Magic Tricks

There's been some confusion about what you're paying for with M.P.H., so let me try to clarify. As with most effects, what you're paying for is the reaction of your audience. Many, many tricks seem different or even disappointing once you know the secret -- which is why we don't share the secret with spectators. Some people who have purchased M.P.H. have apparently been disappointed with the secret, but they're not considering the perception of an audience that doesn't also know it.

What your audience will perceive is that you predicted the configuration of a Mr Potato Head doll from among more than 360,000 possibilities. At no relevant point during the routine will you touch either the spectator's doll or the prediction. Your prediction can be in the form of a second doll, a small drawing, a large drawing, an image on your phone or social media, or whatever you want. It's analogous to the spectator selecting a playing card, and then you revealing your prediction as a duplicate card, a tattoo, a huge sheet with "7H" painted on it, or whatever reveal you want.

The trailer shows one way of presenting the reveal, and Josh discusses this and other ways. What has thrown some people off is making too many assumptions from the trailer that weren't actually stated. It's difficult to address this too directly without tipping the method, but suffice it to say this: It's true that you can't always achieve the exact type of reveal shown in the trailer, but if that's the case you will still achieve a different type of reveal that will be equally impressive to your audience. It's not even entirely fair to call the reveal in the trailer a best-case scenario, since your audience doesn't know what might or might not have happened in the first place.

You receive not only the method and a high-quality instructional video, but you also get a complete written script (PDF) for a 10-minute stage routine. This is a big difference between this and other lower-priced downloads for other effects. Josh explains at the start of the video that he's teaching exactly what he performs in his stage shows.

Try to remember the first time you saw a performance of a coin vanish, or the Invisible Deck, or a metamorphosis box -- before you knew the secret. You were probably stunned. If those secrets weren't as widely known today as they are, wouldn't you pay $45 to learn them and receive a full script to perform them? In other words, wouldn't you pay to make your audience feel the way you did the first time you saw those effects?

With M.P.H., you're buying the ability to make your audience believe you predicted one of more than 360,000 choices, and you're compensating the creator of the effect for developing and sharing that ability.