Price$40.00
Media TypeBook
CategoryMentalism
Date AddedDec 27, 2022
More Diverse Deceptions
Richard Osterlind
Jim Sisti
(Based on 1 review)
Contents include:
Mindreading Extraordinaire - A new application of a traditional principle that is about as direct demonstration of ESP as is imaginable! Spectators write thoughts and seal them up in envelopes and you read their minds without ever touching them! They can take the sealed envelopes home! This is a utility idea with all kinds of variations possible.
Five Star Prediction Revisited - Richard's handling of the Koran routine he has been using for over 40 years. This is time-tested, can be repeated, and is suitable for stage, close-up and trade shows. Best of all, it looks like an incredible demonstration of thought control. There are general performing tips galore here!
Stage Opener - The mentalist walks out on stage and immediately stuns the audience without anyone coming up or any unnecessary moves. This is Richard's version of the Swami Opener done with maximum visibility and which covers every performance phase learned over a lifetime a performing it. Stage Opener will establish you as a remarkable person within two minutes of beginning your act!
Osterlind's Blindfold Act - This is Richard's actual act for the standard blindfold routine. Although Richard developed the Legacy Blindfold for just this purpose, you don't need it to perform the act. (If you do have one, so much the better!) Everything about this act makes sense and you will marvel at the logic and the impossibility of it. It really looks like what a blindfold routine should look like!
Numerical Book Test - This is a very entertaining variation of a prediction book test with a surprise kicker at the end your audience will love. Have you ever been approached before a show with the request, "It's John's birthday today. Can you work that into your act?" With this test, you are always prepared to handle that and other requests like it in a beautifully constructed routine!
Osterlind Blindfold Drive - This is the pièce de résistance of the book! Richard has been featured twice on Japan's top television shows performing this routine! It is the perfect blindfold drive! Everything is ungimmicked, you can be scrutinized from inches away, the blindfold is layers upon layers of material, and yet you can see! This secret is literally worth thousands of dollars to the performer! This is, by far, the most professional way to do a Blindfold Drive! The method can be used, of course, for other purposes, but it was designed to be a staggering publicity stunt! It has proven to be just that for Richard for over 30 years!
Bert Reese Routine - As if all this was not enough, Richard gives his final work on the Bert Reese routine. With nothing but a few small cards or pieces of paper, you are able to do what is perhaps the most remarkable demonstration of mind-reading ever conceived! Reese performed for presidents, kings, and celebrities his whole life. He convinced Thomas Edison he had psychic powers! This is his act with tips and updates that Richard has developed and used for modern audiences around the world. If you have his Annemann DVDs, you know how strong this act already is. Now you can get the "real work" to see how he has taken it even further! Anyone can now do this act anywhere!
Reviews
(Top ▲)
Overview
7 effects, 64 pages, the Osterlind Optimization, $40 bucks and one More Diverse Deceptions magic review. Is it gem or is it rubble? Stay tuned to find out.Effect / Method
Let's look at each effect along with methods sort of blended together.Mindreading Extraordinaire
This is (one of) Richard's takes on 4th Dimensional Telepathy. If you're familiar with the effect, then you know that you have to (let's say) be ahead of things.
However, the Osterlind Optimization (a phrase I coined in the first review of this series) is a technique to get all of the information all at once in an instant. This is super clever, and totally do-able.
There is a tiny, tiny bit of risk. However, the "worst" case scenario is that you'll end up doing the effect the same way you always did before reading this method.
Five Star Prediction Revisited
A participant cuts the cards multiple times, then deals cards until she wants to stop. The performer then reveals his prediction to match the single card she stopped at.
The first thing getting here is the handling of the outs for the 5 Star Miracle Prediction (i.e., the above-described effect). Frankly this handling is something that most mentalists have thought of and done. I personally have, and I know many others have.
However, the real OO in this one is the very subtle presentation, demeanor, and attitude, and a little bit of blocking that makes the effect much more powerful and more deceptive. If I were to perform this effect, I would do it like this (now that I've learned about it). Very simple, but very smart.
Stage Opener
The mage enters the stage, and points to three people, "You, name a digit!", "You, name a digit!", "You . . . " He then immediately turns around a clipboard that he's been holding the whole time to reveal in large print the three digits.
The ad-copy states what's happening here. A swami (you know . . . those Hindu religious teachers) is involved. Richard gives you 50 years worth of experience with said "Hindus" along with tips on how to make it seem like that method could not possibly be the method. Again, clever, and again the way I would do this (now that I've learned about it) if I ever do this kind of effect.
Osterlind's Blindfold Act
Blindfolded, you divine stuff by sensing their auras. This is 50 years of OO spilled out over several pages including pictures and details on how to properly blindfold yourself, etc. This section is great, but I did feel like he left out a fair bit of detail about the actual act itself.
In the first 2 pages, he briefly introduces us to the idea / history of and inspiration for the act. The next five pages are how to properly put on the blindfold, and walking through how it will happen on stage with the volunteer's help.
