The Magicanada Project

Gary Dickson · Guest

The Effect

"Imagine having a spectator just think of a word... imagine being able to be able to pluck the letters of that word out of thin air and slowly rebuild that thought in front of the spectator as though you had drawn it directly out of their mind!

The secret? The age old mentalist tool ‘The Progressive Anagram' and guess what? 'Panagram' is the ultimate tool for creating them, quickly and easily!

* Have the spectator think of Sign of the Zodiac or an Animal! Slowly you receive the thought and construct the very word thought of with ease!
* Now take this further... suppose you're performing your magic and mentalism in a restaurant - you have a spectator pick up a menu and think of a cocktail... you receive her thoughts and reveal what cocktail she is thinking of!
* Consider working a tradestand; have a spectator think of a word on the packaging of the product... you reveal to the crowd the exact word being thought of!

For the newcomer to this revolutionary technique, Panagram offers an easy and interesting way to explore this fascinating underground concept. Seasoned Mentalists and Magicians will find this an invaluable tool for creating their custom Anagrams effortlessly."

Cost
£9

Difficulty
(1=easy to do, 2=No sleights, but not so easy, 3=Some sleights used,
4=Advanced sleights used, 5=Suitable for experienced magicians only)

1! No sleights or moves!

Review

I came to PAs via Outlaw's Sanctum card. While I liked the idea and the effect, I wanted to be able to create my own. Unfortunately I am extremely lazy, in certain respects, so I never did.

I stumbled across the Underground Collective site and there it was: Panagram. An application (for Mac and PC) tthat allows you to create PAs.

The app is simplicity itself to use. You just type in the words in one window and your anagram tree is created in another. I was creating trees within seconds of installation.

You can rotate, or randomly mix the order of words in order to create different trees from the same list.

Another feature is the language bias. If a number of letters occur the same number of times on any given branch the program will choose the one that occurs most frequently in the language you chose thus reducing the likelihood of obscure letters (like Q and K, in the English language) cropping up.

There are two view types, one for ease of viewing and one for cutting and pasting trees to text documents.

Overall
A nice little utility feature that does exactly what it says on the tin. 10/10 just for making my life that little bit easier!