled perhaps 3 or 4 sentences and wording methods from the entire book, but they alone were definitely worth the price of the book.

I feel this book openus up, not so much an obvious side of mentalistic magic but rather an often overlooked aspect, and unfolds it into a virtually limitless territory.

This manuscript will definitely spice things up, but I feel it important to always describe who this manuscript is NOT for:

Technically it COULD be useful to anyone in magic, so far as developing a more confident mindset. But it is not to be approached as an instantaneous method. It does involve process and trial and error (completely backed up with outs), but it goes without saying that you must approach a receptive, non rebellious, audience. This is not "street magic", or close up mentalism. This is a very keen way to linguistically deceive an audience into believing and doing exactly what you tell them. Without them knowing or suspecting, and without them being hypnotized. The Act of Imagination is fun, so rarely will you find an audience that challenges it. But the keyword is audience, this is very detailed, very easy audience control functions.

If you aren't confident in your ability to improvise, because every person is different, than you will want to gain this ability through other mentalism material, or perhaps get to know a cold reading system. But Enrique basically supplies the formula, with which you should be able to fill x and y. Know when it is necessary to say certain things, know when NOT to say things, having this aspect of self control will highly determine how much mileage you can get out of this manuscript.

This is also NOT for those with massive servings of ego in their performance. One of the solid foundations is having the audience on your side by accrediting them and not dwelling in the world of “look at me! I can make you do anything I want!”

...or at least not for too long.

Honestly, the effect is quite enough to put in the spectators mind that you really can do anything… which by far is much more effective way to leave an impression.

8/10 guys.

Best,

Kirk

Nice review Kirk, the material I have read of Kenton's I find valuable and worthwhile. This sounds like more great ideas and phrasing from him.

TWO brilliantly written reviews - thank you both! This manuscript sounds perfect for my current performance and learning as I'm attempting to learn various hypnotic techniques and feel that these effects would not only boost my confidence in attempting to induce hypnotic states in people, but also add to my other performances.

It sounds like a wonderful little book. I'm looking forward to ordering and reading this in the near future

Harry Truman wrote:TWO brilliantly written reviews - thank you both! This manuscript sounds perfect for my current performance and learning as I'm attempting to learn various hypnotic techniques and feel that these effects would not only boost my confidence in attempting to induce hypnotic states in people, but also add to my other performances.

It sounds like a wonderful little book. I'm looking forward to ordering and reading this in the near future

no prob harry. quite honestly these are not hypnotic effects persay. But if within the same hypnosis act you were to perhaps open with some of these effects, it would not only loosen up your audience but broadens their acceptance of REAL effects. You may open with these and say "Ok now for something a little bit easier..." when in actuality the next performance piece utilizes trance like states. This allows your audience to not only be more comfortable with you, it makes them more receptive to the "real" thing when it DOES occur.

In kaleidoscopes wrote:This allows your audience to not only be more comfortable with you, it makes them more receptive to the "real" thing when it DOES occur.

That's exactly the reason I felt these effects would be useful in my learning of hypnotic techniques - I think that it would help me to build confidence in performing as well as the audience to, as you say, feel more receptive for the actual hypnotic inductions.

Thanks again.