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Craig Browning wrote:As to TOMO's complaint about using a capitol R when referring to a person that does READINGS vs the small r, which denotes someone that is reading this thread... well, that says it all doesn't it? It's a matter of subtle clarification as to what is being spoken of and in what perspective, nothing more. So stop letting such little courtesies (sp) annoy you;

Craig, I think Mark's deliberately trying to cause confrontation between you and I

If you read the thread a little before that, it's clear he was trying to antagonise me over my mini-review ofthe supplement, in which I said that a dutch reader (as in a reader of a book) had sent in an interesting suggestion. He decided to deliberately make out that my comment about "reader" and "Reader" was aimed at you when clearly it wasn't, and to deliberately take it to mean Reader by your definition so that he could try to antagonise me and get you to join in. He tried, he failed, but the fact that he deliberately tried speaks volumes. I hope that clears up any confusion this unpleasant and malicious individual might have caused, because you and I tend to get on okay and I've always counted you as a knowledgeable elder statesman of Mentalism.

But what I don't understand is how Mark's allowed to repeatedly be downright rude to other posters and their preferences, peddle his wares openly, and deliberately try to force confrontation at every opportunity There are several people on TM who, after his repeated attempts to antagonise them without any provocation, now refuse to have anything to do with him.

abraxus wrote:i've found each time i've revisited one of his books no matter how many times i read them, there's always something else to think about or pick up on...

could just be that im slow on the uptake...probably...

I found that they revealed more with second and third readings too. You really have to get into how Knepper's mind works to get the best from his stuff. It takes a some study but it's well worth it.

kentonism and building blocks are absolute musts in my book...him, luke jermay and to a lesser extent (but still fantastic) Sean Fields...not to mention Geist and the mentalist Handbook...

anway, im rambling off topic again...where am i?

I must inform Tomo that I am innocence personified. I am never rude to anyone. I am full of love for my fellow man in my capacity as a psychic reverend. That even applies to people from Cheshire.

He on the other hand was the first one to be rude on this thread as can be ascertained by anyone who wishes to go back over it.

He is of course quite mistaken and jumping to incorrect conclusions when he said that I was trying to provoke dissent between him and Reverend Browning.

I still have no idea what he was talking about in the first line of his post. He really must learn to express himself better. I have faith that in time he will learn to do so.

To be fair to Kenton Knepper I only perused one of his slim overpriced volumes in a cursory manner. It was called "Completely Cold" and I must say that it left me completely cold. Too much NLP rubbish in it and too much conversation in the reading. This conversation thing is also a failing of Ian Rowland. If you let the client yap too much you can never get rid of them.

If you have to reply on feedback from the client's conversation all the time you can't be much of a psychic.

However I wish to be nice to Kenton so I will praise his book on the Trade Show Magic of Eddie Tullock even though he was merely the co-author. I would recommend this thoroughly.

Finally I must protest at Tomo's assertion that I openly "peddle my wares". I hardly ever mention that I have the best psychic course in the industry and that it consists of 4 videos and an audiotape. Neither do I mention the fact that I have just picked up from the printer yesterday copies of my new book.

It is called "Marmaduke the Wonder Mouse" and sells for a mere $20. It will include a free mouse. This is the best book ever written on the magic mouse which is known as the pocket trick of the universe.

However I rather think we should not go off topic. Shame on Tomo for derailing the thread. However I will give him another chance. Pray tell what does he think of the Rowland book and why does he feel it deserves
such praise?

What other literature has he read on the subject and what does he think of it?

What experience does he himself have in cold reading and what are his opinions on the ethics of being a reader?

Just curious and trying to get us back on topic.

as a selling point for marmaduke the wonder mouse, you could always sing the title to the tune of champion the wonder horse...but you already knew that...

What do Magic Mice have to do with Cold Reading?

I realize there are those that believe Ian to be a Rat for exposing so much stuff to the general public (which is btw, who his book is actually directed towards) but c'mon, to loop a string through his nose and have him drug about one's hand... even to me, that's taking our prejudices a bit too far my clerical friend...

Besides, in my world Marmaduke will always be a goofy looking Great Dane in the Sunday morning comic strips

It would be interesting to know how many copies were bought by 'lay people' and how many by magicians and mentalists? I think only someone specifically looking for this would find it, and only someone who really wanted to know would be willing to pay for it.

In this respect I think that it is good that it is available to the public more readily and more easily than normal books. Why? As well as the caring people like Craig and Mark who do actually care about how their subject goes away feeling, there are as we all know those people who deliberately frighten people, and with good Readings it can be quite unnerving. For those worried, a book like this might set their mind at rest.

Just my thoughts .

I must inform Reverend Browning that I have no intention of selling Ian Rowland. I am not sure where I could buy stocks of him on a regular basis and besides he is a bit too heavy.

No. I shall stick to Marmaduke the Mouse. As to what the Wonder Mouse has to do with cold reading I must inform Craig that Marmaduke is a terribly psychic mouse and indeed has stronger psychic powers than both Derren Brown and Ian Rowland put together.

Talking about mentalists Max Maven is in Toronto doing a mentalism show tonight. I refuse to pay $35 to see him on the grounds that he was impertinent to me about 30 years ago. He tried to advise me on showmanship when it was perfectly obvious to me that he needed to learn a bit about it himself.

However I will get reports about his show and will report back. I do hope I have something sufficiently libellous to say.

