Lewis Leval is a creative mentalist. In this release of three routines, his centerpiece is "The
Influencer" which is a novel ACAAN using an ungimmicked deck and a clever sleight that's done when
there is no heat on your hands. In other words, the dirty work is done way up front, long before you
turn over the card in the deck at the number picked by the spectator. Don't worry, the sleight is
simple. In fact, watching Lewis perform it, I had a fairly good idea how it worked, but your
spectators won't. They will have no idea because as Darwin Ortiz says in Designing Miracles, there's
backward time displacement. This is an easy, excellent method, one that you'll be doing fairly
quickly.
Routine two uses a "swami-less swami gimmick." It too is quite ingenious but not
for all performers. I might use it.
Lastly, there is a pseudo-psychological force of a
card using The Influencer method, one that you can encourage people to video for playback later to
see your influence over their selection. It's not really a new effect, just a variation on the
first one. It's cool.
You get a PDF file and a short MP4 video showing you The Influencer
sleight and routine. Both are excellent.
So if I'm so high on The Influencer, why only
four stars? Simple answer: price. I get that this material is geared to the professional, and the
price is to keep amateurs away. But I think that it's still a bit high. Yes, you get an extremely
clever ACAAN using a technique that you'd never thought about before. What is that worth? The
other routines would ordinarily be two things in a book of nine things that sells for the customary
mentalist price of $30. Here, we have one extremely strong routine, a variant of it, and a very
good additional routine. For $33? Mmmmmm...no. This is more like $20.
Anyway, you might
disagree with me on value vs. cost, but I do still recommend The Influencer.
Three ingenious, sharp routines
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