How Derren Brown Does His Tricks (2)

How Derren Brown Does His Tricks (2), BROWN Derren

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how derren does his tricks--------------------------------------------------------------------------------I had the good fortune of being 'selected' for Derren's new series 'trick of the mind'.I spent a day filming with Derren and also had dinner with him. I now know exactly howhe does his tricks, and can quite confidently confirm that no mind-reading, NLP orpsychology is used. It's all a con.First off, you must understand that almost EVERY SINGLE PERSON on the show who Derrendoes a trick on has been pre-selected at a hypnosis audition. Random members of thepublic are invited by word of mouth to a secret audition, where Derren performs routinehypnosis methods, such as getting people to clasp their hands together real tight tillthey can't open them, making them imagine walking down and down and down staris whilelistening to his voice etc etc He basically hypnotises the audience in the traditionalway. Obviously not all the audience are hypnotisable, and he gradually selects thosewho are.The hypnosis was exactly the same as the two hypnosis shows i've been part of on stage,and also read about in hypnosis books.Once he had about 10 really hypnotisable people his production company got our detailsand we all went home. (the london cabbie was at my audition, as well as the 'scared'film student)On the day of filming Derren hypnotised me again, in private away from the cameras. Hetold me that when he said X i would do Y. Simple. So, when the cameras started rolling,he did his usual stupid schpeel pretending to influence me by saying 'cryptic' thingslike 'sometimes you mind does things you don;t know about' and 'i can read from youreyes that you are suggestible'. Of course, I was hypnotised and just had to respondto his X command. Exactly like on the Paul McKenna shows.The con is that he will never show himself hypnotising people, and just pretends likethe 'stooge' is a normal random person. There are three lies herea) they are a stoogeb) they have been hypnotised off camerac) no NLP or psychology is used, and whatever he claims he is doing is false.Needless to say he said X and I did Y. I was truly hypnotised and the 'trick' worked.But of course the audience of the show are made to think that I have been sublimenlyinfluenced by the way he talked to me on camera. NOT TRUE.Anyway, we spent the day filming, doing the same trick at different locations, eachtime I had to pretend like I'd just met him.He then took me and his PA out to dinner, and this is when he told me his secrets.(not all of them of course)He said to me: 'Don't think that I hypnotised you. I didn't. I used a combination ofmind control techinques and was influencing you on an unconscious level. So, don't goround telling people I hypnotised you.'He said this while looking straight into my eyes. I almost cracked up laughing.I asked how he felt conning people so badly, to which he replied ' I'm not conning them.I'm entertaining them. I'm making them react by setting up the trick to make it lookmore powerful than it is. That's what magic is about.'I got a little angry with him and basically told him that he was a hypnotist. At thispoint he retaliated by showing me some card tricks. He did that one on his new seriesthat he did with stephen fry. (he has pre-rolled cards in two different cigarettepackets in his pocket, and a false deck which only shows eoght cards repeated whenviewed from one side, and a whole pack when viewed from the other side)He then said 'do you think i'm conning you now that you know how that card trick wasdone?' I said ' no, it's just a card trick, and you siad that it would be just that -a card trick. The con i'm worried about is that you tell your audience rubbish aboutinfluencing people and reading body signals and you're not, you're hypnotising them,then lying to the audience'.needless to say, he wasn't too impressed. He still paid for my dinner.so, i can now tell you how his other tricks are done:phonebooth: pre-hypnotised person picks up phone, derren says 'sleep'. person sleeps.mind-reading for 10p : pre-hypnotised people 'meet', and just say exactly what derrentold them to saylondon cabbie: pre-hypnotised cabbie 'forgets' where something is, just because he'sbeen told to. NB nothing to do with derren banging on the window or interupting patterns.invisible man: pre-hypnotised guy actually thinks he can't see derren.NB nothing to dowith what derren says to him.how many fingers?: pre-hypnotised kid pulls out the number of fingers that derren says.NB derren 'guesses' a number, and the kid pulls this same number out of his pockets AFTERderren said the number, because