Darren Brown's explinations are just more mis-direction?

Zombrex

Ok, here is the deal

I posted in a thread about fake paranormal events, that Darren Brown has been using psychology to manipulate people for ages, and he says this is not magic at all and there is no paranormal superstition behind it. All well and good, you think.

But pH raise a point I myself was not aware off.

Seemingly the explinations that Darren Brown gives for how his tricks are nonsense. As pH puts it, it is just another form of mis-direction.

Now, to be honest this was news to me.

My sister studied psychology a bit in college and was always saying when D.B was on that yup they did a bit of that stuff for fun in a lecture or two, though she didn't expand on it. I always just accept that he was interested in showing cool stuff but not pretending that it as mystical like a lot of other, tedious, magicians do. I didn't realise I was being hood winked all along.

So are the psychological asspect and explinations he uses to explain how his tricks work just more "magic" to trick the audience?

Is Darren Brown full of sh*t?

I will hand this over to pH to expand a bit on what he means....

pH

Derren Brown is a Mentalist which traditionaly was a form of magic giving the illusion of mind-reading, mind-control and other paranormal powers. Derren's particular talent and success has been to wrap his performances with psychological explanations of how the tricks work.

Many people (myself included) have a love-hate relationship with the work of Mr Brown. He has produced some sceptical work such as Seance and Messiah, but on the other hand has reinforced the public belief in the thoroughly bogus art of hypnosis and perhaps more than anyone raised the utter rubbish that is NLP into the public arena.

99% of what Derren Brown does is 'traditonal magic' wrapped up with pyschological explanations. The problem with discussing Derren's work are as follows:

The discussion normally gets into how does he do 'X', which is tricky as revealing magic secrets is considered bad form. Suffice to say that most "tricks" have a mind-numbingly boring explanations, and most 'laymen' do not understand quite how much setup can actually go into what appears to be a casual and 'spontaneous' effect.

Derren goes right up to (and in my opinion sometimes crosses) the 'unwritten rules' of what is allowed on TV magic. Obviously if the TV picture is edited then TV magic is about as impressive as a ventriloquist on the radio. Derren while he achieves "the effect" without editing, definitely uses clever editing to provide the "the explanation".

Derren claims he does not use stooges or actors, and I believe him. However in magic 'legalese' techniques like instant stooges and dual reality are not considered by mentalists to be using stooges.

Anyway Simon Singh went as far as you can go in a national newspaper, have a read.

Peanut

Agree with most of that., he definitely tarts up the psych aspect of the show.

I wasn't impressed with his "Seance" - superficially it all looks very good, you're meant to believe that not only is it a thorough refutation of the paranormal, but also a testament to Derren's skill in manipulation and/or the apparent susceptibilty of the general public to mumbojumbo.

However, they fail to show you exactly what props have been used all along, and there is also the slight fact that a dark room full of skitterish people and hidden machinery is about as far from a traditional seance as you can get, it just plays to the Hollywood interpretation.

What concerns me is that there will undoubtably be viewers coming away from it convinced that he has just demolished all & any display of what could be interpreted as, dare I say it, paranormal. :rolleyes:

Similarly with Heist, we're led to believe a bunch of jumbled up association 'triggers' and some mr.motivator music leads them to accost a rather fake looking security guard. We're shown a series of amusing but slightly fudged together preparatory sessions which involve stealing from a sweetshop along with re-enacting a psych study from the 60s. It all seems a bit random!

I've no doubt there are genuine psychological techniques being used to effect, however the issue is probably that he goes too far in stating their importance in the act, but then again that's his angle - if he was just doing a Paul Daniels I doubt he'd get as many viewers...

Zombrex

pH wrote:

Anyway Simon Singh went as far as you can go in a national newspaper, have a read.

Very interesting read.

I honestly had no idea he was messing with the audiences head, and I assumed that Channel 4 wouldn't present the show in that fashion if it was based on a completely false basis.

But maybe that just makes me even more gullible

As mentioned in the article I certainly feel far more "cheated" over something like this than I ever would over a magic trick. I know Paul Daniels didn't just teleport from one room to another, I don't consider it a lie if he says he is going to do that, its part of the show.

But Brown puts forward a very plausable explination for how is "magic" is supposed to work, and if it is all a trick I would consider that lying to the audience.

The bastard!! ...

J2DaC

This is an interesting topic actually. I used to love Derren Brown show, I thought the Seance was great.

