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I bet taking them off the printing line is some sort of psychological subtlty by Derren to influence you to do......something......that you would only do without owning his book.

Pure Effect available here:

http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic16075-0-0-asc-.php

Note from Mods: All checked and approved before making this offer!

Does anyone have the first edition of this book? All the later versions had a couple of chapters deleted, I'm intrigued as to what material he chose to remove.
Out of boredom just had a quick look on e-bay, copies of this are going for £150!!! That was £30 well spent, doubt I'd want to get rid of it though.

ed crawford wrote:Does anyone have the first edition of this book? All the later versions had a couple of chapters deleted, I'm intrigued as to what material he chose to remove.

The first edition was a rough manuscript he used to hawk at conventions. To all intents and purposes it doesn't really exist in any rational sense.

i think me may be mixed up with Pure Effect (although i could be wrong)

Lawrence wrote:i think me may be mixed up with Pure Effect (although i could be wrong)

Oops, yes I am, sorry!! Pure effect is the one that had the chapters deleted and is now going for silly money. Once again my complete lack of attention shines through.

I'd like to add my voice to those praising this book. If possible, I'd like to praise it even more highly, and here's why:

Years ago, I was the curious public. I would go into a magic shop and buy a cheap trick just see how it worked. Then I'd show it a friend, with some subtle intro like "Hey, look what I just bought!" And then I'd show them how it worked.

Later, I had more money, so I'd buy better tricks. But I'd still introduce them with "Hey, wanna see a trick?", and more often than not would reveal the mechanism. After I'd got a few devices together, I started stringing them together, but was still, to use the Penn and Teller phrase, a parrot guy. My magic was not magic, it was a geek showing his friends his latest toy, to no particularly edifying effect.

Then I read Pure Effect. Then I read Absolute Magic. And it is not an exaggeration to say that they came as a shattering revelation to me. Between them they made me realise that all that time I had been squandering, wasting possibilities to create moments of wonder. It made me look at my toybox in a whole new way, and more importantly made me think about the people I was subjecting to my attentions in a whole new way. And I resolved, after reading this book, to work differently. Indeed, to WORK.

You may, possibly, learn a trick or two from these books. But if you do, you will be missing the point entirely. The point of these books is NOT to teach you how to do a trick you didn't know. The point is to teach you to think more clearly about how to present material you already have at your fingertips. When you read this book, you will, with some thought, come to realise that you already have the potential to be far more effective, far more impressive, simply by focussing on your audience and their perceptions. You need learn no new sleights, need buy no additional equipment.

The best example I can offer is the way this book changed the way I delivered Coin Unique. From my initial, parrot guy presentation - "Here, watch this!" - it has become something intimate, powerful and compelling, something that allows me to convince someone that I can make them hallucinate vividly merely by talking to them.. The device is the same (obviously), the only difference is the consideration for the viewer that was inspired by this book.

A word about the prose style is also worth saying - it's hilarious. Brown has a very specific ideolect, which may not be to everyone's taste, but is clear, readable, and in places seizure-inducingly funny. In fact, it would be almost worth buying the book for the prose style alone. But there's far more to it than that.

This book is clearly written by someone who is on a journey, the same journey most of us are on. Some of us are wandering around aimlessly near where we started. Some of us are further along than others, but some of us are, sadly, headed down a dead end. I was. This book points the way, or at least, makes us focus on what it would be like to have a way of our own. But to paraphrase Morpheus in the Matrix: Derren Brown can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it.

Bumpety bump!

My Son and I went to see Paul Daniels last night in his ‘Hair today, Gone tomorrow’ show in Tamworth. During pre-show drinkiepoos I was amazed to see a copy of Absolute Magic just lying on a shelf underneath the optic measures at the back of the bar. I mentioned to the barman that it was a rather valuable book to be left just lying around and he said it belonged to ‘The Gaffer’ whoever that was, presumably the licensee. Anyways having told, him that the book often fetches in excess of £250 on Ebay he said he’d make sure the guy knew about the value. At half time, when we went for Interval drinkiepoos, we noticed the book had been moved and I understand that some rapid Googling had taken place by The Gaffer to check the value, apparently he hadn’t realised what sort of figure was involved.

If only we’d kept our gobs shut and just offered the Gaffer a tenner......

Mandrake wrote:Bumpety bump!

My Son and I went to see Paul Daniels last night in his ‘Hair today, Gone tomorrow’ show in Tamworth. During pre-show drinkiepoos I was amazed to see a copy of Absolute Magic just lying on a shelf underneath the optic measures at the back of the bar. I mentioned to the barman that it was a rather valuable book to be left just lying around and he said it belonged to ‘The Gaffer’ whoever that was, presumably the licensee. Anyways having told, him that the book often fetches in excess of £250 on Ebay he said he’d make sure the guy knew about the value. At half time, when we went for Interval drinkiepoos, we noticed the book had been moved and I understand that some rapid Googling had taken place by The Gaffer to check the value, apparently he hadn’t realised what sort of figure was involved.

If only we’d kept our gobs shut and just offered the Gaffer a tenner......

If I'm REALLY desperate, my copies of Pure Effect and Absolute Magic are always there. I bought them in the last weeks of being available. I just wish I'd bought more. I really do.

Mandrake wrote:Bumpety bump!

My Son and I went to see Paul Daniels last night in his ‘Hair today, Gone tomorrow’ show in Tamworth. During pre-show drinkiepoos I was amazed to see a copy of Absolute Magic just lying on a shelf underneath the optic measures at the back of the bar. I mentioned to the barman that it was a rather valuable book to be left just lying around and he said it belonged to ‘The Gaffer’ whoever that was, presumably the licensee. Anyways having told, him that the book often fetches in excess of £250 on Ebay he said he’d make sure the guy knew about the value. At half time, when we went for Interval drinkiepoos, we noticed the book had been moved and I understand that some rapid Googling had taken place by The Gaffer to check the value, apparently he hadn’t realised what sort of figure was involved.

If only we’d kept our gobs shut and just offered the Gaffer a tenner......

You missed a trick there mate! (probably covered in the book)

I've seen this book on one of the sites whom advertise on this forum

And its less than £30 - what am I missing?

Mandrake are you talking about an original print?!

EDIT - clicked on how to order product and was out of date

At Blackpool this year Absolute Magic, and Pure Effect, were on sale by one of the big UK Magic suppliers at £250 each. The price in Nick's original post was right at the time but, once it went oput of print, the price shot up dramatically!

I wonder what my signed copy of Psychological Subtleties is worth?

What's Banachek's signed copy of Naked Mentalism worth, for that matter!