Review: Paralies
Posted: Jan 10th, '10, 01:46
Paralies
by Joshua Quinn
This book is NOT for beginners in Mentalism. But dear lord is it good. For $80 it is excellent value for money, and I shall be using several of these effects in my stage effects. Though please note; as usual these Mentalism effects are mostly for stage.
I am going to name a few of the effect in detail, and (without giving away the methods ofcourse) describe EXACTLY what the spectator sees. I won't leave anything out; I'm not in it for advertising or anything, so you can make up your mind yourself how powerful these effects are.
While I think this is a very good book, and well worth the purchase, I do not think its as good as it is hyped up to be. So I can never give this a 10/10 purely because the effects are difficult, or not practical in some cases. However having said that... such effects like the ESP card routine are EXACTLY like real magic.
Bendito
A spectator's coin visually bends between your fingers, with no cover. If you learn the right handling, the coin may be signed, or marked with an 'X'.
Xijatsey
The performer writes a few words down... they are words, but look odd and like nonsense. A spectator mentally selects a card in a SEEMINGLY free-choice. (the choice is not free at all, but it is quite subtle, and the mental force Deckquivoque is used) This card name is said aloud, then the magician turns the paper upside down... the words he wrote before the effect began when read upside down, name the spectators card.
It is an ambigram - apparently influencing the spectators subconscious choices.
This effect can even be done over the phone.
My Zeneration
An amazing effect, perfectly magical.
This is an ESP matching card routine. There are ten cards, five for the performer and five for the spectator. Five pairs, so a square, triangle, cross, wavey lines and so on...
The performer lifts up a card, but does not let the spectator see it yet... he says to choose a card that the spectator thinks will match. The spectator does this, and the magician lays down his card on top of it. (i.e The magician chooses his selection before the spectator does)
This is done all five times, then the spectator may turn the ESP cards over... they all match.
Deckquivoque
A much advanced form of Equivocate; to select a card from a deck of 52 mentally. It is much more subtle and clean than you might expect.
The Billion Moneys Book Test
This has been massively over-hyped for anyone not in America in my opinon... as it does not work on anyone who does not know the vast majority of the states of America, which most of do not.
Basically a spectator thinks of a word... then is asked if that word has a state matching its last letter... and this string is continued until the spectator is thinking of a fruit, or an animal, or a president, and then the name of THAT fruit/animal/president or such is revealed.
Overall I think its been massively over hyped, and it has a low accuracy rate for a Mentalism effect.
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Overall I can highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Mentalism, but not for beginners I think. It has some brilliant ideas... and some that seem less brilliant; for example there is a section on how to make a TT-style sharpie swami gimmick - this may be handy to some people, but not to many.
I am glad I bought this book, and I can give it a solid 9/10, it looses a mark for the MASSIVE over-hypement of some of its effects (Billion Monkeys and Thought Chunnel), and because some effects seem a bit "filler", but overall very, very useful and a great buy.
Tom
xx