Price$22.00
Media TypeeBook
CategoryClose Up, Mentalism
Date AddedApr 09, 2015
Fragments of Clarity
Douglas, Kris
Kris Douglas
(Based on 1 review)
The rest of the Ebook is a handful of my own ideas and methods on a few of magic's most popular plots inc a 99% hands off, borrowed deck ACAAN. They can shuffle cut, peek a card lose the card, think of a number, count to that number, and you still have not touched the cards. Its also instantly repeatable. Next there also there is a method that will clean up some issues for some performers in regards to a certain peek and lastly a method to remember the Barnum stock statements in 10 minutes for cold reading.
Reviews
(Top ▲)
There are a lot of e-books on the market these days and some of them are very good, some not-so-very-good and others fall somewhere in between. This one is not bad and although it does not contain anything earth-moving, it does not claim to.
The first effect in this e-book is quite nice. It was very confusing to understand with the way it was written and the way the order of the steps was given. To clarify: He describes the method in part, but not fully at first. Then he describes the presentation, in which he describes another part of the method, then goes back to finish describing the part he started and stopped short on earlier. It is hard to describe what I mean, but if you read it you will understand. I had to read it quite a few times before I understood the method, but it really does work nicely. The way it is outlined in the book, Kris uses the English Premier League as a suggested demonstration. In case you live in another country or want to use a completely different subject matter for this effect, he gives you some good suggestions that will get you started.
The ACAAN is nothing really new under the sun, just a combination of a few different methods and ideas. The way this is done, however, is not hard to do at all and is relatively clean compared to many different versions that have come to market over the years. The one move that you have to do is easy and if you can do an Elmsley Count, you can do this. It is also very easy to cover for that matter, not that you need a lot in this case.
There is an idea for using the Acidus Novus peek here and if you do not already know how that particular peek works, you will need to purchase it elsewhere as the peek itself is not taught here, and rightfully so. However, the idea is similar to an Al Mann idea from his manuscript on this peek, but it is different and it does work.
The last thing in the e-book was a bit puzzling to me because it claims to be his [Kris Douglas'] method for remembering stock statements for cold reading, but it does not really teach you anything. It is basically a list of words with a sentence using them in context. You will see how the word can be used to associate one thing with another just by reading, but there is no method taught here, per se. If you do not know what cold reading is, again, you will have to look elsewhere because it is well beyond the scope of this short PDF to teach even the basics.
As for illustrations, there are very clear color photographs used where necessary. All of the photos are very easy to see and clearly show what the text is referring to.
Throughout this PDF the effects are explained with a suggested script. Obviously the scripts are just outlines and you will want to make up your own to suit your style and taste, should you choose to use any of these effects.
Kris does give credits for the contents here, but in name only and does not list any references except for one instance in the ACAAN (Joe Barry's 'Inscrutable').
At the end of the day, assuming you have the necessary knowledge to perform all of the contents, the methods all work.
So with all the positivity, why the 3.5 star rating? Well for one thing, there were a lot of grammatical and punctuation issues throughout the entire PDF. If it were a word or two here and there, I can understand that, but every page has a bunch of them. Second, the first effect in this e-book, while a good effect, was poorly written in terms of not only the above mentioned issues but also, in terms of explaining things in the proper order. Third is the price of the e-book. All things considered, $22/USD is not a bad price for a 38 page e-book, but even for that low a price I would have expected better grammar and punctuation - the spelling did not seem to be an issue, just the grammar and punctuation.
All in all, there are some nice ideas in here and you may be inspired by a few of them. If you an experienced mentalist, you will not likely get much out of this PDF but if you have read things like the Anneman '13 Steps to Mentalism' and other similar, classic texts, you might like some of the things here - there have certainly been much more expensive items with much less value put on the market in the past.
***SIDE NOTE: If in the future the book is changed to update it and fix the issues outlined above, I will re-review it at that time and post any updates to this review here.***
The first effect in this e-book is quite nice. It was very confusing to understand with the way it was written and the way the order of the steps was given. To clarify: He describes the method in part, but not fully at first. Then he describes the presentation, in which he describes another part of the method, then goes back to finish describing the part he started and stopped short on earlier. It is hard to describe what I mean, but if you read it you will understand. I had to read it quite a few times before I understood the method, but it really does work nicely. The way it is outlined in the book, Kris uses the English Premier League as a suggested demonstration. In case you live in another country or want to use a completely different subject matter for this effect, he gives you some good suggestions that will get you started.
The ACAAN is nothing really new under the sun, just a combination of a few different methods and ideas. The way this is done, however, is not hard to do at all and is relatively clean compared to many different versions that have come to market over the years. The one move that you have to do is easy and if you can do an Elmsley Count, you can do this. It is also very easy to cover for that matter, not that you need a lot in this case.
There is an idea for using the Acidus Novus peek here and if you do not already know how that particular peek works, you will need to purchase it elsewhere as the peek itself is not taught here, and rightfully so. However, the idea is similar to an Al Mann idea from his manuscript on this peek, but it is different and it does work.
The last thing in the e-book was a bit puzzling to me because it claims to be his [Kris Douglas'] method for remembering stock statements for cold reading, but it does not really teach you anything. It is basically a list of words with a sentence using them in context. You will see how the word can be used to associate one thing with another just by reading, but there is no method taught here, per se. If you do not know what cold reading is, again, you will have to look elsewhere because it is well beyond the scope of this short PDF to teach even the basics.
As for illustrations, there are very clear color photographs used where necessary. All of the photos are very easy to see and clearly show what the text is referring to.
Throughout this PDF the effects are explained with a suggested script. Obviously the scripts are just outlines and you will want to make up your own to suit your style and taste, should you choose to use any of these effects.
Kris does give credits for the contents here, but in name only and does not list any references except for one instance in the ACAAN (Joe Barry's 'Inscrutable').
At the end of the day, assuming you have the necessary knowledge to perform all of the contents, the methods all work.
So with all the positivity, why the 3.5 star rating? Well for one thing, there were a lot of grammatical and punctuation issues throughout the entire PDF. If it were a word or two here and there, I can understand that, but every page has a bunch of them. Second, the first effect in this e-book, while a good effect, was poorly written in terms of not only the above mentioned issues but also, in terms of explaining things in the proper order. Third is the price of the e-book. All things considered, $22/USD is not a bad price for a 38 page e-book, but even for that low a price I would have expected better grammar and punctuation - the spelling did not seem to be an issue, just the grammar and punctuation.
All in all, there are some nice ideas in here and you may be inspired by a few of them. If you an experienced mentalist, you will not likely get much out of this PDF but if you have read things like the Anneman '13 Steps to Mentalism' and other similar, classic texts, you might like some of the things here - there have certainly been much more expensive items with much less value put on the market in the past.
***SIDE NOTE: If in the future the book is changed to update it and fix the issues outlined above, I will re-review it at that time and post any updates to this review here.***