First of all, I know why they did not show a full performance in the trailer (who does anymore, anyway?), but that also means that the trailer doesn't really do it justice. When I watched the full performance I had to smile. There's some really clever thinking involved.

Breakdown: They write down a name, sign and keep the business card. You read their mind, describe the person, write down the name you "received" and show it to the participant's friends and then to the participant who then confirms you got it right.

Then you "hypnotise" the participant into forgetting the name. When they look at the card they held on to the entire time, it shows a name they have no recollection of writing down.

The experienced mentalist will get the basic method from watching the performance, so I was looking forward to the 30 min explanation (plus 5 min of alternate handling).

There is some good information about cold reading based on "the birthday question" from Oz Pearlman's "the Abyss" DVD (and I think we mentioned it in one of his Penguin lectures as well).

Unfortunately he doesn't even mention one thing that could cause problems. [edited to protect secret]. It could be a minor or major problem and there are no tips on how to prevent problems or handle them if they should arise. I'm sure this has been dealt with in other literature, but no mention of such sources either. Basically he ignores the issue completely, which is kinda sad. I really like the effect and with some information about handling the issue it could have been a 5* release.

I can vouch for this one. I got to see Brandon perform Lacuna about 10 times. It really messed people up. They had no idea what the hell was going on and how this was possible. And 9 times of 10, everything went perfectly. And the 1 time that things didn't go perfectly, he STILL got a huge reaction. This trick has so many layers. Even if 1 of them doesn't go as planned, there are STILL so many hard-hitting moments.

everything about this routine is awesome. This is a card workers imitation hypnosis. I highly recommend this routine to anyone who does any type of mentalism. I would have given it a 5 star rating however he kind of jumps around and rambles in the explanation. If you can decipher the method and order of it all you will agree its worth every penny

the secret is very clever !

I was affraid to be not able to do it because of the hypnosis
or mentalism part but it's something that you can do very quickly with work !

so if I can give you a piece of advice add it to your cart you won't be disapointed !!!

This instantly became one of my favorite routines of mentalism. From the trailer i thought it was just a double lift and hypnosis for making them forget the name... But it's much more! Very powerfull!

Got Lacuna at the introductory price and I'd say it was worth it. When I watched the performance, I thought "how in the world will I do this with barely any mentalism experience - this will be absolutely crazy to pull off." But I discovered it's not extremely complicated to perform. Shouldn't take long to get it down. The routine is actually pretty clever once you understand the mechanics. Practiced it a couple of times and the reactions are just what I had hoped. You really screw with their mind. Nice work Brandon.

I am not a review writer, but I thought I may as well give it a shot. My first thoughts before buying this was, "I hope this trick works every time" because I am not a mentalist. If that is your only concern, go ahead and buy it because Brandon walks you through the whole process of the trick extremely well. There was one problem I found, and so far my only way around it is to ask them to write in a different way than they usually write as to make them think of it more clearly so you can get a better reading. All in all, this got a great reaction on my parents and brothers, as well as my group of friends, where one of them went through the trash can a couple hours later just to try and find out how I did it, it is that good. Do yourself a favor and buy this trick, you can do it within 15 minutes of watching the video, and if you perform, for example, Penguin Monte 2.0 right before this, they will start getting headaches thinking about how you could have possibly done these tricks. Plus you can have them go searching for the person they can't remember.

Everything said so far about this is pretty accurate. A clever effect, and probably quite deserving of the high ratings its getting. I think however, that at this price for a single trick, more effort should go into producing a clearer explanation... And I personally feel that Penguin has dropped the ball a little in this regard. It's very poorly explained. Of course, you will get it, but expect to have to watch the video multiple times. What would be really useful would be a one page pdf clearly outlining the setup, and the steps. May just do that now!

I like it.Actually I like it a lot!My kind of magic...And it's a worker!

I was not 100% pleased with this download. For starters, the explanational video is all over the place. He explains half the trick, then finally explains the full set up. He does not do that great of a job explaining the effect either. He also says you can do this with any type of business card whether it is double blank or blank on one side. He only teaches it with double blanks and the sleights he uses require double blanks. If you are going to say it works with all, explain how to do it with different types! I ended up modifying it to use business cards blank on one side. Now aside from the bad qualities of this download, the over all effect is very nice. Very deceptive and I will use it.