OK. You can all go back to talking about Ian Rowland now.

the post that started this thread:
Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2004 5:13 am
Post subject: The Full Facts Of Cold Reading

when skimming through the review section, i simply had to stop and look at this one, the subject title for one, the most recent post at the time made by the great Mark Lewis another.

interesting Taneous, to see how your opinions have changed over the past 2 years (regarding the Rolland book) since this thread began, "BRAVO" to you & Talk magic for making it possible to record this kind of thing.

mark lewis wrote:To be fair to Kenton Knepper I only perused one of his slim overpriced volumes in a cursory manner. It was called "Completely Cold" and I must say that it left me completely cold. Too much NLP rubbish in it and too much conversation in the reading. This conversation thing is also a failing of Ian Rowland. If you let the client yap too much you can never get rid of them.

i must say that it is by far the weakest title Knepper has released and I would essentially agree with you.

It might also help to point out that I am a die hard Knepper fan. Though I am a bit of a NLPer, I do think that much written about NLP is complete and utter rubbish.

I enjoyed full facts to cold reading. I thought it made some good points and would think it to be a good tome to influence your reading technique. I also think Kneppers ideas on readings are ingenius as well.

I do have to say Mark Lewis, that with all due respect you do often come off as quite rude and arrogant. Though I have made little judgment to your character, I am often put off by your posts.

Dearie me. I must say that this 23 year old with a funny name is most impertinent.

He says "with all due respect" and in the same sentence treats me with great disrespect. I have not attacked him. I would thank him not to attack me.

Now my boy. Do pay attention when receiving instruction from your elders. I must inform you that I was doing magic and mentalism when you were breast feeding and I can assure you that I know far more about it than you do.

I am MARK LEWIS and you are not.

With regard to NLP I believe it is an abbreviation for "not a lot of plausibility". I think two fellows got together in a pub and said "why don't we invent some system or other and call it a scientific sounding name. I bet we could make a mint of money if we did that. I know. Let us call it Neuro Linguistic Programming. There are lots of daft people in the world that will believe it has some validity"

I base this assumption on seeing one of the founders of this daft pseudoscience wandering around a psychic fair. He was wearing a pony tail which immediately earned my disapproval. I took one look at him and thought "he is a shyster if ever I saw one" It does take one to know one you know. Besides I am psychic and know these things.

I can assure you that Kenton Knepper and Ian Rowland know very little about the psychic world. I do.

I am a professional psychic. They are not.

I must advise this young whippersnapper that it is a wise man who if he wishes to learn should ignore the quirks of the teacher.

If however he wishes to go about things the wrong way then he should stick to Rowland and Knepper. If on the other hand he wishes to kneel at the feet of a master then he should take a deep breath and show repentance for his impudence.

I fully agree with a recent newsletter received from Richard Webster. I shall quote him:

"Cold reading skills are not enough. I can't believe a lot of the rubbish that 's been written on this subject over the last decade. It's obvious these authors have never made a living as a psychic reader. In many cases I doubt if they've ever given a paid reading"

Hmmm... Aside from Richard, Ron Martin, Herb Dewey and us what other "Mentalists" are you aware of that actually do, do Readings who've written any kind of informative material that's experience based?

Are we the last of a dying breed?

There is of course that old monster Ford Kross. He is not a dying breed. Some would say that is most regrettable.

However I will concede that he has indeed done it for money and he has indeed put out material on the matter.

Ford seems to be a great advocate of the conversational type of reading where he asks a million questions. I don't favour this because I think the client may end up thinking "but YOU are supposed to be telling ME!" Still each to his own.

Ford isn't too keen on messrs Rowland and Knepper, especially Rowland since he considers him an arch exposer which I think he isn't really.Mind you old Grumpy Guts Kross is not overexcited about Mark Lewis either.

I promised on this old thread to say something about the Max Maven show even though I haven't seen it. It is off topic to this thread but the whole subject seems shot to hell anyway.

The reports I heard about Max Maven were mixed. Some people liked it and some people didn't. It is interesting to note that all the women I got feedback from all hated him. I notice that Paul Daniels gets the same reaction. I used to sell his magic tricks and would hear all sorts of comments from the public. The women almost unanimously hated him.

Same for Max Maven it seems. Although to be fair these women were the wives of magicians and I agree with a statement that Harry Lorayne once wrote that they are not really lay people.

It seems that the arrogance of Max didn't go well with the ladies. I was told that I wouldn't like the show because he did only 7 tricks in 2 and a half hours. And half of those were card tricks. It does sound a mite tedious to me. However to be fair I did hear that 3 laymen who went loved the show.

The local magic dealer who hears all the gossip about the show from his customers said that reviews were mixed. Some of the magicians liked the show and some didn't. However I took note that the ones that didn't like it all seemed to be mentalists. A little bias showing I suppose. I expect they all thought they should be up there and not he.

One mentalist I know who actually liked the show said that he thought that it was a good theatrical experience. I think Max's main asset is that you can hear him properly and he does not mumble like Marc Salem. I watched Salem in Toronto once and couldn't make out a single word he said. Unfortunately I didn't read the chapter on lip reading in the 13 steps to Mentalism properly.

There. I have now reviewed the show without actually having seen it. I did this once on the Genii Forum for the David Ben show and they all went nuts. Max Maven was involved here because he said that David got a standing ovation. Of course he didn't mention that it was all David's magician friends who gave it to him.

I merely mentioned in my review that I didn't see David get the said ovation. That was of course true because I wasn't there but I didn't mention that little detail........................

I submitted the same post twice and have tried to delete it three hundred times and failed. This is the best I can do.