What They Say

This tome of 398 pages explains how you can make your magic transform into miracles.
Paul shares with you some of his best kept secrets from the world of Psychology, so that you never have to have a lackluster response ever again.

Over 50 Psychological methods are discussed in full detail. As well as the powerful Psychology included in the first 250 pages, you also receive a number of strong effects.

What I Say

When I wrote my Top Ten Purchases I merely placed The Alchemical Tools by Paul Brook in the ‘Honourable Mention’ category, this was because I was only 200 pages into it but already felt it worthy of featuring on the list! As it is this book is brilliant and is just as good as my best purchase of all time, Reality is Plastic. In fact if I was asked to choose which is better I would be utterly incapable, that’s how good this book is!

Anyone who expects this to be a book of tricks will be sorely disappointed, in fact anyone who just wants a book of tricks probably isn’t worthy of this book and should just feck off now!!! The first 247 pages are filled with Paul’s practical psychological advice from his years as a psychologist. He covers everything from how you should sit or stand to what you should say. There is a full chapter on just the power of certain words such as ‘now’ and ‘and’. Everything is focussed on building rapport with your spectators, if they like you they’ll like your magic!!!

Paul also focuses on how to move your magic from being seen as ‘tricks’ to being seen as powerful miracles by your spectators. He uses an interesting mantra that he ‘borrowed’ from Gordon Ramsey (I lost a tiny bit of respect for him when I found out he watched Gordon Ramsey but anyway…). The mantra is, “Make love to it; don’t fuck it!” It’s very apt and is something everyone should consider when performing. If you are gentle and handle your magic with care it’s a much more beautiful thing than a quick ACR behind the bike shed!

When Paul finally gets to the effects, they are worth waiting for. While the effects could never live up to the pure genius of the opening psychology sections, they make a damn good attempt at it.

At The Doors of Perception takes a principle that will be known to almost anyone who reads this and takes it to an entirely new level. Effects like this one (and to stroke my own ego, my Lie Detector) that take a simple well known principle and just go nuts with it! Even someone familiar with the principle at use could well be fooled by this effect.

Deuterium is one of Paul’s babies and it is indeed a great effect. I played around with something similar for a while but Paul’s version is far superior. Essentially you have a 1 in 6.5 chance of hitting a total miracle. The other 5.5 times it’s merely a miracle. Once again Paul takes something that is known to all of us and devises a brilliant performance for it. In fact, I have seen so many piss poor performances of this something that Deuterium is a nice breath of fresh air.

Insightful Sequence is an enjoyable business card effect. Essentially you produce a series of mini climaxes using priming (see Naked Mentalism I & II and Psychological Subtleties 1 & 2) and then using the answers the spectator gives you predict the arrangement they will sort ten numbered business cards into (generally 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 but you could do it with words or any other sequence you want).

Killer Hertz (kHz) is my favourite effect in the book. Without using a marked deck and while never looking at the spectators hands you are able to say what ESP card each of the spectators has, why they chose it and reveal a sealed envelope prediction of the simple you are left with. I love it, unfortunately the method is not practical in certain situations but I am trying to work out how to overcome that (Beyond ESP 2 Cards are my current idea if anyone’s interested).

Thus Spoke Zarathustra is not really an effect. It is a collection of six of Paul’s favourite cold reading phrases. These are great, a nice step away from the usual Barnum Statements you see magicians throw around. I never do enough cold reading in my acts to properly road test these but I would take Paul’s word on their effectiveness.

The book ends with an interesting collection of essays by Paul ranging from the ethics of talking to the dead to spotting left handed spectators. They are all well worth reading.

Once again I ran low on superlatives towards the end of the review, all I can say is this book is seriously brilliant and is essential reading for anyone interested in mentalism. The Alchemical Tools will turn your leaden tricks into bright, shining, golden miracles.

Also once again I hate giving numerical values, anyone else would give it ten but I refuse to number something as complex as the value of a book.

The Alchemical Tools is available from Paul Brook’s website for £25 (postage is free) and all books are signed by the author.