Hemispheres by Jay Sankey

Price: $30

Where: Penguin Magic

Introduction-

A few years ago Jay Sankey released his first dvd focused solely on his style of mentalism, or "mental magic" as he called it. It was entitled Boris Pocus: Extremely Mental and some people liked it and others found the dvd to be "too wacky" and "crazy." Then several years after that Jay released a more serious dvd on the same subject of mental magic entitled 22 Blows to the Head. That dvd was received a bit better in the magic community. Then a couple years later, Jay released his third dvd dealing with mental magic. It's called Hemispheres, and here, are my thoughts on it.

The DVD:

The Layout-

Unfortunately, I did not like the layout of this dvd. Sure, the menu worked fine and it was easy to access, but if you just hit the "Play All" button you expect the dvd to show you a performance of an effect then explanation, but instead, It plays all of the performances in a row and then all the explanations in a row. In other words, by the time you get to the explanations, you've already forgotten what the effect even looks like! To avoid this forgetfulness aspect, I found myself clicking into the menu then the explanations/performance section, then having to find the effect and keep doing that every time you switched between a performance and explanation. There are 20 effects on the dvd, so that means I had to do that about 40 times, back and forth. Just an annoying pet peeve of mine.

Quality-

There were no quality issues on this dvd. In fact, the picture is very clear and the whole set at which Jay shot the dvd is pleasing to the eye and gives a “clean look” to the whole dvd.

Teaching-

Jay is an excellent teacher and did a great job teaching all of the effects. You should not have a problem understanding any of the effects taught. Also, Jay is a little less crazy on this dvd than some of his others, however, he still made me laugh out loud several times while watching the dvd with his quick with and improvisational jokes. I found it to be very entertaining.

Difficulty Level-

Most of the tricks are very easy and a lot of them require almost no sleight-of-hand. Group Hypnosis is the hardest effect on the dvd but even that isn’t too hard. I wouldn’t worry about the difficulty.

My Rating System-

I rate on a scale of 1 to 5. It is broken down like this:

5-Awesome
4-Great
3-Okay
2-Bad
1-Awful

Now that you know the rating system, I’ll describe and give my thoughts on each of the effects presented on Hemispheres.

The Effects:

Director’s Cut

In this one, you have an envelope and say you have three things in the envelope, but you’re only going to show the audience 2 of the three items for now. You take the items out, and it is a list of 20 or so words on a strip of paper and some scissors. You slowly run the scissors down the list until they say “Cut!” You cut the strip right where they said to and you show that you cut right through the word “comb.” Then with empty hands you reveal that inside of the envelope is a cut in half comb. You get CRAZY reactions with this. It’s so fair and it has an awesome presentational hook built right in. 5/5

Choice Effect

You write a prediction on a post it note, fold it up and place it inside an otherwise empty envelope. You then show nine tarot cards and let the spectator have a completely fair choice (really) of which tarot card they think best fits their personality. They choose, for example, the moon card. You open up the envelope, take out your prediction and on it, it reads “You will choose the moon card.” The effect never misses, it’s really a free choice and there is no multiple outs. 4/5

Dollars & Sense

You hand a spectator a ball of cash, which they hold tightly in their fist, and have at least 6 different receipts on the table. They freely choose a receipt and all of the other receipts are shown to be from different stores and have different totals. When they look at the total of the receipt they choose it is $15.36 (or whatever)Finally they open up the wad of cash that they have been holding the whole time and it is shown to contain exactly $15.36. I really like this effect, but one thing about the handling needs to be changed, IMO. Other than that, it’s a really pure, creative effect. 4/5

Third Eye

A doll’s glass (or plastic) eye is introduced and placed inside a paper bag. A deck of cards which is shown to be mixed is mixed some more by the spectator behind their back. When they are satisfied, the spectator takes three card from the top of the deck and dumps them, sight unseen, into the brown paper bag. The spectator closes up the paper bag and hands it to the magician. The magician has turned away during all of this. The magician claims he can see inside the bag, by looking through the glass eye. He covers one of his eyes begins to “look around the bag.” He of course is able to name all three cards. This is so simple and so deceptive, plus the presentation is just ingenious. Spectators go nuts over this one and you can either make the effect creepy and mysterious or just have fun with it. Either way it’s a 5/5

