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Well I got really bored, and had Derren Brown Enigma recorded, so I watched it over and over trying to solve stuffm if this is bad sorry, now a couple of small things I have Ideas about (atleast one part was cut out which involved clever mis direction)

Anyways, on the final play through, I listened at the start almost subliminaly, and when he said do you have a favourite food, person or a destination you would like to MC FLY too.

Did anyone else catch this, allot more obvious over TV to be fair.

Also the dictionary code, 91210, conveniantly close to the popular American show 90210, making it an easy number to remember.

Again if anything is a bad reveal please delete, I only posted them as obsivations that anyone could have made.

P.s im looking for some new mentalism material, more on the psycological speaking stuff, like Derren, I have 13 steps and a few other knick nacks, but would appreciate some more specific reading suggestions. ta.

I heard him say it and presumed it's a cover for the real method which I figured would be reliable and non-psychological. I don't know how it is done but I have my suspicions how but I obviously can't state in case it is a reveal.

I have my suspicion, I actually used my working of it in a talent show, which is harder than a massive crowd with my working anyway.

MagicalSmithy wrote:Anyways, on the final play through, I listened at the start almost subliminaly, and when he said do you have a favourite food, person or a destination you would like to MC FLY too.

Did anyone else catch this, allot more obvious over TV to be fair.

It's unrelated to the method of the first trick (or at least, how I'd do it). Just a little nod to the more astute in the crowd. Weirdly I'd think it would be less obvious over TV, as it was said a few times live. Also it makes the closer even more special

Also the dictionary code, 91210, conveniantly close to the popular American show 90210, making it an easy number to remember.

I'd say coincidence

P.s im looking for some new mentalism material, more on the psycological speaking stuff, like Derren, I have 13 steps and a few other knick nacks, but would appreciate some more specific reading suggestions. ta.

If you want more psychology things than mentalism/magic, you probably can't go wrong with the stuff that's on the reading list on derren's site, or simply going to the psychology section of your local library (university libraries are amazing for that kind of thing, I used to take out more books unrelated to my course when I was a student..!)

Can I just ask everyone, in all seriousness, how much of what Derren does do you think can be attributed to Psychology?

Obviously there's a psychology to magic, but there's a psychology to everything.

How much of what he does is just psychology?

There's beautiful psychology in convincing laymen it's all psychology... can this really be discussed in any depth without tipping over into exposure?

Erwin wrote:There's beautiful psychology in convincing laymen it's all psychology.

His "Guess Whom" was a good example of this. While it was fun, the method was far more blatant than his other stuff. I thought it was a very weak routine for the UK's most prominent mentalist to include.

Convincing a spectator of anything is our job though surely. This is what I meant by there being a psychology to magic, as opposed to the whole thing being about psychology. If you can't convince someone of your lie, you should probably just give up.

Well I think everything he does is physcology and I do not mean in method but the fact that people like him, is that not using great physco social abilities

As for his act, I was not being a dunce, i know what he claims is phscology usually is not but still good to watch.

I figure that mastering an understanding of physcology and sociology can only make you a better mentalist, knowing how things work and understanding people will make you more appealing.

Although I have a book about a man called sigmund froyd, im sure you have heard of him or atleast a freudian slip, saying something your proberly should not have even though it is what you where thinking such as:

"You have lovely breasts" when you meant to say "You have lovely bread"

I know thats extreme but still, also after further studying I do not htink I have developed as a human yet as I never lived the Oedepus theorum, My mum will never be "doable" in all and any sense of the word.

Ahh, that famous Freudian penis... slip, slip, I mean Freudian slip.

On that topic, Freud has nothing at all to do with mentalism. I suppose the tentative link would be that Freud was the first psychologist- well, the first psychologist as we know psychology today, really- to argue that everything we do is influenced by the 'complexes' in our minds. In his introductory lectures on psychoanalysis, he told a story of how he asked someone to think of any name his client thought 'Albina'. Freud argued this was because there was a joke running between him and his client that Freud always called him 'Albino' because he had really pale skin. When he repeated the experiment the other person thought of someone who they were falling in love with, but hadn't yet realised this was so.

