Derren Brown: The Experiments

More from DB a week on Friday (21st Oct) as Channel 4 begins showing his new 4 part series 'Derren Brown: The Experiments'. You just know these are going to be good. Here's the trailer:

Praise the Lord!

Derren Brown's latest televisual feast, Miracles for Sale, shown last night on Channel 4, was an attempt to expose the methods employed by faith healers. He achieved this by training someone in the techniques and style of preaching typically adopted by these faith healers, with the aim of passing him off as the genuine article. His student was Nathan (pictured right), a scuba-diving instructor, who was only told about the nature of the planned project once he had already been picked from the hundreds of hopefuls who had applied to be 'a star of their own show'.

Nathan was an interesting choice as, apparently, he was himself a believer in God, and so DB was eager to point out that the project was not an attack on faith or religion itself. It was aimed specifically at the multi-million dollar industry that surrounds faith healing, showing how these so-called 'healers' draw upon various scams to encourage people to give large sums of money to their 'ministries' in the belief that such giving will show the strength of their faith in the Lord, and will be repaid many times over.

I'm a big fan of Mr Brown, but the real star of this show was Nathan, aka 'Pastor James Collins'. He really was thrown in at the deep end, and he seemed genuinely ill at ease with the idea of deceiving people. Some of the best bits of the programme were when he stood up to Brown and the production crew after he felt they had sprung yet another change of plan on him. It's a shame his 'revival' meeting at the end of the show drew only a small crowd.

The full show can still be watched on 4OD (at least until 25 May 2011). You might also want to check out Pastor James Collins' fictitious Gifts of the Ministry website.

Svengali

When I tell folks about the 'Million Dollar Psychic' project, one person's name often gets mentioned. "You're learning to become psychic? Oh, you mean like that Derren Brown chap...?" Now, I'm not sure if this is because the people I'm speaking to think that I am wanting to learn to appear psychic. To these people, I clarify that the aim of the project is to see if I can actually discover 'genuine' psychic ability (if such a thing exists).

Alternatively, of course, it may be that they believe that Derren Brown achieves his impressive feats by using his own psychic abilities! This would be surprising, indeed, as Mr Brown is quite scathing about psychics and mediums and often presents his work as a demonstration of how a range of techniques can be used to create the effect of genuine mind-reading and so on.

It would be a touch ironic if many of his fans actually believed he might be genuinely psychic!

Derren 'n' Lou

Derren's final encounter as part of Derren Brown Investigates took him to the US to spend a few days with Lou Gentile, a ghost hunter and demonologist. We were treated to a few ghost photographs which, for Lou, provided strong proof of life after death but, for Derren, provided strong proof that we are very adept at seeing meaningful patterns in 'noise'. Especially when we're highly motivated to look for them.

Much of Lou's 'data' were in the form of Electronic Voice Phenomena, or EVP. As part of an investigation of a haunted house, Lou would ask questions out loud to the spirits thought to be haunting the place, leaving a gap for the spirit(s) to respond. A digital voice recorder placed on a table recorded the questions along with any answers. Typically, no response would be heard back at the time, but when the recording was played back sounds could be heard in the gaps between Lou's questions. Many people, such as Lou, believe that these sounds are the faint voices of spirits trying to communicate from the other side. The difficulty is that these sounds, much like the ghost photos, usually require a fair bit of interpretation to hear what is supposedly being said. What Lou hears as a message from the dead, you or I (or indeed Derren) might hear as unintelligible crackle.

If these noises aren't voices from beyond then what might they be? A useful contribution to the programme was made by a forensic audio analyst who pointed out that the noises are likely to be an artifact of how these digital voice recorders work, particularly those that are voice-activated. As is often the case with claims of apparently paranormal phenomena, a more likely explanation tends to be quite mundane but is often overlooked by people wishing to believe that something supernatural is happening.

A rather poignant end to the programme was the news that Lou had died a few months after the filming. I wonder if he's been in touch yet?

The Ghost Hunter

The final part of the Derren Brown Investigates trilogy is on tonight (Channel 4, 10pm). This time the focus is on a ghosthunter called Lou Gentile. My guess is that on this occasion our man will indeed be convinced that something paranormal is going on. Not.

There doesn't seem to be a trailer as such available for tonight's show, but there is some 'exclusive footage' from the show on our old friend YouTube:



It's a toss up between whether we watch DBI or the final episode of Flashforward, which is on Five at the same time. Luckily I imagine both will be available to watch on the web (or on Channel 4+1 for DBI) so we won't miss out either way!

