Last year at Tabula Mentis I happened to be sat next to a very cheerful chappy by the name of Ben Cardall.

A few lectures and a Greggs Tuna Cruch Baguette later and it was obvious that this guy knew his stuff and was a very decent person too.

He claimed to be a "Deductive Mentalist" which interested me a great deal, here was a man who claimed to be able to actually do the kind of deductions that Sherlock Holmes himself did. His passion was so deep in fact that he has indeed studied and developed a skill so he now can differentiate between all different kind of tobacco!

Upon leaving the next day I knew I had to see some of this guys work.

There have been several purchases I have made and each one has been a very good purchase - Yes he does indeed do what he claims! He has essays and ideas on different methods of deduction and his devotion to his study is obvious in his writings.

What I am reviewing today however if something more in the lines of straight up & solid mentalism.

I have been quite a fan of book tests throughout the years and when I noticed Ben had a Karaoke book test available.

The book itself is very well done, not too professional looking and not too shabby either - it looks just like a nicely printed Karaoke book that any DJ would use.

The method(s) used in the book test are very good, you can have a hands on approach to the book if you wanted to use it "straight out of the box" so to speak, and you are also given a method of being able to do this 100% hands off too.

If you want to perform the hands off version you will need to memorize a long list of artists and their songs however Ben gives you a fantastic memory aid that is even hidden away in the book!

The gaff(s) are invisible to anyone looking through the book and due to the songs used too, you will find that you hardly need to memorize anything.

Value For Money - 10/10 - You get what you pay for, a 100% hands off book test that can be used pretty much anywhere!

Ease of use - 7/10 - Some memory work involved but by no means difficult

Impossible Factor - 8.5 / 10 - One of the cleanest book tests I have come across

Customer Service - 10/10 - Never met a friendly guy

All in all I would give this a marking of 9 / 10

Cheers
Art

Cheers for the words Art!

Sounds interesting.
A link would be appreciated, Ben (or Art)?

e

Hi e,

i am in the process of having some more drawn up to roll this out to one and all. There will be a small vid following when I get back to normality tomorrow alternatively just shoot me a message

This thread started off referring to deductive reasoning like Sherlock Holmes. It has been years since I read much of Doyle's fiction, but I am pretty sure that Sherlock relied more often on inductive reasoning than deductive reasoning. This is a minor point, except someone who purports to engage in logical inference "like Sherlock" might want to give that a fresh read.

George

Its more adductive to be honest george. Its a much heralded belief among the sherlockians that the reason it was referred to as deductive was due to holmes' accuracy. Its actually a combination of inductive, deductive and adductive reasoning when looking at the meanings of charles sanders pierce. Hope that helps

Did you mean abductive?

Right GW, it would be "Abductive," but Ben may be on to something. I doubt that Doyle would have been familiar with Pierce's logical writing--which was very specialized and early known almost only in the Academy, but Abduction--as a kind of considered "guess" at what, with probability, might have caused something could help explain how Doyle (through Holmes) engaged in some discoveries. I have not suddenly found Aristotle's categories of Induction and Deduction to be useless, but Abduction is worth thinking about.

Thanks, Ben.

George

Very interested in this too.

Ben,

Any link? Will this work in any language?

and also, will it be a download

thanks

alex alejandro

At the moment I believe it's only available directly from Ben.

You can reach him on Facebook & twitter or email him at:

Ben@bencardall
Com

Cheers
Art

Here is the man in action performing The Silent Orchestra over Skype!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gC6ODRtnIBk

Cheers
Art

FYI - Ben has just received a massive batch of these book tests and is selling them now!

Get one before its too late!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gC6ODRtnIBk

ben@bencardall.com

The first batch flew out

Just watched the video, my kind of thing pm sent