Tricks of the Mind - Derren Brown

...doing some of his core tricks and skills. We start of with a basic coin and card trick, early on setting the parameters that slight of hand, subterfuge and distraction are skills you will need for later on. There are tips and lessons on everything from hypnotism and mind reading, to faking séances and pretending to talk to the dead. Derren has few nice things to say about people who claim to have special powers and charge people money in the process ...
...guys with the same ‘amazing’ results and no one would know the difference.

Brown explains in detail how experienced police detectives can use various suggestive memory techniques to get witnesses ad villains alike to produce the statement results they want, SVA (Statement Validity Assement) the method used. If you are one of the above and not used to police questioning then this stuff is easy to fall for. One way is for the detective ... more

I was traveling in Africa a few years back and while I was there I was earning my keep by painting stuff like flags of the world and African themes on this hostel in Cape Town. One day I was up the ladder mixing me primary colors as usual when I heard someone familiar shout my name from below. It was my last boss. What are the chances of that you may ask, neither one aware we were both going to Africa for different reasons, but now having a conversation. Well very high according to Derren brown.

You see its all do with ‘chance probability reduction’, one of the more interesting sections of this informative and rebellious read explaining why there’s nothing unusual in those strange and surprising coincidences in our lives. Because I had done loads of jobs leading up to that trip and there were many others like me traveling around the world on a budget-their bosses also having holidays in equally exotic places-someone like me had to meet one of their many bosses at some point on the trip. Women tend to find deeper meaning to this stuff-it was meant-where as guys read Derren Brown-it was pure coincidence… Did you know that you have a one in four chance of meeting someone you know on your annual two weeks away (other than the people you came with of course).

The obvious question to ask about this book, like its author, is how much of it is real. Well it’s not really that type of journey guys, here Brown setting out to debunk as many charlatans and snake oil merchants as possible who claim to have special powers—a bit like Penn & teller when they give away magic tricks, but still entertain us and make lots of money out of the pastime in the process. Brown does annoyingly go off on one on religion, Richard Dawkins style, and spends too much time on the history of magic and illusion, but apart from that its informative stuff. I always find it a bit lame to spend time even bothering to disprove religion to the type of intelligent people this book is clearly aimed at.

The author, bought up as a Baptist, first got his love of what he uniquely does through questioning that religion. His road to Damascus moment lead him to Bristol University to study psychology, plenty of free time to mess around and allow his interest to blossom in all things weird, hypnotism and mentalist stuff his main act, all this wearing a maroon cape on campus. Any of you older dooyoo members from Bristol will know he’s a local boy and I can now reveal he was responsible for the 1980`s town centre Tarantula scare!

It’s that female gullibility and the want to believe in hokum that fraudsters capitalize on so the industry is always getting bigger. If you think you have special powers and someone agrees with you then you are more likely to believe them and listen to what they have to say, maybe buying things to enhance that belief. If you are messing around with a Oiuji board, for instance, then it’s inevitable that the first question you ask the sprits will get the answer ‘Yes’—is anyone there etc? If the board says no, it’s lying or the people shoving the glass around have ended the experience. It’s never ‘No’ as everyone’s wants it to be yes, and so subconsciously shove the glass towards the ‘Y’. Brown sees this as suitable metaphor to how the industry works and it’s those wanton believers that will keep it going.

He explains how the original TV medium in Doris Stokes used various techniques to make sure a good crowd of believers were in the audience of her shows to make for a successful evening. Firstly she would invite her clients to the readings, making sure they were familiar faces—and of course bring their spirits to get in touch with. She would also have a team of researchers that would scan the local papers for juicy ‘death’ stories and the obituaries for names to play on from the town she would be performing at, again inviting those people to get in touch with relatives she knew all about. It was basically worked out so to put on a show. Throw in the people who want desperately to believe there’s life after death for closure on their loved ones then you have a big crowd in. I think you all know about ‘cold reading’ and how that works, ‘is there a George in spirit etc… and so we need not go there.

For me it’s the probability statistic stuff in the book that I enjoyed most. Did you know that you only need around 40 people in a room for two to share the same birthday? I love statistics like that and it was the main reason I purchased this book. That and how to hypnotize girls!

Another strange quirk of odds is one that vexed our pub conversation all week. You know those bunko-booth characters that let you bet on which of the three coconut shells the prize is under, well if you place your finger on the one you think its under, and just to help you out a bit the dealer uncovers one of the empty ones, should you switch to increase your chances? You would think its 50/50.Two coconuts. But, apparently, you should always switch when offered as your odds increase from a 50% chance to a 66r% chance. My brother explained why this is but I’m still confused.

The basics…

Brown promises to divulge some of his secrets and teaches you how to go about doing some of his core tricks and skills. We start of with a basic coin and card trick, early on setting the parameters that slight of hand, subterfuge and distraction are skills you will need for later on. There are tips and lessons on everything from hypnotism and mind reading, to faking séances and pretending to talk to the dead. Derren has few nice things to say about people who claim to have special powers and charge people money in the process for that knowledge. He can basically duplicate and mimic these guys with the same ‘amazing’ results and no one would know the difference.

Brown explains in detail how experienced police detectives can use various suggestive memory techniques to get witnesses ad villains alike to produce the statement results they want, SVA (Statement Validity Assement) the method used. If you are one of the above and not used to police questioning then this stuff is easy to fall for. One way is for the detective to recite what he wants you to say by using word suggestion. You may not recall exactly what you saw as a witness or villain but by coppers placing what they want you to say in the sentence–say a white van was near the bank-then you tend to agree that the white van was there and it was white because the policeman said it was, therefore filling in the blank, not questioning authority etc. It’s a very interesting stuff and a favorite trick of politicians. Hence the expression putting words into my mouth.

There’s some interesting stuff of NLP (Neuristic Language Programming), impulsive body reactions that give away whether a person could be lying or not, heavily used techniques to discover if children are telling the truth in child abuse cases. The body language chapters were always going to be interesting and quite empowering when you get into it. Brown points out the ‘tells’ of some famous people and these ‘tells’ subconsciously give away their true feelings on things. There are also some bits on building your self confidence and some self-help psychology for tricky situations. There’s rather too much on word linking, a method only useful if you want to remember all 52 playing cards—in order of course.

The groovy stuff you can learn is muscle reading, a very clever way to mind read. I’ve tried it and it does work and looks great when you do it. It basically involves putting objects on a table (to start) and then asking the person to remember one and not tell you what it is. By engineering a situation where you can hold their wrist or even head, you can feel tiny muscle twitches as you lead their hands [or head] over the objects. The muscles will pull against you as you go away from the object. You should try it as it’s really effective.

Should you buy it?

To be honest a lot of the stuff in here isn’t likely to turn you into Derren Brown, clearly his skills procured and matured over a long time. He does give you enough info to hypnotize the most gullible of people and there are also enough bits here to impress you mates with amazing Derren brown feats, that muscle reading particularly cool.
It isn’t the most enthralling read and Browns sense of humor is ‘studenty’ at best. In some ways he is someone that is still living in that world and when time movies on I suspect his final audience will be the student unions of the world where he feels most comfortable. It is a fun insight into a pretty impressive guy though.

Puzzle

I will leave you with a puzzle. If you could fold a normal piece of cardboard one hundred times then how thick would it be?

A) Brick thick?
B) Wayne Rooney
C) A garage
D) A house
E) A tower block
F) Something else

 

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