hey i just wanna know if this book or technique in this book is hard to master, and what in here he teaches you. so if yall could help me out i would appreciate it. .

If you are not proficient with cards, this book will not be for you. while the explanations are good, he doesn't give many illustrations and in general the techniques are advanced. Of course you don't get this bok for the tricks, but the philosophy behind mentalism and Derren's views on magic in general. People love or HATE this book. I will be honest, when I first bought it I promptly sold it because i didnt think it was very good at all. I have re-purchased it with a brand new attitude toward it. You need to be well versed in mentalism to aprreciate it. My gut instinct says that you probably won't like it unless you already have a firm foundation in mentalism (meaning you have read at least 13 steps, jinx, and practical mental effects.)

david is totally right here. I personally love this book!! Like he said, you don't really buy this book for the effects included in but more for the theory and how does he build an effect with the little subtleties. There is only one effect in this book that I'm interested in developping but that's all. You probably won't really understand the theory in this book at the first read...you really have to read more than 5 times and to think about what he says or else you probaby won't enjoy this book to the fullest.

I would highly suggest you to look into Absolute Magic too. What I've heard from people is to read pure effect, then read absolute magic and then read pure effect again and there is a lot of things that you will understand more.

i personally thought pure effect was better than absolute magic. i just didnt get into absolute magic at all...i have no idea why. maybe it wasnt an easy book to read?? I much prefer darwin ortiz' strong magic or the recently released maximum entertainent by ken weber, if you are looking for books on theory. pure effect also has some very worthwhile theory.

well there is a lot of books that are almost essential to any fan of theory...and well almost all of them are by Burger lol

-The performance of close-up magic
-Mastering the art of magic (which is many older out of print little books of essays put into one)
-Mystery School (well like every alive magician have particpated to this book so he's not alone)

I think maybe Absolute Magic talk about magic and mentalism but if you,re more looking into mentalism theory then yes Pure Effect is excellent!