lumberjohn
Members
 Offline
Posts: 71
|
 |
« Reply #5 on: December 17, 2006, 02:44:36 pm » |
|
This is my review of Psychological Subtleties 2 by Steve Shaw, a.k.a. Banachek. For those hopefully few out there not familiar with Banachek, he is a mentalist, and this is a book for mentalists and aspiring mentalists, though I assume, if you are reading this review, that you are at least somewhat familiar with its predecessor, Psychological Subtleties, and thus have an idea of what to expect here.
Psychological Subtleties 1 was concerned primarily with psychological forces, that is, selections chosen by large numbers of people under certain situations, thereby substantially increasing the odds of the mentalist being correct. Banachek distilled his own experience and research to demonstrate some effective forces and ideas for using them in a mentalism act. Throughout the book, Banachek provided much of his own philosophy on effective and responsible mentalism. Overall, the book is an excellent resource for any mentalist, but may have disappointed those who were looking for new effects or routines, since Banachek’s stated purpose in writing the book was to give readers the tools for creatively coming up with their own routines.
It will be no surprise that PS2 is more of the same in many regards, but also addresses those who wanted more routines and ideas for incorporating the forces into effects. Banachek opened the doors to many of his mentalist colleagues to come up with ideas based upon the principles discussed in PS1 and clearly received some great feedback. He also appears to have approached fellow mentalists with published effects he thought would make good examples and obtained their permission to use those effects in PS2. The result, in my opinion, is well worth the price of the book for anyone interested in this subject.
I will try to address the highlights of the book to provide a good idea of what you will find when PS2 arrives on your doorstep. The first chapter is titled “Subtle Psychology” and begins with various pieces of advice on using psychological forces in a stage or parlor act. Here, I should add that both PS1 and PS2 are geared towards performing a stage or parlor act with an audience of at least 20 people rather than a close up or “street magic” situation. Next are some new psychological forces and routines by Christian David, Patrick Kuffs, Rick Maue, and others incorporating them. The Maue effect is impromptu and, in my opinion, outstanding. I have not performed it, but it is one of those effects that makes you smile just reading it.
The next chapter, “Subtle Presentation Points,” contains just that: presentational ideas that will make your effects more powerful and memorable in your audience’s eyes. Behind many of these is Banachek’s strong belief that with mentalism, it is important that the audience see a process to what is occurring on the stage, as this gives them something to which they can anchor and involves them in what is going on.
The following chapter is “Subtle Suggestions,” and contains advice from Banachek, Greg Arce, and Ian Rowland on creating false memories, nail writing subtleties, and broadcast effects. The next chapter, “Subtle Pre-Show,” not surprisingly contains some excellent advice from Banachek from the trenches on effective pre-show work. Likewise, the following chapter, “Subtle Blindfold,” give advice on effects in which the mentalist is blindfolded.
Next up are chapters titled “Subtle Non-Verbal” and “Subtle Teaching” which provide advice on how to incorporate body language and verbal cues into your act. Banachek uses both to throw the audience off and misdirect them from his actual methods. These are outstanding sections and include a great effect involving a phone book prediction. In the “Subtle Teaching” section, Banachek introduces the reader to a variety of psychological principles, but leaves it to the reader to incorporate them into effects. Perhaps PS3 will contain more effects based on these ideas.
The final chapter is titled “Subtle Amnesia” and provides ideas for using people’s familiarity with amnesia to create mentalism effects. This chapter contains three strong effects, including a great idea for a magic square presentation.
Overall, I would not hesitate to recommend this book to a working mentalist. It contains a wealth of information going well beyond the emphasis in PS1 on psychological forces. It also contains some very strong effects by creative thinkers. Like PS1, this should not be purchased simply as a book of effects, as there are certainly other sources in this price range with a greater quantity of effects. But if you are interested in new approaches and presentations for your mentalism show, then you can’t do much better than PS1 and PS2.
|
