I love your attitude Brian. I try give people the benefit of the doubt even if they are being a bit mean to me and just continue the conversation in a friendly tone. (I try but probably don't always succeed). Sometimes the guy who was sort of being a jerk kind of starts being nicer because I ignored that stuff and we end up agreeing on some stuff.

Anyway back to the talk:

This point has been glossed over several times so let me clarify it:

In one of the missing threads you said something along the lines of:

"I wouldn't post a video exposing my own trick because it wouldn't be fair to the people who purchased it because it would be detrimental to their performance of the trick"

1) Exactly how would exposing your trick hurt the performance of it?

Hi Brian. Welcome to the Café, and sorry about your threads about your new $700 booktest being zapped..

I notice you've been a member since 2008, but only have 37 posts to date. Where've you been? You don';t seem to have been too concerned about the place before now.

But please tell us more about your new $700 ($800?) booktest. Why should we support you and your work with its purchase? How is it different, better, easier, more advanced than the others out there? Reiterate please. Is it better than AAA, Flashback or Mother? In what way(s) is that extra loot worth it?

Thank you, and again, its taken you so long to work up the courage to participate here, we're excited to see what you have to say.

Think about this for a moment... what would the perfect book test look like? It would use multiple, well-known bestsellers to choose from. The books could be examined before the performance, and then your volunteer could have a truly free selection of any word from any page in any book.

...And yet the performer would be able to figure out almost instantly what their secret selected word is. And that's just one of the three separate effects built into these books.

Here's the flaw with every other book test out there: if you want to divine a word selected from a book, you either need a crooked way to force someone's word selection, or you need a crooked book. Forcing a word selection adds so many steps that your audience quickly becomes suspicious of just how "free" this word selection is. And there are a bunch of fantastic book tests out there that use crooked books... but none of them have titles that your audience has ever heard of, let alone read. So your audience is left to guess that the method involves some kind of tricky book (...and, of course, they'll be right).

This book test is completely different. Your volunteers will truly have a free choice of any word in the book. Meanwhile, all three books look like real books they've read before... because they are the real books they've read before. Each book in the Brian Brushwood book test is an authentic copy of a well-known bestseller that has been diabolically altered to make possible the most stunning version of a book test created to date. The books easily pass inspection before the trick begins: there's no question that these are the exact same books that they've read and enjoyed in the past.

See it performed by Dan White on the TODAY show here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1H8M4u-cYE

and learn more here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK3lJTI6YVU

There are only a few key parts to memorize for the effect. You'll have perfect cover for gathering what little information you need, and the effect will be absolutely stunning.

Best of all? This is only one of 3 possible effects.

Imagine asking your volunteer to pick any book, open to any page, and find some dialogue between two characters. Ask them to choose the biggest, most interesting word in their conversation... and then hand them a sealed envelope, mailed to their address over a week before the effect is performed.

...And imagine their surprise when their selected word exactly matches your sealed, mailed prediction.

No switches, no sleight of hand, no verbal trickery... just a total miracle. And with no hard work on your part, whatsoever.

Finally: imagine you have a book selected, and have 3 random volunteers offer numbers to select a page. While they turn to their page, you draw an image and hold your prediction in plain sight. After they turn to their page, they read the first line, and are shocked to discover that it exactly describes your drawing. Had they selected the page before or the page after, the image described would have been different... only the page they selected perfectly matches your drawing.

Each of the dozen widely-known mentalists currently performing this effect paid over $1,200 for the full set of three books. At $400 per book, it is the most expensive book test ever released on the magic market. Partly, this is because constructing these books is a very tedious, very expensive process. Partly, this is because it's simply the best book test available on planet Earth at this moment, and should remain exclusive.

But most importantly: this pricing is based on the fact that only 500 complete sets will ever, and can ever be made.

But Brian, earlier in the conversation when people like me suggested that you shouldn't have exposed the Invisible Deck on your show your response was that exposure doesn't hurt magicians.

1) Do you believe that exposing the invisible deck on your show harms the effectiveness of that trick? (I do).

2) Do you believe that exposing your own book test would harm the effectiveness of that trick?

If you reveal an effect to someone who would (absent your intervention) experience greater wonder, then yes: you have diminished the effect and robbed them of the joy that comes from mystery.

However, if someone desires to share your privilege (that is, perform magic for others), then I don't think you have any right to stand in their way. I don't think it matters how much money they have; I don't think it matters who they know... If they want to become a magician and they're willing to put forth the time and effort to learn our trade, then they deserve to be counted among our brotherhood.

So note your own distinction between the above two groups. The second group wants to perform magic for others. Doesn't that mean that you in fact diminished the effect and robbed a whole bunch of people of the joy of the effect? You do agree that many people who Google for methods are not interested in becoming performers, right?

Sure, but the same is true at the local library... and I assume you're okay with that, right?

WHAT WAS THOMAS EDISON'S FATHER'S NAME?

1) Answer the question by going to the library.
2) Answer the question by using your computer.

Don't proceed until you have done both. I'll wait.

Were these two experiences the same? How likely would you be to go to a Library after watching a magic show? How likely would you be to Google after being fooled by a trick at a magic show?

I do think you're 100% right that an unfortunate side effect of all this is that people who "just want the secret" can now get it easier than ever. That's definitely true. But how much do we care about those guys? They're wonder-killers, and they're not our target audience. In the pre-internet age, these same people just would make up a ridiculous method and decide they're right. And whether they had guessed correctly or not, in their mind the wonder is just as dead.

Who needs those guys? More importantly, why on earth should we waste our time catering to them? We've never been able to stop them from shouting out their guesses, and they hold the ultimate trump card: No matter how wrong they are, they always just decide they're right anyway.

(Since this thread ended up in the Magazine section I don't know if any one is actually following it compared to the first two. Oh well)

On Jul 21, 2015, MeetMagicMike wrote:

(Since this thread ended up in the Magazine section I don't know if any one is actually following it compared to the first two. Oh well)