he's been hypnotised to respond to derren's guess.i could go on, but you get the picture. If you have difficulty understanding how he doesfuture tricks, just think about the fact that derren has simply hypnotised his stoogebeforehand, and whatever he says on camera is misleading pyschobabble rubbish designedto get the NLP freaks turned onnot all of his tricks are done by hypnosis. the remainign few are simple card tricksand sleight of hand magic. remember, he used to be a sleight of hand magician before.these tricks are very good tricks in their own right, but again derren cons the audienceby making them think he's influenced people with his 'mind-control', when really, it'sjust a simple trick.i suppose the die-hard fans are saying 'so what? it's still entertaining'. yes, it isentertaining, because derren hypes it up so much more than it deserves, and he coversit with a facade of pyschology which simply isn't true. i don't like being lied to, nordo i like someone making a living out of lying to thousands of people. that's why i'mexposing him.that said, he is a very nice man, quite witty too. shame about being such a big fake.(PS: sadly, the trick he did on me is not going to be shown in this series, accordingto his production company who rang me last week)Quote:>Originally Posted by Unregistered>No, i'm not saying he didn't hypnotise you. Look back at my post. Which part of itmakes that accusation? I simply stated >that people pass off his effects as stoogesas they don't know how they're done, when this is not the case. And I >illustratedthis by saying that 2 effects which you mention were done by hypnosis and stooges(the fingers and 10p to be a >mindreader) were in fact achieved by completely differentmethods.>>Don makes very valid points. Stooges are not only expensive, but they are dangerous.If one of them leaks they were a >stooge, then your reputation on television is moreor less ruined. Every effect you have done will be passed off as a >stooge, as wellas every effect thereafter. It's simply not worth the risk, especially when you don'tneed to use one.listen... how can you say he doesn't use stooges when clearly he hypnotised me to dowhat he wanted? I was the stooge!!!! there were about 60 other people at the selectionaudition... all of them potential stooges!!! He paid me ?40 in return for filming thatday. Stooges aren't expensive! Also, I am leaking that I am a stooge, and quite obviouslyit's not ruining his reputation, because you don't believe me!!!Again, NOT ALL his tricks are done using hypnotised stooges. But the ones where he guessesthings, makes people do strange things.. are almost all done using stooges. The rest aresimple magic tricks. How many times do i have to say this?I appreciate your synicism on this, but the fact remains, I was there, I saw some peopleat the selection audition who ended up in the show, I saw him hypnotise ALL of them (theones who made it onto TV) at this selection audition.He makes you believe that he has powerful suggestion techniques, when he doesn't. He usessome simple techniques in some tricks to make people believe in these techniques, then heuses stooges in other tricks making people think that he is still using those techniques.Derren even admits that he 'started out in hypnotism at university'.Often in magic the simplest most obvious explanation is right there in front of you, and agood magician misdirects you from that obvious truth. That is what Derren is about, thewhole premise is set up to misdirect you from the truth that most of his subjects arehypnotised. He does it very well admittedly. But the truth remains, he hypnotises peopleoff camera..The definition of a stooge (I would know, i've been a magician for 16 years), is anaccomplice for the magician, who .deliberately helps him achieve his desired goal. So,they could tell the magician what card someone picked, or pretend they .are an innocentaudience member and deliberately select a pre-arranged number, or card, etc. when promptedto. A hypnotised .person does not fit in with this. ......The film student who had the invisible man effect done to him. He was genuinely scared.In no way was he deliberately .helping Derren achieve his goal. He wasn't pretending thathe couldn't see Derren, he geniuinely could not see him. Ok, he .was hypnotised, but atwhat point in Derren's disclaimer does he say that he doesn't use hypnotised people?.Same with the voodoo doll effect. Derren clearly used an anchor. However, the womangenuinely could not mover her feet, or .speak. She wasn't an actor or a stooge pretendingshe couldn't. These people do not match the definiton of a stooge. They .MAYBE hypnotisedvolunteers, but not stoo... [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]