News You May Have Missed!

This news was sent out last week about Mindvention, Messing With Minds Extremely Mental Edition, and new Paypal procedures.

MINDVENTION UPDATE
Are you going to Mindvention? You should. But even so,
you may not have heard the update. Larry Becker and Richard
Osterlind will not be able to attend. Larry has some
health-related issues and Richard's agent booked a couple of
corporate shows which precludes his Mindvention attendance.
Both are extremely disappointed that they can't make it.

However, in their place, Rick Maue, author of The Book of
Haunted Magick, will be lecturing. Also added is David
Charvet, author of Alexander – The Man Who Knows, who will
give a lecture on that very topic. And Gerry McCambridge,
NBC's The Mentalist, who is now doing shows at the Rampart
Casino has invited Mindvention attendances to see his show
for free that week.

That's in addition to the lineup already announced: Luke
Jermay (who will lecture), Bruce Bernstein, Barrie
Richardson and Lee Earle. And, of course, I'll be there.
If you are, too, stop by my booth and say hi.


NEW PAYPAL PROCEDURE
Longtime subscribers and customers know that my shopping
cart doesn't always automatically add the most economical
shipping prices. So I stopped having my shopping cart doing
it. This isn't really a problem but Paypal users can't use
the shopping cart and must go through a little extra work in
order to fulfill an order, since the shipping costs must be
included.

I've decided to try a new way of handling this and we'll see
if it works. The Paypal link has now been returned to the
checkout page. But when you use Paypal you will be
initially paying for the items with no shipping. After I
recieve the order, I will send you a separate Paypal bill
for the shipping. Your order will be processed immediately,
but will not be shipped until the separate payment is made.

I am working on putting reminders and warnings and pop-ups
(if I can figure out all that) so that Paypal users will be
aware of this.

Also, please remember that I do prefer using my charge
gateway instead of Paypal, especially non-U.S. customers, as
the Paypal fees are higher.

MESSING WITH MINDS -- EXTREMELY MENTAL EDITION
I did something quite rare and that is order quite a
bit extra of the expensive Messing With Minds Extremely
Mental Edition. I thought that for sure I'd have some to
sell at the Mindvention. However, they have been flying out
the door and, at this time, the Messing with Minds Extremely
Mental Edition has SOLD OUT. My distributor thinks that
Biss will be sending them some more, but I can't get
confirmation yet. I do have a rather substantial re-order in
case some more arrive. I'll leave the link up until my
distributor knows for certain they can't get any more. You
are more than welcome to order one and be on a waiting list.
I just can't make any promises.

Speaking of James Biss, he has released a Mental Tool Kit
that contains props for several of the effects in MWM plus a
few additional effects not published anywhere else.
Unfortunately, my distributor only got a few and now they're
sold out. If they come back in stock, I'll get one, review
it and, if it's worth it, add it to the catalogue.
There are still some available, but they are going fast.

Also, I got a few e-mails inquiring my feelings towards Brad
Henderson's rather negative review of the original edition.
My original review still stands, though I deliberately left
out any mention of Biss' controversial discussions of
others' methods without permission. At the time I wrote
that, the jury was still out on that point. By now, James
Biss has apologized and re-edited his work, as he explains
in this newest edition. I've not had time to compare the
new text with the original yet. However, James' discussions
were not out of malice, but out a deep love for mentalism.
And though he's had a hard lesson this year about the nature
and ethics of the mentalism community, I think he should be
commended for his willingness to edit his material.