Originally Posted by newbie32
I had the good fortune of being 'selected' for Derren's new series 'trick of the mind'. I spent a day filming with Derren and also had dinner with him. I now know exactly how he does his tricks, and can quite confidently confirm that no mind-reading, NLP or psychology is used. It's all a con.
First off, you must understand that almost EVERY SINGLE PERSON on the show who Derren does a trick on has been pre-selected at a hypnosis audition. Random members of the public are invited by word of mouth to a secret audition, where Derren performs routine hypnosis methods, such as getting people to clasp their hands together real tight till they can't open them, making them imagine walking down and down and down staris while listening to his voice etc etc He basically hypnotises the audience in the traditional way. Obviously not all the audience are hypnotisable, and he gradually selects those who are.
The hypnosis was exactly the same as the two hypnosis shows i've been part of on stage, and also read about in hypnosis books.
Once he had about 10 really hypnotisable people his production company got our details and we all went home. (the london cabbie was at my audition, as well as the 'scared' film student)
On the day of filming Derren hypnotised me again, in private away from the cameras. He told me that when he said X i would do Y. Simple. So, when the cameras started rolling, he did his usual stupid schpeel pretending to influence me by saying 'cryptic' things like 'sometimes you mind does things you don;t know about' and 'i can read from your eyes that you are suggestible'. Of course, I was hypnotised and just had to respond to his X command. Exactly like on the Paul McKenna shows.
The con is that he will never show himself hypnotising people, and just pretends like the 'stooge' is a normal random person. There are three lies here
a) they are a stooge
b) they have been hypnotised off camera
c) no NLP or psychology is used, and whatever he claims he is doing is false.
Needless to say he said X and I did Y. I was truly hypnotised and the 'trick' worked. But of course the audience of the show are made to think that I have been sublimenly influenced by the way he talked to me on camera. NOT TRUE.
Anyway, we spent the day filming, doing the same trick at different locations, each time I had to pretend like I'd just met him.
He then took me and his PA out to dinner, and this is when he told me his secrets. (not all of them of course)
He said to me: 'Don't think that I hypnotised you. I didn't. I used a combination of mind control techinques and was influencing you on an unconscious level. So, don't go round telling people I hypnotised you.'
He said this while looking straight into my eyes. I almost cracked up laughing.
I asked how he felt conning people so badly, to which he replied ' I'm not conning them. I'm entertaining them. I'm making them react by setting up the trick to make it look more powerful than it is. That's what magic is about.'
I got a little angry with him and basically told him that he was a hypnotist. At this point he retaliated by showing me some card tricks. He did that one on his new series that he did with stephen fry. (he has pre-rolled cards in two different cigarette packets in his pocket, and a false deck which only shows eoght cards repeated when viewed from one side, and a whole pack when viewed from the other side)
He then said 'do you think i'm conning you now that you know how that card trick was done?' I said ' no, it's just a card trick, and you siad that it would be just that - a card trick. The con i'm worried about is that you tell your audience rubbish about influencing people and reading body signals and you're not, you're hypnotising them, then lying to the audience'.
needless to say, he wasn't too impressed. He still paid for my dinner.
so, i can now tell you how his other tricks are done:
phonebooth: pre-hypnotised person picks up phone, derren says 'sleep'. person sleeps.
mind-reading for 10p : pre-hypnotised people 'meet', and just say exactly what derren told them to say
london cabbie: pre-hypnotised cabbie 'forgets' where something is, just because he's been told to. NB nothing to do with derren banging on the window or interupting patterns.
invisible man: pre-hypnotised guy actually thinks he can't see derren.NB nothing to do with what derren says to him.
how many fingers?: pre-hypnotised kid pulls out the number of fingers that derren says. NB derren 'guesses' a number, and the kid pulls this same number out of his pockets AFTER derren said the number, because he's been hypnotised to respond to derren's guess.
i could go on, but you get the picture. If you have difficulty understanding how he does future tricks, just think about the fact that derren has simply hypnotised his stooge beforehand, and whatever he says on camera is misleading pyschobabble rubbish designed to get the NLP freaks turned on
not all of his tricks are done by hypnosis. the remainign few are simple card tricks and sleight of hand magic. remember, he used to be a sleight of hand magician before. these tricks are very good tricks in their own right, but again derren cons the audience by making them think he's influenced people with his 'mind-control', when really, it's just a simple trick.
i suppose the die-hard fans are saying 'so what? it's still entertaining'. yes, it is entertaining, because derren hypes it up so much more than it deserves, and he covers it with a facade of pyschology which simply isn't true. i don't like being lied to, nor do i like someone making a living out of lying to thousands of people. that's why i'm exposing him.
that said, he is a very nice man, quite witty too. shame about being such a big fake.
(PS: sadly, the trick he did on me is not going to be shown in this series, according to his production company who rang me last week)
