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Did anyone watch Derren Brown, Mind Reader?


oranphil

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I love all his programs and have got the DVDs. Best thing with the DVDs is that he goes through how he sets up his tricks. Some of it is amazing! He uses a mixture of photographic memory, psycological suggestions, advanced body language and plain old illusion/magic trickery.

 

I've tried some of his tricks on freinds - It's quite eye opening how good you can get at placing a subconcious thought or spotting a lie! :D (some of these thought implants are like the old "think of a vegitable" trick after you have got someone to do a string of simple maths questions in their head - the answer always comes out as....... see below!)The most impressive I think is the card counting and sequence memory - he really does put this down to memory techniques, card counting and shuffling practice (Memorising the change in the sequence with each shuffle - juding the number of cards cut by eye and re-arranging the sequence in your head - at least that is what he claims he does.:D

 

 

With the rotating table - I've seen him explain this before - it's a bit like an ouiji board - the peole are subconciously pushing it around themselves. I saw him get a whole room going with about 5 or 6 tables in a big hall.:D As for levitating it though I do not know - I had an idea - I think it is similar to the old floating ball under the table cloth. Classic illusion.

 

 

TEST: Try this!

 

Do these sums in your head as fast and as honestly as you can. (in case they are too hard - I've done the first two for you!:D)

 

5 x 5 = 25

6 / 3 = 2

4 x 5 =

3 x 22 =

120 / 2 =

4 + 17 =

40 / 10 =

12 - 7 =

4 x 4 =

34 -6 =

24 + 9 =

12 + 17 =

34 - 11

42 - 13 =

8 x 5 =

22 + 7 =

4 + 14 =

12 x 3 =

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NOW! what is the first vegitable that comes into your head??!?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[hide]CARROT[/hide]

Edited by DrP
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well i did it and i came up with a carrot


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ok that was weird i did it and i though of a carrot i did not see that spoiler at the bottom and when i did i highlighted it and it was carrot i am quit freaked out.good on you DrP :D

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See - It worked! This is a very basic trick that uses the fact that similar areas of your brain that process maths, also process the colour orange (IIRC! - I have no refs for this - although it was in a book I read once - no idea what it was called). I guess that he takes this alot further and can get you to pick a number and a suit 'seemingly' at random from a pack of cards and then he plucks it out! Somehow he askes the right questions before hand to condition your brain so that when you are aske to think of a random card - he knows what you will pick - like I knew you were going to say carrot!

 

He done the same thing to a group from a marketing company - he gave them an idea and asked them to come up with a poster to advertise it. After their brainstorming session they designed a poster. When he got back to them he unveiled a poster he had drawn up himself earlier that day (which he left under a viel in the corner of the room) - which, of course, was exactly the same as the one they had come up with - down to the slogan, the logo and the pictures! This was a more complicated example of the carrot trick - on route to their meeting, DB had arranged for them to bump into people wearing badges with a similar slogon on it - to pass shops with posters in the window with certain designs on them, had fake posters and suggestive symbols put up all along their route to the meeting. He even got a bunch of school kids to cross the road, in front of their cab, carrying objects that were relavent to their mental conditioning prior to said meeting. Complicated - but it worked.

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Odd, I thought of radishes, not carrots. .

 

Radishes make you constipated you know. ;) (sets up joke for later:cool:)

 

 

I said potato.

 

I have had people say potato before actually! The whole thing wotks better face to face so you can be sure that the person is REALLY concentrating on the math and then when they think of the veggie they mustn't have time to let their mind wander - hey it doesn't always work. I was quite pleased that it worked for some people over the net though!

 

 

DrP could you add any more tricks if you know any

 

Let me think. There are quite a few, but nothing imeadiately come to mind that would work over an internet forum!:D As I said - I was quite please that the veggie tricked worked. No reason why it shouldn't - try it on one of your freinds! Keep the math very simple and FAST.... Then after about 15 - 20 questions - spring the vegitable question on them reall quick and don't give them time to think about the answer make them say the first thing that comes to mind. Most of the time they will say carrot - or rarely potato..... and if they are REALLY messed up then they might say radish. :D Have CARROT written down on a piece of paper that you have given them before hand. For extra effect (if you want to make it show-y) have the prediction inside a ballon that you can shoot out of the sky or something.

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My first thought was "pumpkin," but then again, my immediate instinct is to pick something weird.

 

As an amateur card magician, I can tell you that it is very easy to make people believe you are doing one thing when you aren't. They'll even assume you're doing some fancy trick with cards up your sleeves because they can't believe it's actually far simpler and I was lying to them all along.

 

For example, I have a trick where I hold three cards -- a joker, another joker, and the queen of hearts. The audience is supposed to find the queen of hearts. The deck then becomes three jokers, then three queens, then a joker, a queen, and a random other card. Of course, I had those three there all along, but the audience refuses to believe that I had anything other than two jokers and a queen at the beginning. Even though that was an illusion, they accept it and try to work around it, assuming I had something up my sleeves.

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My first thought was "pumpkin," but then again, my immediate instinct is to pick something weird.

 

Well - I guess a Pumpkin is orange... (is it a fruit though?).

 

I have a few tricks making coins, notes and cards disappear - some are sight of hand, some use rigged equipment. My favourite was burning someones £20.00 note and restoring it again. You can ham it up by not actually finishing the trick - you know: "can I have one of your £20.00 notes please sir? - Thank you" .. (do the trick and set fire to it) - "thank you sir - well done" and send him back to his seat without doing the restoration part of the trick.:D You can make it appear again later in a match box, another envelope, inside a balloon or whatever.


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OK - here is blog that looks like his - http://derrenbrownart.com/blog/ havn't had time to look at it properly, but will do at some time.

 

Maybe we can e-mail him and see if he knows of any tricks we can demonstrate over the net. He might share some with us.

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