The Derren Brown Lecture

Unusual Beliefs
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The Derren Brown Lecture is a lecture by the mentalist Derren Brown for other magicians where he shows how he does things. You can Google it and find descriptions of it.

What especially caught my attention while watching it however was the part where he got a volunteer from the audience, hypnotized her and did this: ask a question, write the unsaid answer on a chalkboard, ask her to answer out loud and thereby reveal that the answers match. He asked her quite a few questions. I even got one answer right before he revealed it which really surprised me.

I think if this was real it would explain what many schizophrenics go through: people saying things that have special relevance to them. Some think there is a conspiracy against them, others think that people can read their minds. And it could be as simple as what is presented in the video. It’s an instructional video and it possibly explains what many schizophrenics experience in a more rational way than conspiracies or telepathy.

So what do you think? If you want to see it, it can be bought online, I don’t know if linking to illegal sources wouldn’t be against the rules so I won’t link but they can be found.

1 Like
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Derren Brown uses stooges for these kind of tricks, like any other illusionist. The difference is that Derren Brown kind of double tricks you: first he does the illusion and then ‘shows you how it is done’ but the latter part is an illusion itself too. It’s good entertainment though.

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I don’t know about stooges but I know his performances for layperson audiences are full of tricks and explanations are untrue, but as I said this is a lecture for other magicians. And everything (else) in the video makes sense. And even if he used a stooge that doesn’t explain how I got that one answer right.

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As the volunteer was sitting there thinking about the answer, I said the answer out loud, that’s how well I got it.

I explain it by unconscious reading of micromovements of the mouth and I think that’s a quite plausible explanation.

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Never heard of him - cool!

Youtube has lots of videos of him…