How Fortunate

A spectator freely selects a fortune cookie and the magician make a prediction of what he thinks is the fortune inside the cookie is. The magician breaks open the cookie and pulls out the fortune. His prediction matches the fortune. This is a really cool premise, but the method is not very good. It doesn’t look natural and it’s not very clean. I give Jay kudos for coming up with the idea for the effect, but I think I’ll come up with my own handling. 2/5

Child’s Play

A spectator correctly divines the color of a ball of play dough, inside of the container. This is a quickie effect and would be great for kids shows. However, the method needs work. Don’t think you’ll be able to do this walk around, on the street (that would be a funny sight), at school, etc. Pretty much only at a small stand-up show will you be able to do this and for the most part you’re going to want to do it with kids. Overall, a cute little throwaway effect. 3/5

Lottery

You have a spectator shuffle the cards thoroughly as you talk about the lottery and how impossible it to win/predict the lottery. You explain to them that the deck of cards is a bit like the lottery, the cards are the numbers, the spectator is mixing them up like the machine, etc. You then write down five numbers on a piece of paper. The spectator randomly chooses any five cards, or lottery numbers, and you then have them determine the order of the numbers. Despite their shuffling, thier random number selections and random order, you one-by-one reveal that the “lottery numbers” you wrote down, down to the order of the cards, matches the pile of five cards the spectator picked. All of this with a borrowed, shuffled deck and a piece of paper! Just try this out once on a spectator and they will go crazy! Again, a wonderful presentation and a killer effect. 5/5

X-Ray Vision

You have a stack of about 10 or so of you business cards. You draw an X on the printed side of one of the cards. You turn the cards face down and mix them up so you and your spectator don’t know where the X is. They touch the back of one of the cards and you show that none of the business cards have X’s before flipping over their card and showing that somehow they picked the card with the X. This is sort-of a warm-up type effect or opener. It’s a very simple concept and can be used as a way to test if you have a “connection” with one of your spectators. I kind’ve have a bit of a problem with the method but it probably isn’t as big as a problem as I think it is. I think it’s just my magician mind showing through :) 3/5

Nonexistent

You write a prediction, fold it up and set it on the table in full view, in a glass, on top of a spectator’s hand, etc. You then ask them to make up a character who has never existed and give them a name. They name him (or her) Say Jankey. You slowly and carefully pick up the prediction that has been in full view and unfold it and show that the prediction says, “His (or her) name will be Say Jankey.” Gasp! What a totally impossible effect and it’s so easy! Predicting the name of someone who never existed is such a good presentation too! There’s some very clever thinking in this and I give it a 4/5

Hypersensitive

You have a bunch of spectators gather a bunch of their own change and put it inside of a glass or just in their hand. You reach into the change, while your head is turned and after showing a truly empty hand, and then pull out a coin, name the date and then do this two more times. Pretty cool impromptu effect. You need nothing more than borrowed coins and nothing is added or taken away. 4/5

Witching Hour

You ask a spectator to think of the hour they were born. You then show a “card clock” printed on a piece of paper. You ask them to think of the card at their hour. You fold up the round card clock and put a paperclip on it. You hand the paperclipped clock to them to hold. You ask them to imagine what life would be like if they were gone, gone, gone. You ask them to name the hour and card they were thinking of, and without you getting anywhere near the clock, they open up the card clock themselves and discover that the card at the hour they were thinking of is gone. Such a cool presentational premise and a great effect. Plus they name the card they were thinking of AFTER you already handed it to them. 4/5