Derren 'n' Vyacheslav

It turns out it was Men with X-Ray Eyes (as opposed to the singular Man). Although it didn't appear as though anyone had X-Ray eyes. The focus of last night's Derren Brown Investigates was the Bronnikov Method, pioneered by a chap called Vyacheslav Bronnikov.

Among the claims made by Bronnikov is that his 'method' can help people see through blindfolds and can even help blind people to see (including those who don't have eyes!). And level 1 of the course costs only 700 Euros. All very intriguing, and all very dodgy-sounding.

The confrontation between Derren 'n' Vyacheslav ended with our man requesting that Mr Bronnikov tell him what was inside a sealed box, something that should be straightforward for a man with X-Ray eyes. Bronnikov declined. Which left us wondering what was inside the box!

My guess is that it was a small yellow plastic duck... on a chain.

The Man With X-Ray Eyes

The second of three documentaries in the Derren Brown Investigates series is broadcast tonight on Channel 4 at 10pm. I wonder if the man in the title will be watching...?

Derren 'n' Joe

Last night's opening documentary as part of Derren Brown's new series, Derren Brown Investigates featured 'psychic medium' Joe Power, described as 'The Man Who Sees Dead People' (which just so happens to also be the title of Joe's book). One of Joe's claims includes contacting the spirit of John Lennon.

The premise of the programme was that Derren would spend five days with Joe to discover if he really does see dead people, or whether his abilities might be better explained in some other way.

None too surprisingly, Derren suspected that the latter was more likely: A combination of cold reading, warm reading, and a little bit of hot reading thrown in for good measure. Of course, Joe protested, and even accused Derren of... well, I'm not sure what he was accusing him of.

From the moment Derren entered Joe's rather humble looking flat and described it as 'gorgeous', you knew they weren't going to get on. And I suspect that Derren had already made up his mind as to Joe's authenticity. In the end, Joe came across as either deluded in his belief he could contact the dead or an outright fraud. Or a combination of the two.

The most (only?) impressive reading came when Joe seemed to give fairly accurate information to a woman as part of a one-to-one reading in her own house. Even DB seemed intrigued. It only emerged some weeks after filming that she was actually the next door neighbour of Joe's sister! What are the odds...

Update: The programme is now available at 4OD here. Oh, and we have a new Prime Minister.

Derren Brown Investigates

Been looking forward to these documentaries since the beginning of last year when I knew they were being made. The first one is to be shown on Channel 4 on May 10th.



One of the subjects under investigation is medium Joe Power. A little over a year ago, when putting these documentaries together, the producers of the show had hoped to conduct a controlled test of Joe's alleged abilities. The testing was to take place at the Psychology Department at Liverpool Hope University, so I was looking forward to meeting both Derren and Joe. Alas, it was not to be... after days of working out the logistics of the testing arrangements, Joe pulled out the night before the testing was due to be done.

Perhaps he would have been more motivated to take part if there had been a million dollars on offer?

From TV History to TV Burp

In case you missed what Derren Brown regarded as being an "anus-invertingly unpalatable" idea and what the Guardian called "the worse single hour of television produced in 2009", here is the first part of Michael Jackson: The Live Seance:



Those willing to risk your anus being inverted can catch the rest of the show on YouTube.

It turns out they did, indeed, have a parapsychologist on as an observer. A rather pallid young man who sat in the background on a bar stool and, well, observed. He seemed kind of lost for words as he watched Derek Acorah lead four sequined (and perfectly well-balanced) Jacko "superfans" through the seance. At the end of the show he seemed genuinely concerned, along with many of the viewers no doubt, for the emotional wellbeing of said superfans. One superfan in particular, himself called Michael, had sobbed uncontrollably as his idol (or rather, Derek) spoke to him.

I guess both Derek and superfan Michael have recovered... I gather they are to appear on Harry Hill's TV Burp on Saturday night.

You do the math(s)

So that's how it was done! Deep maths. Should have guessed really, shouldn't we? All that stuff you did at school... that was shallow maths. If only we'd had a few double periods of deep maths and we might have been able to win the lottery!


Of course DB wasn't going to reveal how he really did it, but he did give us some plausible sounding 'explanations', including a strenuous denial that he did NOT fix the lottery machine. All of this feeds the ongoing debate over how he really did do it. What amazes me is the number of people, in particular journalists, who seem to be so pissed off that he didn't reveal his actual method!

