After the huge controversy with Warning potentially having the long term effects of smoking, and a lot of disclaimers about Control being totally safe, I'm sure they wouldn't sell an effect that actually COULD be dangerous.
In all honesty, Warning really isn't dangerous. Just my opinion anyway. I think America as a whole is all hyped up on the whole "Smoking a cigarette will kill you" thing. (I don't actually smoke myself nor will I, but those are my views on the subject.) Will smoking kill you? If you do it every day and several times, then yes. However, I don't think the occasional smoke will kill you. Warning is a trick that barely requires much. If you did this trick every day for the rest of your life, I doubt anything bad would come out of it.
As for Control, you aren't ACTUALLY stopping your pulse. You are giving the ILLUSION of stopping your pulse. (That's the whole point of this being a magic TRICK.)
For Thread though, if you own it, you'll know the difference between these two tricks and the geek method. I don't own the right kind of thread to perform this, so I can't really do the geek method correctly. (Bad experience when I tried it with the wrong kind.
)
However, the sleight method should work fine. I have not yet made the gimmick for it, but it should work fine. The fact I'm seeing some people saying that they don't like the sleight method really disappoints me. What people need to understand is that they are
the same thing. The audience sees the exact same thing. However, I think the methodology of the the sleight method lead people to be disappointed and think to themselves "Hmmm... I don't really like this."
All I know is that risking your actual EYE VISION over this is just dumb. I have yet to try the geek method with the correct kind of thread, but if I feel any sort of discomfort or unsafe in any way, I'm going to stop using it. I advise everyone else to do the same. Are you willing to actually sacrifice your eyes so that way you can perform this one effect? Make the gimmick and do it with the sleight method. For your own sake.
-Doug