Zillah

TheArticlesFAQ wrote:

One recent positive note is that Derren's website has been removed from the C4 science section and put in the entertainment section. I still think that parts of the site are misleading, but at least it no longer has the banner of science to endorse it

Interesting. And telling, I suspect.

patzer117

did anyone see his show on making people rob the bank on wednsday night? t'was quite the interesting show. a little offputting though.

what a great article by Simon Singh. Has anyone read his 'Fermat's Last Thoerem'? it's well worth the look

robindch

> But Brown puts forward a very plausable
> explination for how is "magic" is supposed
> to work, and if it is all a trick I would consider
> that lying to the audience.

It's debatable whether or not it's 'lying', as it's obviously entertainment, not documentary! I suppose if people come away with the knowledge that they can be fooled quite easily, then that's good. I think it's probably doubly good that some (most?) will realise that the superficially plausible explanations given are nonsense too and that they should therefore be careful when any snake-oil salesman turns up, explaining how easily as skilled a man as he can control them.

I don't know if anybody was at Ian Rowland's gig with the Irish Skeptics in the Mont Clare in February last year, but Rowland was misdirecting the audience in the same way as Brown does (and grumbling about having his act stolen by Brown too). The first few of Rowland's tricks + semi-explanations were good, but his material became significantly crappier as the evening wore on and I spent the second half of the gig working out how he did the tricks in the first half. They're not difficult.

pH

It's debatable whether or not it's 'lying', as it's obviously entertainment, not documentary!

I agree(kind of) when it's a magic show but let's take a well known example from Messiah, which IS a skeptical documentary of some form.

Derren is debunking 'remote viewing' by recreating a drawing being done in another room. How he actually does this let's leave aside for the moment, but let's agree he's not claiming to be using remote viewing or any other psychic means.

All well and good you may say, but not so fast, Derren is clearly heard to say something like 'Let thoughts sail through your mind ... don't go overboard'. This is said before the subject has drawn the picture. Lo and behold she'd drawn a boat (which Derren had also recreated), pushing viewers into an 'explanation' of the trick -

That is that while Derren is not using psychic powers, he clearly achieved the effect by suggestion, or some NLP technique by which he influenced the subject to draw what he wanted them to draw.

http://forum.hypnosis.com/archive/index.php/t-1080.html
See the post by solaris152000, but a quick google will turn up many more.

If this was true it was would be remarkable, but once you look at the footage with a skeptical eye, it's clear that what you're seeing (and hearing) in a studio overdub done after the filming.

Now I've 2 problems with this depending on whether it's a 'documentary' or a 'magic show':

In a documentary it's just plain wrong, it just doesn't belong in a skeptical examination of psychic phenomena.

In a magic show, it's lazy and reprehensible. Unless the camera (and mic) is a fair representation of what an actual observer would have seen (and heard) then it's just special effects, anyone could be the world's greatest magician, no skills beyond those of a TV director are required.

rubadub

He had a program where he gave in a loosing ticket to a bookies and got money as though he had won. Was that a setup?

I hate all these overly serious "magicians" like david blaine and that irish bloke, all this staring crap and lord help us if they crack a smile.

pH

He had a program where he gave in a loosing ticket to a bookies and got money as though he had won. Was that a setup?

If you're asking can Derren Brown really get a clerk in a bookies to pay out on a losing ticket using some kind of psychological "push" then the answer is a definite NO!

That said it wasn't necessarily a setup in that the clerk was an actor or a stooge - merely a "magic trick"

Voodu Child

Derren Brown is a magician. Magicians doing this kind of mental magic have been presenting their acts as 'physic', 'paranormal' , 'physcological' etc. for hundreds of years. Its just entertainment.

Anyone whos stupid enough to write an article exposing him as a 'fraud' should be taken around the back and shot. Its like kicking up a stink becuase you dont believe David Copperfield made an elephant dissapear or whatever. Its just a bit of craic, if you dont like it, dont watch it

Peanut

voodoo_child wrote:

Derren Brown is a magician. Magicians doing this kind of mental magic have been presenting their acts as 'physic', 'paranormal' , 'physcological' etc. for hundreds of years. Its just entertainment.

In fairness I think there was a reasonable question as to whether this was made clear enough. Of course there's going to be showmanship and bravado, but in this case there seems to be a bit of subterfuge as well (a magician using subterfuge and trickery? no really! oh well..)

btw I realise this is the skeptics forum but I think it's a bit of an over generalisation to write-off hypnosis completely. It's trivially acceptable that there exist altered states of conciousness - it's not a huge step from there to imagine that under certain circumstances they may be manipulated in a way by external agents. The wikipedia entry is fairly extensive.

pH

voodoo_child wrote:

Anyone whos stupid enough to write an article exposing him as a 'fraud' should be taken around the back and shot.

