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Derren Brown Investigates
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Derren Brown Investigates starts Monday 10th May
I'm looking forward to this. Derren investigates paranormal activity, and people that claim to be in contact with the deceased. As many already know Derren thinks it is all phoney and merely illusion, just like his shows, (not the phoney bit:D).
As a person who sits on the fence with regards to the paranormal, I will be interested to see Derrens methods, and investigation techniques he uses in the show.
I'm looking forward to this. Derren investigates paranormal activity, and people that claim to be in contact with the deceased. As many already know Derren thinks it is all phoney and merely illusion, just like his shows, (not the phoney bit:D).
As a person who sits on the fence with regards to the paranormal, I will be interested to see Derrens methods, and investigation techniques he uses in the show.
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Is he going anywhere near Derek Ancora as he's on telly with his monkey shine act, not that I've actually seen it.
First one
Second is
Third is
Put in the spoilers just in case anyone did not want any information - though they only reveal the general topic, not the outcome, of each show if you want to peek.
http://www.merseysideskeptics.org.uk/2009/06/psychic-joe-power-and-the-two-man-mob/
He also scared the holy hell out of several people with a Ouija board, then also went on to explain why it was rubbish and how he did it.
Some of you might call him a fraud, and perhaps I'd agree based on his last run of programs. But he is an excellent psychologist and does have a genuine talent.
No different from all Mediums then?
La Triviata, he could of course be a reverse 'fraud'... like someone who has actual psi abilities, but claims not to in order to appeal to a larger public. Don't know, it's just a theory I've heard discussed.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to this. Should be interesting.
I've been thinking this for a while. If it's all psychology, why don't we see many people, not claiming to be psychics or mediums, doing these acts?
He was great till he died in 2009.
So much of his 2009 "Specials" was rub-bish
I will be surprised if this thread gets much action to be honest... i bet there wont be as many as say 200, nein, ne regret rien,
resorting to camera tricks is ridiculous
Hmm, not sure about that. The Russian Roulette stunt was revealed to be using a fake gun and full of blanks which kinda ruined it. :rolleyes:
I'll be tuning in...roll on 10pm!
Skip to 3.40 ... he does exactly what the TV mediums do. Then explains that it's completely rubbish. He's great.
Please link where Derren confirmed this,otherwise it's just speculaion.:rolleyes:
I have worked with a few psychics and mediums when making documentaries and in my experience most (though I agree not all) ARE sincere. They are not 'actively deceiving people' but genuinely think what they do involves contacting the dead or the use of genuine psi.
I have a bit of a problem with DB over this. I have no issue at all with him doing experiments and even trying to trap mediums into proving themselves dishonest (if they agree to this they ask for it if they are frauds and if they are honest they should simply be interested in the results - be they positive or negative). And I find his ability to recreate phenomena interesting. However, like many sceptics and debunkers he comes over as rather self richeous and even arrogant in wanting to expose trickery.
As I say, in my experience, whilst there is a good deal of self deception at work within mediumship and a sprinkling of trickery most people who claim they have abilities do have some kind of enhanced ability to intuite or perceive (call it natural ability or ESP as you wish) and interpret the source of that information genuinely as from a dead person. Rightly or wrongly.
The argument is not over these people defrauding the vulnerable (as most are not) but over the nature of that question. There are usually three possibilities. That the data comes via enhanced intuition/cold reading or from genuine ESP/Precognition or from the source they claim (the afterlife). Each is a valid theory and the right approach is to balance the evidence and make your own mind up - not assume up front that the person making the claims is a fraud and self evidently has no genuine ability.
I have never seen the existence of the afterlife proven to my satisfaction and whilst I have no empirical rejection of the possibility am well aware of some of the problems with the evidence, such as it is.
I am far more open to the idea that genuine ESP/precognition exists - having had personal experiences of both that convince me, So I can certainly perceive a situation where mediums possess some rudimentary ability and just misinterpret the source of the data they get inside their heads.
However, equally I do agree that there must be times where mediums 'force it' and (maybe even unconsciously) use deception. Indeed several well known mediums have confessed that this temptation is always there (though most claim to avoid it) - simply because this ability cannot be turned on and off like a tap and happens sporadically as one such psychic (Michael Bentine) described it to me - in the form of a psychic distress flare - where you just suddenly 'know' something is happening, or will happen, or is true about someone as if a rocket has been fired into your mind. But you cannot make that happen so if you are doing ten shows a week you could end up having a whole load of nothing.
So I think these people are usually much more complex than straight - fraudsters who should be exposed. Some, maybe, and if they are I applaud the expose. But I would prefer a tad more tolerance from sceptical approaches like these to the possibility that other things might be going on here beyond the extremes of outright fakery and true contact with the dead.
Thankyou for giving an informed response. I did not mean to say that all mediums etc are fraudsters, and I apologise if it came across that way. I am sure that a lot of these people are 'sincere' in their beliefs. I merely think that Derren Brown is doing a good thing by targeting the 'charletons' amongst this practice, and because of his 'act' he can probably see through their 'act', and therefore is qualified to 'out' them, as it were.
The first step for anyone who applies is that they take a test locally. They agree a protocol for the test with the Foundation, and what results would be regarded as satisfying the test; much of the correspondence is available to be read on the website.Should they pass the local test, then they take a more stringent test at the Foundation.
This is an offer open to anyone, worldwide. To date, no-one has satisfied even the local test; what does that tell you?
Having met Randi I think it tells you two things.
1: That ESP, whatever it is, is not terribly amenable to tests or experiments as it operates in a way that cannot easily be subjected to rigorous methodology. Which, of course, means it is an unproveable proposition and so rightly remains scientifically contentious.
2: That Randi is an astute businessman and knows that his money is safe (though I know several people have offered to try but cannot fulfil the requirements then set for what proof would be accepted).