TV Home Forum

Darren Brown - Seance

Darren Brown - Seance (May 2004)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
JE
Jenny Founding member
As it happens, the trickery of mediumship is something I do know a fair bit about, and now that I've actually got around to watching the video, I would say that the DB programme pretty much stuck to the classic Victorian seance. I won't give too much away, but one thing I should mention is this...

CyberCD posted:
If we disagree that there was hypnosis involved in the seance, then what about the two people who went behind the curtain with the tambourine and paper. The first was obviously hypnotised (imho) while the second (i think) was hypnotised more subtly to throw us off the scent, meaning no 'sleep', just like he does later in the programme.


Those two people - and ONLY those two people - were stooges. The rest were simply gullible. Once the two stooges had done their work to convince the gullible ten that there was something weird afoot, the rest is pretty straightforward.

Just read up on how Victorian spiritualists did their work and you'll see how Derren and his crew applied the same tricks.
BE
beefqueen
Noelfirl posted:
I'm still wondering about the ball. Why did it move? It's possible that there was some technological trickery involved or that Derren used his powers of suggestion to make one of the students pick it up. While they were in the dark it really would not have been possible to see anyone touching it. The same could apply for the bell and the trophy I suppose.


Just got round to reading this. AFAIK, this bit was done in the dark so that someone could come in, reach over with a long pole and pick it up. Apparently, that's how it was done in the Victorian era.
:-(
A former member
Jenny posted:
Those two people - and ONLY those two people - were stooges.


Do you actually know that for a fact, or is just a conclusion you've drawn? Just curious - I've drawn the same conclusion.

Although the way Derren got the viewers to pick Jane was a very cheap little trick, that (so he said) was not how he got the participants to pick her.

I have big doubts about DB - I personally think he overstates the importance of psychology. After all, magicians have been making "predictions" appear out of envelopes for centuries.

Brielfy mentioning salt, leaving the store designer to guess vinegar? And follow the exact path DB had alledgedly laid out beforehand? I'm dubious of that too. I'm not a psychologist though.

There are some parts of his show that definitely are just magic tricks, dressed up as "psychological illusion", and at least one that involved a pretty obvious stooge.

Noodle

Newer posts