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Derren Brown is no different than Uri Gellar.

shuttlt said:
I guess for me the difference is that the magician isn't depending on anybody actually believing that they were taught the trick by a Tibetan mystic. There is a hundred year+ old tradition of magicians presenting themselves in this way. Only children believe that Paul Daniels actually cut's the lovely Debbie McGee in half because these acts are being done with respect to a well known formula. We no more believe in the magic of Paul Daniels than we believe that Arnold Schwarzenegger literally IS the Terminator. There are well established conventions that it would be difficult to get through the world without learning.

Derren has gotten to where he is by effectively getting people to believe that perhaps he can do what he claims. Derren steps outside, or appears to step outside all the conventions.
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My understanding is that he does this in an attempt to keep his act viable, so that even skeptics may still enjoy it.


M.
 
volatile said:
I booked a magcian for a cabaret show I run... he did the farly standard "nail under the cup" variant of the cups-and-balls, in which he asked a volunteer to shuffle the cups, only to then "read" the volunteer's "body langauge" in order to avoid smacking his hand down on the nail.

So far, so good.

After the show, a good friend of mine came up and started talking to me about the trick, saying how unimpressed he was because all the magician was doing was "reading body language". It didn't occur to him that what he'd seen was a straightforward magic trick.

I think that's partially Derren Brown's fault. I really do think that some people have taken Derren Brown's in-performance patter for genuine insights into the workings of psychology (which was the point Simon Singh seems to have been making).

Now, I don't hold that against Brown. I think he's amazing. And I agree with Darat - no-one is cross at Copperfield for claiming he can fly, or with Daniels when he says he's sawn Debbie McGee in half. But I think Kiosk's question cuts right to the point: "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?"
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I think at some point, the children have to be allowed to go out on their own, make their mistakes, and hopefully learn from them.


M.
 
Darat said:
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.
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Yes, before long we'll all be referring to him as that "old tat lady" of Shady Lane. :)


M.
 
Darat said:
"Mesmerism" is still promoted as being real by some folk....
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Promoting, I have no problem with. There are still some old time pro wrestlers who never break kayfabe. But now that the "common knowledge" includes the facts of the pro wrestling business, it's harmless. Subjects where the common knowledge is lacking, however, need to be dealt with more carefully.

But switching back from the hypnosis tangent...

I was just catching up on the Skeptics' Guide, and on episode 214 they interviewed magician Jamy Ian Swiss, and this exact topic came up. I really hope you listen because it illustrates my point so well. Bob Novella, one of the main voices in our crowd, said the following:
I find it fascinating that a mentalist can do what they do. It's more fascinating than just 'I have magic' because the person is actually reading body language, inserting information into the person, pulling it out that I can't detect.
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If even he has been led down the primrose path, what chance does the average viewer have?

Anyway, Swiss quickly corrected him, and he shared what he tells all of his audiences to help steer people in the right direction: "You know, I can't do any of these things, and neither can anybody else. If you thought this stuff was real, you wouldn't be an audience, you'd be a congregation!"

So, JFrankA, maybe that's the strategy to employ. I think that properly frames the techniques, reminds the audience they've seen an entertainment show, and just maybe they've come out a little wiser.
 
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StanUpshaw said:
Promoting, I have no problem with. There are still some old time pro wrestlers who never break kayfabe. But now that the "common knowledge" includes the facts of the pro wrestling business, it's harmless. Subjects where the common knowledge is lacking, however, need to be dealt with more carefully.

But switching back from the hypnosis tangent...

I was just catching up on the Skeptics' Guide, and on episode 214 they interviewed magician Jamy Ian Swiss, and this exact topic came up. I really hope you listen because it illustrates my point so well. Bob Novella, one of the main voices in our crowd, said the following:

If even he has been led down the primrose path, what chance does the average viewer have?

Anyway, Swiss quickly corrected him, and he shared what he tells all of his audiences to help steer people in the right direction: "You know, I can't do any of these things, and neither can anybody else. If you thought this stuff was real, you wouldn't be an audience, you'd be a congregation!"

