Derren Brown
Derren Brown (born 27 February 1971) is an English psychological illusionist and sceptic of paranormal phenomena. He was born in Croydon, Surrey, and while studying Law and German at the University of Bristol he attended a show by the hypnotist Martin S. Taylor that inspired him to turn to illusion and hypnosis as a career. Around 1994 he worked as a conjurer, practising the traditional skills of close-up 'magic'. In 1996, he started performing stage hypnosis shows at the University of Bristol under his then stage name of Darren V. Brown. In September 1997 he attended an Neuro-Linguistic Programme course with Richard Bandler, Paul McKenna and Michael Breen.
Two years later, Brown started getting interested in mind-reading through his friend Ian Rowlands. Shortly after, he got commissioned to do the first pilot of Mind Control. Brown's psychological illusions are skilfully performed and are enhanced by his personality and showman's flair to influence and misdirect. Some observers have commented, however, that most of Brown's act consists of standard magic tricks and that little psychology or suggestion is actually used.
Other than his main work, Derren is also an artist who paints caricatures of famous people. His work has also been exhibited. His paintings can be viewed via his website.
Television shows
Mind Control
Since the first broadcast of his Channel 4 television show Derren Brown: Mind Control in 2000 he has become increasingly well known for his "mind-reading" act. Derren Brown says he possesses no psychic ability and achieves his results by making use of psychological insights. Using his knowledge and skill he claims he is able to predict and influence people's thoughts with subtle suggestion, manipulate the decision making process and read the subtle physical signs or body language that indicate what a person is thinking.
He began his television work with three sixty-minute specials over two years which led up to the six part series Mind Control, which incorporated new footage with the best of the hour long shows. Selected highlights from the first series are available on DVD and video entitled Derren Brown - Inside Your Mind.
Russian Roulette
On October 5, 2003, Brown performed Russian roulette live on Channel 4 (though with a slight delay in case of accidents). The stunt was performed at an undisclosed location outside Britain, supposedly because of British laws banning the possession of handguns. A volunteer, chosen from 12,000 who applied for the task, and whittled down to five by the day of the stunt, loaded a single shot into a revolver with six numbered chambers, then counted from one to six. Attempting to predict the location of the bullet, Brown pulled the trigger on chambers 3 and 4 with the gun aimed at his head, before appearing to decide on chamber 5 and firing the gun away from him. When that chamber proved to be empty, he paused for over one minute before aiming at his head again for chamber 6, then immediately firing the (supposedly) live round in chamber 1 away from him, striking a sandbag.
The programme was initially condemned by senior British police officers, apparently fearful of copycat acts. However, when the filming location was revealed to be Jersey, where handguns are also banned, many accused Brown of perpetrating a hoax. Several days later the Jersey police said they had been consulted about the programme in advance, and revealed: "There was no live ammunition involved and at no time was anyone at risk." [1] As demonstrated earlier in the programme, firing a blank cartridge at point-blank range can still be extremely dangerous or even fatal.
Brown himself defended the programme, saying, "It probably sounds odd. But as a magic-related performer to have that event being asked: Was it real? Was it not real? That lifts it to a level that I'm very comfortable with. What's left is the fact that it was a terrific piece of television."
Séance
Brown's next project was shown on Channel 4 on 31 May 2004. In Derren Brown: Séance he brought students from Roehampton University together to re-create a live séance. He invited students to come along to the event at Eltham Hall, claiming that the location had a history of paranormal activity after 12 people killed themselves in a suicide pact in 1974, Brown demonstrated the methods used by spiritualists.
The show attempted to involve the television audience with interactive activities, the first of which being the directed choice of one of the members of the suicide pact by looking at photographs. The 12 pictures were shown on screen in a set pattern, with half of them in colour and half black and white. The viewer was instructed to choose one of the colour images that they "feel a connection with". Brown then directed the viewers in a movement pattern between the photographs (for example, move left or right to one of the adjacent black and white photographs). The positioning and movement instructions were carefully planned to ensure that no matter which photograph was initially chosen the viewer would finish on the picture of "Jane". Ten of the students also chose Jane. During the following ouija board scene, the "spirit" guided the students to spell the name Jane.
Two of the students, along with the television viewers, were asked to write the name of a city. Both students chose London.
The final scene, the séance itself, saw the group "contact" Jane. One of the students was speaking as if she was Jane and gave some details about her life. These were confirmed to be true in a letter and in a short film.
Brown went on to explain some of the manipulations he had used, including the photograph positioning/instructions and the use of the ideomotor effect during the ouija board. The suicide pact had not taken place and "Jane" was taken to meet the students at the end of the show.
Channel 4 received 700 complaints, most before it was aired. Viewers who felt "something unusual" were invited to call a phone number, and callers were told that the show was carefully planned and that no paranormal activities were taking place. Brown also warned viewers about the impending ouija board scene, advising those who objected for "religious reasons or otherwise" to stop watching the show.
