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Mind Mysteries Guide Book Vol. 2: The Breakthrough Card System

Richard Osterlind

(Based on 1 review)
"The Breakthrough Card System has built into it a number of absolutely wonderful features that allow you to concentrate on routining. The second volume of the Mind Mysteries videos explored some of those best routines. This guide book sharpens your performance skills and allows you to perform with the deck some of the most astounding mentalism your audiences will ever see."
- from the foreword by John LeBlanc

In an unprecedented event, Richard Osterlind has revisited his hugely successful Mind Mysteries video series and is writing definitive guide books that exponentially enrich the material presented in it.

In this second volume, Richard takes Mind Mysteries Volume 2, which features what he considers his most signifcant achievement - the Breakthrough Card System - and once again analyzes each effect and even the System itself, adding new and previously unexplored facets, subtleties and stratagems.

In this guide book, you'll be privy to new perspectives on the Breakthrough Card System as well as significant new ideas such as:
  • The real facts about using playing cards in mentalism
  • Subliminal details concerning the Breakthrough Card System that puts your audience at ease
  • An exciting new Poker demonstration that's built right into the system
  • New presentation ideas, jokes and patter lines
Mind Mysteries Volume 2 introduced an entire new generation of magicians and mentalists to the power and possibilities of the Breakthrough Card System and now, for the first time, Richard Osterlind revisits this DVD and shows you how to make these routines play as strongly for you as they do for him.

If you own Mind Mysteries, this second volume of the Mind Mysteries Guide Book series will supply everything you need to know to not just do card tricks but to create miracles with nothing more than just a simple pack of playing cards.

Pages 78

Reviews

Bryce Kuhlman

Official Reviewer

Sep 24, 2006

General Comments on the Mind Mysteries Guide Books

The way we learn is changing. With so many types of learning media available, producers now have the opportunity to choose the right medium for the right type of instruction. Video is great for teaching moves, but it also makes it easier to simply copy everything, including the performance. Books are traditionally not good for teaching the techniques. But the beauty of learning from books is that they force you to think creatively. You have to fill in a lot of gaps and, by nature, you'll fill them in with ideas from your own mind.

The Mind Mysteries Guidebooks are an excellent addition to the DVDs.

To be honest, I don't own the DVDs. My interests in mentalism are very specific and, as it turns out, quite different from what Richard Osterlind is doing. So I borrowed the necessary DVDs from my friend Jeff McBride. The DVDs are quite good, but this isn't the place to talk about them.

The Guidebooks allow Richard to go into detail about his thought process. As he does this, the reader naturally starts considering his or her own thought processes. This is invaluable!

Mind Mysteries Guide Book, Volume 2: The Breakthrough Card System

This was my favorite DVD of the ones I watched. Actually, I should say the most applicable to my work.

Richard talks quite a bit about how and why the BCS came to be. He's received criticism by fans of other stacks like Aronson and Tamariz. But here's the deal: he had a set of goals and this stack achieved all of them. He does an excellent job of explaining why he created the stack, what it's useful for and why it's not appropriate to compare it to other stacks with different goals.

My favorite topics in this book were:

  • Non-magicians think of playing cards as games, not tricks
  • Flirting with assistants
  • Making interesting discussion, not focusing on "mental powers"
  • Justification for using a jumbo deck


Richard provides an honest evaluation of his own video. This was very useful and something you rarely see (Eugene Burger has been doing a lot of this type of work the past few years). He also provides honest credit for the source of his ideas.

Finally, the Poker Demo bonus is worth the price of the book. My favorite part of the DVD was the Blackjack Demo and this work takes it one step further.
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