Official Reviewer
Nov 15, 2024
Overview
Obtaining information covertly may sound like cheating but when it comes to performing mentalism and convincing your audience you can truly read minds, all options must and can be used. Getting a peek at what your participant had drawn or written on a card is standard operating procedures. There are many ways to do this and quite a few mentalists resort to using peek wallets as their go to method. The Parallel Wallet is another wallet offering by Mental Voyage that can help you in this arena.Effect
A spectator is asked to make a drawing of a simple object on the back of a business card. They are then instructed to place the card, drawing side down, under the license portion of the wallet on the inside. The wallet is closed and placed on the table. After a couple of minutes of discussing how drawings can reveal personalities, the mentalist retrieves another card from the wallet and also draws what he feels the participant drew. The drawing the participant placed in the wallet is removed and remarkably, is virtually identical to the mentalist's. Method
Obviously, the wallet is constructed in a manner which allows the performer to get a glimpse at the drawing even though it is face down in a compartment in the wallet. The more difficult portion of the entire effect is being able to nonchalantly gather the information you need to then reveal it back to the spectator.Product Quality
The wallet is well made of real leather. What makes The Parallel Wallet attractive to me is that it is designed to be used as an every day wallet. Unlike other peek wallets, you can load it with cash, driver's license, a couple of credit cards and still make use of the peek function. There are three ways to peek but like any other magic effect there are the Achilles Heels that plaques it. To obtain the peek, conditions have to be pretty good. Dark environments will make obtain the information difficult. Other peek wallets have a very open peek, at best The Parallel Wallet may offer a 35° angle which is quite tight. Trying to expand it may look suspicious. Another drawback is that for one of the peeks you would want to limit the written down item to a simple drawing. Trying to read a name or a number would probably be too difficult unless it was limited to three letters or integers. The video instructions are limited to the peek function and no routines are provided. One would probably buy this if they already have a peek wallet which came with a ton of examples and wanted a different wallet to perform with. The instructions are 13 minutes long and is well shot.Ad Copy Integrity
All Mental Voyage products are delivered as advertised and the buyer usually gets more than anticipated. Final Thoughts
The Parallel Wallet is a nice, streamlined wallet which can be carried everyday. I personally would load up with only my essentials which is some cash, driver's license and a credit card. The remaining pockets I would carry several of Mental Voyages mentalism cards for a nice, pack flat carry-all that will get you 60 minutes of performance time without much bulk.
