Derren Brown is no different than Uri Gellar.

[Darat]

As an aside, Geller has just spent an hour or so on QVC (UK) pushing his range of dodgy jewelry. Don't think I've ever seen Derren do that.

That's part of his change of positioning over the last few years - I think he must have realised when he started selling his "healing" crystals that there was a huge market for tat.

 

[StanBearclaw]

With all due respect, how do you think us stage hypnotists supposed to explain hypnosis?

I'd urge you to not do it if you can't be more forthright (or go the other way and be more fantastical).

I'm sure you are doing it with the best of intentions. I'm sure you're giving the audience what it wants. It's a fair trade of money for entertainment. You're not out to defraud anyone - I am in no way implying that.

However...What you're doing is contributing to the degradation of the public's understanding of the scientific realities of hypnosis. Personally (and I would imagine it's shared around here), I count the promotion of scientific understanding to be one of my main values. So when I see a course of action that weakens an aspect of it, I want to help it be remedied.

Whether it's deliberate fraud (John Edward talking to the dead), or earnest belief in false ideas (creationism), or good clean fun with unintended consequences (entertainment branded as hypnosis and psychology); the end result has to be taken into consideration. I think it has to be up to the individual. Which is more important: performing your art or protecting the science?

 

[Darat]

...snip... or with Daniels when he says he's sawn Debbie McGee in half. ...snip...

I think a lot of people are quite cross when they find out that is just a trick!

 

[JFrankA]

I'd urge you to not do it if you can't be more forthright (or go the other way and be more fantastical).

I'm sure you are doing it with the best of intentions. I'm sure you're giving the audience what it wants. It's a fair trade of money for entertainment. You're not out to defraud anyone - I am in no way implying that.

However...What you're doing is contributing to the degradation of the public's understanding of the scientific realities of hypnosis. Personally (and I would imagine it's shared around here), I count the promotion of scientific understanding to be one of my main values. So when I see a course of action that weakens an aspect of it, I want to help it be remedied.

Whether it's deliberate fraud (John Edward talking to the dead), or earnest belief in false ideas (creationism), or good clean fun with unintended consequences (entertainment branded as hypnosis and psychology); the end result has to be taken into consideration. I think it has to be up to the individual. Which is more important: performing your art or protecting the science?

Interesting that you didn't answer my question. Basically you put the ball in my court to make an ethical choice.

Given that I will not give up my side profession, (by no means my day job ) what do you think I should say in order to advance science in my stage hyponsis performances?

Further, as a stage magician, I would like your idea of what I could say if I was doing a magic trick, (which I also do) while advancing science?

The only way to do it is to talk up the woo, same as Derren.

I'll get to your response too. I'd like to see what StanUpshaw's response is before I tell you what my hypnotic patter is.

Also, if I may say, please be aware, I'm debating you both. I want you to know that am not angry nor do I mean any disrespect to you or your opinions nor do I wish to make anyone angry. But I'm curious as to your answer, StanUpshaw.

 

[Kuko 4000]

It's the silly statement in the thread title which is ruining this discussion. Of course Derren Brown is different to Uri Geller. He's completely different. Many people here have stated precisely why.

A more interesting (if inelegantly long-winded) question is this: "When Derren Brown gives false explanations for his tricks which could, if taken seriously, reinforce an uninformed audience's passive acceptance of certain forms of modern-day woo, does he have any kind of responsibility (particularly as a sceptic) to signal more strongly to that audience that these explanations are, in fact, just part of the act?"

I'm a big admirer of his, but I do wonder sometimes. No one could ever accuse Derren of promoting belief in woo, but it's less outrageous to claim that he may sometimes be facilitating it. His very public scepticism on the subject of psychics, religion and so on, as well as shows like "Messiah", operate as a secondary form of misdirection - "well, we know he's not a fake mystic like that Uri Geller bloke, so this stuff he's saying now must be true." I'm well aware that he begins each show with that speech about magic, misdirection, psychology, showmanship etc, and that he ended the Lottery programme with a smirking "it's just a trick." But could he amplify that a little bit, without losing the effect? Should he?

I have now read this thread up to this post and just wanted to say thank you Kiosk, great post. I will now go to sleep and finish reading the rest of this thread when I wake up.

No different than Uri Geller, WTF?

 

[kdogg]

The John Edwards show is for entertainment purposes only.

 

[StanBearclaw]

Interesting that you didn't answer my question. Basically you put the ball in my court to make an ethical choice.

Given that I will not give up my side profession, (by no means my day job ) what do you think I should say in order to advance science in my stage hyponsis performances?

Further, as a stage magician, I would like your idea of what I could say if I was doing a magic trick, (which I also do) while advancing science?




I'll get to your response too. I'd like to see what StanUpshaw's response is before I tell you what my hypnotic patter is.

