NLP...Is it woo?

[Ethan Thane Athen]

I re-watched a Derren Brown show the other night as I'd recorded it for my daughter. Interestingly a trick that had impressed me enormously on first viewing was easy to suss on a repeated viewing. Whilst it seemed he was doing as he claimed ie reading micro movements to identify the name of her first boyfriend whilst she simply said it in her head, a repeat viewing only the day after allowed me to spot the significence of a much earlier action that was missed when I didn't know what was coming up later.

I'm not sure I should give away the trick, so suffice to say that an earlier action (with loads of intervening segments before the name identification) gave him a blindingly easy way to know the name before he had to try and interpret these micro movements.

NB I'm not trying to detract from DB - he is an excellent entertainer and some of the intervening stuff he did to select the girl was very impressive and did seem to be reading of body signals (though then it was just to identify truth or lie). However, I suspect most (if not all) of the reading unconscious signals, power of verbal and visual cues to influnece behaviour etc is just misdirection (as covered in his disclaimer) for 'standard' conjuring tricks. More power to his elbow though, he gives it all an interesting and entertaining twist.

One last thing: someone suggested the use of stooges in an earlier post but he consistently denies this and I tend to believe him - far too damaging if it came out.

 

[Kell]

There's a great clip on YouTube that shows him using several NLP techniques. He only talks about one aspect of it, but you can see him anchoring (he asks the man to think about what it feels like to see something that you really want, and then touches him on the arm. He then frequently touches him in the same place to recall that feeling), and I believe there is an interrupt as well, when he places the man's hand on the table in a way that would seem strange in a normal social interaction.

Umm, that's a different version - one without the alleged "explanation" - of the Simon Pegg BMX Bike stunt Senex already linked a few posts before you.

Here is a Derren Brown video on youtube. If you click on page 7 and 6 of the comment section a rascal whose name may sound familiar gives a theory how the effect was done. Notice this was posted before I ever excepted any agreement at the wonderful JREF site.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5DB5crSsrA&mode=related&search=

Read Senex's alternative explanation he suggests in the comments and let us know your take on it.

 

[kellyb]

One last thing: someone suggested the use of stooges in an earlier post but he consistently denies this and I tend to believe him - far too damaging if it came out.

Hes a magician first and foremost. The use of stooges in magic is pretty standard.

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

Hes a magician first and foremost. The use of stooges in magic is pretty standard.

Agreed. But he makes such a point of saying he doesn't that I'd have thought it would be foolish to do so. Most don't mention it. He also states it in his book. Maybe I'm just naive but certain dodgy things about his russian roulette stunt came out very quickly so I'd assumed any use of stages after making such a claim would also be exposed.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Hes a magician first and foremost. The use of stooges in magic is pretty standard.

He talks a lot about often using 'dual reality' in his performances. The participants in a trick have a different view of what they are doing compared to the audience. More like an 'Instant Stooge'.

 

[dannagain]

i don't believe derren brown uses stooges. he does way too many tricks on celebrities for that to be the case. the whole reason why he uses celebrities such as stephen fry, simon pegg, stephen merchant, richard and judy, is that their involvement shows that he doesn't use paid actors. why would they lie for him. when he went on richard and judy's chart show he did some incredible tricks for them and they clearly were not 'in on it'

 

[dannagain]

i don't believe derren brown uses stooges. he does way too many tricks on celebrities for that to be the case. the whole reason why he uses celebrities such as stephen fry, simon pegg, stephen merchant, richard and judy, is that their involvement shows that he doesn't use paid actors. why would they lie for him. when he went on richard and judy's chart show he did some incredible tricks for them and they clearly were not 'in on it'

 

[Plasmadog]

Umm, that's a different version - one without the alleged "explanation" - of the Simon Pegg BMX Bike stunt Senex already linked a few posts before you.

I didn't notice the previous one, but in fact my one included the explanation too.
Of course I cannot rule out the possibility that the envelope was switched, and that would be a nice simple explanation for it all. However, let me explain why I do not believe is the case.