After Friday's show, Channel 4 aired a show featuring that other DB that seems to get under people's skin, David Blaine. This show included more examples of Blaine's street magic where he performs close-up tricks with things like cards and coins and focuses on the wild reactions from his audiences. The exception was the final item: A bullet catch. Traditionally, this has involved catching a bullet between the teeth and is (surprise, surprise!) usually achieved by some kind of trickery. Blaine's version seemed to be a little different. He didn't attempt to catch the bullet in his teeth, but instead held a small metal cup between his teeth and stood there while a fellow magician fired a .22 calibre rifle at him. The high speed cameras seemed to show that is what indeed happened!

Blaine's show was titled What Is Magic? This question is fitting for both Brown and Blaine as they both do a fine job of blurring the line between what is real and what is not.

How did he do it?

Still wondering how Derren Brown predicted the lottery numbers on Wednesday night? Supposedly all will be revealed in The Events tonight on Channel 4 at 9pm. If you missed the live broadcast on Wednesday night you can watch it on YouTube.


From the moment he revealed his prediction there has been much debate over how he achieved it. Theories range from camera trickery (i.e., the use of a split-screen) to laser technology (a laser beam somehow projecting the numbers on to the ping-pong balls that formed his prediction). Some have even suggested that Derren spent the last year recording all of the possible combinations and splicing that together with the live broadcast. However, I have a feeling it would take longer than a year to pre-record the millions of combinations that could come up! Some of the more common theories have been collected together here.

No matter how he achieved it, Derren Brown and Objective Productions have again produced an amazing effect that has got us all scratching our heads wondering how on earth he might have done it. I know I'll be watching tonight to hear his explanation, whether it be the truth or some other fantastic deception!

Brown knows

Psychological illusionist (i.e., magician) Derren Brown is up to his old tricks again. Or rather, he's up to some new tricks. He has a new series called The Events starting on Channel 4 this week. He's opening the series with a rather audacious stunt in which he plans to predict the winning numbers in this Wednesday's National Lottery.

Coincidentally (!) I took part in a psychic lottery experiment yesterday as part of an ongoing study being run by Mick O'Neill. The aim was also to attempt to predict this Wednesday's winning lottery numbers. No trick here, Mick has spent a few years collecting data in an attempt to see if it is possible to predict the numbers using psychic means. For what it's worth the numbers I 'predicted' were: 3, 4, 8, 9, 17 and 38.

The draw is broadcast on Wednesday 9th September on BBC1 at 10.35pm. Mr Brown will be on Channel4 at the same time.

Goose, Moose and Apple Juice

As I've mentioned before, I'm a bit of a fan of Derren Brown. So it was a treat last night to see the man himself in his touring show, Enigma, at the Lowry Theatre in Salford. This was the second time Rachel and I had seen DB in a live show, having seen his An Evening of Wonders show in the West End last summer.

Both shows were excellent. Members of the audience needed on stage are chosen by frisbies thrown out into the audience. At the London show I was lucky enough to be one of about eight on stage at one point for a segment involving pendulums, each made of a large nut tied to the end of a piece of string. Through the power of suggestion the pendulum swings from left to right or in a circle no matter how much you feel you're keeping your arm still.

The best part of the Enigma show comes right at the end which, of course, I can't reveal. Suffice to say, the the title of this post might seem random but it isn't. It seems that DB is in agreement with Spiritual Junkie in so far as nothing is random.

More than a list of fish

I am a big fan of Derren Brown. I think his mind-reading and other psychological effects he and his team create are astonishing and his website is way cool. (Did I just use the phrase "way cool"?) His colour-changing hair trick is especially good... have you noticed how he has slowly become more ginger? No? I didn't really notice either until I happened to recently watch one of his Mind Control TV shows. It was the one where he predicts the idea the two ad agency creatives come up with for his chain of taxidermy shops and then 'reveals' that he influenced their thoughts through carefully placed cues on their cab journey to the office. Excellent stuff. Anyway, in that episode his hair was black. It's funny how you don't notice changes like this when they happen gradually over a long period of time, isn't it?

Anyway, I mention Mr Brown here because in the preface to his book Tricks of the Mind he relates a story from when he visited the London Aquarium. He makes no mention of the robot fish (he probably doesn't want to admit to the possibility of being duped himself). Instead, he quite rightly questions the utility of signs next to each tank that are in braille, observing that even if a blind visitor were able to locate these signs then all that they would be left with at the end of their visit would a list of fish. Hardly worth the £13.25 entrance fee!

Blind fish-lovers should instead make their way to the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California. For one, it's in California. And if that isn't reason enough to visit, blind visitors are provided with hands on bronze sculptures to give them an idea of what the sea creatures may be feel like. Sure, it's what they would feel like if they were made of bronze, but still.

Now all Derren needs to worry about is how do a version of his colour-changing hair trick that his blind fans can also enjoy!