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Naked Mentalism II


The Blurb

This book takes the 27-page priming section from the previous volume and expands it into a full second book. At its core are the 66 priming categories along with notes about their individual properties. The majority are in print here for the first time. There’s also a full description of why various priming techniques work, extensive advice on their use (including how to reveal a difficult spectator’s unspoken, discarded options – in the order she has them), a section of full effects, and an extensive appendix of extra data. Also described is the powerful and flexible Pragmagram technique, used to create revolutionary effects such as the Naked Book Test. When combined with priming, this allows you to deliver seemingly genuine precognitive insights into the spectator’s thoughts before she has them.

Cost £29.49 from http://www.lulu.com/content/2901269

Difficulty

Since the techniques used within Naked Mentalism are “naked” - there are no sleights to speak of. This does not make the end result any easier. As with any psychological forces, the real difficulty is with handling the spectator and appearing as natural as possible whilst influencing their choices, as well as handling the inevitable misses and routining around them,

Review

Naked Mentalism II is most definitely a companion to the first book. I can't see that you'd get that much out of it as a stand-alone purchase.

The chapters:

How Priming works

This is a break down of the theory behind the main bulk of the book – the cues we can use to influence choice towards the forcing words.

Priming Data

This is the implementation of the above, taking with it many examples from the first book, and showing them in combination with some priming words.

Setting the Scene

This is primarily concerned with spectator management, choosing and rejecting your subject. With any psychological forces of this nature, the willingness and mood of the spectator is vital – you're just not going to succeed if someone is trying to trip you up.

It's also about strategies to subtly guide and influence their choices, after you've sown the initial seeds. This is probably my pick for the most important chapter of the book.

Of the greatest individual value in this chapter is perhaps the section on applying psychological forces to cold reading, an equally “naked” technique, and arguably one that would benefit the most from some assistance from this area.

Pragmagrams

I think “Pragmagram” is just a funny name for a technique which is crucial to the correct handling of psychological forces, but nevertheless I don't think I've ever seen it outlined in print before, so this will do

This, really, carries on directly from the last chapter's section on cold reading, and there is a lot of crossover in the technique – you end up with some very similar statements, but derived in different ways.

Pragmagrams are fundamental to the Naked Book Test in the previous book, so if you are familiar with that, you should have a fair idea of the end result. This chapter goes into the thinking behind creating these.

Priming Effects

The actual effects listed are pretty standard if you're experienced with psychological forces, sealed predictions, group suggestions, two person telepathy and a one-ahead routine courtesy of Abraxus. Good stuff here, but nothing suprising.

The section on cold reading here is fantastic – again the idea of using psychological forces to aid with cold reading, both as fact s to throw out, but also ways to direct their thinking and increase the chance of hitting with those facts.

Appendix

Woo! Tables!

The information in the back of NM II is presented in addition to the tables at the back of NM I – the difference here is that the cue/target pairs chosen are generally stronger in NM II, which means that they are also less subtle. I refer to both, however, as sometimes it's worth throwing out the more risky and direct cues to bring them into line. There's also an exhaustive cross reference of colours.

Overall

I am a massive fan of psychological forces, and Naked Mentalism I and II did for me what I was hoping Psychological Subtleties 2 would have done – a decent look into the whys and wherefores of the technique. Where NM I outlines the methodology and provides some applications, NM II delves into the theory behind why they work, and offers strategies to use them and to create your own.

Naked Mentalism II is not a book to buy individually – you will need at least the first book, and in truth you will probably need a decent background of presenting and performing mentalism before you can pull off the forces convincingly - I'm not sure I agree that naked techniques can stand entirely on their own, but in combination with other methods, they can lift them from puzzle to miracle very quickly.

Apart from Banachek, whose Psychological Subtleties cover some of the same ground, but from a very different perspective, there really aren't any other books like this. They are certainly not books of tricks, and without a lot of thought and effort on your behalf they're not going to get you very far.

They are fundamental weapons in the arsenal of the mind, they're both well worth the asking price – and I for one am looking forward to NM III

With you on all of that!

The book is most definitely not a stand-alone purchase but sit down with NM I and II together with a pencil and highlighter and see the state the book ends up in after that

My NMII is battered beyond belief, the idea of the pragmagram is very clever and the data at the end is extremely useful.

I'm sure I've said it several times before but Tomo is a genius.
Bring on NM III!

Thanks for posting this. As a fan of NM I and the Naked Booktest I will definetly be looking into purchasing this.

This is definitely the next book on my reading list (well, as well as Banachek's PS3) - that's when I have the money though, then again, student loans come through soon...hmm...

Are Pragmagrams, Progressive anagrams? (if they are, are they much more useful?)

UndergroundSvengali wrote:Are Pragmagrams, Progressive anagrams? (if they are, are they much more useful?)

No, they're kind of the opposite. They allow you to start describing a concept before it's even chosen for a bigger, pre-emptive hit or a far nearer miss than you'd normally get.