
How Derren Brown Remade Mind Reading for Skeptics - hhs
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/07/how-derren-brown-remade-mind-reading-for-skeptics
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Osmium
Brown's standard patter starts with him saying he performs a mix of "magic,
suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship." He is very good at what
he does. I suspect most of his tricks are of the more traditional magic
variety (misdirection and showmanship) but dressed up _as if_ they're
psychology and mentalism, but that's ok.

More than this, he seems to be a good person, and has a deep disdain for
people who use similar techniques in fraudulent ways to take advantage of
vulnerable people rather than to entertain, and has worked to educate people.

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wpietri
I came across his work years ago and adore it. He's really carved out a niche
for himself. I also recommend his book "Tricks of the Mind" as a gift for
young nerds: [https://www.amazon.com/Tricks-Mind-Paperback-DERREN-
BROWN/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Tricks-Mind-Paperback-DERREN-
BROWN/dp/1905026358)

It's a nice combination of charm, trickery, and skepticism. Bits about his
life, teaching techniques he uses in his mentalism, and interesting items from
his work. For example, he goes into this trick in detail:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haP7Ys9ocTk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haP7Ys9ocTk)

For those who don't watch it, he pretends to be an astrologer and gives a
group of people a reading. They are shocked at how accurate it is. He then has
them randomly trade readings and try to guess who the reading applies to. It
turns out that he gave them all the same reading, making use of the Forer
effect:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_effect)

In the book, he explains how he constructed it and gives the text of the
reading. It was a pleasure to read through and see how artfully it was done.

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throwaway740077
A very elegant stunt he did was play simultaneously against 9 chess players,
some of them at master level, and end up with a positive finish. The trick was
that he paired eight players into four groups of two and simply reproduced the
moves one made on the other member of the group. The eight masters were
essentially playing against each other, with a neutral finish. The ninth
player was the weakest one and Brown simply beat him normally.

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1123581321
I admire the level to which he’s mastered his craft, on stage or in one of his
specials.

I’m also quite frustrated with people who watch him and believe he’s shown us
something about ourselves, especially those who believe he demonstrated that
75% of people would commit murder if in a real situation like the elaborate
sequence in The Push. But it’s difficult to explain the difference between
participating in a hypnotic/suggestive guided scenario (unwittingly or not)
and real life with its hard edges and unsuspended moral convictions.

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SmirkingRevenge
> those who believe he demonstrated that 75% of people would commit murder if
> in a real situation like the elaborate sequence in The Push.

There's also the fact that there was a screening process. They didn't pick
people at random, they filtered for people with high suggestibility.

It was pretty amusing to watch that conformity test where they put an
applicant in a room with actors pretending to be applicants, where actors
would all stand up/sit down at regular intervals, with no explanation.

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1123581321
Yes, that one was, and I think I would probably have conformed too! I
participated in an exercise once designed, through rhyme, to get an entire
room to say the wrong answer to a basic math problem. I knew I was saying the
wrong thing as it was happening, but I couldn’t stop myself. It’s just that
there is a difference between that and finding oneself taking a bullet,
committing murder, etc.

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mogadsheu
I talked to a career magician (lives in Vegas, travels across country often
for shows) last week about Derren Brown.

Take it for what you will: he said the guy is mostly showmanship and light on
psychological tricks. Looking back at the videos of his that I watched a
decade ago (and the guys who took him seriously), I believe it’s largely a
show. But I could be wrong!

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bobosha
I love Derren's shows, he's honest about his methodology and eminently
entertaining. This show exposes some of the scams run by "faith healers"[1].

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuP5uOI7Xwc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuP5uOI7Xwc)

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empath75
He’s not at all honest about his methodology. Particularly all of his talk
about suggestion and NLP is just patter. He’s done standard mentalism tricks
using 100 year old methods. He barely even does cold reading.

