Derren Brown

Church o Choccy said:
I'm a big fan of his TV stuff and I've just finished his book "tricks of the mind". Well worth a read as an introduction to some of the techniques he uses and he also manages to come across as an articulate, intelligent and likeable author. Anyone else here a fan?
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Yes, not read his book yet, though I will at some point in the future.
 
RedNome said:
Yes, not read his book yet, though I will at some point in the future.
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I'd definitely recommend it, it includes all kinds of things from basic card tricks to showmanship, NLP and suggestability as well as a thoroughly enjoyable final chapter attacking (perhaps attacking is too strong a word, demystifying perhaps) all kinds of irrational belief systems from organised religions to new age healing techniques.
 
Spammy said:
I'm a fan, been to see his show in the West End.
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seen it too (in dublin) about 3 years ago and was class. must check out his book, love all his tv stuff

playing dublin again in a few months, think i'll go again
 
Church o Choccy said:
I've just got the first series of his mind control series which was excellent.
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did you see any of his specials choccy?

the one where went to the states and pretended to be loads of things and fooled all so called experys was class as was the one where he fakes a seance.(sp?)

the seance one was fecking class actually, my misses was terrified
 
RedNome said:
He's not a magician.
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That's his best trick: making the audience think it's all about his mastery of human psychology. I don't doubt that he has a good sense human body language, or even that he may use certain cues in his act, but at the end of the day all he is is a magician with a gimmick. I'll give him this though: it was a stroke of genius to come up with the idea in the first place.

Magicians are only successful if they capture the public imagination. In the 18 and 1900's it was easy because people were gullible. Then the paranormalists had there time in the spotlight, while of late illusionists have sold themselves on performing what seems like the logically impossible. Each generation of magician has known that what made their audiences tick was appealing to just beyond what the average person could explain.

Brown deserves a lot of credit for his act. He knows that audiences are jaded with the old school of magic so he's come up with the genius idea to appeal to the current public fascination with/misunderstanding of science and psychology. He may be entertaining, but that doesn't change the fact it's just a magic act.
 
All of his tricks could be done by a magician. The fact he tells you that he's reading your mind by way of subconscious ticks and cues is his form of misdirection. Just like any other good magician would do.
 
Shotgun raisin said:
That's his best trick: making the audience think it's all about his mastery of human psychology. I don't doubt that he has a good sense human body language, or even that he may use certain cues in his act, but at the end of the day all he is is a magician with a gimmick. I'll give him this though: it was a stroke of genius to come up with the idea in the first place.

Magicians are only successful if they capture the public imagination. In the 18 and 1900's it was easy because people were gullible. Then the paranormalists had there time in the spotlight, while of late illusionists have sold themselves on performing what seems like the logically impossible. Each generation of magician has known that what made their audiences tick was appealing to just beyond what the average person could explain.

Brown deserves a lot of credit for his act. He knows that audiences are jaded with the old school of magic so he's come up with the genius idea to appeal to the current public fascination with/misunderstanding of science and psychology. He may be entertaining, but that doesn't change the fact it's just a magic act.
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Do you even know what a magicain is?

I doubt that you have evn seen a magician in your lifetime.

One of the most miss-used words in our language.
 
Derren Brown is very very good at what he does, I saw him last year in Oxford. Most of his illusions rely more on conventional 'magic' than on mastering psychology though, somewhat like 'Shotgun raisin' is suggesting. However, there is more to his act than 'just' conventional magic, but he plays up the psychological aspect over and above what it actually is.

Fantastic entertainment though, hopefully I'll go and see him live again this year.
 
It's not fecking magic.

Is this so hard to understand?
 
RedNome said:
It's not fecking magic.

Is this so hard to understand?
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I don't really understand what you mean? What do you mean by 'magic'?

Wikipedia article for Derren Brown: "Derren Victor Brown (born 27 February 1971) is a British magician, psychological illusionist, mentalist, and skeptic of paranormal phenomena."

Derren's own blurb: "Derren Brown's combination of psychological illusion, perceptual manipulation and persuasive technique has pioneered a new form of magical entertainment..."
 
A magician is someone that practices magic.

Defined as the art of influencing events by the occult* control of nature or spirits.

*'Occult' meaning hidden.

Derran Brown is not this.


Illusionist - producer of illusions, conjuror.

A conjuror is a skilled performer of conjoring tricks

He's partly this amongst a lot of other things including being skilled in mind control. slight of hand, hypnotism and persuation.

I hope this clears thing up a bit.
 
Alistair Crowley (AKA The Beast)

Now this guy was a Magician (Qualified Magi) or possibly a complete liar, that's up to how you interpret him.

Scary fecker though.
 
I really think your getting frustrated over semantics RedNome. Yes 'magic' can refer to some sort of supernatural power, but like many words it has alternate meanings, especially in common usage.

To quote a definition in one of the free online dictionaries:

Magic: "The exercise of sleight of hand or conjuring for entertainment."

The term can be used to refer to either thing, and so saying Derren is a magician is perfectly compatible with the above definition.

Anyways, he's great.
 
MikeUpNorth said:
I really think your getting frustrated over semantics RedNome. Yes 'magic' can refer to some sort of supernatural power, but like many words it has alternate meanings, especially in common usage.

To quote a definition in one of the free online dictionaries:

Magic: "The exercise of sleight of hand or conjuring for entertainment."

The term can be used to refer to either thing, and so saying Derren is a magician is perfectly compatible with the above definition.

Anyways, he's great.
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The term has been highjacked over the years.

There is already a word for the highlighted statement, and that is conjorur or even illusionist, the term magician is something completely different, just because everyone makes this mistake doesn't make it right.
 
MikeUpNorth said:
Language evolves, that is perfectly natural and a good thing.

Think of the recent evolution of the potential meanings of the words gay, net and mouse for example.

http://www.langmaker.com/ml0104.htm
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Yes but those alternate meanings are completely different from their original meanings. Magic and Magician have become bastardised to mean something slightly different within the same field, making it highly confusing for most people to understand the true meaning of the word, and to distinguish the differences within this confusing field of expertise and skill.
 
There are many examples of words changing to mean slightly different but similar things. From that link I posted:

'Pastor' used to mean "Shepherd"
'Queen' used to mean "Woman"
'Vulgar' used to mean "Popular"
'Notorious' used to mean "Famous"

This kind of linguistic evolution is natural, and very interesting. I don't think we necessarily have to get on our high horse and try to protect the 'original' or 'true' meanings of words.
 
Ok, but my point stands that he isn't, and has never been, a magician and no amount of argueing about language will change the fact.

He'd tell you that himself if you asked him.
 
Oh, and I'm not on any high horse, just correcting peoples understandable mistake of the use of the word magic.
 
Anyone who hasn't read his book really should. It's really interesting almost to the point of being educational, well layed out and at times laugh out loud funny.
 
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