Derren Brown will make you believe in God

andyandy

anthropomorphic ape
andyandy
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i thought this was a great demonstration of human succeptibilty to the concept of "god"......

see the vids below.

basically derren brown takes a group of atheists and by the end of a group meeting gets them to say they believe in god....using a trick in which they close their eyes and are "made" to fall over....


i remember doing a similar playground trick many years ago - where you "pull" an invisible rope to make a person fall backwards....

i'd be interested as to what studies have been carried out on the power of suggestion - the reasons for such succeptibility and how common it is for individuals to "rationalise" the apparantly irrational through recourse to the supernatural.....

i guess this could go in religion and politics thread, the paranormal thread or the magician's thread, but i'm most interested in the scientific angle - so i've put it here :)
 
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this is another great derren brown piece - he induces a catatonic state whilst someone plays a video game, whilst they are out of it he transports them to a warehouse that's been made up to look like the game, wakes the guy up, lets him continue the shoot-em-up this time in the flesh, sends him back to sleep, and wakes them up back in front of the arcade game - at which point they exclaim to their friends what a great game it is!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjRAcajFte0

pushing ethical boundaries here at all? Explanations for what's going on in the brain here too please :)
 
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andyandy said:
this is another great derren brown piece - he induces a catatonic state whilst someone plays a video game, whilst they are out of it he transports them to a warehouse that's been made up to look like the game, wakes the guy up, lets him continue the shoot-em-up this time in the flesh, sends him back to sleep, and wakes them up back in front of the arcade game - at which point they exclaim to their friends what a great game it is!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjRAcajFte0

pushing ethical boundaries here at all? Explanations for what's going on in the brain here too please :)
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That really, really seems like a hoax.
I'm into learning about weirdo psychological phenomenons, and I've never heard of anything like that before.
So that makes me question the first two videos, too.
 
Is it real? I've seen that video about the video game...I would really like to experience that. But it just seems so very fishy.
 
So what is this supposed to be? Is it a UK TV show? The video game one is obviously a work of fiction. Did they present this as somehow being factual?
 
I have a theory about the first two videos.
I work in concert production, and I've worked a lot of "theatrical hypnotist" shows, and what they do is, they put the volunteers through a screening process of sorts. They call a bunch of people on stage, and see who plays along, and send the party poopers off. (supposedly the ones left are "hypnotized"...but I'm not so sure it's really that, exactly).

I noticed in the first video, a lot of people left, supposedly over "drama" from "the instant conversion"...but what if he actually screened them to find the ones who'd play along with his little thingie?

The dude is apparently a liar, so I wouldn't put it past him that most of the context was spliced together and misrepresented.
 
From his website : (www.derrenbrown.co.uk)


"Derren Brown is a unique force in the world of illusion - he can seemingly predict and control human behaviour.

He doesn't claim to be a mind-reader, instead he describes his craft as a mixture of magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship.
Whatever you choose to call it, his unparalleled performances amaze and unsettle all those who watch him."

His new book, "Tricks of the mind" makes interesting reading. (I was bought a copy for xmas!)

You can also check out his TV channel webpages - http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/M/mindcontrol/

and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derren_Brown

And, for those of you (us) in the UK, he is doing a tour in 2007. Details are on his website.
 
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His books are excellent. Maybe next year we can get him at TAM. My son thinks he's a fake, but I'm reading the book, and as far as I can tell, he's real.

I would love to my son hypnotized while playing a video game.

Most of his "tricks" are published in various places on line, and he has a lot of clips--

If it was fake...and the kid knew he was going to be on t.v.--do you think he'd be using the "f-word" so often? He's not like Uri Geller pretending to have any magical powers...he tells people exactly how he does what he does in his new book "tricks of the mind"...
 
KingMerv00 said:
The video game one is definately fake.

.
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derren brown has a good reputation - and certainly does not rely on actors for a lot of his tricks. As with all depictions of "real" events via tv, one has to take an element of trust that they are as they're purported to be - but such is derren's reputation, and such would the damage to his credibility were it discovered that he had used actors, then i would expect both to be real unless there is evidence to the contrary....
 
interesting,

In June 2005, a clip from the second series widely circulated on the internet. In this clip, Derren claims to have created a video game he calls "Waking Dead" which "is able to put roughly 1/3 of the people who play it into a catatonic trance". In this episode he places the video game in a pub, to lure a supposedly unsuspecting patron into playing the game. He then "kidnaps" the catatonic "victim" and places him in a real-life recreation of the video game, having him fire an air gun at actors, pretending to be zombies and outfitted with explosive squibs.

This phenomenon of inducing catatonic-like states via flashes of light is called Photosensitive epilepsy, and is medically very rare, affecting only a few in 10,000, not the sensational claim of 1/3.
.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derren_Brown

....so, photosensitive epilepsy....? if it is as rare as x/1000 and it's not using an actor, then it's almost certain that he's previously singled out a guy who would be succeptible and then ensured that he'd play the game (for that you'd assume the friends would have to be in on it, even if he wasn't).
 
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Of course he prescreens for suggestible people. Anyone who thinks he doesn't is naive.

I've had the pleasure of seeing him live on stage, and his blend of magic tricks, tarted up with improbable psychobabble, is excellent to watch.

Here's my take on the mix of what he does:

Magic/Showmanship/Misdirection - 98%
Suggestion/Psychology - 2%

Derren himself says that hypnotism isn't real, yet repeatedly "hypnotises" participants in the stage show, in about 1 second flat. They're just playing along - spontaneous, unprepared stooges, and good on them.

All of the tricks in the show purporting to have psychological explanations actually have conjuring mechanisms. I loved trying to figure out how he was doing it. Got a few of them, but not all.

I'd recommend that anyone who can see hin live makes it a priority - he's amazingly charismatic - a very good performer. He makes sure to hammer home a few sceptical messages too, for the audience.
 
andyandy said:
interesting,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derren_Brown

....so, photosensitive epilepsy....? ....snip...
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From that source I would say it is nothing more then mere speculation and is backed-up with absolutely no evidence either that Browne used it or that it could account for the trick.

Victor has quoted the very relevant line from DB's website

"...instead he describes his craft as a mixture of magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship...."

In other words exactly the same techniques all magicians have always used. He's just found a good new(ish) misdirection routine - he gets us to look for "mind control" ideas.
 
Darat said:
From that source I would say it is nothing more then mere speculation and is backed-up with absolutely no evidence either that Browne used it or that it could account for the trick.

Victor has quoted the very relevant line from DB's website

"...instead he describes his craft as a mixture of magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship...."

In other words exactly the same techniques all magicians have always used. He's just found a good new(ish) misdirection routine - he gets us to look for "mind control" ideas.
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yes - i agree - a lot of his "mind control" is just a good cover for more mundane magic tricks....there's a thread on it at the moment here

but specifically with the case of the "zombie" clip, it's hard to explain what's going on without either scientifically explainable phenomenon or the use of actors....it's hard to see where the "trick" part comes in.....
i don't know, maybe the guy had been previously hypnotized by derren, and so he was able to trigger the "sleep" command from a distance....

basically, i just want to know how he does it :)
 
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