Wicknight has already said that he took at least some of Derren's explanations at face value, and I've spoken to a lot of other people who do/did also. A quick trawl using Google will find many more, and ONE small opinion piece in one newspaper in the period that DB has been peforming is a proportional reaction in my opinion. Then again I'm a big fan of Simon's books so maybe I would say that

Peanut wrote:

btw I realise this is the skeptics forum but I think it's a bit of an over generalisation to write-off hypnosis completely. It's trivially acceptable that there exist altered states of conciousness

The wikipedia page you quoted starts off with :

Hypnosis is popularly understood to be a psychological condition...

and shortly after ..

Intense debate surrounds the topic of hypnosis. Many scientists dispute its very existence ...

Rather than derail this thread if you'd like to start a new one here on Hypnosis (but please have a go stating what you think hypnosis is) then I'd be more than happy to give you the skeptical view and we could see what evidence there is that these altered states of conciousness exist!

Peanut

Yep sure, it's a good subject.

Voodu Child

Well, tbh, i think it would be a bit daft if there was a disclaimer at the start if the show stating that it was all trickery, and then for Derren to come on in his 'physcological' persona. Then he WOULD look like a twat.

When a magician waves a metal hoop over a floating lady, he is in effect telling you that the trick is not done using wires. In a lot of cases, however, it is. Im not familiar with Simon Singhs work, but the whole concept of the article just seems a bit daft to me. Its not like Derren Brown is selling anything (other than entertainment), so i dont see how anyone can feel cheated. Obviously, if he started selling mystical crystals or something on the back of his magic (like a certain person, who IS a charlatan) it would be a different matter.

Zombrex

voodoo_child wrote:

Its not like Derren Brown is selling anything (other than entertainment), so i dont see how anyone can feel cheated.

Derren Brown is "selling" the idea that science and our current understanding of psychology can produce these effects. This, as I now know, is a false statement, and in my view much more of a cheat and lie than a magician claiming to teleport someone from one room to another.

His show is not presented as a "magic" show, it is presented as a study of the effects of psychology, or at least it was until recently (as is mentioned in the article FAQ).

It is presented as a skeptics explination of how seemingly paranormal supernatural magic is actually performed using normal science. Hell it was put forward by Channel 4 as a "science" program. Maybe they believed Brown as well.

I would feel just as cheated watching a Derren Brown show as I would watching some of those fake wild life documentaries from the 1960s such as the (in)famous Disney White Wilderness film that claimed to film Lemmings naturally diving off a cliff, when in fact the producers chased the Lemmings of the cliff for the program. That documentary alone, which was hugely popular, is credited with keeping the myth alive as fact to this day.

Voodu Child

Well, a lot of people feel cheated when they learn the secret of magic tricks that they have seen, for the simple fact that the methods used are so simple. Which is the reason that it is frowned upon in the magic community to reveal secrets - when you see an effect that you cant understand you feel a childlike sense of bewilderment; when you see how it is done, you feel like an idiot for not copping it.

TBH though, anyone who is thoughtful enough to be offended by a piece of entertainment like this (lets face it, Joe Average couldnt care less), should really have enough nous to spot it for the stage act that it is. Anyone who feels cheated is more likely pissed off at themselves for being suckered in by such simple misdirection.

I should point out, having a fairly knowledgeable understanding of these kind of effects, that there is SOME psychology involved, albeit on a very basic level. In any case, as a piece of entertainment, even if it evokes some strong opinions, it surely has more value than the usual brainless popstars/big brother type trash that typifies modern television.

Zombrex

voodoo_child wrote:

Anyone who feels cheated is more likely pissed off at themselves for being suckered in by such simple misdirection

Does that go for the Disney Winter Wonderland program as well? I mean if you know Lemmings don't do this you know the show was a fake. If you didn't why would you not believe it?

davros

I've been a huge fan of magic all my life. But it does get stale to see the same tricks presented in the same style over and over.

I found Derren Brown's patter and presentation very fresh when I saw him first. He has figured out a good story to make his work seem a coherent whole and I appreciate that. He employs a different sort of misdirection to having a beautiful assistant but I think that's allowed.

There has been quite a renaissance in magic the last few years with more emphasis on real locations, real people and an absence of flashy effects. I love it and I'm grateful to Mr Brown for pushing the art in a new direction. I can't understand Simon Singh's objections at all. Has he no better target than a plain entertainer?