Derren's book Pure Effect was not written for the general public, but for an audience of fellow magicians, at a time when he was not widely known. While it does include detailed descriptions of several of his older tricks, the main thrust of the book is about his take on what the performance of magic should be all about, and his attitudes to it. He makes it quite clear that some of his effects rely on techniques which are not fully reliable, including blind luck at times. Interestingly, instead of giving himself outs as most magicians would, he finds that just admitting to failure gives him more credibility, basically on the grounds of confirmation bias. A miss will quickly be forgotten by the audience, while a hit will seem awesome and be remembered for a long time.

Anyway, one of the sections describes in detail how he tries to influence the selection of a card from a deck, in cases where the rest of the trick relies on a particular card being selected. The techniques he uses for this are very similar to what is seen in that video clip, albeit much more narrowly focused. Since reading the book, I have seen this very routine several times in his shows. Of course it does not always work, but it works often enough.

He makes it very clear in the book that this is the sort of thing that most interests him, so I have no doubt whatsoever that he will have expended considerable effort attempting to refine these techniques to make them more widely applicable. As to whether he has succeeded in this, well of course I cannot know. But I do note that the trick in the video clip, as with many others along similar lines, are not performed live in front of an audience. While it is true that he often uses conventional stage magic to enhance his 'mentalist' effects, my belief is that this particular trick is exactly what it appears to be, but that we have only seen it because it worked out OK. I suspect that he has made many other attempts at the same sort of thing, but those that do not work just never get shown on TV. It may seem like a waste of money to go to the effort of filming all such attempts, only to throw away the film, from his perspective it would be a good investment. Sometimes it will work, and provide a great piece of television that enhances his image, other times it is merely a useful bit of research that he can learn from and improve his technique.

 

[Senex]

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Of course I cannot rule out the possibility that the envelope was switched, and that would be a nice simple explanation for it all. However, let me explain why I do not believe is the case.

Let me explain why you're wrong. People who believe in woo are invested in their woo beliefs and are unwilling to give them up even when faced with the truth. Your belief that Brown can create an environment that changes what an intelligent person believes he wrote on a piece of paper a week ago is ridiculous.

Your belief that Darren Brown doesn't resort to what all other magicians resort to is silly. Woo is woo if it comes out of a priest's mouth or a magician's. Any time spent researching NLP to recreate Brown's affects is a waste of time.

PM me the video Brown has done that makes you most believe in NLP and I will PM you back the disappointing method he actually used. You probably won't believe me but I'll sleep well

 

[Plasmadog]

Let me explain why you're wrong. People who believe in woo are invested in their woo beliefs and are unwilling to give them up even when faced with the truth.
(snip)
PM me the video Brown has done that makes you most believe in NLP and I will PM you back the disappointing method he actually used. You probably won't believe me but I'll sleep well

Are you now saying that you know for certain that the envelope was switched? And that you know for certain how he does his other effects? Until now I had assumed that that was just your best guess, no better than anyone else's. The web is awash with amateur's guesses regarding his effects, and I'm not about to blindly accept even the most plausible sounding ones as long as I know they are just guesses. I mean, if guesses are acceptable, why not just accept the very simplest one; that the guy was a stooge and it was all just acting? From a strictly skeptical point of view, it is foolish to assume that it is any more complicated than that, yet I suspect that most of us would not accept that answer if it were presented as nothing more than a guess.

I have read the two "lost" chapters of his book, which explain two of his mentalist effects. I was not at all disappointed at how mundane they were. On the contrary, it actually made the tricks more interesting to me. If the explanation of that bicycle trick is just as mundane, and you know for certain what it is, I'd love to hear about it.

 

[Senex]

I'm saying that NLP isn't the answer to yours or anyones problem. It's cover for magic tricks but not the answer to life's problems Studying NLP because of a magic show isn't time well spent to help you. You may disagree with me but I know that NLP isn't the answer to most people's problems. NLP is woo.

 

[JonWhite]

While it is true that he often uses conventional stage magic to enhance his 'mentalist' effects, my belief is that this particular trick is exactly what it appears to be...

The NLP and psychobabble are for the most part his particular brand of smoke and mirrors to mask what invariably amounts to very mundane but wonderfully executed and presented magic/mentalism methods. I've read all three of his books and see no reason to believe otherwise.

You say you know this is true in some cases, but then believe that in this particular case the effect really is down to the NLP type embedded commands, etc as claimed. I can only assume you don't know a great deal about what the use of NLP can (or more precisely can't) really do.

