THE BLURB:
BIP 2.0 - Upgraded for use anywhere in the world and with a
new killer finale.
Imagine handing out a small, official-looking book from the
British Institute of Parapsychology.
You freely show each page to contain several different
pieces of information: a word, a time, some
different-coloured shapes and some random numbers between 10
and 999.
1. The book is handed to participant number one who opens it
to any page and looks at a number. He uses that number to
choose a country from a list printed at the front of the
book. He is asked to think about that country, its capital
and any famous landmarks.
2. Participant number two opens the book at any page and
remembers the word printed there. He now turns to the back
of the book and 'free associates' his word with any of the
objects found there.
3. Participant three opens the book and remembers 2 shapes
and their colours.
4. Participant four opens the book and remembers a 2 or 3
digit number.
5. The final participant opens the book and remembers a
time.
Now, without touching or taking the book back, you can read
the participant's minds and name all five items! Or you
could write or draw one, two or all five of them! Or predict
the final choice! The options are limitless.
This is absolutely incredible and can be performed on 1-5
participants yet is small enough to fit in your shirt
pocket!
This custom-manufactured book will instantly become part of
your working repertoire, ideal for walk-around,
table-hopping or parlour and will even play for stage!
Easy-to-learn, in fact you will be performing this almost as
soon as you open the package.
No peeks, sleights, cribs or 'memory work' is required. You
can even be standing across the room when the choices are
made and at no time during performance do you ever need to
touch the book!
"If it was any cleaner, the pages would be blank
Brilliant Idea, Perfect."
- Wayne Dobson
MY COMMENTS:
This is a new and updated edition of the book, with the
word feature being fixed to be used internationally and
a time feature added. Ironically, one of the words
involved with the word feature is "tyre" which is the
British spelling and may confuse American folks. I still
think a major improvement would have been to use both
sides of the book's pages, but that may come with 3.0.
Also, it's now a bit more costly.
For those unfamiliar with the original release, what follows
are my comments on it, modified to reflect the new version
and some more recent thoughts.
When I flipped through this book, I was reminded of Bob
Cassidy's Bulldog Deck from his Fundamentals e-book. This
works the same way, except instead of one thing being
selected (a movie title), five different items can be
seleted: a number, a design, an object, a time and a
country. Each selection involves a different method and
none of the methods are new. Experienced mentalists should
be very familiar with them. And although you could do this
to five different people, you can certainly do it for less
and choose which will be selected.
The book is slightly larger than a poker-sized card and it
is really a flipbook. You can easily put it in your shirt
pocket. It is bound by two staples at the top and the pages
are gimmicked. If you're familiar with the classic coloring
book magic effect, the gimmicking is similar. Each page is
shown to have a time, a word, a design, and a number.
Additionally, the back cover has a list of ten objects that
correspond to the chosen words on the book. The first page
of the flipbook has a list of twenty different countries.
The selection of the country involves adding up the numbers
on the page, with the number selection involving the number
on that page. The method involving an object is similar to
an idea by Net Rutledge, later used by Bill Goldman in
Mental Yarn. The method involving a number can be found in
Banachek's Psychological Subtleties.
Although I really do like this prop, I'm not wild about a
few features. Though I respect Ned Rutledge's work and
admire the principle, his effect that part of this product
is based on has never impressed me. It's too contrived and
indirect. I'm also not crazy about selecting a number,
adding it up, and looking for the corresponding numbered
country on a page in the front of the book. That list of
countries could have been disguised as something, say a list
of parapsychology centers in the world. Also, the design
revelation could have been thought out a little better as
the pumping sequence doesn't seem to be as smooth as it
could be. This, though is a minor point.
In short, the book is well-made, and certainly effective,
and recommended, though I can't help thinking what someone
like Bob Cassidy, Banachek, Richard Osterlind, John Riggs,
Larry Becker, or Barry Richardson would have done with this
idea.