That last page and 1 paragraph briefly discuss some tips and (what felt like) "ideas" rather than any depth. In fact allow me to quote Richard.
"Rather than offer any more ideas, go to YouTube and search blindfold acts. You will find dozens of videos of performers doing their routines. With so much to look at, you can easily form your own unique presentation."
After the instructions on putting on the blindfold, there are 8 paragraphs left.
The first two talk about having people hold up objects for you to sense and how you might act as you're sensing them. However, it was quite confusing and unclear. He doesn't really explain if you're having people come up to you on stage if you're guided over to them.
In one part he mentions something about getting how you may end up seeing some of the items as you're walking around the audience. What? When? When are you walking around the audience?
Before you put the blindfold on? Then why would people be holding stuff out? While you're blindfolded? Then how are you "walking around the audience"? These two paragraphs are confusing.
The third paragraph mentions doing things seated with a blackboard on his lap, but says to watch his act on the Corinda DVDs he filmed back in 2009. That's a great idea for sure. Those videos are killer! But I paid $40 bucks for more than "use a blackboard . . . go spend $100 to watch other videos."
The fourth paragraph gives an excellent tip (an OO) on how to make your blindfold work seem even more impossible. Oddly, this is the shortest of the final 8.
The fifth paragraph gives a great idea / technique for "card calling" and how to do it while blindfolded. Again, however, it felt a bit rough and rushed.
The sixth paragraph gives another great, yet brief, rough and rushed idea for doing Q&A while blindfolded. Also not a new idea.
The penultimate paragraph is the aforementioned "YouTube" paragraph.
The ultimate paragraph is a brief tip on removing the bandages and blindfold to add to the effect.
So as you can see, only 6 paragraphs described anything related to "what to do once you're blindfolded" and they were all very brief and rushed/rough. With as much experience as he has with this act, I think it's totally reasonable to expect a bit more than "here are some ideas, go watch my other DVDs, and (essentially) steal ideas from other performers on YouTube."
I will, however, say in Richard's defense that the most important part of a blindfold act is getting the blindfold put on properly, and then the blocking and attitude that makes it clear that you "truly" are blindfolded. Those points are covered in great depth.
However, when the chapter is called "Osterlind's Blindfold Act" I expect to get his act which does include the above-mentioned tips on the blindfold itself, but it also includes details about the "tricks" done once blindfolded. Which is, again, where this (and only this) chapter is lacking.
Numerical Book Test
Three numbers from different spectators are added up. Then a book is opened to that page. In it (on that page) is a book mark with a custom message for the participant.
The OO here is a bunch of simple techniques (and the finale) blended together to make a nice little show piece that spotlights a guest of honor. It also uses a very clever idea that many of us are aware of. Reading it in this book, however, was the first time I actually tested the idea and began to think of ways to use it.
Osterlind Blindfold Drive
It's just what it sounds like. Learn exactly how to blindfold yourself the way Richard does. It's well explained, details, and has lots of photos. However, there is one particular part of the method that I felt required a photo more than any of the other parts. It's the critical moment that makes it all possible. He explains it well-enough, but I think the photo would have clarified a few points.
Otherwise, I have no issues here.
Bert Reese Routine
We wrap things up with the OO gained by the Optimizer himself performing Bert Reese's billet routine over and over. Osterlind has tweaked and refined, etc. this routine to the point that again, I'm tempted to do it this way. I've read the Reese "stuff" - it's the first trick in Practical Mental Effects several times. I always have been to scared to try it.
Product Quality
The product quality is excellent. The book is well-written with a few grammar/structure/typo moments here and there, but overall, excellent. The only exception is the above-mentioned lack of detail in the blindfold act. Otherwise, outstanding.Ad Copy Integrity
Everything in the ad copy is correct, fair, clean, and honest. Read through it. If you like what you read, rest easy knowing that this is exactly what you'll get.Final Thoughts
- Effects: Strong. Familiar. Doable. Practical.
- Method: Osterlindly Optimized. Better. Powerful.
- Product Quality: Outstanding.
- Ad Copy Integrity: Perfect.
In my review of the first book of this series, Diverse Deceptions I took the time to calculate the price taking into account inflation etc. and comparing it to booklets of this ilk that inspired Richard in the first place. The TL;DR is that the prices are perfect.
Read the other review if you want details.
Also, you may have noticed that in several places above I mentioned that reading this book inspired me to see something differently or try something that I've been afraid to use, etc. The same thing happened when I read the first volume.
About 2/3 of the way through this (the second volume) Richard specifically mentions this as a goal of these books. He talks about how the early booklets from Milbourne Christopher, Annemann, and others have made millions of dollars for performers since then. He's hoping to do the same for us.
He's nailed that goal in spades.
Although I had a "beef" with the blindfold act chapter, it's hard to let that ruin this review. The rest of the details in that chapter are incredible, and further, it's not like he gave us "nothing" when it came to post blindfold donning.
Final Verdict:
4.5 Stars with a Stone Status of Gem!