Derren Brown: The Heist - an example of what can be achieved with Mind Control

Good program was on C4 here in England tonight, Derren Brown: The Heist.
Some of you may recognise the name, Derren is a popular psycologist here in the UK that demonstrates the ability to be able to read people's minds and 'program' them to do things at will. He simply usues psycological techniques that anyone can perform the knowledge and experience.
He does emphasise often that only certain people are susceptable enough to be suggested to, or read. Even still, a disturbing number of people can be made to act predictably at will.

In the program that was on tonight Derren took a number of volunteers (gathered from a general press advertisment, advertising a character building course by himself) and wittled them down to 4.
Throughout the program he demonstrates the methods and sublimal suggestions used to 'program' the people and also analyse them for their suitability, finally each of the remaining 4 are put through a scenario where they have the oppurtunity to hold up a security van. This is done without the knowledge of the others, in controlled conditions with them thinking no-one was witness
Three out the Four held up the van, using a fake firearm they had been given, and even pointed the gun at the crowd of people that rushed in which included the camera crew, Derren, sound guyts, etc while shouting at them.

All these people were respectable people in Management, Accounting etc and had no disreputable background. They thought they were on a charter building course with Derren Brown, within 2 weeks he had them delivering torture (to their knowledge), shoplifting and finally carrying out an armed robbery on the spur of the moment.
Even the guy that didn't do the robbery could be clearly seen on camera fighting with himself, even mouthing 'I'm not going to do it'.



If Derren Brown can do things like this on his TV show, what can more powerful people do, and what have they done? Are these the methods used to make people carry out suicide bombings?

Keep a look out for terrorists on character building courses.....

[edit on 4-1-2006 by AgentSmith]

I watched it too.. another classic! I like how he explains to the viewers throughout the show why he's asking them to do certain tasks etc.. and what his intentions are... I think I still prefer the sianse one though

It's all pretty amazing, but it just shows you what can be done. If he can do that though, imagine what other could do.....

I watched it too. The guy's so good, he's scary. Like you said AgentSmith, I wonder what people like him could do if they used their talents for evil purposes

flc

I am very skeptical of Derran Brown. I think he uses hyponosis and stooges and mentalism tricks and I say this, because I've not seen the same results he is shown to produce on TV to be produced with NLP. Moreover there have been whistle blowers on him in the past who have revealed that he uses hypnosis(off screen) and actors.

He showed how he used actors in this show to help him with it, and even if he does use hypnosis - it just shows what people can be made to do. So it's still just as scary.

Gonna keep this short as it is very late here and didnt see the show as I dont live in GB anymore but...


Remember that HUGE Darren Brown special where he let someone play russian roulette while pointing a guy at him? He admitted the whole thing was totally fake. I admire Darren Brown big time but lost too much respect for him after that. Sorry I cant give better details as it has been a little while but please give your comments to this episode

Thanks Paul

I really enjoyed last nights show - it reminded me of the program he did with the advertising company employees: He invited these two guys to a building for an experiment, and provided them with taxis to bring them to the location. Derren planted objects and people along the taxi route that he hoped would later influence the results of the test.

At the location, the two guys were asked to create a poster advert for a company. Derren had already created his own poster beforehand, which he placed in an envelope and left on a table in the room. The two guys ended up creating an almost identical poster featuring many of the things Derren planted on the taxi route. I think Derren plants ideas into the subconcious of his subjects, just as advertisers do when theyre trying to get you to buy their products.

The power of suggestion is massively useful for political and commercial purposes!

Since DB is now being shown on the SciFi channel in the US, I thought I'd resurrect this thread.

It's clear what he's doing is 'Magic for TV Audiences'.

The methods, like much of stage magic is often very 'cheesy'.

He uses confederates, camera tricks, people responding to things out of context and other trickery.

It really makes 'stage magic' much easier, because you can hide things due to the camera and filming.

The 'false premise' is that he is too 'honest' or forthright to use camera trickery on a TV show about magic, because we all -know- that would be cheating.

Haha! That's what stage magic is all about! Cheating, misdirection, misapprehension.

In the one with the Kung Fu expert, it's clear to me that the guy is a confederate and by dressing him up in the same costume as the other club members, we immediately make the leap he is really an innocent audience member and part of the club. He's not. He's been carefully rehearsed on how to react to the 'no-touch' punch.