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The Elusive Illusive by Ben Daggers - BookThe best magic tricks are often created by those with endless fascination. Few magicians have a curiosity as fervent as Ben Daggers, who has tirelessly used inspiration from both inside and outside of magic to create truly remarkable magic effects. With help from Vanishing Inc., he is finally sharing his most cherished effects in The Elusive Illusive. This beautiful hardback book is a must read for any magician that appreciates strong, entertaining,
The best magic tricks are often created by those with endless fascination. Few magicians have a curiosity as fervent as Ben Daggers, who has tirelessly used inspiration from both inside and outside of magic to create truly remarkable magic effects. With help from Vanishing Inc., he is finally sharing his most cherished effects in The Elusive Illusive.This beautiful hardback book is a must-read for any magician that appreciates strong, entertaining, and inspiring magic. As Pit Hartling perfectly summarized in the introduction, Ben's magic is pure and simple. The plots are clear, the effects are strong and the fun presentations make audiences want to be engaged.
Ben's success can be attributed to a lifetime spent absorbing as much magic as possible. From venturing to the Osaka Castle with Richard Turner to spending countless late nights soaking up the invaluable wisdom of Juan Tamariz during impromptu jams in his garden, Ben has never wavered in his attempts to capture the elusive beast known as an ideal magical effect.
The Elusive Illusive offers more than 200 pages of professional routines that Ben has refined in front of real audiences. In total, there are 12 one-of-a-kind pieces that are equally magical and entertaining, as well as several original techniques-including one of the most convincing full-deck false shuffles you'll ever see. Ben also shares three insightful essays that discuss the value of thinking like a layperson, his views on the classic force, and the importance of revisiting old material.
Nothing in this book is conceptual. These are real-world routines and techniques that Ben uses in his professional work both for private clients, as well as a weekly show he's been a part of for years. Some of these effects are hard, while others are quite easy. There is a good mix for every type of magician.
Those who enjoy pure magic will love "Technicolor", Ben's pseudo card cheating showcase which ends with you changing the back design of every single card as a tongue-in-cheek demonstration of "marked cards". Or "Tribute", a unique demonstration of skill where you blindfold yourself and attempt to shuffle and find all four Aces with just one hand before a kicker ending that will floor them.
If you prefer more theatrical pieces, then you will be enthralled by "Invisible Sleeves", a Coins Across routine where all the magic is seemingly made possible by an invisible jacket. Or "Babel Coins" a captivating and fun routine where, with the help of a special "elixir", you unlock the ability to visually transform coins.
While all of the magic in The Elusive Illusive uses cards or coins, it's not all close-up material. "Hands Off ACAAN" is a great parlor routine where a named card is found at a named number in an audience-shuffled deck of cards isolated in a wine glass. The spectators even get to count the cards themselves. "Uncommon Sense", is also the perfect example of Ben's creativity. You use all five senses to perform incredible feats of magic before leveraging some unorthodox props to help your spectator replicate them
Many of the routines work just as well in informal settings as they do in formal ones. Like "One-Track Mind", where your spectator becomes a card-tracking master that finds a named four-of-a-kind after just a quick glance at a shuffled deck, or "Triumph for Two", a race between you and a spectator to see who can more quickly sort cards that have been shuffled face up into face down by the audience. After instantly unmixing the cards with magic, and winning the race, you leave them stunned by magically making the leftover mess of cards they have in their hands sort itself.
The Elusive Illusive is an inspiring read that is bound to fuel your curiosity. As with all Vanishing Inc. books, it is perfectly organized with expert writing and crystal-clear photos that make learning a breeze. Pick up your copy today!
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4.7 ★★★★★
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★★★★★ 4
An explanation for a post modern culture
An extension of Wright's book could be "why Christianity makes sense to post modern people". This is a fine book, for what it tries to do, which is to clearly explain what Christianity is about. It is not necessarily designed to persuade anyone, other than to show that what the basic Christian story is about is reasonable and worth taking a look in.
Wright, the Anglican Bishop of Durham, and one of the more renowned and accessible to the public, theologians of our day is at times controversial, but never a poor writer, even to the most untrained ear for the nuances of theology. From the very first paragraph of the book, the reader is alerted that this is a different sort of explanation of the Christian faith, for Wright talks of how people might understand the meaning, but miss the experience of what the yearning for the faith is all about. He talks of justice, beauty, and relationship and how the reality of what we hope for is often far from present, what he calls the "echo of the voice", something that we think that should be there, but is not there at all, and begs the question why.
This book will not help but to be compared to C S Lewis classic work, Mere Christianity. And there are enough similarities between the two, that make the differences jarring enough. Lewis' is more of a classic apologetic. He speaks of universal laws, the differences between longstanding morality and modern pyschology, and the logic of why the Christian Gospel, of the invaision of humanity by the God/man Jesus and how theology is constantly practical in every area of the individual, personal lives of moder people. Written in the 1940's, Mere Christianity answers quite well the challenges of its, and still to a large extent, our age. What Wright is trying to do with "Simply Christian" is to take the same old story and apply to the common questions of our era, from a different perspective.
Loneliness, rejection of an older era, cynicism at the structures designed to meet the challenges of day to day life, like the family, the church, and the state are real actions obviously taken by many today. So for Wright, to begin his work, not by explaining who God is and why man needs him, but instead to point out and agree that there are many things missing and empty in the solutions that post modern people have used for solutions to their concerns about why older systems failed, the older systems that Lewis attempted to answer to in a very reasonable way in Mere Christianity.