I really enjoyed The Heist, by the way. Slow set up, but well worth it for the last ten minutes. Very like his Russian Roulette in that regard. I have no interest in thinking too deeply about how it might have been done. It's just good TV.

pH

davros wrote:

I can't understand Simon Singh's objections at all. Has he no better target than a plain entertainer?

Indeed, then what is your message to those (and there are many like the OP) that watched Derren's shows and believed the explanation?

Tough Luck if he tricked/misled (however unintentionally) you into believing this nonsense but don't expect anyone to set you straight?

Simon's article was written based on the the fact that many people were/are watching Derren's show and coming away with false impressions of what is psychologically possible.

Are you saying that Simon has no right to address these people and give them a gentle push to a more rational understanding of what they're watching?

Zillah

davros wrote:

I love it and I'm grateful to Mr Brown for pushing the art in a new direction.

But don't you see that the majority of people don't realise it has anything do with this "art"? Most people leave thinking, "Wow, psychology does SO much more than I thought it could..."

davros

I'm sympathetic to the point that people are taking away an erroneous impression of the powers of psychology. I'm just not willing to put Brown in the same category as Uri Geller. He isn't promoting the paranormal or teaching people how to develop their psychic powers. If he encourages people to take up an interest in psychology, well that won't hurt too much.

There are clues that what he does is old-fashioned magic tricks. We have seen his skill as a card manipulator and we are seeing other magicians replicate his effects. More significantly, perhaps, we are not seeing any evidence of Derren-like powers in real life. Nobody has every stared into my eyes and pinched my computer password, for example.

There is no shame in being fooled by a good magician. That's what we ask them to do. It can't be easy to stay one step ahead of modern, cynical audiences. I'm enjoying Derren Brown's work and I'll happily admit he is fooling me. I've no idea how he inspired a few people to hold up a security van. Perhaps it really was psychological conditioning. I don't want to know, it would spoil the entertainment.

Zombrex

davros wrote:

I'm just not willing to put Brown in the same category as Uri Geller.

I would say he is worse than Uri Geller. Uri Geller spouts nonsense that his "mind" can some how bend metal. He doesn't say that science supports him, he says what he does is "outside of science"

Brown does the exact opposite, he says everything he does is not paranormal at all, it is all supported by science. Brown says that the current state of psychological science allows him to do what he does. If you don't know what the current state of psychological science is you would have no reason to believe that he is incorrect, especially when Channel 4 puts forward his show as a science program. I mean do you dismiss everything you see in Horizon as "entertainment"?

It would be like if Uri Geller saying from the start that everything he did wasn't paranormal at all but was simple biology and chemistry and that the leading advances in biology allowed him to do what he does.

Anyway, this is going around and around. I think at least we can agree a lot of people believe what they are watching with Brown are examples of psychological science, not magic.

davros

Wicknight wrote:

Anyway, this is going around and around. I think at least we can agree a lot of people believe what they are watching with Brown are examples of psychological science, not magic.

Definitely. And I can see the merits of your other arguments too. I might even be won around to them eventually. I just enjoy his shows too much at the moment, and that includes his psychology shtick.

davros

davros wrote:

I can't understand Simon Singh's objections at all. Has he no better target than a plain entertainer?

(Sorry, quoting myself )I suddenly recalled he has a bit of a history in this regard, having had a go at Katie Melua too.

Zombrex

davros wrote:

(Sorry, quoting myself )I suddenly recalled he has a bit of a history in this regard, having had a go at Katie Melua too.

I agree that was a bit silly ..

ISAW

Wicknight wrote:

I would say he is worse than Uri Geller. Uri Geller spouts nonsense that his "mind" can some how bend metal. He doesn't say that science supports him, he says what he does is "outside of science"

"Worse" in what way?

Brown does the exact opposite, he says everything he does is not paranormal at all, it is all supported by science. Brown says that the current state of psychological science allows him to do what he does. If you don't know what the current state of psychological science is you would have no reason to believe that he is incorrect, ...

But he IS correct. Science can explain what he does. It is possible he is using psychic powers but he says he isnt and under a fair test I think he would not show any such powers. IT is fair to assume that nothing paranormal is going on and so the laws of physics DO allow him to do his tricks which he freely admits are tricks.

Now I do accept that he may give the impression that all is psychology but this is not a huge criticism since he does sometimes admit or show non psychological tricks.

