Pure effects- The book is divided into Three sections, containing the following effects-
Part One
Zippo- a metal lighter is removed from the magician's pocket and a lady names a card. She burns the image of the card she has in mind onto the lighter. The Lighter is turned around, and surprisingly enought, the playing card is there bevelled into the other side.
Telephone- A Random friend is called up and asked to name a playing card to the caller- at this point the mentalist does not know. Another spectator who knows the friend imagines that spectator holding a card. Both the cards are named and they are the same card! Once the specators recover from this initial shock, the effect is further enhanced! A deck guarded by a third spectator throughout the trick is ribbon spread infront of the audience- one card is reversed- It is turned over and.. as mentalists I challenge you to predict what card it is.. yep, the same card.
Instant card- A deck is shuffled and a card is named as the deck is handed to the magician. The magician cuts and removes a card- the magicians has instantly procured the named card.
Part Two
Zamiel's Card- A card is selected and placed back into the deck. The deck dissapears and one card is left remaining. It is turned over and.. is it the card? No? The magician continues unhindered and begins plucking a string of cards from thin air and getting rid of them. Finally, the magician stops and asks the spectator to name thier card. The card is revealed to match.
Three card routine- Three spectators each pick a card, A, B and C. The card are returned to the deck and shuffled should the magician choose. The deck is placed openly in the hand and- no strings attatched (litterally) the deck cuts itself in two. The deck has cut itself to the spectator C's card. Card C is placed on the table and very fairly transformed into each of the other selections by very cleanly rubbing it against the table surface. Finally it is rubbed and it vanishes all together. The three cards are then removed from various pockets. The card are then placed back into the deck with a cut decided very cleanly by the spectators. Spectator C calls out stop at any point as the magician cleanly deals cards from the top of the deck. Luckily it happens right on top of the card! Card B is found by spelling to the card- and A is produced at any named number in the entire (Minus the other two spectator's cards) suhffled deck which is dealt to at the fingertips by the magician.
Next the magician talks of the famous street game 'three card monte'. The spectators are invited to a game, but the magician prophesises that the victim never wins. The spectator points at a card (s)he feels is thier own and the performer demonstrates how with stunning sleight of hand the card is exchanged. He repeats the change at speed once and then a second time without even appearing to touch the deck. But, when the deck is spread out, the cards aren't in there. The magician points out the box for the cards on the table- the cards are found underneath it and removed and already the move back under the box. The magician begins explaining the techniques of misdirection and offers to do it again. The cards are placed in the deck in chosen positions by the spectators. After some entertaining flourishes, the cards vanish from the deck. The magician checks under the box of cards but has failed to place them thier. At his finger tips he shakes the box- the curious spectators open the contents- Indeed the playing cards lie within!
Magicall- A fine example of simplicity and imagination to create an entertaining and fine piece of magic. A card is selected and the magician attempts to find it in the deck. He fails. Miserably, and finally admits defeat and asks for the deck to be returned.
He presses the face of the deck and then simultaneously the deck begins bleeping and ringing as a phone would. A voice in a sex opposite to the spectator begins talking through the deck/ phone with the magician who explains he can't find the card. After an amusing conversation with the 'phone' the phone says it's in the spectator's top pocket- after the bizarre conversation, the deck hangs up and the spectator finds his card in his pocket!
The Velvet turn over- A card is taken from the top of the deck by a spectator and the deck can even be handed to the spectator who then places the card into the middle of the deck themselves. They then turn the top card over themselves and- it's the same card!
Left hand C. Steal- A card is selected from a ribbon spread and remember by a spectator. The card is replaced and even shuffled by the spectator. They (or another spectator) in the same mannor as before select a card from a ribbon spread and turn it over. The two cards match.
Part Three
Smoke- A spectator merley looks upon a card in the ribbon spread deck as the magician looks away and remembers it. The Magician turns around and looks deeply into the spectator's eyes and as Corinda would put it, as though counting the number of cells in his cranium. The card is subsequently named. The magician relaxes. The magician notes an interesting thing about that- the card the spectator looked at wasn't in the deck. The deck which the magician has not touched scince the card was named is looked through and indeed it does not show the card. The cigarrette the magician has been smoking is coughed up- it is a playing card- the spectator's playing card.
Plerophoria- A deck is shuffled or amongst an enviroment where the question would be suitable a deck is asked. The spectator gives the deck a cut and names the top card! The magician gets a rought sence of what the next card and continues getting more accurate (all facing away from the deck) and after a while he builds enough confidence and begins wizzing through the cards quicker than the spectator can turn them over to confirm the magician's accuracy. The spectator, without the magician seeing, cuts off some cards from the deck (and places the cut off cards in her pocket) which has after the magician's accuracy in the above 'deck reading' section has been shuffled, and with the magician's back turned cards from the remaining deck are placed one by one until the magician feels the number that has been cut to by the spectator has been accumulated in his hand. Sure enough this is verified, but a further blow is that the magician names the cards as before in the deck.