Also, if I may say, please be aware, I'm debating you both. I want you to know that am not angry nor do I mean any disrespect to you or your opinions nor do I wish to make anyone angry. But I'm curious as to your answer, StanUpshaw.

Maybe something as simple as a name change. Go back to calling it mesmerism...something to delineate the magic from the science. I would agree that saying, "You're all just playing along," kinda saps the fun out of it, so feel free to make it more fantastical like you're allowing them to channel long dead celebrities...I don't know. Use some gimmick where you're not impinging on the domain of science (pure fantasy vs. embellished reality).

Obviously I can't sit down and think up an act for you, no more than I can write a screenplay that might help reduce the "CSI effect." And I can't formulate some golden rule that will apply to every genre of entertainment. I'm merely pointing out places where I see there is a problem. What else can I do but frame it as an ethical dilemma?

 

[JFrankA]

Maybe something as simple as a name change. Go back to calling it mesmerism...something to delineate the magic from the science. I would agree that saying, "You're all just playing along," kinda saps the fun out of it, so feel free to make it more fantastical like you're allowing them to channel long dead celebrities...I don't know. Use some gimmick where you're not impinging on the domain of science (pure fantasy vs. embellished reality).

Obviously I can't sit down and think up an act for you, no more than I can write a screenplay that might help reduce the "CSI effect." And I can't formulate some golden rule that will apply to every genre of entertainment. I'm merely pointing out places where I see there is a problem. What else can I do but frame it as an ethical dilemma?

Don't get me wrong. I do understand why you put it as an ethical dilemma. To be honest, after I've been doing hypnosis and realized what it was for a while, I had to wrestle how I can present this.

Here's what I came up with, and it's honestly what I feel what hypnosis is.

Before I start the hypnosis show, I say the following, (Not exactly, I tend to improv some of it, but the message is the same):

"A lot of people ask me what exactly is hypnosis is. Here is the best way I can describe it.

Being in a hypnotic trance is like going to the movies. Imagine what it's like going to the movies: You sit there in a comfortable seat, you focus completely on this big screen, hearing the exciting music, you laugh at the funny scenes, you wince when the protagonist gets hurt, you cry when the hero is sad, your heart beats faster when you see the exciting bits, you feel the entire movie and experience what the protagonist experiences.

And with all of that, you completely ignore the guy in the row in front of you eating his popcorn loudly."

And even with that, my shows still work. People still go under.

Now I've told the truth. Hypnosis is concentration on something, like reading a book, driving for a long time, daydreaming, etc. so much that you are "lost" in that thought. It's something we do all the time. It's something you're doing right now.

Mix that with the desire of the participant, and the mind being more open to suggestion because of the desire of the participant and the concentration, you've got hypnosis.

That's how I present it. I tell the truth, but I really don't give anything away.

Again, I am meaning no disrespect or confrontation, I'd like to know if you think the way I present hypnosis is unethical?

 

[StanBearclaw]

Again, I am meaning no disrespect or confrontation, I'd like to know if you think the way I present hypnosis is unethical?

I simply don't know. My feeling is that as long as you're calling it hypnotism, it perpetuates the muddled folk (mis)understandings that have become part of the zeitgeist. As the problem is aggregatory in nature, again, I simply don't know what the solution would be, short of an all-or-nothing strategy.

 

[JFrankA]

I simply don't know. My feeling is that as long as you're calling it hypnotism, it perpetuates the muddled folk (mis)understandings that have become part of the zeitgeist. As the problem is aggregatory in nature, again, I simply don't know what the solution would be, short of an all-or-nothing strategy.

Fair enough.

I think this is a case of agreeing to disagree. I will admit that even with that explanation, I still get people come up to me after the show asking me to help them lose weight, etc. Once I even got someone tell me that I am possessed by a demon. At the same time, I have gotten people who have thanked me for explaining hypnosis like that and wouldn't go to a hypnotist to lose weight, quit smoking, etc. Most of them don't care and just enjoy the show.

Maybe I'm rationalizing my shows, but I feel that I'm seen as an entertainer, and how I do what I do doesn't matter to most of my audience, they care more about the performance.

I will say that after the show, if someone asks me to help them lose weight, or something, I do tell them "only you can do that. Me and hypnosis can't." Also, if someone asks me to teach them how to hypnotize I suggest to them a couple of books I know that explain hypnosis in a stage performance sort of way. I do suggest Derren Brown's "Tricks of the Mind".

 

[Robert Oz]

I would respect him if he simply stated that his tricks were illusions, a la David Copperfield <snip>

Actually, in the audio-commentary on the documentary DVD hosted by his former supermodel fiancee, that took a retrospective look at Copperfield's career, Copperfield 'explained' an interactive mentalism trick on the intonation of his voice rather than the much simpler method behind the trick.

