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Derren Brown

Interesting indeed.

If Mr. Brown isn't associated with the JREF, I must say that IMHO he certainly should be. He would be ideal for setting up conditions and supervising preliminary tests.

Perhaps he could head a branch office in Europe? It would be great if the JREF had permament representation on this side of the Pond!
 
CWL said:
Interesting indeed.

If Mr. Brown isn't associated with the JREF, I must say that IMHO he certainly should be. He would be ideal for setting up conditions and supervising and preliminary tests.

Perhaps he could head a branch office in Europe? It would be great if the JREF had permament representation on this side of the Pond!
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I expressed similar sentiments on the other thread.
Though I think that DB has some more money to earn at his craft before he takes up the JREF baton - he's only in his early 30s.
 
Slightly off topic - I've been lurking around on Derren Brown's forum and bumped into an old friend. I think the guy needs help.
 
Dragon said:
I expressed similar sentiments on the other thread.
Though I think that DB has some more money to earn at his craft before he takes up the JREF baton - he's only in his early 30s.
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This is of course true, but it certainly isn't to early for him and Randi to do lunch.

I hope they do.
 
CWL said:
This is of course true, but it certainly isn't to early for him and Randi to do lunch.

I hope they do.
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Agreed. I'd love to be there!
 
Azrael 5 said:
..and the four of hearts would be found minus its corner in your shoe!!;)
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...and I'd be convinced that the starter included thin bits of toast to go with the pate&acute only to find that I was eating the rest of the four of hearts.
 
Dragon said:
...and I'd be convinced that the starter included thin bits of toast to go with the pate&acute only to find that I was eating the rest of the four of hearts.
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Precisely,butwhat a night it would be!!:D
 
DB and Randi are evidently in touch already - see the latest Commentary
... Derren and I are in touch, and I've seen these wonders. He compares well with our Banachek, and I can't wait to see these two together! I hope to make a much closer relationship with Mr. Brown, and perhaps work a plot or two with him. Stay tuned! ...

and -

It seems apparent that we have to establish much closer ties to Derren, and we'll try to get him to attend and participate in the next Amaz!ing Meeting.
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I know this has been done to death but what makes Derren one of the good guys and say Uri Geller not?

Both do tricks, and both lead viewers to believe they achieve them in ways they do not.

The net is awash with the NLP/Hypnosis crowd believing this is what they're seeing.

And I know it's a big in joke with magicians, most of them loving to go along with the Hypnosis/NLP/Body Language stuff.

Whats wrong with this? Uri Geller only claimed he could bend a spoon with his mind. While probably never making the direct claim, Derren 'claims' he can make people do things by saying particular words that incluence people at the subconcious level. Gellers claim can only go so far, Derrens if it was widely believed would have far greater consequences.

And whats more he does this by cheating.

For TV magic to be more impressive than ventriloquism on the radio there have to be some rules. The camera must be a fair representation of what you would see as a viewer.

Take the latest DB - Messiah where he does his remote viewing. He asks a girl to do a drawing in the next room and successfully reproduces the drawing. Now I guess many magicians here could reproduce the trick and this would be great - Derren has shown these people can be tricked and I'd love if he left it here.

However, Derren is heard in his instructions to the girl saying 'Sail on through' and 'Don't go overboard' - and she draws a Sailboat. Now this would be impressive - before she had drawn the picture Derren has a hit!!

However when you watch the tape again it all becomes apparent, the NLP instructions have been dubbed over, he's not seen to actually say these words in situ.

Now I appreciate there's a difference between using camera trickey to achieve the trick and camera edits to misdirect, but it's still cheating all the same.

Probably less so if you're presenting a straight magic show (there's camera edits in his normal shows), but to do this in a mock 'Expose the cheaters' documentary is straight wrong.
 
pjh said:
I know this has been done to death but what makes Derren one of the good guys and say Uri Geller not?
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DB clearly says that - and explains why - he does not have paranormal powers.

DB f*cks with your mind, and lets you know that he does so. Geller f*cks with your mind, but claims that he has supernatural powers.

That's the difference.
 
pjh - I think you missed the point of the show. DB was fooling the various leaders in their field of belief, not the TV audience.

From his website Q&A page on "Messiah" (note my bolding)
Q: How would you describe the programme?
Derren Brown: It's a personal journey for me, quite a dark journey. It's a documentary styled show where I go to America and meet some influential people behind certain belief-systems that people are encouraged to base their lives upon. Two targets are new-age beliefs and mainstream Christianity. Using my techniques and showmanship can I get these people who are responsible for the beliefs of hundreds of thousands of people, to endorse me as being the real thing? I approach these people under different pseudonyms, demonstrating to each of them an ability I have which is somehow proof to them of my abilities in that particular field. I allow them to decide how much they are going to endorse it and embrace it. If at any point they say to me this is some sort of trick I will confess and tell them.
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Claus - did you see my link to DB's forum above? - 5th post down.
 
pjh said:
I know this has been done to death but what makes Derren one of the good guys and say Uri Geller not?
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The one pretends to use super powers, the other doesn't. Simple as that.
 
Dragon said:
Claus - did you see my link to DB's forum above? - 5th post down.
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Yep. I am not surprised one bit that Lucianarchy still peddles his lies around the Internet. Those who believed he would stop hopefully have learned a lesson in just how low humans can go.

Lucianarchy will never stop. Ever.
 
I still don't get this ... have you actually seen DBs Show?

He makes it clear that although he does not actually have any paranormal powers, his tricks are performed using:

+ NLP
+ His Extraordinarly ability to read body language

As I previously said, this is reinforced in the TV show by camera edits and audio dubbing.

In one of his other shows he does a card trick, and then clearly says "That is the last card trick you will see tonight".
... Then he does more card tricks.

In the UK the TV audience for a magician is almost zero. The only way to have a TV show is to make some claims that what the viewer is seeing is *not* the same old tricks Paul Daniels et al have been doing for years.

See Simon Singh's article here

He explains why people like me have a problem with Derren!
 
As far as I have understood it Derren is one of the honest liars that are good guys, just like Randi and Banachek. He will not tell you exactly what he does (and he may lie about how he does it) because that would take away the “magic” he is after all a performer. But he never claims to have supernatural powers unlike UG.

I hope we can have him for TAM4.
 
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