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My thoughts:

This review is of the hardcover edition of The Sharpshooter System from Stevens Magic. David also offers a PDF version of the book that does not include the exclusive content offered with the Stevens Magic edition.

I have a lot of respect for David Thiel's perspective because he is a full-time working professional mentalist and has been for many years. I've also learned a great deal from his posts on the cafe over the years.

Sharpshooter teaches David's unique handling for his instant access center tear, along with an in-depth study on reading people.

The Sharpshooter System is a book filled with wisdom. This is a deep dive into reading people. One man's insights into human nature gained from a life-time of experience and reflection. A work that helps the reader understand how a person's outward expressions and appearance offer clues into their inner experience. How to interpret those clues and understand another person a little better. How to apply what you discover to make your mind reading effects much more impactful.

This is not an entry level book on cold reading. If you are just starting to learn cold reading, I would suggest beginning with a couple of Richard Webster's well-known books such as Quick and Effective Cold Reading and Psychometry from A to Z. Once you have learned and mastered the concepts taught in those books, go out and do as many readings as you can over a period of months. Once you've had the experience of doing hundreds of readings and are ready to take on more advanced study, you may be ready to invest in this book. This is a book to be studied and read repeatedly over time.

Regarding the unique instant access center tear David teaches, having done a great deal of experimentation with different types of IACTs over the years, for a number of reasons, I prefer full billet peeks (and stares) using business cards (unfolded, untorn). But that's just my personal preference. There are many who prefer and use IACTs. As far as David's unique handling goes, it is one of the cleanest, most natural handlings I've seen. If you are into IACTs (Osterlind PCT, T-Rex, and others), you will probably want to learn David's.

For those ready to take on advanced work on reading people and using the insights gained to make your mind reading much more powerful, The Sharpshooter System is highly recommended.

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Stunninger: What a great review! Thank you very much for your thoughtful feedback. I really appreciate it.

It mystifies me how many performers think the simple fact that they 'know' what was written down is the whole effect. The reveal of the actual information, to my mind, really is just the icing on the cake. The actual effect is the way you get there.

An example: I was doing a corporate Christmas show a few years ago. I asked my volunteer to think of the greatest gift they ever got. The guy wrote down "a leather notebook."

It would have been okay I guess, if I had said "See this gift in your mind. It's...small. Maybe paper? Is this a notebook? But there's more, right? Is this a LEATHER notebook?" I believe this is how a number of performers would have handled the reveal and some members of the audience would be understandably impressed if that is what the performer said. The volunteer could have written down anything, right?

But here's how I see it: you ALREADY have that line in your back pocket. You know that, no matter what you do -- or where you go with the effect, you are going to get to the final reveal. (EVEN if you MISS on a couple of the things you say -- and I often do -- you STILL have the final reveal ready to cap the act -- so you are going to be successful no matter what happens in the middle of the performance.)

There's so much more a performer can do with that, though! A notebook by itself isn't a big deal, right? Even a leather one. So I started off by looking at my volunteer and saying "This gift isn't about the gift itself. It's about the person who gave it to you." This is a reasonable assumption.

The rest of the effect -- which took a solid six minutes -- revealed that the notebook was from a high school teacher who first encouraged my volunteer to write. Also that this teacher had just passed away, that there had been a private inscription on the first page that he reads all the time -- and that he went on to become a full time writer. There were a few more minor revelations but the reveal was powerful because it went so far beyond the gift itself. There were details revealed that there's no reasonable way for a stranger to know...and the volunteer's emotional reaction made the reveal so much more powerful to watch!

That's what I was trying to get at when I wrote the book. No good mentalism effect is simply about the information. It's so much more than that. You get there by using cold reading and warm reading techniques. You study their body language. You REALLY listen intently to the words behind the words they say.

So when I thought I'd finished the book -- which detailed the handling of the CT -- I realized it had to go much deeper into HOW the performer gets information from the volunteer right in front of the audience and even more importantly how he handles revealing that information...because these techniques can be applied to ANY reveal, way beyond the CT.

Your review was a great surprise to me, Stunninger. Thank you!

David