Alphamail

You mail a big envelope to an organizer and inside is a magazine and another envelope that says “Do not open!” You call the organizer once they get the package ask them to take out the magazine and circle any word they want. When you have the event, you ask them to bring the magazine and the unopened envelope. You invite them on stage during the show and you ask the organizer to tell the audience, and you, what the word they circled was. They say, “Eternity.” You tell the organizer to open up the sealed envelope that has been in their possession at all times. Inside is a smaller envelope and you rip open that envelope you dump out the contents. It is a small folded up, crinkled packet, and then you let the organizer open it up and they see that the folded piece of paper is the receipt for the magazine and on it is written “Eternity.” This is just CRAZY! No stooges, no forces, no gimmicks, it’s just awesome. Perfect for a big corporate event. 5/5

Constellation

You ask a spectator to hold a marker and a business card behind their back and make about 15 dots on the business card anywhere they want, as you do the same thing. You both show the business cards and the pattern of dots is strikingly similar to each others. This just doesn’t seem too convincing to me. Maybe I’d have to try it out first, but I just don’t think it seems to likely or realistic. 3/5

Secrets

A simple peek-at-a-card, and then the spectator finds it, type effect utilizing some old as the hills methodology and a brand new, great presentation. The actual effect is pretty bad, but I at least got a very good presentational idea out of it. That makes it worth it to me. So a 1.5/5 for the actual effect, but it gets an honorable mention for giving me a good presentation to use with some of my other mentalism.

Group Hypnosis

The magician picks out any card, looks at it and places it in his pocket. He then cuts the pack into three piles and one at a time you have three spectators select three different cards and you ask them to name the cards they saw at once and they all name the same card! You then say that’s not possible because that’s the card he took out of the deck earlier! You show your hand empty, go into into your pocket and pull out the card which of course is the card that everyone named. It’s a little difficult to get the moves down smoothly, but when you do you have a super cool impromptu card effect that you can do anytime, anywhere. 4/5

Reception

You draw a glass of wine and try to “send” the image of the wine to them. They draw a glass of wine and try to “receive” your thoughts as they draw the wine level anywhere on their drawing. Of course, the wine level in your drawing matches theirs. Uses a very clever gimmick, and with a little bit of thinking you could make this examinable. (PM me if you already have the dvd but you want to know how to make it examinable. Just tell me the first 5 words he says in the explanation part of Reception.) You’ll smile when you see the method. 4/5

Painkiller

You introduce a paper clock and a real broken watch. You move a hole punch slowly around the face-down, paper clock and the spectator asks you to punch anytime they want. You show the face of the broken watch for the first time, and the hands are at 4:15. When you flip over the paper clock, they see that the hole punch is unbelievably close to 4:15. Everything can be handed out and a spectator can keep the paper clock as a souvenir. I love this one, it fooled me BADLY when I saw the performance. Once again, a great presentation and a fantastic effect. 5/5

Intersection

The magician shows a stack of business cards with lots of different names on them. The spectator freely selects a name, for example, Liam. They then select any playing card. In this case, they select the four of hearts. You open up a separate deck of cards, which has been sitting on the table the whole time and spread through to show that one card is reversed in the deck. You flip it over to show that it is the four of hearts with Liam written on it’s face. It’s the ONLY card flipped over and the ONLY card with writing on it. Good for a set show, probably not walk-around because there is too many things to carry and plus this is the sort of routine that really needs time spent on it. It’s just super powerful, people don’t know what to do. And the fact that they have a truly free choice makes the effect so much stronger. 5/5

X’s & OhMyGod

You predict the outcome of two spectator’s game of tic-tac-toe. I love this! It’s so easy and very clever. This is not the old Mark Wilson Tic Tac Toe prediction effect, in case you were wondering. This is just so much fun to do with friends at a house party or whatever because it’s just so much fun to do! I mean, you’re having your spectators play a game that they know and love from their childhood! And you don’t have to do anything, except for a tiny little thing that if you can move your fingers, you can do easily. 4.5/5

Photo Finish

The spectator freely cuts the deck into four piles, and the cards that they cut to, match the cards in the photograph you have with you, plus an extra kicker. This is a very cool routine that builds wonderfully. The spectators never see the ending coming and it hits them right between the eyes. This is something that is probably best done at a casual event. And just for personal taste, I changed the handling a little bit to make the whole process seem even fairer, and I changed the presentation to make it more of my style. It’s a very versatile routine and I can see myself doing this one at a lot of house parties or similar venues. 5/5

