book test

[Shawn Preston]

I'm looking to add a book test to my stand up show. I know of the mother of all book tests and insight, but does anyone know of any others that are worthy of consideration? I prefer a multiple word or multiple book version.

Thanks in advance
Shawn

[Guest]

Shawn, The mother of all booktest is the best booktest out there, Period. I do it along with double vision as one trick. But if you are creative you can save $350 and do the mother of all book test with any book, if you can find a good method, like i do sometimes

[Guest]

Kieth Fields Insight allows multiple revelations. I'm told Double Vision does but I have no personal knowledge. Becker's Ultimate Flashback, better than excellent. Not exactly a booktest but Roy Miller's Miller Clipper a major addition to the Snip Snip Want Ad Test
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Ford

[Steve Bryant]

In Chuck Hickok's Mentalism, Incorporated there is a routine using the Becker test, the Fields test, AND the Mother test. If you have the $$, this is the multiple-book test you may need. We paupers seek other solutions, and they are around.

[Guest]

What these tests do for the money, though I'm not an Insight fan, is simplify methodology so you can put all your emphasis on performance. The Motherm is extremely linear, you hand paricipant book, they open to any page. They have free choice of word, with virtually no pumping you can reveal word. Ultimate Flashback is nearly as linear. Most other tests are more complex.
For the person who doesn't get paid for shows or rarely performs, this difference might not be worth the expense
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Ford

[Guest]

I don't usually do much in the field of mentalism,but recently added the earle dream test,not sure how it compares but I love it....and get great response,,,just my 2 cents

[Guest]

FWIW: Take a look in Arcardia - Roger Crosthwaite, an extra bonus (book test) as described by Justin Highman in the Introduction (Orientation). Meets all criteria described. Impromptu, direct, and scaleable with imagination/memory. bill :genii:

[El Mystico]

There are some extremely good book tests out there at the moment.

Insight, The Key, the new Becker/Earle book, Mother of All Book Tests, and - is it called Final Test? Using gimmicked copies of Sons and Lovers etc. The Becker/Earle book in particular at the moment is tickling me it is so damn clever.

They've all got points in their favour. But - all depend on memory. Generally to a small extent - they all have techniques to make the memory work easy. But it does mean that unless you are doing them regularly, you'll need to partially learn the system again each time you work it....
For that reason the one I use most often is Mother - the effect it clean, its pretty easy to keep the work in memory - and, particularly when you do the two person version described in the booklet, have a great bit of entertainment....

[Shawn Preston]

Thanks to everyone who has responded. I appreciate the advice. Does anyone know anything about the Master Key? I've heard that it's pretty good, but how does it compare to the Mother and Insight?

Thanks
Shawn

[Stefano]

Follow the simple rule of 3 I have three suggestions; ;)

Michael Weber Lecture In London 1994, video tape produce by International Magic Studio London.
Book Test using a normal yellow pages telephone directory, easy and impossible to reconstruct.

Max Maven s Videomind video tape vol.1 Autome use ungimmicked props.

Val Andrews Unfaked Book Test booklet write by Val Andrews 1985, very clever you can repeat it.

Cheers
Stefano

[Guest]

A very clean book test (OK, it's done with a magazine) is "Fragments" which is in the new Stevens Magic Catalogue. The best part is that they can keep the magazine after it is done AND there is nothing to find when it is done too.
PSIncerely Yours,
Paul Alberstat
AB Stagecraft
http://www.mindguy.com/store
Suppliers of unique Mentalism world-wide

[Guest]

Hi, Shawn

Terri Roger's Masterkey (produced by Martin Breese and written by Val Andrews) uses a set of 3 books: 2 softcover, one hardcover. It has several tests you can choose to perform with: The UF Grant test, and the Terri Roger's any-word/name-you-choose test, and a numerical force (for a line of text). Obviously, there are mnemonics involved or you can use a cribsheet. You can have one spectator choose the right hand pag, and the second for the left hand page. It plays well if you enjoy booktests. Some fishing involved despite using interlocking anagrams, however a script should get you through the "fishing" process. I have used this for the past 3 years and I enjoy it. Keith Field's "Insight" is much easier to use and is highly recommended for one book. The menomic is very clever.

Enrico

[Bill Cushman]

I'm a bit of a booktest nut. To name a few I have and have performed: Flashback, Ultimate Flashback, Insight, Final Exam, Unfaked BookTest, Hidden Agenda, MOAB and Double Vision. I also have quite a few force books and own Seafire but have never performed it. This is no criticism of Seafire, I have just never taken the time to put it all together. Still, I feel I've learned a lot about routining just from reading Richard's mss.

Of course, MOAB is the cleanest and consistently generates powerful responses. Combined with Busch's Mother's Home Companion it is even better.

I love Final Exam because it uses classics in literature (my wife is a high school English teacher and these are books we already had around the house)and you reveal much more than a word. The trade off is you need to know the page number but there are ways around this. Also, there is a bit of memory work involved but it isn't nearly as daunting as it appears on the first read thru. I found that I'd done about half the memory work before I even tried, simply by reading it over and recalling the mnemonic devices. Also, in pulling out your memories, you go thru a process that looks and feels like you are doing something "mentalistic" which adds to the congruency of the performance. Harvey even suggests doing it as a memory trick but I think that would be a shame as it makes for such good mentalism.

Insight also requires some memory work, but again it isn't really overwhelming. The variety of data you can reveal makes for some great presentations.

With all the above said and done, with the exception of MOAB, I am going to recommend Double Vision. We tend to like what is new (what Eugene Burger knowingly calls "the tyranny of the new" and psychologists refer to as the "recency effect") and I am doing my best to seperate myself from this sometimes insidious unconcious process.

My reasons are as follows: El Mystico included DV among his lists of tests requiring memory. Not really. At least nothing other than remembering how to do the effect which is inherent in learning any effect.

DV is like Flashback on Steroids. I always liked the Flashback principle but wished it was housed in books that didn't look cheap. I actually like the original Flashback better than the Ultimate (with the exception of the book you can use for a Hoy like test) because it is so straight forward but that is just my taste.

Putting the Flashback principle in a very nice and real looking travel book was a stroke of genius. Even mentalists who object to book tests in the first place, especially on stage, have agreed that DV makes sense and doesn't violate their sense of what is and isn't mentalism. You aren't doing a book test; you are performing mentalism around the theme of travel, which has much inherent appeal and psychological power, and using a travel guide in the process. To those who object to book tests, this makes much more sense than handing someone a book out of which they select a word or words.

And then there is the range of possibilities in DV. Sure you can reveal a word or the gist of the first couple of lines (be careful with the latter, though, because there are a couple of spots where if you follow Ecker & Berle's instructions unthinkingly you can end up in hot water) but there is so much more. You can reproduce photos, you can reveal obscure content of photos, posters and drawings, you can have the participant use a map and go on an imaginary walk and tell which ways they are turning and where they end up. The participants can select lodgings and you can tell them the name, how many stars it is rated and its phone number. You can give the population of towns, license numbers, street numbers and the time on photos of clocks. And more, but that is enough to give you a good idea of what makes this such a great booktest.

And it all follows from the basic Flashback principle (and by extension a principle that gives you all the numbers I listed above)and a few simple rules you have to memorize. You memorize rules, not facts. And the rules lead you unerringly to the facts. DV is so good it ought to be illegal.

[Guest]

Marc Paul's lecture notes contain a book test that can be done with any book at any time. He's performed it unedited on TV to the guest & host of a chat show (Parkinson).

You need to have some balls though IMO.