Title: 10 Second Star Sign Divination
Artist: Oliver Boes
Producers: Oliver Boes
Link: Available At Your Favorite Murphy’s Magic Dealer
Retail Price: $13 USD
Learning Difficulty: Easy
Length of Book: 11 pages + Bonus PDF download.
I’ve never heard of the French / Portuguese magician Oliver Boes before, but he credits Fraser Parker, Matt Mello, Bob Cassidy, and Peter Turner as inspirations with special thanks so he’s got to be on the right track to something good right? Being a huge fan of Peter Turner myself I decided to check out Oliver’s 10S Star Sign Divination routine that he published as a short E-Book, and the wonderful thing about e-books is instant gratifications! No waiting for the UPS guy to deliver it.
I have a soft spot for mentalism. I like how cerebral it can be, I love how personal it can get, and some of the reactions audience members give are just so visceral. Since Astrology has always been a fun talking point to get into with people, useful because you can use it to cold read if you like, being able to divine someone’s birth sign without them knowing how you did it is a very handy tool to have. I’m familiar with progressive anagrams and they can take a bit of memory work, and sometimes a bit of fishing to get it to work right. I was delighted to see that Oliver’s method is not only stupid easy, but painful to watch once you realize what he’s doing. The method is so perfect it’s evil. Simple, but highly effective, and I like that.
The hit/miss ratio on this is about 90/10% with the routine working in your favor most of the time. I think confidence is probably the most important part of the success of this routine. This isn’t a huge miracle though. This isn’t really a stand-alone trick as it is something that you do to segue into a larger effect. You do this to build their confidence in your ability to read minds, not to close your show. But the nice thing is, it’s propless! No gimmicks, no props, nothing to carry around. Sure you could make it into something that uses props if you wanted, maybe make it play larger on stage or what not, but at the core this is about as intimate and impromptu as it gets.
There’s also a secondary download that you get with this product which is just a pdf with a link to a website that has additional performance ideas submitted by friends of Oliver, and others who have purchased the product before. Sadly, the link doesn’t work for me so that sucks.
So if you want to have some fun with some quick mentalism, this is a great and inexpensive method to read up on. It’s a great quick mind reading trick, and the method is flexible enough it could be applied to a wider range of things depending on the creativity of your mind. So this one is a great score!
When I give my product scores below I am measuring them on a scale of 1 to 10. 1 Being absolute the worst score possible, and 10 being the absolute best, making a score of five average. The three points that I grade upon is Product Quality, Teaching Quality, and Overall Quality.
Product Quality: 5
It’s a good trick. It’s a bit pricy for what it is, but it’s solid. It’s just a pity the bonus page doesn’t work for me.
Teaching Quality: 8
Stupid easy to do.
Overall Quality: 7
Not a bad piece. Great segue into other material.
Do you have a product you want reviewed? Want to see if it will stand up to the Draven Seal of Approval? Contact me directly at thewilliamdraven@gmail.com to find out how your product could be on the next Draven Reviews! Don't forget to like my blog where all my reviews are posted at www.williamdraven.wordpress.com.
Artist: Oliver Boes
Producers: Oliver Boes
Link: Available At Your Favorite Murphy’s Magic Dealer
Retail Price: $13 USD
Learning Difficulty: Easy
Length of Book: 11 pages + Bonus PDF download.
I’ve never heard of the French / Portuguese magician Oliver Boes before, but he credits Fraser Parker, Matt Mello, Bob Cassidy, and Peter Turner as inspirations with special thanks so he’s got to be on the right track to something good right? Being a huge fan of Peter Turner myself I decided to check out Oliver’s 10S Star Sign Divination routine that he published as a short E-Book, and the wonderful thing about e-books is instant gratifications! No waiting for the UPS guy to deliver it.
I have a soft spot for mentalism. I like how cerebral it can be, I love how personal it can get, and some of the reactions audience members give are just so visceral. Since Astrology has always been a fun talking point to get into with people, useful because you can use it to cold read if you like, being able to divine someone’s birth sign without them knowing how you did it is a very handy tool to have. I’m familiar with progressive anagrams and they can take a bit of memory work, and sometimes a bit of fishing to get it to work right. I was delighted to see that Oliver’s method is not only stupid easy, but painful to watch once you realize what he’s doing. The method is so perfect it’s evil. Simple, but highly effective, and I like that.
The hit/miss ratio on this is about 90/10% with the routine working in your favor most of the time. I think confidence is probably the most important part of the success of this routine. This isn’t a huge miracle though. This isn’t really a stand-alone trick as it is something that you do to segue into a larger effect. You do this to build their confidence in your ability to read minds, not to close your show. But the nice thing is, it’s propless! No gimmicks, no props, nothing to carry around. Sure you could make it into something that uses props if you wanted, maybe make it play larger on stage or what not, but at the core this is about as intimate and impromptu as it gets.
There’s also a secondary download that you get with this product which is just a pdf with a link to a website that has additional performance ideas submitted by friends of Oliver, and others who have purchased the product before. Sadly, the link doesn’t work for me so that sucks.
So if you want to have some fun with some quick mentalism, this is a great and inexpensive method to read up on. It’s a great quick mind reading trick, and the method is flexible enough it could be applied to a wider range of things depending on the creativity of your mind. So this one is a great score!
When I give my product scores below I am measuring them on a scale of 1 to 10. 1 Being absolute the worst score possible, and 10 being the absolute best, making a score of five average. The three points that I grade upon is Product Quality, Teaching Quality, and Overall Quality.
Product Quality: 5
It’s a good trick. It’s a bit pricy for what it is, but it’s solid. It’s just a pity the bonus page doesn’t work for me.
Teaching Quality: 8
Stupid easy to do.
Overall Quality: 7
Not a bad piece. Great segue into other material.
Do you have a product you want reviewed? Want to see if it will stand up to the Draven Seal of Approval? Contact me directly at thewilliamdraven@gmail.com to find out how your product could be on the next Draven Reviews! Don't forget to like my blog where all my reviews are posted at www.williamdraven.wordpress.com.