"I consider this my best and most favorite ebook I ever wrote." - Bob Cassidy

The foundations of mentalism. Acclaimed as "a definitive resource for all who are interested in mentalism and probably for most in magic generally." Bob's list of 39 most important books to read, which is included in this ebook, is by itself hugely valuable, because you not only get a list of books but the reasons why each one of them is so important. This allows you to judge for yourself if you should read a particular book or not. Fundamentals can be seen as Bob's extraction of the most important concepts from these 39 books.

This list of 39 books, or as Bob calls it "The 39 Steps to Mentalism" can be read here.

Bob mentioned during an interview that this ebook has an unfortunate name, because many will look at it and think: "Fundamentals - oh I already know all the basics." However, these are not just the fundamentals for beginners, these are primarily the fundamentals that intermediate level and advanced level mentalists need to understand and internalize. Most questions mentalists have are answered in this ebook.

1st edition 2002; updated 2005; 89 pages

4. Preface
5. Introduction
7. How it All Began
8. A Few Members of the Original Cast of Characters
10. Overview
10. The Psychology of Mentalism
11. Plausibility
12. The Path to Mastery
13. A Note on Rehearsal
13. Fundamental Structures
15. Common Misunderstandings
16. The Opening Effect Comes Second
18. Some Fundamental Principles
18. The Bulldog Deck and The Scary Movie Routine
20. A Fundamental Psychological Ploy
23. A Thought to Ponder
24. The Shuttled Newspaper Test
26. Get the Lead Out
29. Three Canisters and a Bill
32. An Essential Secret
41. Handling
47. Quiz
48. An Introduction to the Interaction of Physical, Psychological and Presentational Principles in the Performance of Mentalism
48. "A Startling Thought Reading Effect"
49. An Interesting Fact
52. Activity Time with Dr. Bob
52. A Startling Thought Reading Effect
62. Commercially Available Effects and Gimmicks
63. Persona and Subscript – the Keys to Believability
64. The Subscript
65. Riding the Web
69. The Thirty-Nine Steps
87. Some Thoughts on Performing

word count: 32314 which is equivalent to 129 standard pages of text