Derren Brown: Archive
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From: ozric
Date: Fri Dec 20, 2002 12:40am
Subject: Fwd: [Derren Brown] (unknown)
--- > this is the best post ive read on this site
thanks alot terry . good material
> Notes...
>
> There are several techniques that help in creating a
> successful magic
> illusion.
> 1. Ask a question that is inherently flawed.
> "How did the handkerchief move from here to here?"
> The audience
> struggles to solve the problem and never succeeds
> because they have
> accepted the floor rules of the magician in trying
> to answer a
> question that never can be answered when the
> handkerchief never did
> go from "here to here." (The proper question would
> be "How did I do
> this trick?" which is a question magicians rarely
> ask in such words,
> especially when the handkerchief never moved in the
> case where the
> trick was performed by pre-setting a duplicate or
> other technique
> outside of the realm of the question.)
> When the answer to a question is not immediately
> obvious, people tend
> to seek answers of greater and greater complexity
> which brings them
> further and further from the truth.
> 2. Guide the audience toward a complicated way of
> solving the problem.
> It is human nature to think that when the answer to
> a problem is not
> immediately obvious, to seek greater complexity in
> the explanation of
> the problem.
> ("I don't know the answer to this, therefore the
> answer is not easy.")
> 3. Misdirection is easier to accomplish if you
> inflate the language.
> A big word creates more mystery than a short one. A
> technical term
> uncommon in ordinary discourse is better than a
> common one. Words of
> another language help especially. Words that
> establish an assumption
> of a truth that has not really been established,
> especially when that
> assumption is implied in a subtle way rather than
> stated, are very
> helpful.
> 4. Do your best to create the impression that years
> of special
> knowledge and training are needed to perform the
> trick or even to
> understand how to perform the trick.
> This technique can even work on the smartest of
> people trying to
> figure out the mystery of the a trick that could be
> performed by a
> ten-year-old an hour after purchasing the trick at a
> magic store.
> This also helps to increase the effectiveness of
> directing the
> audience toward answers of greater complexity. Give
> yourself a title
> and never refer to yourself without the title. You
> are never
> just "Steve."
> 5. Point out differences rather than similarities.
> When a particular technique is used more than once
> during an act as
> the component of different tricks, new terminology
> and different
> explanations and setups will keep the pattern from
> being recognized
> and keep the mystery intact.
> 6. Claim that you are invoking forces beyond mortal
> understanding.
> Basically this means that you involve religion.
> Those who believe in
> religious ideas that conflict with physics, common
> sense, daily
> experience, logic, and personal self-interest are
> the most likely to
> believe that the magician is performing "miracles."
> 7. In the act of performing a trick, never direct
> your gaze to the
> place on stage where the mechanisms of the trick are
> actually being
> played out.
> When trying to figure out the explanation for a
> mystery, you can look
> forever to find an answer that will never come if
> you are looking in
> the wrong direction. (It is amazing how helpful a
> dramatic wave of
> the hand can be in misdirecting an audience in the
> performance of an
> illusion. The audience will think the hands had
> something to do with
> making the magic happen when the entire trick was
> performed by stage
> hands working behind the curtains.)
> 8. Use social misdirection.
> Most people are basically insecure. They ave been
> trained to believe
> that they must be humble and accept the wisdom of
> society over their
> own ability to think and decide. Let them know that
> what they are
> about to witness "has astounded many thousands of
> people on five
> continents." Most will immediately assume that it is
> not even worth
> trying to figure out how it is done if thousands of
> other people
> could not figure it out either. (Sometimes tricks
> have been figured
> out by people with forms of autism which inhibit
> their ability to
> catch social cues and understand the misdirection,
> so they have an
> easier time using logic to see how a trick is done.
> This, by the way,
> describes the "nerdy" nature of many people who go
> into performing
> magic.)
> If you have ever observed people trying to figure
> out how a magic
> trick was done, you will see them struggling through
> different
> stages. At first they will believe that they can
> figure out the
> answer, but the longer and longer they go without
> solving the
> mystery, the more complicated the theories they then
> present to try
> to explain the trick. The next stage is to beg for
> clues, sometimes
> in ways that imply that they now believe that the
> magician has
> knowledge beyond their immediate abilities.
> Eventuallly the
> frustration is great enough that they begin to
> believe that
> they "will never figure it out."
> What I find the most interesting is what happens
> when you do show
> them how the trick is performed. Professional
> magicians don't tell
> their secrets mostly because it makes people really
> mad. The answer
> to the mystery is always much more simple than
> imagined. Intelligent
> people will not only become mad when told the
> answer, but will often
> argue that the explanation is wrong until they are
> walked through a
> repeat of the trick with the mechanisms exposed or
> until they learn
> to perform it themselves.
> The rejection of a true explanation of the trick can
> come from an
> angry reaction concerning status when a person is
> stumped by somebody
> they consider less intelligent or with lesser
> status. As a person
> gets caught up in the progressive misunderstanding
> that greater and
> greater complexity of theory is needed to solve a
> problem, they don't
> think such a problem could possibly be solved by
> somebody of lesser
> intelligence. But the answers are always more simple
> than they think.
>
> Don't you recall?
>
> Terry
>
>
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