"Mantis is an elegant and deceptive piece of prop-less mentalism. Fraser has created a system that feels not only impossibly clean but also mechanically solid. This is fantastic work and a must read for anyone passionate about this art form."
- Alex Ward
"Fraser has done it again! Achieving what we all thought was impossible. A super, super streamlined process to read minds. Mantis could well be the holy grail! An elegantly simple way to reveal practically any word anyone can think of! Incredible!"
- Marc Paul
"Mantis is so clean, compressed and efficient. It feels like your thinking is at full force. I couldn't believe it was possible when you first showed it to me.
This surpasses your previous work Progeny on all levels!
It has that rare quality where method, presentation, and spectator experience no longer feel like separate pieces. Everything has been compressed, sharpened, and made elegant in a way that feels impossible. It doesn't feel like any other solution to the same plot.
Genuinely, it feels like the moment the idea finally becomes itself. I can hardly believe you've done it again!
You deserve praise beyond words but that's the best I can do."
- Rado Sheytanoff
"First off, Mantis is the best birthday present ever! Your brain must have alien DNA in it. The book is out of this world! It's going to be a mind F when it hits the market! Thank you for sharing."
- Harrison Kaplan
I did not think it was possible to improve on and surpass my previous work within the genre of the prop-less word guess and what has become known as the billet-less mental peek, especially after what came before. At the time, that felt close to a final answer. It was compact, elegant, reliable, and deeply integrated with presentation.
Yet somehow, the work in Mantis manages to push these concepts further, beyond what anyone could imagine was possible, and does so without the use of key words.
This is not simply a refinement of what came before, or an update on an older method. It is an entirely new work, worthy of its own release. It is built from the same impossible premise but approached from a different vantage point, taking the foundations of my earlier thinking and pushing them in a completely different direction, finding new leverage hidden within the alphabet and compressing it into something more compact, more subtle, and more deceptive.
The result is a method that feels almost too minimal to be considered method at all. That is the strange beauty of it. It does not feel like standard method or typical compromise. It is a complete, holistic system that feels practically self-working, using structure and patterns that are built directly into the presentation itself.
The spectator thinks of a word and visualizes three letters in the space between you. As they move through this brief visualization, one incidental cue, brought about from a single natural line of scripting, gives the performer enough information to make an indirect guess at one of those letters. This letter guess is never directly related to the letters in their thought-of word itself. Whether that guess is confirmed or not, and you will be correct two thirds of the time, you are now positioned to subsequently reveal the word they have been secretly focusing on.
It does not feel as though enough information has been given for the performer to know anything. There are no billets, no writing, no physical compromise, no key words, and no obvious fishing process. The spectator does not need to verbalize key words or answer a string of questions. They can remain almost entirely silent, and in one presentation, they never need to say anything out loud. Everything is justified by the visualization process itself.
The method is hidden inside the presentation, and the presentation gives life to the method. The two are so closely interwoven that there is no visible seam between them. It does not feel like a system dressed up as mind reading. It feels like the absence of a system altogether.
In a matter of seconds, with almost no procedure other than the visualization process itself and the performer checking their impressions, the performer gains what is essentially a billet-less mental peek, a secret glimpse of the information needed to be able to subsequently reveal the spectator's thought-of word.
It can also be used as a wider utility whenever you need to gain information secretly, cleanly, and deceptively.
What has changed is not the overall aim, but the route in. The supporting principles remain powerful and familiar, but the way the crucial first piece of information is obtained has been completely restructured and redesigned, allowing you to get down to a single letter immediately. This shift makes the entire effect feel more natural and theatrically justified, more direct, and more impossible.
It is difficult not to overstate just how strong and significant a breakthrough this method is, or to fully explain why it is so powerful without tipping too much. This method does not utilize any key words or naming of impressions as words, but still manages to make possible the performance of effortless mind reading using nothing but language and presentation. It will allow you to carry this mental peek with you to use as a tool at a moment's notice, to glimpse inside the mind of your spectator and know what they are focusing on.
The impossible has somehow been pushed further again, and the boundaries of what seemed achievable have shifted once more.
It is designed to work primarily with the English language and alphabet, and this is how the method is taught in the book. There is also a small amount of memory work required, but it has been deliberately structured and taught in a way that makes it easy to internalize within a few hours.
Mantis is a beautiful oversized, proofread, 194-page softcover book, produced in Crown Quarto format at 7.44 x 9.68 inches / 189 x 246 mm, featuring black-and-white printing on premium 118 gsm white coated paper and finished with an elegant matte softcover.
