Forthcoming UK TV - Derren Brown Seance

I started another thread in 'community' about this without noticing this thread. Oops.

I would be pretty annoyed if it did turn out to be all stooges and cheats, but I suspect there is more to it. Some of his tricks are easy to figure, others rely on more psychology (anybody see the 'dropped' wallet with the chalk ring around it a few weeks ago?), but simply because I can't work out the rest of them doesn't immediately make it a cheat.

Personally, I'd love to know how he gets people to pick certain rooms or objects. It can't be suggestion, simply because there's too much risk involved with that. He's a professionl -- he knows with little doubt what is happening.

I've seen some clever 'mindreading' tricks performed by some magicians, which I have no idea how they work. I hesitate to immediately label it a cheat because I don't understand how it could work.

Maybe somebody could ask Randi his opinion? He could validate whether it is possible to do such things without stooges.

Athon
 
I don't understand how people can class what Brown does as "cheating".

Was David Copperfield cheating when the giant buzz-saw didn't cut him in half? No. It was an illusion. As is what Brown does.

It's only cheating if you SAY you're psychic, but then use hot reading instead of "real" mediumship :roll:
 
I am beginning to think that the reason people are so quick to call cheat where Derren is concerned is that he unsettles them.

In any case, from his home page...

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 applied psychology, magic, misdirection and showmanship.
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How is that cheating? He says "look at this trick." Then he gets cries of "but that's not fair you tricked us."
 
richardm said:


I don't doubt that you get edited highlights on TV. But you should perhaps ask LillyThePink what she thinks of him before you are so judgemental - she saw him live t'other week.
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She lives near me, so possibly he was performing near where I live.

I wouldn't mind seeing him live, but I'm not watching any TV shows of his again, not after that Russian roulette fiasco last year. It was both disgusting and demonstrates he's an outright cheat.
 
I have to be honest (well i don't, but i will be) - I'm surprised this is generating any discussion at all, other than, wasn't it nice to see all those people fooled by someone that the whole way through said there were no spirits, and said he was tricking them, and then tricked them.. I mean all this talk of cheating seems nonsensical.. he did exactly what he said he'd do, and in the process showed that he for one was capable of replicating what psychics do. Again, he never said that psychics couldn't do it through real psychic ability, merely that he wasn't..and as i said, he'd be first in line, if that were possible, cause it'd make his life a lot easier..
 
Interesting Ian

If Brown is a cheat for not using live ammunition (at that range a blank would have done the job, really), then is David Copperfield a cheat for not using a real giant buzzsaw?

Please explain the difference?

And I saw him at the Opera House York.
 
I think the cheating point is basically this:

If a magician claims to do something on television, and has people from the audience or at random participate, they're honestly claiming the following things (at least from what I know watching them on TV in the US)

  • That nothing is a 'camera trick' that what you are seeing is non-altered by film exactly as the audience would/is seeing it
  • That the participants are real, they are not people working for the magician
  • All participants who ARE working for the magician are clearly seen as such (even if not specifically named) such as a female assistant in sequined clothing would obviously be in the employ of the magician, whereas 'a random person who they've never met' wouldn't be.
  • That while the audience and participants MAY make assumptions, they're not being directly lied to (a magician may use misdirection, but they don't say that person X is an unknown when they're really part of the act). However if a trick involves a prop the audience understands its not deceptive if that prop is changed by slight of hand, or misdirection.

I haven't had the pleasure of seeing the show, other than the clips I've seen online. They don't air in the United States.

The alternative though (IMO) would be, is he doing a 'magic show' or demonstrating how things may be done by various people, which would involve using things that wouldn't normally be done by 'honest' magicians.

Taking the truck trick for example (which I actually think wasn't done with a dupe). But let's pretend it was....let's pretend before the show, he talked the guy into being 'in on it'. Is that cheating? If he's doing a magic show, I would say 'yes' absolutely it is. We all understand that magicians are 'fooling' the audience, but by engaging in something like that they've directly lied by claiming they didn't know the person etc. That's not really a magic trick.

