Excellent documentary about religious and spiritual belief -- Derren Brown

Dave!

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-1175300547407479800

Just found this on the internet, very interesting. He's an atheist, and he manages to convert about 10 other atheists into theists Then he changes them back

Worth a look! About 50 mins

tuxy

Is that copyrighted material?

pinksoir

Excellent. Especially like the auld bit o wisdom from the taxi driver at the end!

I'd love to know how derren Brown does what he does though. It's fascinating.

radiospan

Like he said, the 'talking to the dead' is just cold reading. Fishing about for answers. Article about it here: http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mcoldreading.html

pinksoir

Yeah, the cold reading i can somewhat understand. But all the rest is even more amazing.

matrim

He has explained some of what he does in one of his programs on Channel 4.

For alot of the stuff (like the guessing pictures) he plants suggestions when he is talking to you, this will make you think of that thing and you will then draw it.

pH

matrim wrote:

He has explained some of what he does in one of his programs on Channel 4.

For alot of the stuff (like the guessing pictures) he plants suggestions when he is talking to you, this will make you think of that thing and you will then draw it.

Yea and I heard that the webster online dictionary forgot to include the word gullible in it.

Derren does standard magic tricks with standard explanations - he dresses them up with psychological explanations but I assure you they aren't done by suggesting anything or reading any body language.

As for the 'cold reading' in Messiah - it doesn't look like cold reading to me.

Tim Robbins

pH wrote:

Yea and I heard that the webster online dictionary forgot to include the word gullible in it.

Derren does standard magic tricks with standard explanations - he dresses them up with psychological explanations but I assure you they aren't done by suggesting anything or reading any body language.

As for the 'cold reading' in Messiah - it doesn't look like cold reading to me.

I think it would be quite easy to hire some actors and make such a documentary. Sorry I would be very skeptical of all that program.

5uspect

As pH rightly says Derren Brown works with standard tricks. He cleverly dresses it up, and why wouldn't he? He's very good at it!

All of the people here seem to get some sort of evidence to back up their faith in the form of the tricks played on them. I don't think it addresses faith where people believe without such extreme "signs".

Goodshape

5uspect wrote:

As pH rightly says Derren Brown works with standard tricks. He cleverly dresses it up, and why wouldn't he? He's very good at it!

I'm not saying you're not right, but have you got any evidence (even anecdotal) that he uses nothing more than 'standard tricks'?

All of the people here seem to get some sort of evidence to back up their faith in the form of the tricks played on them. I don't think it addresses faith where people believe without such extreme "signs".

But none of them ask the obvious question - "are you for real?". They believe because they want to.

pH

Tim Robbins wrote:

I think it would be quite easy to hire some actors and make such a documentary. Sorry I would be very skeptical of all that program.

I think you misunderstand - Derren doesn't use stooges/actors to achieve his effects, just well thought out routines, which he then gives a false psychological explanation to cover how the trick was achieved.

All the effects shown by Derren have pretty much been done by mentalists for years - if he is to be accused of any dishonesty it's that a lot of the psychological explanation is 'added' in the editing suite - but the base effect/trick is pulled off without resorting to camera trickery/stooges/actors.

http://www.simonsingh.net/Derren_Brown_Article.html

Zillah

What pH said. Its very disappointing when people swallow this "subtle suggestion" nonesense.

Goodshape

Zillah wrote:

What pH said. Its very disappointing when people swallow this "subtle suggestion" nonesense.

How would you explain what he does?

Zillah

Goodshape wrote:

How would you explain what he does?

How would you explain the vast majority of what magicians do? There are some famous tricks that other magicians haven't worked out yet, let alone the average shmo like me. These guys are very very good at disguising events. Taking Derren Browne's claims at face value would be naive in the extreme.

Here's an exerpt from the article pH linked to, which I take it you didn't read...

He meets three men and picks one, because "through watching the three of you I think that your signals are the easiest to read." Next, Derren shows him ten cards, just enough for two poker hands. He shuffles the card, then deals the top card to himself and the second card to his opponent. He then holds up the remaining cards, two at a time, asking his opponent to choose one, keeping the remaining card for himself. After four such decisions both Derren and his opponent reveal their hands. Time after time, Derren's hand beats his opponent.



It seems that Derren subtly controls his opponent's choice of cards. As with many of his demonstrations, he provides hints about his methods. Derren says to the man, "Are you aware of your own signals when you play a game of poker? You're telling me with your nose which one you're going to go for. This time I am going to rearrange the cards into an order that I can sort of influence you with."



