Hard Hitting? Completely impromptu?

[Shanku]

where can i get that book?

It's a three volume set. You can get it at most magic dealers.

 

[dejavu05]

Forcing a card and then revealing it? Blows 'em away...

Honestly that is great advice. Find a great force and build up the suspense to the revelation.

 

[mini magician]

even a riffle force works i seriously no joke get awesome reactions

 

[praetoritevong]

so what your saying i can take almost any decent trick, and if performed right, make it pretty hard hitting.
d+m is my favorite magician, but i dont want to be a total copy cat.
but i still am looking at getting one of his books.

I really want to learn some mentalism, especially a subliminal force.

Basically, I believe so. Don't get me wrong - some tricks are by nature stronger than others. Some tricks by nature will suit you better than others. Some tricks will suit certain spectators more than others. Take something like Lady Bug by Paul Harris - creating life out of blood, the very concept is amazing. It is more magical by nature than a sandwich effect simply because, you're creating life. Some tricks, such as Zamiel's Rose, suit me better than effects like Stigmata - I consider myself as a romantic, and the elegance in Zamiel's Rose makes it my favourite effect; however as I mentioned before, I have known few who, in my opinion, could make it truly special because it does not suit them, as amazing as the effect is. And some tricks, say, if we wander into the realm of Geek Magic, will appeal to certain spectators more than others - I personally would hate watching, and would never perform, Thread, for example.

Notwithstanding all these factors - there are many tricks then, that can be taken, and worked upon, to the point where they are hard hitting; they just require work. Take for example JB's performance of Two Card Monte on Ellusionist's Kard Klub DVD - he gets better reactions from that 2CM than most YouTube videos I've seen of Stigmata performances. Obviously, you won't get that sort of reaction if you simply have a poorly constructed effect. But even such a simple, traditional trick - one you wouldn't think much of in terms of "hard-hitting" - probably got better reactions than most people do get with Stigmata.

Ok, Mentalism, that's great. You said you want to learn "some" mentalism - so I'm assuming that you haven't learned any mentalism before? And I'm also assuming that you perform card magic (most do). If this is the case, Derren Brown's DVD set The Devil's Picturebook, available from his website, should be the ticket. First DVD has some very nice card stuff, and second DVD is card related mentalism, from his version of Out of this World, to subliminal mental forces like you're asking for (they're very good!). That's the first thing that comes to mind.

I'd recommend sending a PM to Chr!s, DeeChristopher, or Sean_Raf (there are many others I'm sure, but these are just the first to come to mind, so sorry if I missed anyone really obvious!) asking for subliminal mental forces also - from memory they have had some good suggestions in the past, and pretty good general knowledge on mentalism in general.