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I'm looking at purchasing a book test and wondered what you nice people thought to be the most impressive.

Cheers

I think Bobos magic looks impressive im gettin for Christmas hopefully

This is going to sound quite rude, so I apologise in advance.

But why do you want to do a book test?
What sort of magic do you do?
Who do you perform to?
Who will you perform the book test to?
What other "effects" do you plan to perform in the same set?
are you amagician or a mentalist?
What do you think adding a book test will do to your act?
Is it for close up, stage or parlour?

I'd suggest getting yourself a copy of Karl Fulves Self Working Mental Magic, there are some simple but good book tests in there.

Ok my friend no offence taken.
I am gearing more towards mentalism these days than magic.
I prefer close up and personal effects.
At the moment I am using esp, future zone and DA2
My audiences are predominently friends and colleagus
Maybe a book test isnt for me buy I would be foolish not to try I think
Hope this answers some of your questions
kev

Thank you lady of mystery

Lady of Mystery wrote:I'd suggest getting yourself a copy of Karl Fulves Self Working Mental Magic, there are some simple but good book tests in there.

Me Lommy moster is quite right. I like the IBT from Osterlind, and wait yes I am going say it...Tomos book test aint half bad once you have studyed it for a good while.

storm01 wrote:Ok my friend no offence taken.
I am gearing more towards mentalism these days than magic.
I prefer close up and personal effects.
At the moment I am using esp, future zone and DA2
My audiences are predominently friends and colleagus
Maybe a book test isnt for me buy I would be foolish not to try I think
Hope this answers some of your questions
kev

Admittedly I've not read through the other replies but I wanted to address these admissions of your own as well as what Bananafish extended to you, in that these are exactly the things I'd be asking you about.

You are "new" at these things e.g. why drop a ton of money into some gaffed book system? Especially when you want to work more along the lines of "close-up"

My first suggestion (which may have already been stated) is to learn more about the improvisational styled Book Tests such as the Hoy or Brook-Test as well as subtle techniques along the lines of Lee Earle's Silver Bullet. These will allow you to work under random settings and with ANY book or magazine that happens to be available. There are likewise methods using a Swami or Pocket-Writing as well as simple forces such as you will find, I believe it is in one of the Banacheck Psychological Subtleties books; a technique in which using a finger-ring allows for the force of a word (there are many variants to this idea, you need but a small "window" for it... I personally use a large paper-clip as well as "reader" device known as an OWL, which lights up the page and magnifies the line)

In that you are a recovering magician heading into Mentalism, I'd suggest too that you learn to understand that MENTALISM IS NOT MAGIC... though Criss Angel seems to insist on calling us all that, he's just proving his own ignorance. Magicians do tricks, Mentalist create miracles e.g. as Stephan Minch told us long ago, you need to let go of your magician's guilt and learn to invoke your inner-hustler if you are going to succeed in creating the illusion of things surreal vs. some kind of silly magic trick... if you want to do magic tricks then be a magician that does some limited mental magic; if you are going to call yourself a "Mentalist" however, RUN and create a serious distance between yourself and the magic world; you do not want to be seen as a mere trickster.

(does it show that I'm a die-hard?)

Study the classic resources on Mentalism and you'll find a plethora of material that will fill your niche.

I would suggest for a new person in to mentalism. Is to pick up osterlind easy to master set. There is a ton of good stuff in there. I use quite a bit of it my self while "working". The Dvds cover :

Billets
Esp Cards
Playing card mentalism
3 or 4 book test gaffed and non gaffed
Metal bending.
And a whole lot more.

If you cant pick something up from these has a budding mentalist then you wont become a mentalist.

from a mentalist now magician to a magician now mentalist i recomend an expert and super sharpie to compliment the excelent volumes and dvd's mentioned and to be mentioned.

Discoman did you know Abraxus dosent belive in using ink..

But study osterlind, banachek and if you still want to be a mentalist then you can move on.

Theres some excellent advice here thank you all very much

Kev