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Why has no one else said this?

Hypnotise her.

Ooops, I was in a rush and forgot about this thread. Here's my brief review:

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What are we to make of this new volume from the bearded mind-botherer? It certainly covers a lot of ground. Perhaps it’s best described as a collection of topics.

The book opens with an introduction describing how he lost his faith, which for a serious happy clapper must have been quite a jolt. It explains how what we believe is just belief, and though it’s going to get a lot of people quite upset, it’s honest and really does tell us where he’s coming from in unequivocal terms.

Next he turns his attention to magic. This being a mass-market book, however, it exposes very little. His ideas here are about deconstructing the mechanism of a mundane trick and building it back up in terms of both physical and psychological elements into something remarkable. This is far clearer than he ever was in Pure Effect, and though it won’t mean much to the layperson, it’s gold dust if you’re struggling to make your own material convincingly real. He covers a simple coin vanish and a card trick and for many, this will be worth the cover price alone. He then goes on to discuss the theory and practice of ouija boards, pendulums and muscle reading, which for budding mentalists is again valuable insight.

Next up is an excellent chapter on memory, including a range of techniques to enable you to remember long lists of stuff. One of the themes from Pure Effect was compromise, about which he’s particularly passionate. Rather than using gaffed materials or procedures designed to make life easy for the performer, why not just remember a mental look-up table to give the spectator a freer choice? Well, with the techniques in this chapter, you can design mentalism that does just that.

Part four deals with hypnosis and suggestibility. This covers a lot of ground, from Brown’s own experiences of putting on hypnosis shows at university through to NLP and the new age mumbo-jumbo that has grown up around the original premise. He gives a very nice set of ideas for inductions, some of which you could use in a waking environment too. This section finishes with a set f the usual NLP self-help techniques for gaining rapport, curing phobias, increasing your confidence and even self-defence.

Allied to the NLP section is the next, about unconscious communication. This covers truthfulness, spotting lies and the usual stuff covered in most books about psychological magic and body language. It’s a short section, but there are some good ideas, and it goes a long way to explain the mechanisms behind one or two of the tricks in his early TV stuff.

The final part of the book is perhaps where for many people the wheels come off and he descends into a well-meaning rant. He has a go at alternative therapies, pseudo science, the supernatural, alternative medicine, faith healing, psychics and downright charlatans (and quite rightly, I think). He describes cold reading and gives some examples of where it might be used to make people believe an individual has “psychic” powers.

To finish off, there’s a selection of the more unusual emails he’s received over the years, including several from people who perhaps aught not to be let out unsupervised.

So, an interesting if wide-ranging read that sums up the man nicely. Since he lost his faith and started to look at the idea of belief as reality as an outsider, he’s managed to change the landscape of mentalism by thinking rationally, not subjectively about what makes us human. It shows in this very interesting, accessible, and above all, useful read.

Great review Tommo. This is definitley one to add to my ever expanding library.
Does he give his views on other magicians/mentalists in it?

I'm only about 30 pages in but it's very good and the stuff about the coin and card trick is fascinating.

BTW - At first I denied I had the book and then I told her I stole it. Sorted!

Lord Freddie wrote:Great review Tommo. This is definitley one to add to my ever expanding library.
Does he give his views on other magicians/mentalists in it?

He references them to illustrate his points, but doesn't actually critique their work, if I remember correctly.

greedoniz wrote:BTW - At first I denied I had the book and then I told her I stole it. Sorted!

You naughty thing!

i read all of it over the past 3 days as i had a touch of the lurgy...

he comes across in this (to me) as a mix of Nietchze being channelled via Stephen Fry...it reminded me a little of Nietchze's Ecce Homo (insert entendre here)...

very entertaining, he enjoys his words...which is a good thing in my/his book...

Great review Tomo...it was the mass market angle that put me off a bit. May just give this a bash over the hols....

I also really enjoyed it, he has great overviews of areas I really wanted to know about, and shall delve into now!

Anyone else think that his bit on muscle reading in a mass market book constitutes exposure?

It may be basic stuff to him (although he still used it in a TV episode recently) but it's a pretty impressive trick for some of us.

just to say, I absolutely loved the memory chapter - the mnemonics - they work! I use them all the time now!Very impressive when i perform it as a stunt - remembering 30 random words then reciting them perfectly in order, then in reverse...

Blapsing_Beard wrote:just to say, I absolutely loved the memory chapter - the mnemonics - they work! I use them all the time now!Very impressive when i perform it as a stunt - remembering 30 random words then reciting them perfectly in order, then in reverse...

Yes! I've just finished that memory section and it was brilliant! I was aware of these techniques before, i know some of it was covered in 13 steps, but Derren explains it very well in here. Brilliant. Now I have the rest of the book to read!

Asked for this book for xmas from my girlfriend. Had a quick scan through it in Woolies the other day. It does honestly look a good interesting read.

Ahhh,,, Christmas..... A time for giving and more importantly receiving more magic stuff!!!!:)

i read all your posts, but still can't understand if it's what I'm looking for...
does it teach you the way to perform psicological magic tricks or it's just a generic psicological book?

no, it wont teach you "proper" psychological tricks as such, it will nudge you into that area of study...

buts its not really a "d-i-y instant derren brown" if thats whay you mean...