Reading through passages like this of Freud, one immediatley is reminded of Milton Erickson and his philosophies on the unconscious which is much more 'mentalism' related.

Also, Paul Ekman, a favourite name to drop by mentalists, when he was younger was an expert on Freud, he claims he has since forgotten all he knew, but that he used to be able to quote Freud on any topic given to him and that others must have found him very irritating for doing so! Similarly when one thinks of Ekman's work, which was heterodox namley because it was beleived 'there is nothing significant in the face' and Ekman, arguably influenced by the neo-Freudian school of thought, saw significance and unconscious processes in virtually all actions. Perhaps this is why Ekman said in an interview that if he could start his career again, he would study handwriting given that most interpretations of it are overlooked as pseudo-science.

On the topic of the Oedipus complex, it is important to remember that Freud argued these ideas would have succumed to 'infantile amnesia' as he would say, or they would have been 'repressed'- ie, you won't remember these feelings because you were a child and because your mind doesn't want you to remember. Nonetheless, you are still correct. The Oedipus complex is nonsense.

Studying psychology however, will teach you very little about human beings. If you read about quantum mechanics or the even more delusional pop science books written about it, then you will be told that observing a system disturbs it such that your observations are no longer valid. Obviously physicists have never tried to understand human beings. The more humans believe they are being watched, the stranger and stranger they become- this is more than a quantum system being disturbed, this is a human psyche! The best way to understand people is to ask 'why?' for every action, however small, someone does. Or to ask 'why and how' someone is the way they are- paying attention, not neccesserily to detail, just paying attention is rare enough.

Asking simple questions, although they seem obvious, are- as it happens- rarley asked, thought about or observed and they will take you a long way. And since we spend our lives surrounded by constant psychology experiments and have the whole of history to look to for social experiments, we can virtually do away with statistical research and analysis and replace it with our own daily, intimate observations, which are much more valid if we pay enough attention.

But anyway, by now I have had to restrain myself from an attack on the epistemology of many social and quantum 'sciences' and I could talk forever and still say nothing relevant, so I think I shall stop here.

Oh yes, and despite my brief digression about psychology since you started me off on Freud and its relation to mentalism- psychology still has nothing to do with mentalism. Nothing Derren does uses any unique psychological prowess whatsoever. At all. Ever. Well... sometimes he uses something very simple. But nothing, nothing at all like what you think. At all. Ever. Ok, I'll shut up.

I enjoyed your post sir and it was all good with me, but...

SamGurney wrote:Nothing Derren does uses any unique psychological prowess whatsoever. At all. Ever. Well... sometimes he uses something very simple. But nothing, nothing at all like what you think. At all. Ever.

..that was the best part of it.

My psychology lecturer once said that psychology is the hardest of all the sciences to measure because 'atoms don't come in to the experiment in a funny mood'.
I can see his point. I've since heard someone else say that psychology experiments are garbage, you can do the same experiment 100 times and get 100 different results.

Frankly, if you were to do that and you got 100 different results, I'd probably reconsider the method.

It sounds crazy to say it, but certainly Freud - and the public's impression of him - give psychology a bad name. The idea of being 'on the couch' is still the average Joe's idea of a psychologist, whereas psychoanalysis is actually rarely practised due to its cost and the fact that its effects cannot be measured or tested.

I can completely understand why mentalists would like to take the psychology route, but Derren himself was called out on this by Simon Singh and ever since he has cut down on the psychology 'explanations'. Sadly, his influence has been enough.
I remember after my first psychology class on my Access course, a gentleman in my class expressed his disappointment with it, claiming he was upset about learning the effects of stress upon the body, as he thought psychology was 'all about controlling people n that'.

Your work here is done, Derren.