Did Derren stick you to your chair?

[seren]

Didn't work for me. I wasn't really 100% paying attention to his spiel though.

[farmersboy]

Well, needless to say it didn't work for me either.

I have to say I was disappointed that while he kept saying it had nothing to do with subliminal messaging there were at least two single flash-frames during his intro to the clip, which appeared to be of someone sitting(?) in an armchair.

[seren]

They were drawings of a guy tied to a chair. Bit of light bondage of a Friday night.

It was all suggestion, I think, I don't think the images or the film were involved.

[FarSideOfTheMoon]

Not got to the end yet, the rest of the show is pretty lame though. I'm pretty fed up with his standard tricks and bullshit explanations for what he does.

At least Paul Daniels just said 'Now, that's magic!'.

[Trinoc]

Didn't work for me. I wasn't really 100% paying attention to his spiel though.
So ... it only needs to work on people who are listening to and watching everything he does in great detail ... in other words those who are voluntarily already (metaphorically) glued to their chars ... ?

For the rest of us who are capable of thinking about or doing other things at the same time it doesn't count, so there is no way he could possibly fail.

(I chose the ultimate displacement activity of not watching the programme at all, and amazingly I felt absolutely no compulsion to sit around on my backside any more than I would have done anyway.)

[seren]

Yeah, the other stuff definitely wasn't anything new. Variations on stuff he's done before, and more lame-o explanations. What he does is entertaining, but I think it's kind of over. Which I'm sad about, because I very much enjoyed his earlier stuff.

[FarSideOfTheMoon]

Yeah, the other stuff definitely wasn't anything new. Variations on stuff he's done before, and more lame-o explanations. What he does is entertaining, but I think it's kind of over. Which I'm sad about, because I very much enjoyed his earlier stuff.

I have absolutely no confidence that some of his earlier stuff was not just completely fabricated for the cameras now. There's been a lobby of people who maintain Derren wouldn't use stooges or other 'cheating' over and above the standard tricks he does. I really don't think that's the case now.

Beneath the covers, his repertoire just seems to consist of an envelope swap trick, a card swap trick and a filmed segment that is probably fabricated. And that's it.

Maybe it's not his fault, maybe in the age of the internet, the magician and mentalist is just a dying breed.

[Mulder]

Looks like 'Derren Brown the backlash' phase is just starting ....

[Trinoc]

Looks like 'Derren Brown the backlash' phase is just starting ....
All this "I'm going to do something amazing so tune into my programme and watch" stuff is getting horribly like David Blaine.

If he wants to be an ordinary stage magician some of the time, and the rest of the time a skeptic telling us that things are illusions and explaining why (with genuine reasons) then that's fine ... but if he wants to mix the two so that we can never trust any of his explanations then he's just a performer and nothing more, so of no particular interest to skeptics.

[Graham Lappin]

Jamy Swiss, stage magician, founder and Vice President of the New York Skeptics, said of Derren Brown: "whatever it is he says he is doing, you can be sure that's not it". I will go with that for now, I think.

[skbuncks]

Anyone ever been to see a stage hypnotist perform? back in the day when I was a student I went to see several, hypodog springs to mind, all were very entertaining.
Anyway, one way in which they selected members of the audience to go up on stage was to have everyone hold their hands clasped tightly in front of their face. They would then rabbit on (lots of stuff about how tightly your hands were clasped and how hard in was going to be to separate them) for a bit getting you to concentrate really, REALLY, hard on your hands.
After all this preamble they would then request that you tried to separate your hands. Most people in the audience would do it straight away, some would pretend they couldn't and some would genuinely be unable to do so.
From those who couldn't separate their hand some would be selected to go on stage. What was telling at this point was that some would unclasp their hands on the way to the stage and some wouldn't. Suffice tosay that those who unclasped their hands were sent back.
The whole process seems, to my limited understanding of hypnosis and the like, is that those who couldn't unclasp there hands were simply the most willing to play along.
Anyway, my point being, the whole 'stuck to your seats' malarky just seemed like a dressed up version of a selection process stage hypnotists use to select people most willing to play along to be hypnotised.

My 2 cents skb

ETA: here we go (http://changingminds.org/techniques/hypnosis/techniques/hand-clasp.htm)

ETA2: for the record I think all the subliminal message stuff his usual mis-direction window dressing bollocks.

ETA: Just noticed that my post count (494) is a panandrom. Spooky.