Price$100.00
Media TypeTrick
CategoryMentalism
Date AddedJun 10, 2006
Divine Time
Jason Palter
(Based on 1 review)
Divine Time is a reputation maker. Your audience will be stunned when you divine the time on a freely chosen watch from your personal collection! No pre-show, no fishing, no prompting...no way!
Effect
You relate to the audience your fascination with time, and display part of your collection of digital watches in a large, clear plastic bag. You further share your thoughts on the widespread belief that energy and rhythms flow through the universe, and that while time is relative, it too is just a series of vibrations. To that end, you briefly enlighten the audience to the inner workings of a quartz watch, and state that the quartz crystal's vibrations could theoretically be transmitted through an individual. Only very perceptive people can feel these subtle pulses, you explain, and you wish to try an experiment with this premise tonight! After inviting a spectator up on stage, they confirm that the watches in your collection all show random times. Without looking, they freely choose a watch, and hide it behind their back. The spectator, the audience, and you have no clue as to which watch was picked. Then by using the vibrations that the quartz crystal emits, and by utilizing a knock-out and somewhat eerie routine, you are able to divine the time on the watch! The spectator leaves the stage completely baffled, and the audience has been totally mystified with a new-age and innovative presentation!
Some key points to remember:
- Self-contained.
- No pre-show work, no fishing, no prompting.
- You choose the time that will be revealed. Resets in about 5 minutes, and is repeatable with any different time using our "Time Control" method.
- The spectator, the audience, and you never see the watch until the spectator reveals it at the end of the routine.
- The spectator can examine and even keep the watch at the end of the routine.
- There's nothing to find!
Reviews
(Top ▲)
There's one thing for sure about Divine Time, you get a lot of stuff. Magicians are accustomed to paying top dollar for a piece of bent wire and a poorly-printed single sheet of paper, so opening Divine TIme's large box feels like discovering a veritable treasure chest of props and goodies. You get a DVD, a photo-illustrated instruction booklet, a clear plastic shopping bag, and twenty (yes, 20) LCD digital wristwatches. You even get a few spare batteries for the watches.
The secret of this trick can be summed up in just a sentence or two, so most of the instructions are dedicated to its presentation. You could use Jason Palter's presentation, he certainly gives you enough to work with between the printed manual and the 20 minute DVD, but I found it too cluttered with "new age" babble and illogic. Luckily, towards the end of the DVD, an alternative is suggested that offers a bit more drama and requires less expository patter. You can judge the new age presentation for yourself by viewing a performance video at Palter's website.
Despite the obvious effort put into the package I found that the DVD and printed manual miss their marks. Oh, they're nicely produced, but pertinent information is too easy to miss, and hard to refer back to, thanks to all the surrounding noise. For example, the manual omits important information about how the watches might get accidentally mishandled during performance or transport, but the topic is covered on the DVD. On the other hand, the DVD spends several tedious minutes explaining how to set the time on the watches, information that is already provided in more usable (but equally tedious) form in print. Some refinement and focusing of the contents of the manual and the DVD would have allowed each to play to their strengths. Instead, finding the good parts seems like a scavenger hunt.
Is Divine Time a good trick? Well, it's not bad, in my opinion. As I said, I don't care much for the presentation. If I were to include this in a show I'd consider replacing the plastic shopping bag and display the watches pinned inside my coat jacket, ala a street vendor of stolen merchandise, to avoid both the oddity of the bag and the illogic of a watch collection that consists of mostly cheap, and virtually identical, watches. I would also adopt Palter's suggestion of allowing the spectator to keep their chosen watch at the end of the routine. I think that's a charming touch and Palter says that replacement watches are available from him at a good (but unstated) price.
All in all, I feel that Divine Time is an average piece of magic, produced with slightly more care than usual, at an above average price. Accordingly, I give it a middling 3 stars.
The secret of this trick can be summed up in just a sentence or two, so most of the instructions are dedicated to its presentation. You could use Jason Palter's presentation, he certainly gives you enough to work with between the printed manual and the 20 minute DVD, but I found it too cluttered with "new age" babble and illogic. Luckily, towards the end of the DVD, an alternative is suggested that offers a bit more drama and requires less expository patter. You can judge the new age presentation for yourself by viewing a performance video at Palter's website.
Despite the obvious effort put into the package I found that the DVD and printed manual miss their marks. Oh, they're nicely produced, but pertinent information is too easy to miss, and hard to refer back to, thanks to all the surrounding noise. For example, the manual omits important information about how the watches might get accidentally mishandled during performance or transport, but the topic is covered on the DVD. On the other hand, the DVD spends several tedious minutes explaining how to set the time on the watches, information that is already provided in more usable (but equally tedious) form in print. Some refinement and focusing of the contents of the manual and the DVD would have allowed each to play to their strengths. Instead, finding the good parts seems like a scavenger hunt.
Is Divine Time a good trick? Well, it's not bad, in my opinion. As I said, I don't care much for the presentation. If I were to include this in a show I'd consider replacing the plastic shopping bag and display the watches pinned inside my coat jacket, ala a street vendor of stolen merchandise, to avoid both the oddity of the bag and the illogic of a watch collection that consists of mostly cheap, and virtually identical, watches. I would also adopt Palter's suggestion of allowing the spectator to keep their chosen watch at the end of the routine. I think that's a charming touch and Palter says that replacement watches are available from him at a good (but unstated) price.
All in all, I feel that Divine Time is an average piece of magic, produced with slightly more care than usual, at an above average price. Accordingly, I give it a middling 3 stars.