However if he's demonstrating practices that some frauds may engage in, then certainly that would be valid. After all, we only have the word of two people we don't know, and have no reason to trust necessarily, that they haven't met, etc. The word of the participant, and the word of the 'magician' (or medium, etc).

In Penn & Teller's Bullsh!t when the one 'medium' does her reading, and is uncannily accurate in talking about connecting with the dead child of 2 parents, who died by suicide...it has the appearance of being massively accurate. Suicide (as someone says on the show) isn't something you'd want to be wrong about. Yet we see on the additional tapes that that couple was asked to attend by someone working for the medium. So it's highly likely that the medium had specific information about the situation.

So whether it's 'cheating' or not IMO depends on what ends he's trying to accomplish, and based on just what I've been able to see...which is just the website stuff since I'm in the United States, it wouldn't be 'cheating' for him to use 'hot reading' techniques. The point potentially being that the target isn't the person (who may be in on the 'trick') but other observers, which can include those watching it on television.

He doesn't disclose how it is done, (AFAIK) other than it's not paranormal. Unless he's claiming some specific means while using a dupe (if he is using one, I haven't seen the segment with the woman that most are discussing) then I wouldn't really consider it cheating, because he may be using exactly the same methods that are used to astound people when the claims are that it's paranormal and not a trick.
 
LillyThePink said:
Ian, did you shell out any money to go see him live yet?

I did. He rocked.
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Me pay money to see that a*sehole??

As for his being "a despicable cheat" - I don't understand your issue. He tells you upfront that he's going to trick you. This is refreshing, after the Spiritualist church I went to not admitting it at all. Bless.
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I don't recall him saying this. I don't recall him saying it wasn't a real gun or real bullets etc in that Russian Roulette effort. I wouldn't have bothered f*cking switching over to the other channel just before he pulled the trigger if I had of realised. And to top it off it wasn't live anyway :rolleyes:

He always tries to imply psychological manipulation has taken place where as it's simply trickery.
 
Marian said:
I think the cheating point is basically this:

If a magician claims to do something on television, and has people from the audience or at random participate, they're honestly claiming the following things (at least from what I know watching them on TV in the US)

  • That nothing is a 'camera trick' that what you are seeing is non-altered by film exactly as the audience would/is seeing it
  • That the participants are real, they are not people working for the magician
  • All participants who ARE working for the magician are clearly seen as such (even if not specifically named) such as a female assistant in sequined clothing would obviously be in the employ of the magician, whereas 'a random person who they've never met' wouldn't be.
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  • I do not know so much about magicians, but one of the things I remember is David Copperfield (I used to have a crush on him :) ) making dissapar such things as big tanks and was it Statue of Liberty or Eifel Tower, a big mountain and so on.

    Now, if I understand correctly how the trick is done, I think it by its nature involves the co-operation of ALL the audience present while filming, and they clearly know how the trick is done and participate in it. The audience watching on TV, on the other hand, thinks that the audience in the studio is a real audience amazed by the trick.

    I am not sure they adhere to the other rules, either. Magicians ar enot very likely to tell us as they like to keep their secrets :(
 
BTW I'm not overly impressed with people going on about this paranormal issue. Derren Brown often implies that he's achieving apparently paranormal effects by psychological manipulation. But then we find he's simply using trickery.

And because I'm unhappy about this people are saying this is because |I believe in the paranormal or something. To suggest I wouldn't be equally annoyed with Brown if I were a skeptic is preposterous. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
 
The way that things have been presented made an awful lot of people believe that the show was X Y or Z - this is the trickery.

Did you see the "Mind Control" programme where he got a bunch of advertising execs to draw EXACTLY what he wanted, and explained how it was done subliminally? Thats psychological suggestion, Ian, not trickery.

Also, I'd be grateful if you could answer my other question about Copperfield. Thanks

Edited to add: - you don't think trickery is psychological? Is he tricking your bottom into thinking things are A when they are B, or is he tricking your mind? :confused:
 
digital goldfish said:


LOL - Of course he 'cheats' - that was the whole point! No one can contact the dead, so ir's really the only way it was ever gonna work!
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No-one can contact the dead?? I'd love to hear your reasoning here. Care to provide it??
 
