Mokele - By Phill Smith - BookImagine a performance that doesn't stop when you step off stage, but endures in the audience's minds. Something that they keep coming back to in quiet moments, a delicious snack of the impossible that they can draw out and examine in their mind's eye. Mitox and Yokai were about creating a new and unique mythology, telling a story that your performances illuminate and inhabit. In my new book, Mokele, I have dug into this concept much deeper, examining

The Mokele approach. I like things to be as simple as possible and no simpler. I'm not a fan of expensive and unreliable gimmicks and gaffs. Strong organic effects with powerfully deceptive methods are key to building the mythology of your performance so in Mokele there are a dozen straightforward pieces of impactful impossible. Accessible and extensible, ready to rock right out of the box, or ready to roll your own unique pieces, Mokele is a toolbox for serious students of the unbelievable.

Kit Kat

A practical low tech peek wallet solution that costs next to nothing and affords direct, live access to the information, right beneath the spectator's noses. Plus, a powerful approach to name divination that is so strong, you have to reign it in.

More Quinta

A refined and simplified alternative solution to the Quinta force that cuts out much of the bother involved in enacting this brilliant utility method. if you looked at Quinta and thought 'Nice idea but not for me.' this IS absolutely for you.

Corner Shop

A far-too-straightforward card effect - they look at a card and you instantly know what it is, as they do. A throwaway piece that proves you are a miracle worker... you'll see what I mean.

Fenestrate

Three people draw three different images and you use your unique skills to intuit not only who drew each piece but what exactly it was they drew in minute detail. A strong piece designed for stage and cabaret that introduces a super-effective (and super cheap) utility prop that can simplify a great number of existing effects.

Sidestep

You detune your brain and focus on another world where your spectator's deepest dreams are a reality, then relay this impossible information back to them in an event that is more than just an effect. Just one approach to turn a new twist on a standard trick into a powerful piece of impossible new mythology.

String Theory

A ring hanging from a black string around your neck is telekinetically controlled under experimental conditions by the focussed power of the audience's minds. Ready to go at any moment with no prep.

DBag Drawing Challenge

Under impossible conditions you challenge your victim with a foolproof prediction that looms over their own completely free actions. You will carry this with you... and you will use it.

One Heart

Emotions that transcend language are invoked in an effect that draws out the best in your audience. Rebuilding an existing effect from the ground up with a new presentation and a new method turns an old chestnut into a shiny new diamond.

Bluke

Predictions marked on the cards themselves pick apart the spectator's seemingly random actions... OK, its a card trick, if you like that sort of thing then this may be the sort of thing that you like.

Florida

A complicated proposition bet that you will not like, and that's if you even understand it. Why did I include it? Sheer self-destructive masochism.

Bingo!

Lure in your audience with an engaging, exciting and very funny on-stage game that you subtly control from start to finish, defying fate itself to ensure that you alone are exposed to the terrible booby prize.

Concept Deck

A new utility prop that will unlock hundreds of new and old effects, washing away the whiff of magic and imbuing some of your current favourite pieces with a rich and vivid meaning. A simple prop and a clean technique to create meaning where there was none, and to lure your audiences into understanding and caring about something impossible.

CDC Drawing Duplication

A wide open drawing duplication that plays for laughs but contains a solid seed of baffling impossibility. Draw your audience into an engaging challenge then bat them away with a solid hit that is as impossible as it is funny.

Essays

The backbone of Mokele: An extensive range of essays built on the application of important universal principles. How and why to make your routines accessible, how to streamline and clarify your performances, ways to build the experience for the audience and even routine out the possibility of mistakes from your act. All this plus an in-depth discussion on the impact and application of props in mentalism that will make you think again about everything you take on stage with you.

Premises

All this shot through with Phill's trademark quirky premises and his hectoring suggestion that you stop 'being psychic' and start being something far more uniquely strange...

More dealer hype?

No. If you know Mitox or Yokai you know Mokele can follow through. New plots, simple methods, straightforward and accessible props and fiendish thinking. Every prop for every effect in Mokele could fit into a large envelope and what props you don't already have you can buy or make for less than a tenner.

This stuff is engineered to be more than 'tricks'. The material in Mokele is designed to be a key component of a unique and original mythology - yours.