Doug Dyment – Calculated Thoughts

In Ken Weber’s foreword to Doug Dyment’s Calculated Thoughts, Weber refers to Dyment as “mentalism’s best-kept secret.” And you know something? He might be right. Doug Dyment spent 25 years performing mentalism across the globe, and until now his material was kept under-wraps in privately distributed manuscripts, or entirely out of print. Now, for the first time, it is all collected and described in one gorgeous volume: Calculated Thoughts is finally here.

With more than forty ready-to-perform routines, this 400-page book is brimming with creativity and performance-tested material.

In our eyes, Doug’s “Quarto” is the perfect center tear. An entire chapter is dedicated to ESP cards, as well as a new, easy way to mark Bicycle cards, a memory aid that uses your feet, plus an impromptu star sign divination, drawing duplication, and other beautifully constructed mentalism pieces for both informal and formal performances. You’ll even learn a method for apparently slicing your thumb open and then healing the bleeding wound. If that sort of gore isn’t your thing, perhaps you’ll enjoy the deep dive into Magic Squares, including what we believe is the finest handling of an impromptu magic square ever described in print.

What’s refreshing about Calculated Thoughts is that it’s a creator’s lifework all in one place. Calculated Thoughts is the accumulation of a lifetime of mentalism secrets, sweated out through performance and refining from Doug and his illustrious coterie of high-profile mentalist friends.