I watched this demonstration again and again and became increasingly suspicious. The truth is that it is nothing to do with psychology or body language. Instead it is a magic trick. Derren selected his ten cards very carefully - three aces, three kings, three sevens and a queen. This combination ensures that whoever has the queen will always lose the game. Imagine you have the queen - the best hand you can possibly have is three of a kind (three aces, a king and the queen). Not bad, but you will still lose because Derren will have three of a kind and a pair (3 sevens and 2 kings). At the start of the game Derren merely has to deal the queen to his opponent, and then he will win no matter what cards his opponent chooses.

A perfect example of dressing a card trick up as psychological manipulation.

Fallen Seraph

He has one trick, which he uses over and over again in inventive circumstances, where he appears to place a well defined abstract idea in someone's mind (or in the mind of a group of people), which they then choose of their own volition. That article claims that this is a magic trick, but I can't comphrehend how conventional magic would do this.

Do any of our Derren sceptics have a clue how conventional magic might produce such an effect? (I know it's unreasonable to demand the entire method; I just mean a gist, a hypothesis)

aphex™

Zillah wrote:

What pH said. Its very disappointing when people swallow this "subtle suggestion" nonesense.

It's based around the work of this guy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_H._Erickson

I've looked around some journals and the stuff seems to be accepted on certain levels within the Psychology academic community.

There are commentaries of his work on youtube where people show how it is done.

5uspect

Well his chess game against all those chess Masters was a particulaly practical trick where he just played them against each other and he only played the average guy and won through either luck or superior chess ability.

I'm not sure how he does his abstract image implantation trick. His recent show on Channel 4 was quite good as he seems to have randomised the selection of his subject from the audience. His explanation at the end was strange to say the least as he showed a video where apparently during the show he said random words in normal sentences to make suggestions to the audience.

Tim Robbins

pH wrote:

I think you misunderstand - Derren doesn't use stooges/actors to achieve his effects, just well thought out routines, which he then gives a false psychological explanation to cover how the trick was achieved.

All the effects shown by Derren have pretty much been done by mentalists for years - if he is to be accused of any dishonesty it's that a lot of the psychological explanation is 'added' in the editing suite - but the base effect/trick is pulled off without resorting to camera trickery/stooges/actors.

http://www.simonsingh.net/Derren_Brown_Article.html

Ok, thanks for the link will look into it.
BTW Simon Singh is an excellant writer. I have read three of his books, Code book, Fermat's Last Theorm and The Big Bang and they are all excellant. You can get the Big Bang downstairs in the bargain basement of Hogggis Figgus right now if you haven't got a copy.

Dades

Zillah wrote:

Its very disappointing when people swallow this "subtle suggestion" nonesense.

Why do you find it very disappointing that people accept what seems like a possible explanation for a magic trick? It's not as if they're believing he using actual magic.

Tar.Aldarion

A lot of his tricks seem standard magic tricks, however a lot don't.
Like when he got those people to do a logo for him, or to try and rob something or to raise their hands?
The chess thing was great.

Crucifix

Well, since he made a documentary about being careful about what people ask you to believe, I can only imagine the man would be satisfied to know we're all being so skeptical of his explanations.

stevejazzx

Ok

Part of his act is sadly fake. Sometimes he uses a plant out of camera
shot fof signals, (people on the street, guessing pictures etc)
some magicians use special paper which has a a vague outline that can be seen if the paper is raised. So they (the participant) tear out their picture and it examine it and it looks normal to them, then they hand it back to the magician and he rasies the paper a little to the light and viola he can can see the outline. This is a basic technique but i've seen david Blaine use it and our own Keith Barry.
Somones he uses hired help but rarely as the main participants. Sometimes he uses researched infomation onm specific people who have been invited to attend one of his events.
There s a lot of editing to make it look very convincing, particulary the alleged 'cold reading' part of this documentary. We didn't see Derren do anything suggestive we just saw the results, so that was either down
a) the way it was edited..and some exceptional and rather exasperating suggestive lead in that was all cut
b) (more likley, and sadly) researched information. This second option is more than likley true becasue specific people were invited to attend that partcular event.
When he guessed the ufo womans medical history I thought it was terrible becasue he gave her very old information obviously dug up from medical records, he tried to tie that into something more recent. There would be less recent information and of what there is of it, it would be harder to access than the major operation she recieved some years ago. He gave himself away by saying 'oh thats very old information'. How would he know the age of information given that his stated ability was just identifying illnesses in a person? That bit was the poorest part of the documentary.
I don't know how he did the picture guessing in the psychic part. He probably wouldn't of had access to the building prior to the event. He was sitting too closely to the people who of been wearing an earpiece. I'm pretty sure they weren't actors becasue he only has other people in on the trick if absolutely necessary. The set up was unusual becasue the woman was in another room altogether without any camera filming her (that was shown to us). It was not done by suggestion becasue there was three pictures with three accurate results in order, which only leaves (if we discount actors) Derren recieving the information by a third party.
And sadly alas the chrsitian conversion part looked staged. Some of the dialogue was off and the room was mixed with real participants, most of whom left after the first conversion and of the ones who left there also there woud have been some actors mixed in as objectors so that there was always balance and Derren is always in control of the different sections.
Section 1. Get them into the room and introdces himself
Section 2. Make the first conversion by barely touching the girl.
Section 3. Some of the hired actors begin to leave acting like they are not comfortable with the proceedings
Section 4. He goes one step further with guy at the top of the room? Why, when a simple touch worked perfectly with first girl? Becasue it's a show is the reason things needs a big act or finale to finsih.
The actors used perform for a number of artists in more or les the same business with strict contractual conditions. They're not given specific lines but guidelines. We didn't get to see the deconversion becasue that would have looked 'too much' like 'viola and now you're an atheist again and ruined the effect. If you believe that the Christian conversion is real then you've got to believe that Derren has magical powers as he forces that guy to fall back (not by the suggestive remarks of I'll cathch you, you won't hurt yourselfc ect thats all bullls***, it was arranged, he's told the guy to count to certain number after a certain word is said so they coreograph the fall together.
When asked to rasie their hands if they believe in god only one guy looks around to see whose put their hand up, another sign that the people were following a procedure. There shuld have been more natural reaction, curiousity.
It was a good documentry and I enjoyed the drivers commentary at the end which was probably penned by Derren but he was clever enough to get someone else to say it.

