I think I’m talking about the right guy, Darren Brown, when I ask how he did the trick where he would give a bank teller pieces of paper shaped like money and the teller would give him back real money. Looks cool as hell. Did he have inside help? Did he simply go down the line of tellers until he found a spaced out one, or what?
He’s a mentalist, so I’m going to guess that he or others have made claims that he’s ripped off banks with hypnosis or something similar. Do you have any reliable evidence that he’s actually done what you claimed he has?
His name is **Derren **Brown. Sorry to nitpick, but it’s important if you’re searching for information about him.
He has also apparently persuaded cashiers at racetracks to pay out on losing tickets. Damn, I hate that fellow!
We dealt with this subject recently. See this thread. I know it’s a thread about stage hypnosis, but it leads to some mentions of Derren Brown. If you are able to use the ‘search’ function, you will find several more threads that also refer to this wonderful entertainer and the things he does.
One way of doing it would be to have one of the producers go up to the person beforehand and say : “Hi. We’re from the Derren Brown show on Channel 4. If you go along with Derren and give him the money we’ll give you £50 later”
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Keep the money
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Profit!!!
Days and days of filming, and judicious editing, I suspect.
If this were the case, I think we could reasonably expect there to be reports in circulation from people who had been offered the deal. Are there any?
Not that I’m aware of. But they could possibly get people to sign a contract agreeing not to reveal the secret.
You may have seen another trick he did where a phone in a call box rang and a random member of the public answers it. They listen for just a few seconds and then slump to the floor apparently unconscious.
The same thing could apply again - offer them money.
How does that prevent people who turned down the offer from spilling the beans?
Who would turn down the offer? They get some money, their employers have no doubt ok’ed it. What’s the downside?
So, no chance he’s using slightly psychic paper, then?
Those people may not have all the facts.
As this site on genuine hypnotherapy says, quite rightly:
Stage ‘hypnotists’ are entertainers and have little to do with real hypnosis.
It’s a nice bit of social engineering.
Not everyone will accept money for anything. For example, people who felt it compromised their personal code of ethics (I recently turned down two quite lucrative offers on these grounds), or just people that don’t like Derren Brown. What you’re proposing is an extensive, perfect conspiracy.
Not really.
With the dog track one, you approach the employer first and get him to recommend a member of staff who he knows will be up for it. That way you eliminate the element of chance.
Just trying it on random employees would lead to the problems you raise but getting the big boss to say “Oh yeah, Janice, she loves Derren Brown and is always up for a laugh” would eliminate the danger.
Obviously Big Boss also has to sign the contract. Now you’ve only involved two people.
What about big bosses that don’t want a part in it? You’re way out on a limb here and you just need to admit it.
Besides, only a very small portion of Derren Brown’s work involves people in a corporate environment - the rest is just people on the street or other situations where they are not beholden to any big boss.
Not at all. In fact I thought your next post would be an admission of defeat at my superior logic.
When you’re doing a magic trick, you want it to be as dazzling as possible so magicians will go to amazing lengths to accomplish very small seeming effects. I’ve read all his books and his biggest mantra is BE BOLD.
The manager of the dog track need only be told: We want to do a trick on one of your employees. Do you know one that would be up for it? He doesn’t need to know the details of the trick at this stage. In fact he doesn’t need to know ever. All he knows is a trick was done on Janice. He won’t be told the details of the trick.
So now we’ve got the number of people you have to tell down to just one. Janice.
I submit that asking the boss of a dog track - you’d be pretty certain of having an employee that would be up for it. Unlike, say, if Derren had approached Barclays Bank. They might have objections - but a dog track. They’ll be up for it, I reckon.
Yea like I said magicians will go to amazing lengths. When he goes up to a stranger on the street and tells him loads of details about his life, it’s not impossible that his backstage team have done weeks or even months of research on the guy before the “chance” meeting.