talkmagic.co.uk

Shivers - by Gary Sumpter

£19.99

www.gwsmagic.com

or

www.alakazam.co.uk

Difficulty Unknown as yet...

They say

“I'll let the contents do the talking...

Introduction

Who and where?

Effects - Ideas and effects

Making Contact - Harnessing the power of touch

Susceptible - The spectators eyes are covered with your fingertips. Despite them being able to feel your fingers, they feel touches on the back of their neck and head.

Relax - A spectator sits down and closes their eyes, you are watched by a group of other spectators. You stand well away from the spectator on the chair and you ask the spectator to remain quiet and in a moment you will ask them a very important question. You silently stroke your shoulder a few times. You then ask the spectator if they felt anything, the comments that they felt you stroke their shoulder, despite you being nowhere near them.

Distant Touch - Standing well away from the spectator, you gesture towards them and they feel you touch them.

Focus - One on One, the spectator feels something pushing them from behind, despite your hands being in full view.

Routines

Connected - An ‘experiment’ in paranormal communication that takes an unplanned turn. A lighthearted attempt at making contact with the spirit goes off on a diagonal as things leave the performers control.

The Crying Child – A disturbing performance, centered around the spirit of a young girl.

Visual occurrences - not effects on their own, but ideas to weave into existing routines.

Burn on - A dead match lights just by willing it to. Ghost Glass - A borrowed finger ring is placed inside a small glass as an impromptu spirit bell. At any time the ring is seen to move and shake inside.

Unaware - Events occurring that you are not aware of. The power of ignorance.

If you like this kind of magic, you WILL like Shivers!


I say
Hey hey!! It’s here.

You know, as I read through this (and only a read for now) I wondered what it was I was expecting. I have come to realise… I had received it.

Shivers is not a booklet of routines per say. What it offers is real world methods for creating PHYSICAL manifestations for mentalism and mental magic/bizarre effects. Shivers brings to the table methodology along with ideas for application within basic routines. Don’t get me wrong, the basic routines are nice…just not fully fleshed out. That’s fine, fleshed out routines is what we should be doing for ourselves.

Some of the effects in Shivers are close to juvenile party tricks but the difference here (scoff if you can afford to...you've been warned) is that Gary Sumpter has revisited and shone a new light on them. Other effects (“The Crying Child”) are close to full blown seance set ups and the others sit happily in the range between.

You will need "bits" for some of the effects in this book/let but most magicians/mentalists should already have them. If not, they aren’t dear. Many effects can be performed straight away.

“Relax” for instance, is very similar to a well know mentalism effect and offers a great variation. This “other” effect alone is sold for half the price of this booklet! How’s that for a bargain!

The booklet itself is GEORGOUS!!! The printing of it's generous 39 (!!) pages is like the very best of Alakazam's manuals and the illustrations are clear as a bell.

Finally, Gary offers some sound advice regarding the potential impact these effects and convincers can have upon various people and with this, guidelines when considering the “deployment” of the books content.

Overall:
I like Shivers. It really has given me some ideas for using in effects and indeed ideas FOR effects and routines.

Some people will shout “I’ve known about this effect...” or “That’s like such and such..” but dont they ALWAYS! I challenge people to tell me where anyone can go and buy these types of effects laid out so well…compiled and mixed and modified so well…thought about so well. Hmmm? Ya can’t can ya? Well…Gary Sumpter did it for you. I applaud his willingness to stick his head up out of the parapet, his ingenuity and his ambition!

I’m stapling my copy of Shivers into Corindas 13 Steps!

Rating:
8/10 Nice job!

Is this out yet Tom?

Is it as good as you expected?

I just received an email from Alakazam which says it's in stock now - copy being emailed to you.

Thanks Mandrake

I'm still toying with this item, so will wait for the reviews I think... !

If it helps, I saw this in preview a few weeks ago and it was extremely good!

I couldn't wait. As soon as I saw Tom's review I went ahead and ordered (using the office address of course!)

I missed this the first time round but thanks to everyone carrying on discussing it my bank account will soon be twenty quid lighter.

My review will be in by Midday-ish.

Hi Guys,

Its great to see you talking about my ideas on here.

Obviously Shivers is in stock directly from me at www.gwsmagic.com - MAKE SURE you sign up for the newsletter as there are some really cool items on the way!

Mandrake - How did you see this in preview?

nickj - I'm just down the road from you if you ever want a demo of any of the effects

Keep talking guys

Gary

Hi Gary and welcome to TM! Actually I got it wrong about the preview, the one I was referring to was Trilogy ( http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic5730.php ) not Shivers - sorry. That's what comes of reading messages and posting at the same time as working through a large bottle of vino!

is it middayish yet?

tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock......

TA DA!!!!

This is now a REVIEW!!! Check back "up top" again.

Looking at the contents and the description, some idiot will ask how this compares to PK Touches so, to save anyone else the embarrassment, I'll be that idiot (not exactly type casting but very close). "So how does this and PK compare Tom?"

i am going to have to stop reading reviews i am spending to much money these days lol

just about to order.....