The Messiah, and why to be Skeptical

Derren Brown, illusionist, “travelled to the United States to try to convince five leading figures that he had powers in their particular field of expertise: Christian evangelism, alien abduction, psychic powers, New Age theories and contacting the dead.

Using a false name each time, he succeeded in convincing all of the “experts” that he had powers, and four openly endorsed him as a true practitioner. The fifth expert, the Christian evangelist Curt Nordhielm, whilst impressed by Brown’s performance, asked to meet him again before giving an endorsement. The concept of the show was to highlight the power of suggestion with regard to beliefs and people’s abilities, and failure to question them. Brown made it quite clear with each experiment that if any of the subjects accused him of trickery he would immediately come clean about the whole thing, a rule similar to one of the self-imposed rules of the perpetrators of the Project Alpha hoax. His conclusion was that people tend to hear only things that support their own ideas and ignore contradictory evidence; this is known in psychology as confirmation bias. During the section concerned with religious belief, he ‘converted’ people to Christian belief with a touch. Afterwards, he ‘deprogrammed’ them of any such belief.” – wikipedia

Derren Brown, The so called Messiah, in Eight Parts on Youtube.

P1: The so called Messiah

P2: The so called Messiah

P3: The so called Messiah

P4: The so called Messiah

P5: The so called Messiah

P6: The so called Messiah

P7: The so called Messiah

P8: The so called Messiah

“Derren Victor Brown (born 27 February 1971) is a British illusionist, mentalist, painter, writer, and sceptic. He is known for his appearances in television specials, stage productions, and British television series such as Trick of the Mind and Trick or Treat. Since the first broadcast of his show Derren Brown: Mind Control in 2000, Brown has become increasingly well known for his “mind-reading” act. He has authored books for magicians as well as the general public. His caricature artwork has received gallery exhibition and is available in a single volume documenting his portrait collection.[1]

Though his performances of mind-reading and other feats of mentalism may appear to be the result of psychic or paranormal practices, he claims no such abilities. Brown states at the beginning of his Trick of the Mind programmes that he achieves his results using a combination of “magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship”. Using his knowledge and skill, he appears to be able to predict and influence people’s thoughts with subtle suggestion, manipulate the decision making process and read the subtle physical and psychological signs or body language that indicate what a person is thinking.”
Derren Brown, wikipedia