Ian Rowland is a great entertainer and his sense of humor made the lecture fun. The card tricks were
good. However, the majority of his mentalism tricks use some degree of stooging or stalking (buy if
you want to find out the unique ways he does it) which are both highly questionable methods. Yes,
Ian makes the point that you won't get caught if you use these methods, but doesn't that ruin the
integrity of your tricks? If you're not willing to cross that ethical line, then do not buy. If you
are, than this is for you. I personally have used these tricks and their effects are powerful, but
it seems unfair to sell this lecture without the disclaimer I have provided above.
Only a few of his effects use that, not a majority so you're wrong about that first off. Second of all, a mentalist is a liar and a cheater, you make them believe the impossible while using cheat-like methods so it is not any ethically worse to turn someone into a stooge, plus the stooge still has no idea how you knew what country in the routine. Ian is teaching his methods that he uses in the real world, and like he says if you don't want to use them then don't... there's no disclaimer needed when he isn't forcing you to use his methods.
I was gonna say what fredless said above.
The anonymous mentalist from San Fransisco
is complaining that stooging or DR is unethical? lol
That's like using a top change instead of the double lift
on the grounds that the double lift is lying to your audience
about the number of cards you're displaying...
but then you still top change when they're not looking, lol.
Moreover, there ARE good reasons not to P-Show,
and not to use stooges...for example time constraints,
or for example you may fear that the audience is too small
and your set is too short, and the specs will talk among themselves
after the show...
but Rowland addresses these concerns and pretty much pre-emptively
safeguards against those perils.
I will try not be repetitious and talk about how ridiculous it is to say pre show is unethical.
It just so happens that Ian goes above and beyond fairness in his pre show work (if you even want to call it pre show, as its more like a 30 second friendly chat) When he interacts with the spectators, he makes a point to say, its just in fun, and he has no special powers. The whole technique of why he succeeds is just that NOT misleading the person by saying it's for fun.
Oh and he does a bit where he secretly finds out someones birthday oh my! :-) I think I get about 15 spams per year wishing me a happy birthday because it was extracted from a data base somewhere :-)
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Entertaining, but Mentalism was Questionable
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