Perfect Coin reading- This effect is diffficult to give a description so instead I'll give a description of the 'solid' part of the effect (No pun intended). Essentially, a spectator's coin melt's in thier hands.
Transformation- A magical effect, revolving mainly around presentation, combining cold reading and elegant slight of hand card switches.
FIN.
And so for my review:
Fantastic effects, ranging from the difficult to the easy (Mostly very advanced magic and sleight of hand) but:
The Magicians who have read the book will agree with me here- reading and writing out a list of effects for this book is possibly the biggest disservice I could possibly do for it. The amateurs will undoubtledly disagree. This book is by no means a list of tricks and I would hate for anyone's experience of it to be degenerated to such a thing. I have a sin to which I must confess; When I first tracked down this book like some blood thirsty beast, I was a rank amateur concerned with working out how Derren Brown does his magic. I was searching for some magic tool, for everything to be explained to me. Nope! But I need to raise this point because I know the number of people tracking down this book in the same light. I was dissapointed, but it is only once you learn to truly LOVE magic and mentalism that the value of this book becomes apparent. I have long scince discovered that the Magic of Derren Brown or any great of Magic is not in ANY way in the slieghts or secrets or 'devices' for achieving the effect. Of course that's important, but it not so much how he does what he does, but how he does, how he does what he does. Take a few minutes to deciphre that sentence and you'll understand. For that reason I would have to recomend 'Absolute Magic' by Derren, which is much better in this vein. But as a devoted Cardician and Derren fan, I shall continue with my review of this book.
The book has two broad and quite unique sides, One the one hand it has tangible and solid effects like the those explained above, many of which revolve around cards. A lot of how mentalists would choose to value this aspect of the book depends on your view on cards in mentalism. But the book, I would say, is more concerned with magic than mentalism, but I will discuss that later. I have to say, I stand with the mentalists who think cards are a valuable tool to the mentalist. (I decided this philosphy after falling in love with card magic and later analysing my position and taking the lead of the greats- Canasta, Corinda, Brown, Jermay, Banachek, Osterlind, Hilford.. to name but the first ones that came to my head. My position was further strengthened by personal experience- namley performing routines drenched with playing cards to someone- not something I would reccomend- and then on a later date performing a direct mind reading routine where I plucked a thought direct from a spectator's mind.. I was elated at the ingenuity of it all, but the spectator in question didn't seem so impressed. I later spoke with him and he told me that he wasn't that impresses as I had already proven I could read minds with the cards!).
The 'solid technique' section of the book is valuable for cardicians, but is very tricky (I apologise immensly for the amount of corny puns that unintentionally keep popping up) as it involves an advanced level of understanding playing trickery and sleights. For the mentalist interested in Cardician-ism, I wouldn't reccomend this book as a starting point, or reference work- but as an important collection of applications of techniques with a little bit of imagination.
Now I move onto the next portion of the book, which is more concerned with theory and ideas as oppose to 'solid' routines or effects. For example we have psychological forcing. This is the part of the book which I have found extremley valuable of late. The start of the book sets out the context for the rest of the book- the message that presentation is the most important thing- something which many magician's throw around quite a lot, but few really allow that message to come to fruition as the greats do. His valuable opinion and advice is shared on anchoring (a neuro-linguistic programming technique which 'triggers' various emotions) and it's relation to magic, Risk and boldness and how this can create some impossible magic, how to make mind reading more believable, entertaining and magical as an experience and his critism on Mentalist's who don't have a 'process' for mind reading (This will make more sence is if you read the book). Derren discusses the use of props such as books and billets, the art of fishing (the magical kind) and non-verbal communication. For the latter two, no new magical techniques are revealed which would enable a reader to do every single thing Derren Brown has ever done as that may sound, but still valuable reading.
But Finally, and for me the best thing about the book is how he approaches the mentalist and gives him not just food for thought, but a feast:
He explains that he is not aiming for mentalism, it has just naturally approached him and the book really challenges the mentalist to think about the use of magic and it's value- and equally for the magician to look into the value of mentalism- it is a unique portal to both unique worlds and I have to say now, that this for me is the true value of the book- not much else is more thrilling and delighting than Derren shaking your performance to it's bones and deconstructing it, questioning it, challenging it, until yout vehicle emerges from it's MOT as a much better one. This is what this book does, this is it's value and this, is why I love it.
As a mentalist there is little more refreshing than hearing constructive critism on Mentalism resulting in a modified more thoughtful mentalist.
This book is not for people curious about his work, but for magicians and mentalists through and through- if it can, as his had a great role in doing do for me, challenge this and turn you into, no matter what you have believed until this point, a real magician or mentalist then that can't be a bad thing.
. I paid £30 each for my copy of Pure Effect and Absolute Magic when they first came out 