So, JFrankA, maybe that's the strategy to employ. I think that properly frames the techniques, reminds the audience they've seen an entertainment show, and just maybe they've come out a little wiser.
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I find it quite ironic that you are saying that the way I explain stage hypnosis to my audiences (which is basically telling them the truth as to what it is) is the same thing as spreading woo, yet you haven't objected one iota about the way I explain the number prediction trick I do in which I explain it away using a woo premise that I made up....
 
Sorry, I haven't memorized your act.

I've argued my point all that I'm going to.

You can rationalize it however you want.
 
StanUpshaw said:
Promoting, I have no problem with. There are still some old time pro wrestlers who never break kayfabe. But now that the "common knowledge" includes the facts of the pro wrestling business, it's harmless. Subjects where the common knowledge is lacking, however, need to be dealt with more carefully.
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Argh. Of course I had to look the bolded word up. That took a while.

How fascinating and weird a thing this prof- wrestling phenomenon is. Thanks for the diversion! :D

[/aside]
 
StanUpshaw said:
Sorry, I haven't memorized your act.

I've argued my point all that I'm going to.

You can rationalize it however you want.
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My apologies. Earlier in this thread I mentioned a trick I do in which I use out and out woo to explain a prediction trick:

When I open my show, I have two people come up from the audience. I explain that I'm going to make a prediction based on Numeric Psychological Linguistics.

I have one person put up a six digit number then I ask a bunch of questions. I explain to them that what I care about is not her answers, but her reaction to the numbers in the questions and how she responds to them. I write down my prediction.

I ask a few more questions, writing down some numbers based on her answers, then have her write two more random numbers.

When all the numbers are all added up, I reveal that my prediction was the sum of all the numbers written and I credit it all to Numeric Psychological Linguistics.
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I assumed you saw this posting, that's why I said what I said before.

But I don't see how me calling what do I stage "memserism", as you suggested, or by any other name, is considered more ethical than calling it "hypnotism". Especially since the explaination I give at the start of my show is pretty much up front about what is happening.
 
For the last time, my argument is not any sort of commandment that can apply across the board. I am ONLY talking about the specific incidences where the public's knowledge is lacking and they use fiction to fill in the gaps. Unfortunately, it's only a problem one can recognize after the fact. For example, the "CSI Effect," hypnosis, and a HUGE portion of mentalists' gimmicks.

If you simply disagree with me, that's just fine, but do you at least understand what I'm saying? Because we seem to keep going around in circles.
 
I think part of a succesful magic act is having the audience believe you had a "power/ability" of some sort. Better than them thinking "oh it was just a few card tricks and a number prediction" jsut a little doubt is a good thing.
Max Maven ,Derren Brown,even Paul Daniels have clouded the magic/woo line. It's just magic/entertainment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkrdiSlUFnk

Some people have trouble distinguishing a soap character from real life. Some people will just believe what they want no matter what.
 
StanUpshaw said:
If you simply disagree with me, that's just fine, but do you at least understand what I'm saying? Because we seem to keep going around in circles.
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I've read through the last few pages of this thread a couple of times and I _still_ can't understand what you're saying.

Could you encapsulate it in a single sentence or a small list of bullet points so that it makes sense to us mere mortals?

:confused:
 
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microdot said:
OK, I follow that and believe it makes some very valid and thought provoking points.

ETA - thanks for posting that by the way, very interesting and informative.

Where I get stuck though is in drawing any parallels between that and the way JFrankA explains hypnosis to the people who go to watch him perform?

Am I missing something?
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Here is my original point about hypnosis:
StanUpshaw said:
If you want to see the potential damage that Brown's style of entertainment can wreak, just look at the subject of hypnosis. If you ask 100 people what hypnosis is, you will get 100 different answers. The waters have become so muddied that it is almost impossible for a lay person to know what the facts of the matter are.

Regardless of their intentions, this can be laid 100% at the feet of entertainers. I don't think it's wise to encourage the same thing to happen with the field of psychology. (Edit: As is happening with "The Mentalist" and "Lie to Me")
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It was a mistake to get caught up in a discussion about ONE man's performance, because the problem is the aggregatory result of hundreds of years of performances by thousands of performers. Whatever one man does is irrelevant because the incorrect notions are so ingrained in the society. Fixing it would probably require a sea change.
 