 

[AndyD]

I'm in Oz so we don't usually see Derren Brown. This week was different. This event was promoted and discussed here on commercial TV.

So, my current view is based on what I've learnt so far about this latest event - and a bit of prior "Youtube" knowledge.

I sympathise with the view that Brown is going beyond "magic" and into woo territory. Maybe it's supposed to be entertainment but that's a blurry line for anyone who doesn't explicitly understand Brown does not claim to be doing anything other than standard magic with a presentation twist.

People keep saying "he's an entertainer and illusionist" - but what was the illusion here - a simple camera trick that dates back to the earliest days of film? Maybe the ongoing debate is the entertainment?

Last year in Oz we had "The One", a psychic talent show. Seven psychics competed for the title "most gifted". Resident sceptic on the show, Richard Saunders, kept reminding disgruntled sceptics it was "just entertainment" but the reality is those contestants now travel the country selling tickets to psychic performances that are not billed as "just entertainment." People believe it was real and pay for more. Should we give those psychics a break because they were on a TV show where a sceptic kept telling people it was standard cold reading?

However, my main disappointment in Brown's lotto event was that the explanation wasn't entertaining. I don't expect the truth, but I do expect an illusionist-style explanation. One that at least seems plausible and leaves me thinking "hmmm, maybe it wasn't a simple camera effect after all". We didn't get that. We got nonsense. Maybe this is Brown's usual approach - I don't know, we don't see him here. If so, I'm struggling to see the entertainment value - except in watching believers defend the ridiculous.

After this, I'm thinking it's safe to assume everything Brown does to camera is just TV effects, nothing more. I'll also assume any "audience" is just in on the trick, like the two cameramen in this event. Not very entertaining.

Regardless, I think it is still up to sceptics to debunk the explanation as given if only by reinforcing the message "he doesn't really claim to be able to do that. He's just a magician and his explanation was plain nonsense that wouldn't work in a fit."

 

[psychictv]

I don't think that debunking woo has ever been the point of Derren Brown's act. He does some debunking outside of his performances but it's not an integral part of his art. However there is somewhat of an anti-gambling message in The System and his latest lottery show. It was interesting when he pointed out that a middle aged man is statistically more likely to die in any given hour than to actually win the lottery. Hopefully that will have more of a positive effect on the audience (by convincing them not to play the lottery) than any negative effect from mentioning automatic writing or misrepresenting the wisdom of crowds concept.

Brown has a very strong, well thought out approach toward the art of magic which he outlines quite clearly in his book Absolute Magic. To paraphrase, the audience should believe in the premise in order to experience a true moment of magic and wonder. Nobody believes that a magician can really levitate a dollar bill, so the audience's mind immediately goes to the question "where's the string" and we have no real emotional connection to the performance.

The typical bad magic performance is a flawed piece of drama because it's structured solely around the effect. The magician wills an arbitrary effect into being "I will now pull a rabbit out of my hat", the audience witnesses the effect, and the magician becomes an undramatic, unsympathetic god figure. Brown attempts to turn this around and make the effect hinge on the audience member's own mind. This can lead at times to some highly affecting performances that wouldn't be possible with the more mundane "here, watch this trick" style of magic.

Personally I think that this philosophy of magic is brilliant and explains why most magic falls flat and why the art as a whole has declined in popularity over the past century. But given this approach, it is essentially impossible to make good magic that would not be promoting woo according to the original poster. You're basically asking Brown to stop practicing his art in the name of science.

It is in fact this inherent similarity between the mechanics of successful magic, and the practices of charlatans that led magicians like Houdini (and by extension, Randi, P&T) to take an interest in debunking woo. So yes, Brown is quite similar to Gellar in some ways, but the small differences mean everything.

 

[psychictv]

People keep saying "he's an entertainer and illusionist" - but what was the illusion here - a simple camera trick that dates back to the earliest days of film? Maybe the ongoing debate is the entertainment?

Well there was that, the mouse trick, the knife trick, the coin toss trick, and the "automatic reading" tricks. But I will agree that it definitely wasn't his best show.

I don't expect the truth, but I do expect an illusionist-style explanation.

But he did give the truth. He mentioned it in the beginning, hinted at it throughout several promo spots, and bluntly stated the truth right at the end of the show. In addition to that he promised to show viewers "how to win the lottery" and did just that by outlining the three possible strategies:

1. Forging a ticket - perhaps a reference to a trick that he and others have performed

2. Predicting the numbers - impossible as he essentially demonstrates with the ridiculous group automatic writing bit. It's almost as though this part was engineered to turn the audience skeptical

3. Rigging the lottery- highly illegal and probably impossible.

So in other words, you can not and will not ever win the lottery. The show wasn't intended to debunk automatic writing, but it does successfully demonstrate the absurdity of playing the lottery.

