Has anyone heard of Derren Brown?

[onemancrew]

I searched here for a similiar topic and didn't see one so i thought i would post this,

What do you all think of this guy? If you watch some of his other videos also they are extremely interesting.





This is part one of six ten minute episodes. , i recommend watching all the way to part six.

[onemancrew]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDusc...feature=relmfu

[vic smyth]

Could you please post a little synopsis of what this video is about?


With Lovingkindness (metta),
vic

[mac]

I haven't watched the videos although the one pictured here I think I've already seen. Derren Brown is an entertainer here in the UK where he has regular series on one of our TV channels.

He's a great entertainer, an illusionist and sometimes uses hypnosis in his stage shows. In case anyone's wondering, he's not a psychic or medium.

[onemancrew]

Could you please post a little synopsis of what this video is about?


With Lovingkindness (metta),
vic

Yeah no worries, thanks for the reply also.

The video is about Derren Brown investigating a psychic claiming to be contacting the dead, As mac has already posted, Derren Brown himself does not claim to be psychic at all.

I cant give a full detailed synopsis due to time but i will try and get the main points.

This video begins with Derren meeting up with the psychic Joe Power in Liverpool. Derren being a magician/illusionist/hypnotist expert has an interest in all things paranormal so he gets permission to spend a whole week with the psychic, in hopes of being blown away by what the psychic Joe Power claims to do.

The first reading Joe gives seems to be extremely impressive, Joe gets pretty much everything right, right down to fine details that would pretty much be impossible to guess. However i wish i could say as much about the next reading and continuing.

what follows on the next reading is very interesting, First up, Joe gives his reading which has nowhere near the accuracy of the previous one, and then right after that Derren says he will have a turn at trying to give the same person a reading for fun, being that Derren isn't a psychic. what happens is that the person says the reading that Derren gave is just as believable as what Joe claims to do. Of course, Derren does then tell her that he is not a psychic at all and he was just cold reading.

What ends up happening is that Joe basically gets more and more frustrated as the conditions are controlled with people not responding to the reading techniques. He ends up getting in a verbal argument with Derren and basically claiming that Derren lied to him when the evidence is on camera that Derren didn't lie to him at all. They both have a stand off with each other eventually.

I have run out of time, sorry, I will post what ive got and i may come back to finish later if I get a chance.

i hope i have sparked enough interest for you to take the time to watch it as ive missed plently of good info above.

[mac]

That's a great synopsis!

I watched that programme quite some time ago and it was a brutal insight into how self-proclaimed mediums might be able to dupe vulnerable people. (I'm not saying Joe Power was doing that but the programme was rather revealing.)

As a staunch Modern Spiritualist (where mediumship is a fundamental) I hate to hear accounts of folk being taken in and it's just one reason why I might seem to be endlessly banging on about being cautious about claims made by practitioners who call themselves, or get called by others, evidential ('spiritual' in the USA) mediums.

[jenniechan]

I have never heard the name of Derren Brown. But Thanks to Onemancrew for starting this thread and giving the brief introduction of Derren Brown.

[mac]

I have never heard the name of Derren Brown. But Thanks to Onemancrew for starting this thread and giving the brief introduction of Derren Brown.

Over this past weekend (and probably before) Channel 4 has been carrying a trailer for 'Apocalypse' something-or-other, part of Derren Brown's presumably ongoing contract with C4.

For anyone following this thread, Derren Brown is an entertainer and I'd advise caution about reading too much into any one hour, heavily-edited programme about any subject....

[Bella]

Over this past weekend (and probably before) Channel 4 has been carrying a trailer for 'Apocalypse' something-or-other, part of Derren Brown's presumably ongoing contract with C4.

For anyone following this thread, Derren Brown is an entertainer and I'd advise caution about reading too much into any one hour, heavily-edited programme about any subject....

I watched part of it. It seemed to me that the medium was being set up. I've watched James Van Praagh talk about these heavily edited media attacks. He explained that each time he was assured that it would not be edited, it was later edited to make him look like a fraud. This looks to me to be the same. Anything the medium got right was not addressed.

[mac]

I watched part of it. It seemed to me that the medium was being set up. I've watched James Van Praagh talk about these heavily edited media attacks. He explained that each time he was assured that it would not be edited, it was later edited to make him look like a fraud. This looks to me to be the same. Anything the medium got right was not addressed.

It's something that's been discussed frequently in the context of evidential (spiritual) mediumship over my years of 'being in the spooks.' Sometimes editing can be harmful but at others it helps one to focus on weaknesses in a medium's approach.

Six of one and half-a-dozen of the others.... The only conclusion I've reached is that appearing on a TV programme is potentially risky for mediums - few come over well.