Not MORE Derren Brown....

[El Satanico]

Ok, yes it is, but I thought if I was adding something of interest it might be worth posting to a forum I have enjoyed lurking on for a good few months... :-)

I'm not going to get into the NLP/Mentalism debate, because I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle of the two, but I do have a working for one of his effects. I have seen it referred to in this forum as "The one where he makes the cabbie forget...". I have also seen it performed by other Mentalists Max Maven and the excellent Luke Jermay.

This same working can be used to make a person "forget" a tube station or a location, a'la Derren...

Both Luke Jermay and Kenton Knepper use a the technique of "pattern interrupts". Find someone who is preoccupied or thinking intently on something else and ask them "This is a very odd thing that has just happened. You can't tell me your name!"

A person who is sufficiently internally focused will be thrown and unable to answer for a moment or two - the interrupt has temporarily stopped everything cold. It is a unusual and shocking even in the middle of planned activity.

Admittedly it takes daring to do this to people...when they person looks as though they are likely to say the name you can simply click your fingers and say "Now you can say the name...". The truly magical effect here is taking credit for everything and thus appearing "magical"

Derren and the other Mentalists I have seen often use pseudo-hypnotic language to influence their targets as well e.g. framing a suggestion as though it had already occurred "How strange you forgot" or phasing statements as presuppositions "How long will it take you to remember your name?"

In the case of the "Forgetful Cabbie" it is easy to notice that Derren's banging on the Perspex divider acts as a pattern interrupt, this is added to his use of the suggestive language e.g. "I've had the strangest day I've spent all day with a toy car looking for the wheel, but I lost it, I just couldn't see the wheel" etc.

To add more fuel to the fire some of the Mentalist who use this trick will make the target select a card but show the audience a different card using a "double lift". The Spectator assumes they must have forgotten the card because the group and the Mentalist can all swear convincingly the card was different to the one they saw...

IMO Derren is an excellent Mentalist and in Hypnosis and NLP has found an excellent way to explain away the effects he achieves... If he said he was a psychic in contact with the dead then no one would believe him, audiences aren't that gullible anymore...but to wrap his showmanship in a mantle of science he is eminently more watchable...

[Pdrive]

I cant wait to see the responses to this thread....

[Cassandra 8]

What's the emoticon for a sharp intake of breath?

[El Satanico]

I think that in saying I didn't want to re-open the debate I may have lit the blue touch-paper and retired... this wasn't my intention at all. I don't want to annoy or repeat things that have been previously discussed, just to give an approach as to how the effect could be achieved.

Apologies in advance if people are incensed on reading my prior post!

[teadaze]

>A person who is sufficiently internally focused will be thrown and unable to answer for a moment or two - the interrupt has temporarily stopped everything cold. It is a unusual and shocking even in the middle of planned activity.

Yes ive read that this is possible. Ormond McGill (stage hypnotist) recommends trying it on a bus driver at the end of a busy day: 'A strange thing has just happened! You are unable to name the next street!' Never had the balls to try this actually, have you?

No need to apologise about this thread, it is about hypnosis and so is perfectly valid. I think you know that Derren Brown is a long running bone of contention on this forum so it is probably wise not to ask anyone 'how does derren do....?' etc. Just a friendly warning! ;-)

I have no idea how Derren Brown makes the cabbie forget the location of the London eye, however this is supposed to be nothing more than mentalism. I understand that Don, who is an experienced magician, has watched the video and confirms that this is simply a magic trick.

[Neurotic1]

'I understand that Don, who is an experienced magician, has watched the video and confirms that this is simply a magic trick.'

Oh well then it all makes sense now - the cabbie didn't really forget the london eye's existence not even temporarily - there was no suggestion, there was not interrupt or indeed any form of mind control - it was all magic and the cabby was a stooge. How deeply boring a trick - to think that someone could be psychologically influenced but to find it is all a con because the cabby knew what was going on all the time and was just playing along....

[El Satanico]

There are a number of effects that Derren Brown uses that seem to fall into a similar pattern. For those that watch his show I am referring to "Making Commuters Forget Their Station", "Making a bookmaker payout on a losing dog" and "The Forgetful Cabbie". All of these effects seem to use the same methodology. The similarities are easy to see - banging on the window above the bookmaker and the tapping of the Perspex screen in the cab, the same language is used in all three sections. So is this hypnosis? - a pattern interrupt akin to an Eriksonian Handshake Induction? I have seen these effects achieved by stage mentalists i.e. those who claim not hypnotic skills among them Richard Osterlind, Max Maven and Luke Jermay.

I think it's naive to dismiss the effects achieved as simple stooges is it not possible that Derren is both a skilled magician and a hypnotist albeit a stage hypnotist... as a sub-question to the more experienced people on the forum do clinical hypnotists look down on their stage counterparts? I just wondered.

Marc Hogan of www.persuasion-skills.co.uk (http://www.persuasion-skills.co.uk) has an interesting article on this "induction" (if that's what we decide it is)...

"One of the most interesting and powerful NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) techniques that I am asked to teach on a regular basis is the Hand Shake Interrupt made famous by Milton Erickson and of course Derren Brown.
The Handshake pattern interrupt is a very powerful way to induce rapid Hypnosis, and I use it regularly in NLP demonstrations to show how easy it is to learn how to hypnotise someone...

As you may or may not know the handshake interrupt is simply interrupting the process of a handshake, (which causes a momentary blank in the brain)
and bringing the subjects hand up to their face, whilst using hypnotic NLP language to bring them into a trance state."

Incidentally thanks for accepting this as a legitimate thread, it was intended as a discussion of induction methods as oppose to a Derren Brown inspired rant-a-thon. It'd be interesting to hear your views - although not the anti/pro Derren petulant ones!

[teadaze]

>as a sub-question to the more experienced people on the forum do clinical hypnotists look down on their stage counterparts?

Yes, some do, for reasons I dont quite understand. There are some hypnosis organisations which ban their members from practicing stage hypnosis...
But to say that all clinical hypnotists look down on stage hypnotists would be a big generalisation - the techniques traditionally used by the stage hypnotist are invaluable to the therapist yet sadly are overlooked by many.

[Dizzy]

Well if I may continue the topic while still talking a bit about derren, I have found that his tecniques work, I simply listened to his one that stuck a radio DJ's hand to a table, and by using the same words I did the same to my friend! It seems to be a combination of confusing, stong dominant language, some referances to it beforehand and positive language.