Britain's brightest independent magic magazine

Issue 28 - Sept. 09

Review

Pseudo Psychometry Outdone  

Available from www.hightrick.com
Price:  $50 (approx. £35)  

This is a version of Ted Annemann’s Pseudo Psychometry routine where four spectators place a small personal object in separate cloth bags unseen by the magician. These are then mixed up inside another larger bag. The magician is then able to divine which object belongs to each person.  

Hightrick provide four nicely made gimmicked cloth bags plus the large bag which do the work for you and which are ideal for cabaret or stand up situation.  Fortunately the routine for this trick is pretty well known which is just as well because the depth of instruction included with this trick is a bit on the thin side!  

You receive a short instructional DVD which after attempting to play on your TV you realise will only play on your computer (no clues!). The brief 5 minute DVD is purely mimed without any spoken word at all which means that it can only convey the very basics of the method. A voice over would have been nice as this would have enabled them to explain the details of the all important presentation of the routine. The DVD also contains a single page Word document outlining the performance and method in print but to be honest it tells you little more than the DVD .  

There is also no mention made that you will need an assistant to help take charge of the bags, tie them up in the correct way (vital to the method), place them in the large bag, etc, as the performer has to turn away whilst this all takes place.  Finally, if you follow the written instruction to the letter I believe you will end up doing the wrong trick! The single sheet of instructions tells you to determine the owner of each bag, rather than the object inside, which would be a quick way of giving away the method!  

An experienced magician will work all this out but someone new to the trick will need to do some research and experimenting to fill in the missing gaps. Given that the method is so simple it really is down to pure showmanship to pull this trick off.  As such, a lot more presentational guidance and pointers should be included as to how to put across this sort of trick so that a novice performer can understand what it is that the trick is trying to do and how best to achieve it. PP  

What’s Hot: easy method
What’s Not: the instructions need more presentational guidance
Star Rating: ***  

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