As part of hypnotherapy (yeah, I know) training quite a lot of NLP was covered and I have been to numerous lectures. I have yet to meet any so-called "NLP Master Practitioner" who could do anything even remotely close to this, so why think DB could in this way?

I'm with Senex - envelope swap. Can I say this is the method with 100% certainty? No. But compared to the "NLP" alternative it really is a no-brainer.

 

[Senex]

JonWhite is a sharp fellow whose interest in hypnosis/magic/mentalism may surpass my own rolleyes: nay, but he is close). He may not be willing to say 100% that the envelope was switched but he is 99.9% certain. I'm 99.9%certain on a couple of other Brown videos on Youtube.

When I was in grade school a very popular book I purchased and believed was truthful at the time called "Subliminal Marketing" was talked about everywhere I went. Movie theatres supposedly were flashing "Buy Popcorn" images during previews and sexy images were implanted in all manner of advertisements. This turned out to be bull-oney. You can't be manipulated subliminally. You can be manipulated -- but you won't want to buy a bike because you walk into a room with a reel to reel tape player like in the Browne video. Manipulation is much less subtle than what you give Darren Browne credit for.

 

[JonWhite]

JonWhite is a sharp fellow whose interest in hypnosis/magic/mentalism may surpass my own rolleyes: nay, but he is close).

Aw schucks, thanks.

And in return, I shall be forever in your debt and (non NLP) therapy for your revolutionary insights into the use of nudity as mis-direction.

 

[Senex]

Aw schucks, thanks.

And in return, I shall be forever in your debt and (non NLP) therapy for your revolutionary insights into the use of nudity as mis-direction.

You get drunk once and post a nude photo of yourself with the true story of your heroic impromptu naked magic show and no one lets you live it down. Believe me, if you were there you would have done the same thing. And my nudy girlfriend was cute, wasn't she? Yes, I know she was. My disposal of a thumb tip was brilliant. I was born to perform nude -- we all were. I'm not caught up in religious mumbo-jumbo that others are. Tell your woo politicians you want your beach to be a nude beach. Clothes equal woo at a beach when the weather is hot.

 

[JonWhite]

You get drunk once and post a nude photo of yourself with the true story of your heroic impromptu naked magic show... ...My disposal of a thumb tip was brilliant.

It's not how you very cleverly ditched the the thumb tip that concerns me but where...

 

[kellyb]

He talks a lot about often using 'dual reality' in his performances. The participants in a trick have a different view of what they are doing compared to the audience. More like an 'Instant Stooge'.

Yeah...I guess sometimes he could be using a very liberal definition of the word "stooge" when he says he's not using them.
The only video of his that I've seen where I was convinced the person was acting was the "hypnotic video game" one.

 

[ronananderson]

NLP is a pretty practical model of conciousness to help us understand ourselves and others more.Alas any theories of the mind are unverifiable through science but only through experience,Freuds, Jungs and hell i'll include dianetics with those two.i think there are blind spots in the human programming which can be exploited, not unlike those fainting goats on youtube.Have you read Malcolm Gladwells 'Blink',it suggests we're highly suggestable (forgive that sentence unless you think its funny, in which case i proudly claim it as intended).the problem is as DB says, Gladwell himself can be overly credulous.Bloody annoying 4 a newly converted skeptic to find you cant even trust science these days.I was hoping to find the answers on this forum. My humble opinion is 4 the voodoo doll act etc, he already has hypnotized them b4, and takes advantage of a principle known as fractation ( a person will go deeper and easier into trance the more often they are hypnotized) so its a kind of stooge, but not 1 we should get upset by. Or else he uses interruptions like the handshake induction

 

[mpeacock]

When I saw the headline, I was all, "No way, Natural Language Processing is real computer science." Wrong TLA, my bad. Your NLP smells of woo to me.

Mmmrrrrrr. I'm reading Snow Crash, which features neurolinguistic programming (though not the organization you're talking about) as one of its plot points.

What a great book that was. I really liked the double entendre (squared) in the main character's name.

 

[Soapy Sam]

I suggest reading Brown's book "Tricks of the Mind" in which he discusses NLP.