And therein lies the whole problem with all of this 'is it real - is it fake' psychology stuff. People who want to believe will believe, people who are sceptic will always be sceptical about anything other than the most hard evidence and even then still suspect its a trick but they haven't figured it out yet. Never underestimate the gullibility of the general population.
If you noticed the audience at the show the 'psychic' did, they were almost all female, working class and out for a good evening. They were not a bunch of investigators, scientists or people looking for the 'trick', they were looking for a good evenings entertainment. If there was a bit of sauce, or gossip, or 'spying' into someone elses life then so much the better. What they were not looking for was to know that someones Great Aunt Edith was happy you took care of her cat when she died. The audience have paid to see this - if you are a sceptic you are much less likely to part with cash to see this type of show. So the audience is already self selecting to want to believe whatever the performer comes up with. Start off with a bunch of observational details, get them on your side, and away you go. Not saying the performer does not have some skill at manipulating an audience, they certainly do. Its when it crosses the line of being entertainment to something else that I have a problem with it.
Is it a con, or is it entertainment? I think that depends how far you take it. Saying you have contacted someones distant ancestor, harmless fun. Saying you have contacted someones close relative who died of breast cancer / car crash / suicide is way past entertainment and into something that should really result in a charge of emotional cruelty in my opinion unless the 'psychic' can prove under scientific conditions they really are speaking to said loved one.
Penn and Teller once did a similar expose of 'mediums', outlining the types of tricks they use, how they observe the subject and make inferences from obvious cues such as dress and attitude down to more subtle reactions to things the 'medium' is saying. Start by saying 'I am getting a faint image of a man, would that mean anything to you' and 50% of the time they will be right. Then say 'its a relative, fairly close to you, correct' and wait for the punter to fill in the gaps. The immediate response is 'oh, yes, my uncle Joe' or similar. Recording the medium showed they actually guessed very little, and allowed the punter to fill in the vast majority of the details themselves. Yet ask the punter afterwards and they say 'its uncanny how much they knew, they really must have been talking to Uncle Joe, I am so pleased I went'.
For me, the guy on the show was a 100% fake. But then I am a sceptic. To others he would have been genuine and I doubt his career is suddenly going to fold as a consequence of appearing on the show. To some Derren Brown is amazing, and he is certainly a consumate performer, reader of an audience and also a magician of some talent - he has done close up street magic before as well as the more 'mind reading' type stuff. The difference is that Derren Brown admits freely he is an entertainer, and what he does is trickery. Its figuring out how he does it that gives the sceptic entertainment value from watching Derren.
Steve Maskery wrote:
Brown is a very experienced magician and performer and you would have to be pretty darned good to get past him. I'm just glad he makes it clear that what he does is not "real magic".
Not sure I understand this Steve. I know you put 'real magic' in quotes, but surely all magic is simply decieving the audience into believing something their own experience says cannot happen, did happen. Sawing a lady in half, walking through the great wall of China, producing doves from an empty top hat, reading someones mind or guessing correctly the order of 52 cards in a deck. Its all trickery and manipulation, just that some of it is sleight of hand and some of it is sleight of thought. You need to be very good indeed to do either consistently well.
Steve
