The Blurb
Imagine…
After establishing yourself as a person with some unusual intuitive skills, you say you’d like to put those skills to a real, measurable test. In order to do that, you need some sort of benchmark to compare them against. There are various items that could serve this purpose, from tarot cards to personality profiles. But, you explain, because you like to set the bar high, you’ve chosen the divinatory tool which, throughout the several-thousand-year history of esoteric practice, has generally been regarded as the most trusted
source of metaphysical wisdom and insight into the human condition: a horoscope mini-magazine, direct from the supermarket checkout counter.
You give such a magazine to a volunteer, pointing out that it deals with four distinct areas of life: love, money, health, and leisure. You then turn your back and ask your volunteer to look up her horoscope — either for the current month (if it’s far along enough to get a good sense of how it’s turning out), or for the previous month (if it’s too soon to tell how this month is going yet). In either case, she silently reads her horoscope. When she’s finished, you ask her to consider how accurate it seems in hindsight. She does, and arrives at a “percentage score” for the magazine’s accuracy, which you write down. No matter what it is, you say you think you can do better.
You then turn to face the volunteer again, and proceed to give her a disarmingly accurate and insightful description of her personality and her current situation in life. This is no mere “cold” reading, as it contains a wealth of specific information that you had no way of knowing, including personal details about her character, actions, and circumstances, delivered confidently and unequivocally. You then wrap things up by revealing her zodiac sign, with no pumping or guesswork. With that, not only have you done much better than the magazine, but you’ve given the volunteer an intimate, inexplicable experience that she’ll never forget.
ASCENSION really is just that clean, direct and strong. It’s a system that uses layers of methods to deliver, in a completely untraceable way, the most powerful and memorable
information that we as mentalists can reveal: personal details about someone’s life. Furthermore, it does so in real time, with no writing, no setup, no assistance, no pre-show, and no stooges (instant or otherwise). How you use that information is then up to your own imagination.
“This is not just a ‘new effect,’ it’s freak’n dynamite!” —
Craig Browning
“Joshua has taken some clever ideas and brilliantly weaved them into a complete and impressive reading system. Not only are the principles well hidden in the workings of the
routine, but it’s also shockingly easy to do. Joshua has put an amazing amount of thought and work into the routine and the creation of the realistic looking horoscope mini-mags
which do virtually all the work for you. Even if you have no experience doing a reading, this system will automatically make you look like an expert reader as you deftly demonstrate that you’re better than the magazine astrologers. I highly recommend this ingenious product.”
— Jheff, Marketplace of the Mind
My Comments
First off, I'm sure that quite a few mentalists may be a bit disappointed that I am helping Joshua commercialize this product. It's such a clever and invaluable package that I don't blame mentalists at all for wanting to keep this reading system among themselves. But that's just it. Because it's a reading system, it will stay among mentalists. Trust me. Mental magicians won't do this. You're not divining serial numbers, predicting headlines, or staying one step ahead of that cup-covered spike. You're giving an honest to goodness reading here and, for many performers, this just isn't their style. Also, being as how this is very clever, Joshua deserves some limelight for its creation and some financial reward, too. Although he'll probably get more of the former than the latter.
After reading the blurb above, which details the routine, you'll notice that all you use is a pocket-sized horoscope book and a pen and paper. That's it. And why is this reading easy? Because once you have a participant's "percentage score" of how accurate the horoscope book is, it is diabolically easy to figure out the zodiac sign and know how to be amazingly more accurate than what is printed in the horoscope book. (Yeah, I know the word "diabolically" is overused in ad blurbs, but, believe me, it fits perfectly here.)
There is a little memorization involved, but you can definitely use a crib. Joshua has come up with an extremely well-thought out set of mnemonics which he built into the system. So remembering this isn't too difficult. With the crib, though, you can start doing it almost immediately (after you thoroughly script and rehearse, of course!) and eventually not need the crib anymore.
A final concern you may have is with its use of astrology. Personally, I've never bought into in it, but you don't have to in order to use this. Read the blurb and you'll see that Joshua's presentation involves demonstrating that your instincts are more accurate than any astrologers'. I like that. However, you can certainly compare your astrological knowledge to that which is found in a supermarket horoscope book. Or another ability can be compared. It's up to you.
You will notice when you go to his website that Joshua is selling a complete package which includes the CD-Rom with the graphic files on it, a printed instruction booklet, and the four horoscope books; the e-book with the instructions and graphics to make your own horoscope books; and the four books separately, if you need them. Please note that you don't need to use all four books during a performance/reading. Each book covers three months of the year, so you will use all four over the course of a year, but not all at the same time.
In any case, I do highly recommend you get the entire package. Making the horoscope books is definitely time consuming. Also, you'll be ready to go much more quickly.
To wrap up my comments, I'll just repeat the blurb that that I sent Joshua to use. Or, you can ignore reading it again and simply go straight to Joshua's site and order it.
Oh, yeah, and tell him that Jheff sent you.
"Joshua has taken some clever ideas and brilliantly weaved them into a complete and impressive reading system. Not only are the principles well hidden in the workings of the
routine, but it's also shockingly easy to do. Joshua has put an amazing amount of thought and work into the routine and the creation of the realistic looking horoscope mini-mags
which do virtually all the work for you. Even if you have no experience doing a reading, this system will automatically make you look like an expert reader as you deftly demonstrate that you're better than the magazine astrologers. I highly recommend this ingenious product."
If you would like to obtain the downloadable e-book which contains PDF files for making the books yourself ($40) or duplicate sets of the books ($30 each) then use the link below.
http://www.mentallyimpossible.com/ascension/