But as regards psychology and "reading" visual cues I wil offer two tricks. Heasked a man to put a pound coin in his hand and he guessed the hand each time. He said things like "your eyes moved so i think it is right" or " ah sholder twitch lewft hand" Wnhen I saw it i thought "WOW if he is reading this he is using some incredible psychology" then when I thought about it I realised there is a much easier way to determine which hand which would not involve having to learn every cue a person gives. It does not involve cheating i.e. having a third person tell you. It involves looking at the person.
If yu want to know and you can keep a secret then all I can tell you ..... so can I. But in any case I would not feel he was cheating science by doing this
simple trick.

Here is one that he did claim to use psychology. He giot some advertising execs and put them in a building and told them he qwanted a campaign for a number of taxidermy shops for people who wnnted to leep pets after death. He left them for about 45 mins and when he returned they had a poster of a bear with wings on a cloud playing a harp with Heavenly gates in the background and the slogan something like "creature heaven where all good animals go"

He got them to open an envelope on the table which had a winged bear playing a harp on a cloud outside the gates of heaven and the words very similar something like "pet heaven where good pets go"

Now for the psychology. the building was a high ries with a clear view of the sky all around (in the clouds so to speak) He had supplied a full size stuffed bera to illustrate what he meant for taxidermy.

He then showed how they arrived there in a taxi from their office. Nest door as they walked out he had placed a huge harp in a windoe. all along the route he had put stickers in windows with the harp and "pet heaven" slogan. The taxi stopped at london zoo to let children cross the road. They all had "pet heaven " tee shirts on. SO he was claiming thet he subliminally "planted" the advertisement in their head.

Was he using posychology or can you show how he did it by another way?

It would be like if Uri Geller saying from the start that everything he did wasn't paranormal at all but was simple biology and chemistry and that the leading advances in biology allowed him to do what he does.

I dont quite agree. Uri is claiming powers that havent been shown to exist. Brown admits he is tricking you.

Anyway, this is going around and around. I think at least we can agree a lot of people believe what they are watching with Brown are examples of psychological science, not magic.

Which is true as far as I can tell. they are NOT magic! They involve psychology. As do many magician tricks and mentalist tricks. Brown does not claim to be a scientist doing a science experiment and finding new knowlegdge. He is there to entertain. Claiming it can ann ne scientifically rationally or logically explained is not insulting to science reason or logic!

voxpop

I generally like Darren Brown's shows but I always took the explanations at face value, I would be annoyed if all his explanations were BS and everything he does is some sort of magic trick - its like Dan Brown stating that the Da Vinci Code is based in fact, when its clearly not.

I do wonder how he calls randomers on a pay phone and then makes them go to sleep or that 1 inch punch thingy he did were he could knock over jodo guys without touching them ? - his explanations for the sleep thing was that if you baffle the brain and then tell it a command it can understand, it will follow that command automatically i.e. sleep ( i always found this explanation hard to swallow)

pH

Finally saw The Heist, and I'm so glad he used the intro of the heist to set the record straight on hypnosis:

"Hypnosis is isn't really what it appears to be, it's only a kind of play acting"

Finally a definition of hypnosis that I agree with Derren on!

ISAW wrote:

Here is one that he did claim to use psychology. He giot some advertising execs...
Was he using posychology or can you show how he did it by another way?

He did it by another way, they were not influenced in anyway as to what they drew. Magicians have been 'viewing' drawings in envelopes for centuries!

okden

Wicknight wrote:

Derren Brown is "selling" the idea that science and our current understanding of psychology can produce these effects. This, as I now know, is a false statement

derren is earning a crust first and foremost lets not forget that. he is selling his services to ch4 not an idea about science. his services produce a show which include many ideas including his current understanding of psycology not ours, and many other ideas from hypnosis to simple parlor tricks.

this is my perception, but yours is different, yet we both watched the exact same pixels on our screens. this understanding of diffrences of perception for the same events is the root of where most of derrens talents lie. he has fused these talents with his skills as a magician, one of which is the use of missdirection, so your concentration drifts to where you beleive the solution of the trick is only to find the answer will apear elsewhere.

he has explained how a uri geller type performs a trick, so you viewed him like a scientist. you should view him as living somewhere inbetween the 2 (....as you should view most people).

derren is a skeptic at heart, if he has a philosophy it is to incourage healthy skepticism by showing you how easily you can be misslead, but not so much skepticism that you debunk everything, thus becoming as blinkered as the non skeptic who knew nothing. (pH you should do some research on hypnosis instead of waiting for a one line answer from an entertainment show)

this interview explains derrens philosophy better than i can The Modern Mentalist
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