Messiah
Shown on 7 January 2005, Derren Brown travelled to the United States to try to convince five leading figures that he had powers in their particular field of expertise: Christian evangelism, alien abduction, psychic powers, New Age theories and contacting the dead.
Using a false name each time, he succeeded in convincing four of the five "experts" that he had powers, and they openly endorsed him as a true practitioner. The fifth expert, the Christian evangelist, whilst impressed by Derren's performance, asked to meet him again before giving an endorsement. The concept of the show was to highlight the power of suggestion with regard to beliefs and people's abilities, and failure to question them. Brown made it quite clear with each experiment that if any of the subjects accused him of mind control or trickery, he would immediately come clean about the whole thing. His conclusion was that people tend to hear only things that support their own ideas and ignore contradictory beliefs.
Psychic powers
- Derren Brown asked a leading figure at a psychic training school to go into another room and draw a number of simple pictures on any topic she wished. After each picture had been completed, Derren would have his prediction of what the picture was written down by the other members of the training school in the room with him. He was 100% correct. On one occasion when Derren was telling the participant to draw the next picture, he instructed the lady to "let some ideas sail into your mind" and not to go "overboard on detail". She drew a boat in water.
New-age theories
- Derren Brown instructed a leading new-age theorist to sleep with a machine attached to her pillow for five days. She was told that this machine used crystal technology to record her dreams. In fact it was simply a box with a switch which turned an LED on and off. Derren recalled the dreams correctly, including the fact that some were in black-and-white instead of colour. The participant was so impressed that she invited Derren to appear on her radio show the next day, which he declined.
Christian evangelism
- Derren performed instant conversions on a group consisting of members of the public, all of whom were atheists. After the first instant conversion many of the group chose to leave, concerned by what they had just witnessed. Derren then proceeded to convert another individual and then the remainder of the group at once. In each case, he caused the participants to at least accept the possibility that there was a God, when previously they had all refused to do so. At the end of the show, a notice on screen announced that the participants had all been "de-converted" before they left.
Contacting the dead
- Derren assembled a group of public volunteers and gave readings for several of them. His readings were very specific and all the participants were convinced that he was genuinely communicating with their dead relatives. The fact that the readings were false was explained to the participants at the end, and they each allowed the broadcast of their readings.
Trick of the Mind
Trick of the Mind was Derren's second series, which is now in its third year. Unlike Mind Control it is all completely new material. The second series started on E4 on 11 April 2005 and was repeated on Channel 4. The third series started on March 26 2006.
Waking Dead
- In June 2005, a clip from the second series widely circulated the internet, most commonly on forums dedicated to online gaming. In this clip, Derren claims to have created a video game he calls "Waking Dead" which "is able to put roughly 1/3 of the people who play it into a catatonic trance". In this episode he places the video game in a pub, to lure a (supposedly unsuspecting) patron into playing the game. He then "kidnaps" the catatonic "victim" and places them in a real-life recreation of the video game, having him fire an air gun at actors, pretending to be zombies and outfitted with explosive squibs.
- This phenomenon of inducing catatonic like states via flashes of light is called Photosensitive epilepsy, and is medically very rare, affecting only a few in 10,000, not the sensational claim of 1/3.
- The episode raised considerable controversy. Mick Grierson, credited in the episode as "Zombie Game Designer", put up a website linking to various articles about the episode.
The Gathering
The Gathering was a specially recorded live show with invited students from Roehampton University, celebrities, psychologist, psychics and magicians. It was filmed on 25 May 2005 and broadcast four days later on 29 May. As part of the show Derren recalled streets, page numbers and grid references from the Greater London A-Z map. Also pseudo psychic "mind reading" and "remote viewing" activities were recreated. He addressed the audience and told them that many of them would forget the show when they left. Throughout the show the word "forget" was flashed very quickly on the backdrop, and when guests were interviewed after the show some of them could only vaguely remember the performance. During the show subliminal use of the word "forget" induced this. Also during the show, Derren hypnotised the audience as a group and convinced them that for approximately half an hour after leaving the room, they would have no memory of the events. A variety of people were interviewed afterwards, some of them couldn't recollect everything (but were nevertheless very impressed); brief clips of these interviews were shown. One of the most memorable stunts was getting a London taxi driver to choose a street in London and then drive choose a random route. This was achieved by drawing a line on a map of London made of stuck together A-Z pages. He started in Buckingham Palace and ended up in Shepherd's Bush Green, the street in which the secret performance took place.
The Heist
The Heist was shown on the 4 January 2006 at 9.00pm on Channel 4. In the show, Derren Brown used his skills on selected participants who answered an ad.
