I once raised this point on the Genii forum and it was an interesting debate. Of course I had to hold back on saying what I really thought on there since forums are moderated.

I raised the question ‘How much do other magicians get paid for giving testimonials for marketed effects?’

I had noticed a trend of many pieces of utter dog shit being sold by dealers and it wasn’t just the dealers ad that sounded good, the tricks had testimonials from some known, and sometimes respected magicians.

One such example was the trick ‘Stained Glass’ by Adam Grace. At the time there was a demo clip on Hank Lee’s site, which soon after my post seemed to mysteriously vanish. If you go look now on sites that do have a demo you will only find a clip of the ‘second effect’, so to make it clear what I am talking about, I tracked down a copy of the original demo.

You can download it here… STAINED GLASS ORIGINAL DEMO – I suggest you RIGHT click on that link and choose ‘save as’ rather than trying to stream it.

As you can see from the video, the trick is plain crap. If you flopped out your dick and said ‘watch the magic growing wand’ it would be a better trick. It’s not magic and it doesn’t fool anyone. If you need proof, show the clip to some lay people and ask them what they think. I showed it to quite a few and not one of them was fooled, even for a second.

But let’s take a look at the testimonials it got (these are in the dealer ad for it)…

Did these guys get paid for saying these things?

“Outstanding! This has many applications.” – R. Paul Wilson
“Excellent! You nailed me with this one!” – Aaron Fisher
“Very, very clever.” – Lee Asher
“This is new… this is hot!” – Nate Kranzo

Let’s be real here, that trick would not fool the dribbling cabbage on the short bus.

How did that nail someone like Aaron Fisher?

How is it ‘very clever’? Or ‘Hot’?

As for ‘many applications’.. it has one.. to make you look a total spaz. It’s not clever and its not magic. And even a demented old doris with cataracts would see through this.

Watch the demo for yourself, and if you’re fooled by it – quit magic.

But even worse than those testimonials is the full blown review that Shane at Online Visions. He gave it 10 out of 10 on every count. I cannot reproduce what he wrote here, since he does actually copyright the utter drivel he writes about tricks put out by people who he likes. I suspect Adam Grace must have sucked Shane pretty damn good to get that review – hell, he probably had to swallow. Read it for yourself here…. http://www.online-visions.com/reviews/0407stainedglass.html

Shane even points out ‘limitations’ and then still says ’10 out of 10′, that guy wouldn’t know a good trick if it reemed him up the dirtbox.

The second effect you can do with Stained Glass is nothing new, unless wiping dry erase pen off is new. The idea has been around for a long time, and there have been other (better) effects that use the same principle to change a prediction. You can see the other effect at Ronjo Magic

It’s bad enough that dealers keep knocking out utter turds, it makes it worse that other magicians actually give quotes for this skanky dross to make it sound fantastic.

Oh and one more thing – check the effect description….

‘The second effect is even more shocking. A prediction is written on the piece of glass. A card is selected and found to be the wrong card. Right in front of their eyes, the writing on the glass changes into the correct card! This one is really frightening! ‘

I believe that description was written by Adam Grace himself. Adam – if a prediction changing FRIGHTENS you, then you really are a big girls blouse.

There are many other cases of top name magicians saying really good things about bits of dung, I’ll be bringing more examples to your attention soon.