Absolute Magic A Model for Powerfu! Close-Up Performance Derren Brown MAGIC BOOKSAuthor's Note Those of you who have seen me perform will be aware that I have moved away from conjuring material to work with the area of our profession that deals with mind reading and psychological effects. This type of performance has always interested me more, and the development of genuine hypnotic, suggestive and persuasive skills has come to mean more to me than learning sleight-of-hand. This is, however, a book about the presentation of more traditional magic, which constitutes my background and is still something I enjoy immensely. The reader will detect a strong leaning towards mental effects in my writing, but although much will be said to interest the mentalist, this book is not designed to be purely about such things. Mind reading, for me, is immensely personal: the style and approach I developed were born from my feelings towards the presentation of magic as a whole. I tend to keep the details of methods to myself in this area: 1 would hope to let my performance efforts speak for themselves. If a non-magician has found his way to this book through Her Majesty’s Internet and wishes to know how I perform my mind- reading or learn more about ‘mind control’ techniques, he will be very disappointed, and infuriated by the fact that he had to pay such an unreasonable amount of money to be so let down. If a magician has picked this up to learn some new tricks, then again he has been misguided in his expectations, for I don’t teach any here. I hope what Thave to say will be of more value.