What is the best way to learn the Pinkie Count? That’s a question that comes up quite often on the Discord. This DVD/Download frequently gets suggested. As a big fan of the Pinkie Count, I thought it was about time I did a review of this and answered the question: is Doug Conn’s Pinky Swear the best place to go? Who is Doug Conn? If you spend any time on the magic side of YouTube, you’ll almost certainly know Doug’s name. He’s being doing great work on the platform for quite a while now and is well worth checking out ..read more

The1914 have been a powerhouse of magic, with both the props and the tuition being top-notch for everything they put out. I gave a rave review of their Eclipse Zener cards not too long ago. Does Overdraft keep this fine tradition going? Sadly, not entirely. The Props: The props really are great. I would say they are the best magic credit cards I’ve seen to date, but as pretty much every magic credit card prop other than these are bloody awful, it wouldn’t really be much of a compliment. These cards look and feel exactly as they should, there is ..read more

A little while ago we were discussing the Triumph plot on the server regarding what was and what wasn’t counted as being a Triumph. I mentioned although I did a triumph like effect, I didn’t do any ‘proper’ triumphs. So when I was asked to review Patrick Redford’s new effect, that just happened to be one, I jumped at the chance. What is Order Out of Chaos? You start with a seemingly fully mixed deck (in fact it really can be if you want to skip the final kicker), an audience member names any card, you mix the cards on ..read more

With all the excitement about Kim Andersen’s Shrapnel, I decided to look through some other Safety Pin magic I had and thought this would be a great way to introduce this fantastic little routine to those who missed it the first time around. If I recall correctly, PINcredible was released about five years ago, and although really popular at the time, somehow quickly dropped off the radar. So What Is PINcredible? It’s a really elegant and super clean linking pin routine where fully examinable safety pins link and unlink. It’s a relatively short routine, but it’s modular so you can ..read more

A question that frequently comes up in the #Mentalism channel on the server is “Is hypnosis real?” and that’s normally quickly followed by “How do I learn it?” The answer to the first is ‘Yes’ and The Manchurian Approach by Anthony Jacquin I’m reviewing here is a very good option to answer the second question. Who is Anthony Jacquin? Anthony Jacquin is a hypnotist and magician with many years experience in both performing and teaching. He is the author of the book ‘Reality is Plastic’ (of which an excerpt is included with this project in PDF form) which is one ..read more

With the new Ghostbusters movie just released, now is a perfect time to perform some magic or mentalism using ESP or to give them their correct name, Zener cards, and Eclipse gives you both a great set of cards and some great effects to use them in taught by Dee Christopher and Lewis Le’Val So what is Eclipse? It’s a Zener deck with a great marking system and just shy of two and a half hours of tuition. It’s retailing at £30 (or $40 depending on which side of the Atlantic you are on), and they really could have charged ..read more

Much to my chagrin, I had not heard of this release or even of Pipo Villanueva until a good friend and member of my magical inner circle suggested I check it out. I’m happy that the request was made as without it I would have missed out on some nice magic and a great creator.. What is Magic For The Shortsighted? It’s a download and/or DVD that contains some great routines by Pipo Villanueva, with a detailed explanation of each and a section on theory to round things off at the end. With a runtime of two hours and forty ..read more

Dice stacking isn’t really magic, it’s a stunt. But it is still a very cool skill to have and can work great alongside magic, so I’m going to review this product anyway. So what is it? The name “How to Cheat at Dice” (or “How to Dice Cheat” as it’s also called) implies illicitly winning vast amounts of money at a casino, nothing even remotely like that is explained here. It’s dice stacking all the way down. That’s not a bad thing, dice stacking is great fun to both do and watch, just don’t buy this thinking its something completely ..read more

If you have any interest in mentalism, Paul Brook is a name you should probably already be very familiar with. He’s a brilliant thinker and quite a prolific publisher of material. This eBook is his take on a Q&A method. I wasn’t intending to review this little book, just read it and move on, but as I’ve not reviewed anything for a little while and I really enjoyed it. I thought I’d do a quick review of it. Background: Paul starts with a very thorough deep dive into the history of Question and Answer (Q&A) acts, in fact even if ..read more

The1914 have been a powerhouse of magic, with both the props and the tuition being top-notch for everything they put out. I gave a rave review of their Eclipse Zener cards not too long ago. Does Overdraft keep this fine tradition going? Sadly, not entirely. The Props: The props really are great. I would say they are the best magic credit cards I’ve seen to date, but as pretty much every magic credit card prop other than these are bloody awful, it wouldn’t really be much of a compliment. These cards look and feel exactly as they should, there is ..read more