StanUpshaw said:
Gist: http://www.simonsingh.net/Derren_Brown_Article.html
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Here is an interview on Derren's thoughts about many of the things Simon raised at the time (about 6 years ago):

http://www.jamyianswiss.com/fm/works/derren-brown.html

JAMY: Right. I thought the two most interesting ideas of this piece were that, first, he casually surveyed 16 people after one of your live shows, and 11 of them believed that these things you had accomplished were by psychological means rather than magic methods. And second, he claims that you thereby ultimately do a disservice to the science of psychology. Because you can't accomplish these things through established scientific norm.

DERREN: A lot of journalists asked me about it. As in, "Well, what is your reaction to this?" And I think that what the article ended up doing for me was that it allowed me to say, "Well, yes, this is the point. It is a mixture of real stuff and not real stuff. Hopefully part of the fun is working out where the real stuff ends and the cheating starts. And it is about performance, and showmanship, and all the rest of it." So it actually came as quite a useful opportunity to clarify that, and to just allow that more honest approach to settle comfortably around me, without that being an awkward or difficult task to do. The more I got asked about any sense of exposure, or any sense of criticism, it allowed me to clearly state that position. Which was great! Which made it a very positive thing.
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...


JAMY: Right. But it seem to me you're saying that part of the beauty is to get the credit for doing the illusion of the impossible, not doing the real.

DERREN: Yes, absolutely, I'd say that. I think what mentalism can offer--genuinely can offer--is that reaction of people questioning what is possible and what isn't. And not in a trite kind of, "Oh, it makes me really question what the mind's capable of." I don't mean that. I don't mean just buying it, hook, line and sinker. But actually the ability to provide a magic that is a little bit more resonant, and doesn't just have people go, "Yeah, that was a great trick," and then move on. But rather to do something that says to people, yes, it is more resonant, isn't it? And it is supposed to get under your skin. And I'm not telling you how I do it, although I'm telling you the sorts of things that I use, but the point is that ultimately it kind of works, doesn't it? And that effect is reached. And it's at its best, for me, if it makes people question things a little bit, if it challenges a belief system, I think for me that's always a good thing. And that doesn't mean that I say, "This is super psychology, therefore question what the mind is capable of." It's not that. It's not that on the nose. It's just if you are a skeptic and you refuse to accept any kind of anomalistic possibilities of anything, then I'll show you something that's impossible and make you question that at some level. Equally, if you're a believer in the paranormal and you absolutely buy those things, then I'll show you the same thing and tell you that it's not paranormal, and hopefully question those same possibilities for you from the other side.

This is why as debunking goes, I've chosen a route of not--and you see this in the séance special--of not actively debunking, but of just taking a kind of third way with it. Of just presenting and saying, you know, this isn't real, or this is a mixture of this, this, and this, or just letting it sit there in a way that people know it is there to ...

JAMY: Make them question themselves and the experience.

DERREN: I think what mentalism can do is it can question presumptions, it can shake up belief systems a little bit. It's a little pretentious saying that, but there's a sense it can do that. Which a normal magic trick doesn't because you know that you're just suspending your disbelief and that's it. Mentalism has the possibility of doing that, and especially in this age when there are the TV spiritualists, and where belief systems are everywhere, and being shaken up, whether it's a skeptical mindset or a New Age believer's mindset, I think there is a potency in it, which I think is absolutely of worth.
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Etc. etc.

The latter part of the interview discusses these issues.

Btw. related to Simon Singh, Derren blogged this a few months ago: http://www.derrenbrown.co.uk/blog/2009/06/simon-singh-stands-up-to-libel-claims/
 
Kuko 4000 said:
Here is an interview on Derren's thoughts about many of the things Simon raised at the time (about 6 years ago):

http://www.jamyianswiss.com/fm/works/derren-brown.html
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So he acknowledges that his art is only effective when playing around in those murky borderlands. It's a long-winded version of what everybody else in this thread says, "It's entertainment! It's supposed to confuse and amaze!"


Reading some more of that article, it seems that he understands the concerns and that he's well aware of the effect that he's having on people. That was 6 years ago, and he's only picked up steam since.

That tells me all I need to know.
 
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