The Magicanada Project

Michael Kras · Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2008 10:04 pm Post subject: The Pentalist by Steve Fearson

THE PENTALIST

Description: A video download that teaches a brilliant impromptu mentalism effect in which the mentalist can easily divine which of three coloured pens is chosen. Simple, direct, and impossible.

Review: I didn't know what to think of The Pentalist before I received it. It sounded bland to me at first, and this is coming from someone who does mentalism quite often. However, I was sent a video file explaining the full method.

What you get is two seperate videos... one of a full performance, and the other of the method explanation. The video is clearly from a past project of Steve's... to my understanding, some sort of Party Magic video. Steve shows the full effect to the home viewer, twice. I laughed out loud when the "partygoer" spectator came in to assist Steve during the performance. I won't give away who it is, I'll leave that as a surprise for when you buy the download.

The effect, in performance, is very powerful and nearly foolproof. In fact, it fooled me in performance and, if you only have a cursory mentalism background like I do, it will likely fool you too. It's very direct and impossible, and everything is very clean... there is no peeking, no nail writing, no pencil reading, no guessing, and no suggestion used. The effect is virtually impromptu and can be done with any three different coloured pens. There is a tiny set-up involved, but this set up can be done rather openly and will not be recognized as anything. It's a very subtle set-up and it is hidden in plain sight throughout the entire effect.

The method is quite brilliant. It is based off similar older principles but Steve has created an extremely clever and practical solution that can be done on the fly with completely ordinary objects. Steve explains it very well and includes many details and subtleties for the effect. The explanation is no more than a few minutes long, but that's all it really needs. The method is so amazingly simple, yes so clever, you'll be kicking yourself for not thinking of it first.

Steve covers everything... how to appropriately set the effect up, how to repeat the effect a second time with no reset, and even how to set the effect up in different ways for different groups of people. For example, when performing The Pentalist for other magicians, Steve explains a slightly altered set-up as the standard set-up might be caught by a very observant magician.

The set-up is extremely simple and it will take literally less than 5 seconds to set the pens up. After they are set up, you are pretty much set to go for the rest of the day and it can be repeated over and over with no reset. Again, this is all covered extremely well by Steve Fearson. It's amazing how much comprehensive detail he covers in such a short time.

The effect is very direct, it can be done very quickly or drawn out, and it can be performed effectively in virtually any setting... close-up, walkaround, parlour, and even stage. It's a fantastic effect to have in your arsenal, and all you need is a couple of pens which, naturally can be borrowed. What more could you want in a mentalism effect?

Based on the sheer cleverness of the method and it's extreme potential, as well as a wealth of uses and possibilities, I give The Pentalist by Steve Fearson a 9/10 in comparison to other impromptu mentalism effects out there. My favourite mentalism piece with pens is still The Million Dollar Mindreader from the Art of Astonishment books, but The Pentalist comes pretty darn close. For $6, you can't possibly go wrong. After all, he could be charging a LOT more for this. I predict that mentalists and magicians alike will love The Pentalist.

The Pentalist is available as a video download at http://emagicsupply.com/112.html

Michael Kras

_________________
Michael Kras
Forum Administrator