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Derren Brown is no different than Uri Gellar.

Oh AND he claimed he used mirroring and leading and suggestion to persuade a 'guy off the street' to rob a TV from a shop after seeing his 'trigger' (a little red girl)

*sigh*

I'm not saying he hasn't got some good tricks and done some good TV, but for me he's just becoming a sensationalist trickster...or to put it more bluntly, a liar.
 
I thought magicians generally used the answer 'it is magic ;)' when asked to explain tricks.

Derren Brown actually pretends to explain his tricks, and lies. That is the difference for me. I'm not going to suggest he is close to Uri Gellar, but I think he is in danger of heading in that sort of direction...

All I know is I don't want to watch another show of his after tonights one. It bored and irritated me.
 
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Matthew Best said:
I don't think that's actually a law, or anything.



So does anyone who uses the answer "it's magic".
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Are you being deliberately obtuse, or do you not actually understand why I find a distinction between the two things I described, and why that distinction makes me irritated by Derren Brown, and not 'proper' magicians?

EDIT - slight misread...
 
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Matthew Best said:
Well, I have to say if he tried the same tricks he demonstrates in that video now, they would definitely not work, because we're all much more aware of the sort of supposedly subconscious mental forcing he's talking about.
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I found the video you were talking about, and I think you're 100% correct with the above statement. Anyone with awareness of the gimmick will not fall for it, and even among the suggestible types, it seems like it's hardly foolproof. For instance, on his runthru of "Invisible Deal Force," I followed all of his instructions, but at first I didn't pick up on the "if you've chosen the face cards, remove a pair of them, take away a couple." I had picked the King at first, but it took me a second to realize he meant take away the couple...the husband and wife.
 
Matthew Best said:
But Derren Brown is a "proper" magician.
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I'm really starting to tire of this. I ask you one more time, are you being obtuse or do you not understand what I am trying to say in regards to why I dislike some of the things Derren Brown does (other than the fact I found tonight's show fairly boring). Either stop dancing around the point or continue and I'll stop wasting my time with this.

It is because he never seems to draw the line anywhere, so you can't believe anything he says at all, so he presents that guy who can do echo-location and (if it WAS real), it is hard to believe because in the same show he pretends he can effectively hypnotise someone to rob a hardware shop and claims they were not a stooge...
 
I don't know if he actually invented that sort of effect, but he must have been one of the first to do it professionally. Now, in large part due to his success, the brief period when people would fall for it more often than not has passed. I think.
 
Derren:

Derren Brown said:
I love the whole interaction of genuine psychological techniques and fraudulent psychic ones. I’m not interested in debunking spiritualist claims about contact with the afterlife, so much as replicating some of these techniques and providing alternative explanations. Debunking is essentially negative, and not as interesting.

Instead, I’m working with a group of modern, sceptical people and seeing to what extent they are taken in by it.
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DreadNiK said:
it is hard to believe because in the same show he pretends he can effectively hypnotise someone to rob a hardware shop and claims they were not a stooge...
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What makes you so sure he was a stooge? Is it because you can't think of another way he could have achieved that effect? Or do you have actual knowledge?
 
DreadNiK said:
I'm really starting to tire of this. I ask you one more time, are you being obtuse or do you not understand what I am trying to say in regards to why I dislike some of the things Derren Brown does (other than the fact I found tonight's show fairly boring). Either stop dancing around the point or continue and I'll stop wasting my time with this.

It is because he never seems to draw the line anywhere, so you can't believe anything he says at all, so he presents that guy who can do echo-location and (if it WAS real), it is hard to believe because in the same show he pretends he can effectively hypnotise someone to rob a hardware shop and claims they were not a stooge...
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I tire of saying this "I achieve the things you see via a mix of magic suggestion pschology misdirection and showmanship"
Are you being obtuse or is there something worng with your hearing. He basically prefaces everything you see saying its a trick. You cant comprehend that=your problem. :rolleyes:
 
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Azrael 5 said:
I tire of saying this "I achieve the things you see via a mix of magic suggestion pschology misdirection and showmanship"
Are you being obtuse or is there something worng with your hearing. He basically prefaces everything you see saying its a trick. You cant comprehend that=your problem. :rolleyes:
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Oh, so that makes it not boring that he does a trick that essentially involves him spouting a load of crap while he shows you a video of him doing what doesn't even amount to a trick, just a staged 'sketch'?

Another problem is that a lot of people believe a lot of stuff is possible that isn't. The fact that you are on this boards suggests you know this to be the case. Given that, his 'preface' is meaningless, because some people will believe that that sort of hypnotic suggestion to a random stranger is possible, and he does not suggest otherwise. I'm not sure how clear I'm being here :P

And looks like I have to point it out a second time, it means you cannot believe a single word that comes out of his mouth, which makes his debunking of things in the same show useless, because while he is preaching to the converted for the majority of people on here, other people who might believe in what he debunks can ignore his debunking because you can't take anything he says to be real. If that entertains you then fine. It doesn't entertain me, and I also think I have provided a reasonable argument as him possibly encouraging or reinforcing 'woo' in the same way as someone like Uri Gellar...

And why did he need to do his lottery trick, which btw I fail to see how it could have been anything but a tech-based trick (snore), and then do a whole show where he bs'ed about how he did it? So his preface again excuses a tv show that is 100% made up nonsense that isn't even interesting?
 
StanUpshaw said:
I found the video you were talking about, and I think you're 100% correct with the above statement. Anyone with awareness of the gimmick will not fall for it, and even among the suggestible types, it seems like it's hardly foolproof. For instance, on his runthru of "Invisible Deal Force," I followed all of his instructions, but at first I didn't pick up on the "if you've chosen the face cards, remove a pair of them, take away a couple." I had picked the King at first, but it took me a second to realize he meant take away the couple...the husband and wife.
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Watching some more of the techniques that follow, it really has me frustrated that I don't have the capacity to see things from a credulous, suggestible viewpoint. I need to know how these people convince themselves that they haven't just been mimed a diamond and a three and they aren't just playing along.

JFrankA, can you give me any insight into the mind of a mark?
 
DB obviously has some kind of magic powers, since he got Channel 4 to commission these shows in the first place :rolleyes:

t is hard to believe because in the same show he pretends he can effectively hypnotise someone to rob a hardware shop and claims they were not a stooge...
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Yeah, and last time he persuaded a people to commit robbery ("The Heist"), didn't it apparently take him a few days of intense faffing about with the participants to get them into that state? And now he can do it with 20 minutes of sipping tea? ;)

Mind you, there was that caption that said no actors or stooges were used, and he wouldn't lie to us, would he? :)

David
 
davidhorman said:
Yeah, and last time he persuaded a people to commit robbery ("The Heist"), didn't it apparently take him a few days of intense faffing about with the participants to get them into that state? And now he can do it with 20 minutes of sipping tea? ;)
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His powers have obviously grown...soon it'll be just like 'simon says...' and he'll rule the world.
 
Sorry, double post due to being confused by dial-up. When a telecoms company calls their broadband service "Rapid", they're clearly not talking about the time being application and getting online... :(

David
 
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davidhorman said:
DB obviously has some kind of magic powers, since he got Channel 4 to commission these shows in the first place :rolleyes:
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That again another problem with him - he uses the credibility he has built up (coz he has done some good stuff) to churn out rubbish like this. I hate his smug grinning while he is doing it too lol
 
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