"When it comes to creators who never fail to impress me, Brian's name is right up there! Brian's effects are clever, strong and commercial. This book is full of gold and should be in every magician's library!"Peter Nardi
Prestidigitator is a Brian Caswell's legacy—a 350-page, beautifully bound hardback book in buckram book cloth. It features his life's work, many effects he developed over the years, and details of nearly all his published work.
He is probably best known for "Trilogy", a trick recently declared a 'Fooler' by Penn and Teller. "Prestidigitator" extends the "Trilogy" concept to include four and five revelations.
This book is packed with more than seventy items across nine chapters. While it includes some sleight of hand, the focus is on concealed subtleties, little-known principles, and unsuspected gaffs.
For stage performers, there is a chair test, a memory erasing routine, a comedy effect, a version of 'Touching on Hoy,' and a spectator hallucination effect. For close-up performers, you can weigh cards with your bare hand, genuinely name buried cards by a sense of touch, divine chosen cards over the phone, call number totals without seeing anything, and have a spectator name their own unseen card twice in a row.
Examples from the book:
Anomally - A spectator finds that you have written down the names of five playing cards you were thinking of on the backs of five different cards they happened to be thinking of.
Unsighted - A deck is examined. Three spectators freely choose cards, bury them in the pack, and place the deck in an opaque bag. Without seeing anything, you place your hands into the bag and slowly name all three cards.
Throw Of The Dice - Six colored envelopes. You predict which envelope they will choose, but more significantly, you predict the number on a die thrown in their mind.
Miracle - A spectator thinks of seven playing cards. When you turn them over, they find letters of the alphabet written on the backs. The cards spell the word "miracle."
The Borromean Rings - Three ropes knotted into rings appear to become magically linked. Spectators examine the structure minutely but find themselves unable to name any two of the rings that are actually linked together.
"I've worked with Brian Caswell for a long time. In fact it was Brian who originally suggested the "Ninja Plus" gimmick all those years ago. Several of his tricks have been in my working repertoire for as long as I remember. This is a reference work I'll be going back to again and again."Matthew Garrett
"Brian Caswell's creations are incredible; his effects have been in many of my performances and Trilogy is a mind blowing closer that I continue to use."Michael J Fitch