Price$40.00
Media TypeBook
CategoryMentalism
Date AddedDec 27, 2022
Further Diverse Deceptions
Osterlind, Richard
Jim Sisti
(Based on 1 review)
Diverse Deceptions, the first in our retro series, turned out to be a great success, both in sales and in customer feedback. More Diverse Deceptions was also widely accepted. Now we are offering the final entry into the series, Further Diverse Deceptions.
This is what it contains:
Mirage Envelope - Complete instructions on how you can make up these incredible envelopes yourself and have a lifetime supply for a small investment. Richard gives you his own handling as well as a Fourth Dimensional Telepathy effect and a great Q & A routine.
Cards in Pocket - This is the effect where the spectator randomly places two cards in his pockets. The mentalist names the cards and then the spectator tells which card is in each pocket! With this method, he is always right!
Al Mann Routine - This routine is an incredible slant on a prediction effect that is a reputation maker! A spectator secretly writes a question and the mentalist writes an answer. Each paper is sealed in an envelope and the spectator mails them together! The spectator receives his own envelope a few days later and it contains a direct answer to his question! As an exercise in creation, Richard shows you six methods (actually eight!) to accomplish this miraculous effect!
The Swami - For the first time in one place, Richard tells you exactly the type of swami he uses, how to prepare it and how to fit it. This chapter is worth the cost of the whole book if you are a working mentalist!
Miracle Thought Projection Expanded - This is the final word on one of Richard's reputation effects! He teaches what to do in every case and offers a wonderful new way to handle a bad response. If that is not enough, he shows how he ends the effect to make sense of the routine, regardless of what happens. This routine was one of mentalism's most closely guarded secrets for many years!
Stand-Up Die Routine - If you have one of our Whispering Die kits, you will love this stand-up routine that turns the effect into a major piece of mentalism. But, the good news is you can do the routine with any type of die box. Since the Whispering Die is our best-selling effect, however, we're betting that many of our readers walk around with one of them in their pocket wherever they go!
Newspaper Prediction - An incredibly clean and powerful newspaper test where pieces from any newspaper are folded up and one is freely and openly chosen. A committee decides on what is important on the piece and that is shown to be on a prediction paper in sight from the beginning! You can do this immediately once you know the secret!
Direct Book Test - With nothing but four ordinary hardcover novels, the mentalist performs a mind blowing routine of mind reading with a wonderful ending. This method is clean beyond belief and will leave the audience speechless. Richard gives you two great ways to finish. Again, you need no special apparatus.
Some Final Thoughts - Richard concludes this landmark series with some of his own observations about mentalism. As fans of Richard will know, these essays have always been some of the more important sections of any book he has written.
Reviews
(Top ▲)
Overview
1 booklet, 64 pages, 5 effects, 3 "workshops", 1 essay, 1 Richard Osterlind, 40 bucks and 1 Further Diverse Deceptions review. Is it gem or is it rubble? Stay tuned to find out.Effect
Mirage EnvelopeA very clever hidden-in-plain-site peek envelope. One that can be shown to be (apparently) free of guile, thought it is quite guile-ful.
A very clever cousin to Bob Cassidy's White Dwarf with, of course, the Osterlind Optimization (OO).
This is one of the "workshops" where we are treated to not only how to make the envelope, but several useful ideas on its potential.
Cards In Pocket
A "shuffled" deck is given to the spectator to cut, and to place two cards sight unseen into his front pockets, one in the left, one in the right. The mage is able to divine what the cards are. Then the spectator is able to "divine" which pocket has which card.
This uses some incredibly clever (OO) wording that creates a beautiful moment where the spectator is able to "predict" which card is in which of his own pockets. Brilliant!
Al Mann Routine
This is a one-question Q&A routine where the participant secretly puts the question in an envelope, and the magician puts the answer in another envelope. Both are sealed, and mailed by the participant to his own home. A few days later, the participant receives both letters only to find that the answer in one envelope perfectly fits the question in the other.
This is "workshop" #2 where The Optimizer (I just officially made that Richard Osterlind's nickname) gives us a half-dozen ways to "solve" this classic Al Mann Routine (roll credits - only true nerds will appreciate that).
