I must be one of the few magicians who can see through Kenton Knepper’s lameness. He started out in the early 2000s with his Completely Cold manuscript, which was marketed as a revolutionary approach to cold reading. It promised to teach you “everything you need to know” to appear psychic without prior knowledge of the subject. In reality, it boiled down to a single technique—essentially a clever linguistic trick—that might impress a layperson once or twice, but quickly reveals itself as shallow and repetitive. It doesn’t equip you with a broad toolkit; instead, it makes you come off as a one-trick pony.
Then came his S.A.R. (Self-Awareness Readings) system, which, despite being hyped as a groundbreaking psychological method, was essentially a glorified personality test with some basic forer-effect statements. To add a veneer of legitimacy, it came bundled with a website offering what were basically fake credentials—pseudo-certifications that looked official but meant nothing outside of Kenton’s echo chamber. It seemed more like a branding gimmick than a serious contribution to the art.
Most recently, I came across Reverse ESP, another of his supposedly “innovative” ideas. This one hinges on pre-recorded audio that contains a prediction or revelation, which is then “miraculously” confirmed during performance. But anyone with a passing knowledge of mentalism knows that this type of trick has been around for decades. Packaging an old method in slick marketing doesn’t make it new or clever—it just makes it repackaged nostalgia with a fresh coat of paint.
Kenton has always thrived on mystique and vague promises of deeper understanding, but in practice, his material often lacks the depth and versatility that working performers need. There’s a difference between being cryptically poetic and being purposefully obscure to hide underdeveloped ideas.
The only thing I’ve found with any worth was his work with Rex Sikes for Wonder Readings/Words, and even then it’s an overpriced introduction to neurolinguistic programming(NLP) language patterns and nothing more. All in all, I’d just look elsewhere and try to figure out the basic premise behind what he’s trying to sell and then you have 99% of what you need to know to duplicate it for yourself.