edit: dam you wireless keyboard..keeps cutting out..have to re edit posts a hundred times!

dalk

Haven't seen that program since it was aired, but wasn't the point this; that what a lot of people consider to be psychic or religious experiences/demonstrations, can be re-created as convincingly by a magician. And by a magician who does not claim to be psychic or a channel to god or whatever some of these people claim.

I just considered the program to be in the vein of Hoodini, James Randi or Penn & Teller's extra curricular activities of exposing the "magic" behind psychics, spiritualists, mind readers etc who claim to be the real deal and not magicians.

Tar.Aldarion

At the very best, derren brown might be a very watered down version of Kellhus from the Price of Nothing series.

Tim Robbins

stevejazzx wrote:

And sadly alas the chrsitian conversion part looked staged.

We should email Derran Brown and invite him to our social night and see if he convert any of us.

5uspect

dalk wrote:

I just considered the program to be in the vein of Hoodini, James Randi or Penn & Teller's extra curricular activities of exposing the "magic" behind psychics, spiritualists, mind readers etc who claim to be the real deal and not magicians.

Very true, Brown doesn't claim anything magical or supernatural about what he does. He should be applauded for that.

pinksoir

haha. Apparently he does private parties for a fee. I'd imagine he's pretty expensive though... So, anyone loaded? Or else we could send round a collection plate...

Rev Hellfire

Tim Robbins wrote:

We should email Derran Brown and invite him to our social night and see if he convert any of us.

Don't do that ! Half the people would get up and leave for fear of getting converted !

pH

The Atheist wrote:

Why do you find it very disappointing that people accept what seems like a possible explanation for a magic trick? It's not as if they're believing he using actual magic.

The 'skeptic community' seems split by Derren - he has been responsible for a lot of the current wave of NLP rubbish, and distorting in the public's minds what's possible using psychology - I think Singh's article expresses this disappointment in a clear way.

5uspect wrote:

Very true, Brown doesn't claim anything magical or supernatural about what he does. He should be applauded for that.

No but he does claim (or imply) with a straight face that you're not watching a conjuring trick - you're watching a demonstration of applied psychology, which many (the majority) take on face value.

As for techniques - Derren is extremely fond of 'Dual Reality', which basically means that the various participants and the audience all 'hear' or are given slightly different instructions or are under a different impressions of what's going on. One of the clearest and best examples of this is where a mentalist gets 2 genuine audience members on the stage and gets one to telepathically send an image to the other one. Pulling off dual reality on a stage with a live audience is quite a feat - however Derren doing in on camera with technical aids is not quite so impressive.

It also opens up the question of 'instant stooges' - ie those who are genuinely members of the public/audience but when prodded either in a theatre or on the street will 'go along' with the magician for all sorts of reasons - see also hypnosis

5uspect

pH wrote:

No but he does claim (or imply) with a straight face that you're not watching a conjuring trick - you're watching a demonstration of applied psychology, which many (the majority) take on face value.

Of course, but at least its a step in the right direction!

Fallen Seraph

stevejazzx, you seem to speak with some authority; is this simply speculation on your part, or have you read this somewhere? I ask out of curiousity?