Customer Reviews

Practical Mental Magic (Dover Magic Books)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This, along with Corinda's "13 Steps to Mentalism" is an absolute essential for anybody that wants to get into the art of mindreading. It covers all of the main ruses, and Anneman's work with Billets is, in my opinion, unparalleled. Some effects are somewhat dated (i.e. some effects encorporate the "magician's force", which is now widly known by the layman), but considering it was first published in 1944 this is to be expected.
Beautifully written and compiled, and very cheap for the amount that you have to work with.
An absolute must.

If you are looking for a book full of quick mental magic gags, this isn't very good. All the tricks in this book require either A) Advanced skills in slight of hand (palming, quick switches, etc) or B) A gimmicked apparatus. It isn't as easy as amazing your buddies at a party with some mind reading tricks. These are for more advanced magicians. It was also written in 1944.

That being said, it is a very interesting look into how some of this stuff is (or was) accomplished. I have seen several of these tricks used before and wondered how they were pulled off, now I know.

If you are a magician with basic skills in slight of hand, palming, and switching, then you will probably find some cool additions to your performance here.

If you are looking for some basic stuff to baffle your friends with, this is not the right book for you.

This very popular book shows you how some mentalism tricks are performed through the use of additional hidden objects. Covers mind-reading, spiritual effects, etc... and making them LOOK REAL !! But a couple tricks are sort of outdated because the audience is becoming more demanding and intelligent and may be able to guess what exactly going on. For example, writing words in a special way and by "erasing" part of these words/numbers reveal a specific message.

Overall it is a worthy book considering that it is not expensive, easy-to-understand and the sort of book that the conjurer would not want you to know about.

Excellent book! This is the best book on magic I have read. It contains well over 100 routines (I started to write tricks, however most of these routines are too complete and well developed to be called tricks.) Each routine tells the effect, any preparation necessary, and the details of performing the routine. These details are were I feel this book shines. It gives suggestions on exact hand placement at all times, the type of patter to use and when to use it, as well as many other forms of misdirection. Being an older reprint some materials suggested are a little out dated, however I found it easy to find modern substitutes. If you like magic and particularly mental magic, this book is a must have.

Although dated, this collection of mental effects was and remains one of the best ever written for this subject. (only surpassed by Corrinda's 13 Steps to Mentalism) Not to be taken lightly, there were performers whose entire acts are condensed on but a few pages contained within. Not for the young or for the beginner, this book is a requirement for any serious magician's bookshelf or one interested in psychic phenomena. I bought this book hardbound for many times this price and felt it was one of the best purchases I made in the field

The book is literally packed with excellent routines and techniques, most of which require little or no sleight of hand skills. Though somewhat dated (you may have a litlle trouble finding some of the materials used) it is chock-full of "how'd he do that" stuff. The variety of material contained is wonderful also. From billets to cards to envelopes to codes to blind-folds to money routines. Just get it! You won't be sorry. I hear that Mark Striving has modernized some of it with a book "Annemann Updated" or something to that effect. I would be interested in that but can't find it

If you want to do mentalism you need this and 13 STEPS TO MENTALISM by Corinda. These two texts can take you far.

Ted Annemann is still considered one of the greatest Mentalists to have taken the stage. Within this volume you will receive hundreds of dollars worth of ideas. Annemann was one of the most prolific and original inventors of magic effects in his short life. If "13 Steps to Mentalism" is the bible of mentalism, Practical Mental Magic is the Dead Sea Scrolls. The only down side to this excellent book is its antiquity, and may require some updating to work with more sophisticated modern audiences.

One of the great classic texts, but don't get the idea that you're going to be doing the effects in the book five minutes after you pick this gem up. More important for the principles they use and show, and some effects and not logically or easily done in the drawing rooms of today!

These are some amazing illusions, and reading about the effect makes me excited to try them out. When it gets to how to actually do them, a lot of them require some very hard to come by and outlandish things like (I kid you not) an old radio cabinet, a silver finger tip and a human skull. Somehow I don't have this stuff lying around the basement. It makes actually performing these illusions pretty unrealistic.