Under the guise of a motivational seminar (where they would allegedly learn Derren Brown's skills) Brown eventually got participants to rob a security van - in what was ultimately an elaborate set up. The robbery involved holding up a security guard (who was an actor) with a toy gun Derren had earlier given them, and taking a case filled with real money from him. Four people were selected to carry out the robbery from an initial field of 13, with three of them actually taking the cases. The idea was that after the conditioning they received, they would voluntarily rob the van of their own accord (Which 3 out of 4 of them did). There was no mention of the 'crime' to the participants, and they were not (directly) instructed to do it. The 3 that did it did so as a result of the conditioning and their own choice, not instructions from any third party including Derren.
Brown associated colour, music and phrases to build the participants into a highly-motivated state, converging all of those psychological empowerment tools into a single set up. The seminar subliminally anchored freedom, childhood, opportunity and romance into various criminal acts. After having previously been convinced to steal sweets from a shop (for real), they were shown the euphoria that could be gained from criminal acts.
This programme also contained a reenactment of the Milgram experiment carried out by Stanley Milgram in the 1960s in the aim of selecting 4 of the most motivated of the group. The majority of subjects in this experiment were willing to administer lethal electric shocks to another person on the instruction of an authoritative figure (unbeknown to the subjects, the electric shocks were not actually real); these were the same results as Milgram himself found.
Live Shows
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Derren Brown will be touring the UK from March 2006 with a second tour of his live stage show. His show won an Oliver award in 2005, however he is planning to stop the tour and create a new one. Derren's aim is to create a new show every two years.
This show includes various ideas, some similar to his TV shows and others that are original. However Derren asks that the second half to all his live shows remain a secret, so as to prevent those who are going to see it that year or the following year from learning what happens beforehand.
Criticism
It has been suggested that many of his routines are simply standard magic tricks, and that no suggestion, hypnosis or other 'mind control' techniques are ever actually used. By his own admission, Brown uses 'magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship'. One feature of Brown's television and live shows is that he often appears to show the audience how a particular effect was used - often by placing words or pictures into a subject's mind with submliminal gestures or language. Some have suggested that it is these explanations which are at the very heart of Brown's misdirection, that, by making the audience feel it knows how the trick is being achieved, he is able to hide the true methods by which the magical effects are created.
Many magicians take the view that, regardless of how his effects are achieved, Brown is a brilliantly skilled and entertaining performer. However, the criticism persists that, like a modern day Uri Geller, Brown is not just tricking but lying to his audience. While he may not claim to have psychic powers, he does claim to be using psychological techniques rather than simple parlour tricks, stooges and judicious editing.
Other Mentalists
Whilst Brown must be deemed a great success as a mentalist or 'psychological magician' by the yardstick of media exposure and television appearances, he is not alone in pioneering or originating this form of entertainment. From the 1990s onwards American psychologist turned entertainer Marc Salem has appeared with his project 'Mind Games' to critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic, in both theatre and television. British-Dutch magician David Berglas was a household name in the 1960s and early 1970s with his intense, interactive television shows which drew heavily on his training as a psychotherapist at London's Tavistock Institute. Other pioneering British mentalists, active in the 1950s and 1960s, were Al Koran and Maurice Fogel.
The Amazing Kreskin is an American mentalist, well known for appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
Another British magician who adopts Brown's style is 'The Grey Man' who works as a psychological mentalist also using neuro-linguistic programming.
Other Productions and Publications
He has written two books on magic, Absolute Magic and Pure Effect.
Absolute Magic is not so much about magical methodology as about how magicians can make their performances magical; it is written in a variety of styles, sometimes humorous, sometimes serious, but always thought provoking. He warns against an act that conveys the feeling of "Here are some tricks I've bought" and urges magicians to make their performances experiential and memorable by involving the audience. In some respects a lot of what he says is in Darwin Ortiz' Strong Magic but his book expresses it in the context of his experiences, performance style and theories of how performance should be.
Pure Effect is a more traditional book of trickery and technique and offers an insight into the some of the methods that Derren employs, and offers a starting point for development for the reader's own use.
Brown is also planning a book for the general public which will explore many of his techniques.
His 160 minute video, The Devil's Picturebook, contains details of the card effects some regarded as "mind reading" from earlier in his career.
See also
- Mentalism
- Conditioning
- Hypnosis
- Neuro-linguistic programming
- Ideomotor effect
- Sleight-of-hand
- Magical illusion
- Parapsychology
- Extra-sensory perception
- Mind control
- Cold reading
External links
- Official site
- Official forum
- Fan forum
- Channel 4's Mind Control page
- Daily Telegraph article: "Spectacular Psychology or Silly Psycho-babble?"
- Derren Brown and Mentalism Resources
- Free CD produced by fans of Derren Brown: "Inside Your Ears: The Derren Brown Fanthology"
- Derren Brown Info
- The Modern Mentalist Fortean Times interview
- "Mentalism Website"