Also, shameless plug: If you're interested in this type of effect, in my best-selling book, 793.9: Where is The Magic? I play around with a somewhat similar idea using the postal system for a routine in the effect, Don't Try This at Home.
Swami!
"Workshop" #3 . . . on the swami. The who, what, when, where, why, and how of this gift from the mentalism gods. You'll find plenty of useful stuff in here, along with some things that will challenge your point of view, and maybe even anger you. But, hey, if two people agree on everything, one of them is unnecessary.
Miracle Thought Projection Expanded
This is a brief treatise on the "I'll place a card on the table face down, and you name what card you think it is and you'll be right" plot. Once again The Optimizer gives us the real work on how to make something like this play. Smart stuff that requires a small bit of thinking on your feet, and fair bit of showmanship. Nothing you can't do. You got this!
Stand-Up Die Routine
A powerful little strolling effect where the spectator chooses a side on a die, and another writes down an important name on a piece of paper. The mage divines the die and gives a numerological reading. Then he does a reading and divination of the name written by the other person.
The Optimizer strikes again by taking some simple ideas, adding some theater to give a little bit of meaning, and turning the smallest thing into the biggest thing. Depending on which variant you choose, you may or may not have the one little thing needed to "get" the die value, but these methods are readily available with prices ranging from a few dollars to a few thousand. I like the $2 options myself.
Newspaper Prediction
Get a sheet of newspaper, and rip it in half, and again, and again, each time letting the participant choose which halves to keep. When all is said and done, there is one piece of paper left. A few folks from the audience read it. A been-in-full-view-the-whole-time prediction is opened to reveal a perfect match.
The lowest of low-tech methods you can imagine, and in some showmanship, stir, and BAM OO.
Direct Book Text
Though this is a solid piece, I feel that it's the weakest link. It definitely direct and simple in that four books are used. One is used to find a random page number. The other books are in the possession of three other participants who turn to the random page number. The mage reveals information from the pages.
The impact is powerful, and builds nicely, but the "finding a random page" part is a little convoluted. The good news is, however, that part is super easy to replace with any other method. The Hoy method would work, and is even suggested by The Optimizer. So, frankly, the method he used seemed to be not the best way to go.
The rest of the routine, however, is simple, straightforward and a definite recipient of an OO.
Some Final Thoughts
This being the final book of the trilogy The Optimizer shares some thoughts about the series, the journey of writing it, and what mentalism should and shouldn't look like and be. He, like most of us, is very opinionated. More on that later.
Product Quality
As has been the pattern with this set of books, the cost is right. It matches up (when inflation, etc. is taken into account) with the price of the booklets from 100 years ago that inspired this set of booklets.For the most part they're well-written, clear, clean, and concise. I will say, however, that of the three books, this one has the most cases of me having to go back and re-read something multiple times to decipher what appeared to be either a ramble, or a jump in time, but I was (in all cases) able to make sense of it.
Lastly, like its two older siblings, the nostalgia is deep with this final book.
Ad Copy Integrity
No fluff. All is accurate. They even go as far as making it clear that one of the effects, Stand-Up Die Routine, requires the use of one of their marketed products, Whispering Dice.Note, however, other ways are mentioned in the book that don't require the Whispering Dice.
Final Thoughts
- Effect:Strong. Impactful. Direct.
- Method:Easy. Low-tech. Nearly-foolproof.
- Product Quality:Excellent!
- Ad Copy Integrity:Honest. Accurate. Real.
As mentioned earlier, the final thoughts essay in the book you'll find that opinions abound. If you're familiar with any of Richard's essay (whether oral or written) you know that he is quite opinionated. We all are. He does, often, come across as "my way and thinking about mentalism is the only valid one!!!!"
Also, on more than one occasion I've seen / read him make a very "this way only and no other way" kind of statement which was almost immediately followed by him doing the "wrong way" by his own rules. In one case (Penguin Live Lecture) an attendee kind of called him on it and he basically replied by saying that "you shouldn't care about stuff like that" which was in stark contrast to his ten-minute-ago statement.
I bring this up only to point out that there is (slightly more than?) a hint of that in this book. I point it out because it may be info you care about. It does not, however, impact the star rating.
Opinions don't matter when it comes to the star rating. That being said:
Final Verdict:
4.5 stars with a Stone Status of Gem.