The new book on Maurice Fogel is out by Hermetic Press. Here's the bottom line up front: buy it...NOW!! before it is out of print. It is a large, 440 page book that gets behind the mind of one of the greatest mentalists magic has ever had. I will be honest with you: I've not finished reading it yet. But I've read enough to know that this is a different kind of magic book. Personal recollections by Fogel are mixed with reviews, challenges and thoughts by others. But what I found absolutely fascinating is the making of Fogel and the development of his act.
Fogel did well in school, having come from a very poor but loving family. He was slowly introduced to magic and did basic magic standards until he entered the British Army as an artillery man. There he found a way to be assigned to an entertainment unit and began mixing mentalism with magic. His profound personality exuded confidence past the floodlights and eventually went to doing just mentalism. THere doesn't seem to be a challenge that he wouldn't take.
From a "methods" perspective the book is valuable in that the reader will find a tremendous amount of mileage out of how Fogel managed his billet work. What I found absolutely fascinating was the impression of the billet work from the perspective of "laypeople." The billets seemed to melt away from the conciousness of the audience and what remained is that Fogel merely plucked thoughts out of the air. Whether good billet work today will work or not will be left up to the reader. It seems that magicians would focus on the technique while Fogel used his personality to bring the effect(s) to fruition. The billets were the means to a greater end.
All in all I would surmise that this book will go out of print soon and for that reason alone I hope it does. I hope so because this way it will become the collectors item that it should become, taking a place on the list of hard-to-find items effectively hiding the material from the curious. But for now, if you want a copy you can email me at magicetc@comcast.com. The book retails for 72.00. BUT...if you order it from me and mention magic21 you can have it for 10.00 off that price, plus 8.00 postage and shipping.
Here are the particulars from the Hermetic Press ad:
When magicians caught a bullet in their teeth...
He caught six!
When magicians did spook shows...
His ghosts were nude!
When magicians did rope tricks...
He put a noose around his neck and jumped!
When magicians predicted a chosen number...
He predicted which of six rifles should be aimed at his forehead!
He was Maurice Fogel, the twentieth century's most audacious mentalist and one of its greatest showmen. His feats of mind reading captured headlines around the world—when he wasn't predicting them. He dared death, he read minds and he became a legend in his own time.
Here is a taste of a typical Fogel performance:
Six volunteer marksmen were invited on stage to operate six legitimate, loaded and fully functioning rifles. One man chose a rifle at random and fired at a saucer, shattering it to smithereens. The discharged rifle was set with the five still-loaded ones in a rotating rack and the rack spun until no one could know which was the empty weapon. Each marksman was assigned a random number and took a random rifle from the rack. Fogel next revealed a predicted number that had been in full view and isolated from the start. The marksmen were all told to aim at saucers over Fogel's head—but the man assigned the predicted number was to aim directly at Fogel's forehead. Then, on his command they all fired!
To some he was a mental wonder; to others, an enigma. For years he strode the stages of the world, reading minds and using his strange powers to defy death. Maurice Fogel: In Search of the Sensational is the chronicle of the life of a master mentalist whose like has never been seen. He baffled the world and his peers. He defied death for years on a near nightly basis. He created an extraordinary body of professional mentalism that has remained among the most coveted material in the field.
This book contains that material, along with the advice, experience and stories of a lifetime of professional performance by one of the world's most acclaimed mentalists.
Maurice Fogel: In Search of the Sensational is the story of an amazing life and the mental secrets of an amazing man—
The Amazing Fogel
Written and collected by Chris Woodward, an award-winning magician and Fogel's son-in-law, in collaboration with mentalist and Fogel confidant Richard Mark, here at last is the definitive work on Maurice Fogel, the man and his secrets.
440 pages in elegant hardcover with book ribbon.
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