After this, I'm thinking it's safe to assume everything Brown does to camera is just TV effects, nothing more.

Nope. I'm not sure why you would draw that conclusion after seeing only one performance.

 

[Darat]

The John Edwards show is for entertainment purposes only.

Yes his show does have such a disclaimer - however after the performance is finished he continues that with all his follow-up material, such as books, that says what he does is real that he actually communicates with spirits of people who have died, and he can do so for you if you pay him money to do so.

When you see Derren Brown offering to sell you the winning lottery numbers then there would be some point of comparison.

 

[Darat]

Maybe something as simple as a name change. Go back to calling it mesmerism...something to delineate the magic from the science.

...snip...

"Mesmerism" is still promoted as being real by some folk....

 

[Kuko 4000]

People keep saying "he's an entertainer and illusionist" - but what was the illusion here - a simple camera trick that dates back to the earliest days of film? Maybe the ongoing debate is the entertainment?

I've seen all of his stuff from the early lecture to the latest Event. I'm sure I approach this from a different angle than you, but the main "illusion" was actually for the group of 24 people, and we got to see them get fooled into believing something totally bonkers. That was the main entertainment value for me (coupled with the other tricks of course, I particularly enjoyed the knife through foot), and that is the way it has been since the very first Derren shows on TV from the chess game against the experts, to card tricks, to mind reading, astrology, etc.

I do however think that some of the concerns you raise are valid and definitely worth a critical discussion on this forum. Kiosk, why not open a new thread for that? Your opening here was great.

To the OP, sometimes we know how the trick "behind" was performed, sometimes we don't have the foggiest, sometimes he gives a possible explanation, other times something else. But he never claims anything paranormal or pseudoscientific outside the show, in fact, just the opposite. Once again, this (among many other things) is what differentiates Derren from the cranks once and for all. Once the SHOW is over (and it's over when the next program begins), he actively promotes scepticism.

 

[shuttlt]

Once the SHOW is over (and it's over when the next program begins), he actively promotes scepticism.

Surely promoting scepticism is, at least in part, part of the persona and merely intended to make his own "entertainment" woo claims more believable. Given all the bluring of expectations as to what he's doing that goes on, what's to say that this isn't entertainment just as much as the tricks?

 

[JFrankA]

I don't think that debunking woo has ever been the point of Derren Brown's act. He does some debunking outside of his performances but it's not an integral part of his art. However there is somewhat of an anti-gambling message in The System and his latest lottery show. It was interesting when he pointed out that a middle aged man is statistically more likely to die in any given hour than to actually win the lottery. Hopefully that will have more of a positive effect on the audience (by convincing them not to play the lottery) than any negative effect from mentioning automatic writing or misrepresenting the wisdom of crowds concept.

Brown has a very strong, well thought out approach toward the art of magic which he outlines quite clearly in his book Absolute Magic. To paraphrase, the audience should believe in the premise in order to experience a true moment of magic and wonder. Nobody believes that a magician can really levitate a dollar bill, so the audience's mind immediately goes to the question "where's the string" and we have no real emotional connection to the performance.

The typical bad magic performance is a flawed piece of drama because it's structured solely around the effect. The magician wills an arbitrary effect into being "I will now pull a rabbit out of my hat", the audience witnesses the effect, and the magician becomes an undramatic, unsympathetic god figure. Brown attempts to turn this around and make the effect hinge on the audience member's own mind. This can lead at times to some highly affecting performances that wouldn't be possible with the more mundane "here, watch this trick" style of magic.

Personally I think that this philosophy of magic is brilliant and explains why most magic falls flat and why the art as a whole has declined in popularity over the past century. But given this approach, it is essentially impossible to make good magic that would not be promoting woo according to the original poster. You're basically asking Brown to stop practicing his art in the name of science.

It is in fact this inherent similarity between the mechanics of successful magic, and the practices of charlatans that led magicians like Houdini (and by extension, Randi, P&T) to take an interest in debunking woo. So yes, Brown is quite similar to Gellar in some ways, but the small differences mean everything.

Psychictv, I think you hit the nail on the head here.

 

[JFrankA]

"Mesmerism" is still promoted as being real by some folk....

Also, if I did call hypnotism something else, I do two things:

1) the audience will say "Oh, that's just hypnotism" and I feel it will actually make my job harder.

2) there will someone who will still see it as woo and probably try to make it into a "method".

The problem with any performance magic is that there will be some people will take it the wrong way and no matter what you do, they won't let go of their woo-belief. Unfortunately, that's also the case of teaching science. Look at how creationists twist and distort scientific findings from evolution. Every piece of evidence you show, they will either ignore it or twist it to fit their beliefs. You get people like that with anything.