Posted by Darat

Your point is exactly the same as saying a magician can't call herself a magician because it isn’t "real" magic she performs but just sleight of hand. Or an escapologist saying it’s all done by controlling the expansion of his muscles.
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No, Darat. With all due respect, you completely are missing the point.

Doesn't the Jami Ian Swiss example help?

For example, there is a significant difference in the "claim" when a deceiver does a card trick (or hot reads), but falsely presents the trick as something anyone could do from a knowledge of psychology.

Many people who know there isn't "magic" still can be sold a bill of goods about the "powers of the mind".
 
Tanja said:


I do not know so much about magicians, but one of the things I remember is David Copperfield (I used to have a crush on him :) ) making dissapar such things as big tanks and was it Statue of Liberty or Eifel Tower, a big mountain and so on.

Now, if I understand correctly how the trick is done, I think it by its nature involves the co-operation of ALL the audience present while filming, and they clearly know how the trick is done and participate in it. The audience watching on TV, on the other hand, thinks that the audience in the studio is a real audience amazed by the trick.

I am not sure they adhere to the other rules, either. Magicians ar enot very likely to tell us as they like to keep their secrets :(
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Good points. Personally I don’t see what the big fuss is about how any magician or entertainer performs their show.

If it was revealed that Derren Brown does all his tricks with camera edits and actors I'd just think "2nd rater" and go and watch another show. Would I think he was a "cheater" who'd been caught out? Of course not - he would just have gone down a notch or two in how I rate entertainers.

It’s like watching a film and you see a deeply moving scene that ends with a tear trickling slowly down the actor’s face. I think “Wow great acting”, later on I read that it was drip trickled on by the make-up artist, all I think “Oh not as good an actor”.
 
Interesting Ian said:


No-one can contact the dead?? I'd love to hear your reasoning here. Care to provide it??
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I see your point, but please..

As Derren pointed out, The Fox sisters started the spiritualism craze, and then on their death bed, one of them admitted it was all trickery, and they all wished they'd never started it..

Sadly the onus is on people that propose the proposterous to provide reaosnable proof; ergo no one has yet proven they can contact the dead, despite a lot of people trying, i'm happy to carry on with my misguided beliefs that no one can contact the dead. While absence of evidence may not be evidence for absence, it's still a fairly sensible starting point IMHO..

I make a point of not believing anything, and just basing my judgement on the available evidence
 
The issue for me is when somebody insinuates (or explicitly states) that the act they are performing is done through a particular means, when in fact it is not. Brown suggests he is using misdirection, psychology and sleight of hand to perform his act. He does not break down each particular act into what he is using, hence if he is using sleight-of-hand for a mind-reading trick, I don't feel fooled.

If he is using stooges, I would be just as offended as if he had said he was doing it through some psychic means. Simply because he rules out using such trickery -- he would be directly lying.

I am not entertained by the spectacle itself, but rather through the notion that there is some clever means of illusion to it. If he used CGI to make an elephant disappear, I would be annoyed, simply because I'm entertained not by the disappearance of the elephant but by the design of the illusion to fool my senses (followed by my contemplation of how it could be achieved).

Athon
 
Interesting Ian said:
No-one can contact the dead?? I'd love to hear your reasoning here. Care to provide it??
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Your trolling is getting tiresome Ian. Please go and play in another thread.
 
Clancie said:

No, Darat. With all due respect, you completely are missing the point.

Doesn't the Jami Ian Swiss example help?

For example, there is a significant difference in the "claim" when a deceiver does a card trick (or hot reads), but falsely presents the trick as something anyone could do from a knowledge of psychology.
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Not if it was set up as entertainment.

If it was set up as a factual "reveal" show and then they said it was done with psychology when all it was done with was using credit card details to get easily accessible information then that would be wrong.

Clancie said:


Many people who know there isn't "magic" still can be sold a bill of goods about the "powers of the mind".
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Again this only makes sense if you start with the premise that a show, a magician and so on is not being presented as entertainment.
 
digital goldfish said:
whereas Derren is at least honest about being a con artist
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Could you please provide a reference where Derren admits to being a con artist rather than using psychological manipulation??
 
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