I love this DVD so much, it has a lot of free choice mentelism on here, and some mentelism that has some sort of force. But this DVD is spectacular for it's free choice effects and easy to do mentelism. The top 5 on here are,

5. Photo Finish

4. Reception

3. Choice Effect

2. Group Hypnosis
I've got spectacular reactions with this one.
1. Nonexistent

Nonexistent is my favourite because the spectator can make up any name they want for example Doctor Professer Dude and you'll still be correct. It's a free choice. There's a little gag in between the trick. And there's no funny moves.

Hemispheres has a lot of creative content. There are several novel techniques and unique ways to look at magic/mentalism. The tricks are diverse; some of them are different applications of the same principles however this doesn't detract from the overall effectiveness. The video is shot in Jay's likeable and funny self.
I myself went through it a few years ago when I bought it; I never used any of the material until recently when I added tic tac toe x by Bond Lee to my arsenal.
I remembered that Jay had a creative tic tac toe effect on Hemispheres- at the time I mentally glossed over it as too overtly 'mentalism-y' for my personal style. However, I rehashed it and put it together with Bond Lee's effect and it became extremely powerful with the common denominator of the game, yet so incredibly different techniques.
I would definitely recommend going through Hemispheres- so many gems- you'll never know when one may be applicable.

Jay goes above and beyond in this DVD. 5 stars is the most you can go. But Jay Sankey Definitely deserves more.

Before I begin my comments about this DVD, I must confess that I am not a Jay Sankey fan. I don't like his quirky, offbeat, zany presentation style. I've always thought this sort of style diminishes the air of mystery that should surround a mentalist's persona. To me, this style screams "performer," diminishing the possibility in the minds of audience members that what they are seeing is real.

Putting that aside... I am willing to admit, after watching Hemispheres, that Jay Sankey is an excellent teacher, and any mentalist -- or magician wanting to incorporate mental magic into his act -- will benefit from this valuable collection.

Sankey's teaching is detailed and thorough. He has obviously spent hours upon hours thinking through his elegant inventions and solutions. I've learned a great deal from this ingenious man.

(But I still can't get past his off-putting presentation style... so I'm leaving my evaluation at a solid "4.")

There was a lot of good effects on this dvd!!! They say if you buy a book or a dvd and you get one good effect out of it, then it's worth the money. I got way more then one effect. I say add this to your cart now. It's worth the money.

Spectacular dvd. I think about the trick called Director's Cut almost everyday. I want to perform it almost every day. It makes me wonder if Sankey is not human to come up with the most tricks ever and maybe the most hidden gems ever. To bad his presentations and patter are a after thought. Overall, this is fail proof mental magic that's good.
The D.C. trick is Breathtaking and one of my favorite tricks.
Oh, I plan on doing walk arounds with a couple of big yellow envelopes strapped to my back under my jacket just for that trick.

This is a really diverse set of magic and mentalism. It has mentalism for kids, corporate shows, card performers and close up guys. For those who want to add some mental magic to their sets this is the perfect DVD.

This was not made for the serious metal bending, muscle reading, hypnotist.

A few years ago, Jay Sankey released 22 Blows to the Head. Now, that DVD was fantastic, and I enjoyed it very much. Now, when this DVD came out, I figured since the last one was so good, how could he come out with ANOTHER good one?

Well, he did... And it's better than the first!

Most of these pieces are ones that I will be doing ALL the time in shows and close-up situations. They are INCREDIBLY practical, and I can honestly say that I (after having almost every book and over 70 of Sankey's DVDs) have not seen a LOT of this material elsewhere.

I never knew Sankey was sitting on this much awesome stuff; take my word for it and pick up this DVD! You will be glad you did.

bought this from sankey magic a while back... and what i like most on this dvd is the diversity of mentalist effects. it isnt just stuff for stage, or close up there is a little bit of everything with lots in between. personally, im a fan of x's and oh my god. while it may appear too simple to be true, it is visual and will work every time. another great value from sankey...add to cart