Wright does spend a lot more time on how communal activities and experiences are far more vital to the simply Christian life than is realized, and why vital relationships, as expressed in the church, seen as a real community, are the engine for linking understanding and experience. Wright's three common expressions of the Christian life: worship, prayer and Bible study only have their fullest expression when done in community with others, so as to grow as a living, breathing organism might. In so doing, Wright is bridging the gap between the credibility of the Christian message, with those who are disaffected and disbelieving, not at necessarily the propositions in the gospel, but at how the whole system around contemporary life has been disapointing to many.
Developing a theology of the person and work of Jesus has been the hallmark of Wright's career as a pastor and theologian, and it is in writing about who Jesus is and what he has done that this work finds its greatest strength, and to some degree its greatest weakness. He has written how Jesus was the final victory of God, the great exodus of his people and the culmination of a great military campaign to bring justice and the arrival of the kingdom of God on earth. Stupendous claims, as they always are, when fully understood, even more so when contrasted with the paradoxes of the earthly life of Jesus of Nazareth, with the expectations of the Jewish people of first century Palestine. By so doing, Wright encourages the post modern audience to look again at the reality of real history, and the undeniable facts as told, which led to radical conclusions by those who first lived them. It is here that Wright is at his weakest, for he doesn't make the leap between the person and work of Jesus and that connection of justification from sin for today's believer as a direct, actionable item. Not that he denies it, but the connection is just not made at all. Even Lewis spends a great deal of Mere Christianity discussing sin and the necesity of events long ago affecting today's actions.
Nevertheless, this is an important work that should be read by many, especially in the post industrial world. Wright's pastoral call to look to Christ, living out in the community of believers to answer the deep longings and disapointments of the human experience is freshly written and worth considering.
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Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2008
★★★★★ 5
Compulsory reading for any follower of Jesus.
Format: Kindle
This book is for Christians, agnostics and atheists. The journey from shadows to light is presented as a provocative, compelling invitation for all.
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Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2026
★★★★★ 5
Simple AND essential, everyone should read
Format: Kindle
I've been Christian for many years, reading many books, sermons, biblical readings, but we never stop having more beautiful insights of this glorious Christian path laid before our minds and hearts. This book is a wise, beautiful, encouraging, and simply amazing way to see and live out the Christian life and calling, rich with meaning in our current broken world and the redeemed and restored world in Christ.
Are you yearning for real spirituality, joy, justice, beauty, relationships, but they seem somehow out of reach? Read this book. It is simple yet profound. Take the time to savor the words of this book alongside prayer, biblical reading, community, daily work...And partake in the overlap of heaven and earth with the Lord.
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Reviewed in the United States on March 28, 2026
★★★★★ 5
Amazing Book with great insights
Format: Paperback
This book is a great for those looking for a deeper understanding of Christianity. It covers all the basic areas and questions with insight and consideration of other points of views.
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Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2025
★★★★★ 5
Why "Simply Christian" is a "must read"
It presents a compelling case for Christianity without attempting to bully the reader (as C. S. Lewis often does in his essays) and without relying on all those "code words" that long-time Christians find familiar but others do not. This is the Gospel in plan English. Bravo!
It firmly insists that Christianity makes claims about history - that Jesus lived, died, and rose again, and that this resurrection is the central event in the story of God's re-creation of our fallen world.
It insists that Christians be active participants in the future unfolding of God's plan. We are each called to play a unique role in it.
It insists that there is a transcendent realm, another world, that can and does intersect or overlap with our own world, especially in sacraments, in worship, in Bible reading, and in prayer. Moreover, just as the temple was, for Jews in Jesus time, a place where heaven and earth overlapped, now we, as individual Christians, are called to be such places of overlap, where the light of Jesus shines through us.
It highlights the crucial importance of forgiveness. Just as God has forgiven us our sins, so are we to forgive others. The Lord's prayer is explicit on this point.
Becoming a Christian, Wright asserts, is not a matter or accepting certain improbable factual assertions, but rather a matter of trusting in God and accepting our role in unfolding his plan for the world.
Rather than being dissected, as in a laboratory, or treated merely as an instrument of historical or linguistic research, the Bible is in fact one of the principal ways in which God addresses us, to prepare us for our role in fulfilling his ultimate plans. It is another place where this world and God's world overlap. Current debates over "literal" versus "metaphorical" ways of reading scripture are, in Wright's view, counterproductive. The Bible eludes these simplistic categories, which should be abandoned.
At its core, then, the "faith" to which the Bible calls us is essentially trusting in a God who has revealed himself in history, who has begun, through Jesus' death and resurrection, to redeem the world and transform it into his kingdom, who invites us into to an intimate relationship with him, who demands that we become all that we were created and meant to be, who forgives us when we fall short of that mark, and who invites us to play a significant role in moving forward his plan for the world. For Wright, Christian faith is not just a matter of spiritual feelings that are quite independent of what we say and do. It makes demands upon us that can only be met in the realm of thought and behavior.
As C. S. Lewis did in his fiction, "Simply Christian" persuasively invites its readers to recognize that there is a transcendent reality that impinges on our ordinary world, that the God who rules this realm has made himself known in history and continues to do so, that we are part of his plan to renew his creation, and, consequently, that what we think and do has cosmic significance.
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Reviewed in the United States on April 1, 2006