I think it’s easy to overestimate his skills; I remember a number of occasions where, whilst watching, I assumed psychological brilliance was the only possibility, yet later thought of a much simpler hypothesis. I’ll list one example here.
In one trick, which he did on his stage show Enigma, he would have a lot of audience members write a celebritiy’s name on a piece of paper and fill a basket; a randomly chosen audience member selected a piece of paper and Derren, from holding the man’s hand, painted a picture of the celebrity’s face. He makes a good deal of showmanship from the contact with the man’s arm, and appeared to be having extreme difficulty—the face looked nothing like a face! Finally he turned it upside down and there was Elton John.
For a long time I believed he was a psychological genius, before I realised that somehow forcing the celebrity’s name, even in front of the audience looking at the empty bucket being filled and then handed to the audience member, was a far simpler hypothesis.
he would have a lot of audience members write a celebritiy’s name on a piece of paper and fill a basket; a randomly chosen audience member selected a piece of paper and Derren, from holding the man’s hand, painted a picture of the celebrity’s face.
This doesn’t sound like a trick that’s psychological in nature. It probably involves switching the piece of paper somewhere.
Yes, but the emphasis is on the psychological showmanship. The shortest description of the trick would be “Derren painted a picture from the imagination of an audience member just by holding their wrists and asking them to think about it” but the trick is that the magic is already over when he forced the celebrity’s name.
I think it’s easy to overestimate his skills; I remember a number of occasions where, whilst watching, I assumed psychological brilliance was the only possibility, yet later thought of a much simpler hypothesis. I’ll list one example here.
In one trick, which he did on his stage show Enigma, he would have a lot of audience members write a celebritiy’s name on a piece of paper and fill a basket; a randomly chosen audience member selected a piece of paper and Derren, from holding the man’s hand, painted a picture of the celebrity’s face. He makes a good deal of showmanship from the contact with the man’s arm, and appeared to be having extreme difficulty—the face looked nothing like a face! Finally he turned it upside down and there was Elton John. For a long time I believed he was a psychological genius, before I realised that somehow forcing the celebrity’s name, even in front of the audience looking at the empty bucket being filled and then handed to the audience member, was a far simpler hypothesis.
This doesn’t sound like a trick that’s psychological in nature. It probably involves switching the piece of paper somewhere.
Yes, but the emphasis is on the psychological showmanship. The shortest description of the trick would be “Derren painted a picture from the imagination of an audience member just by holding their wrists and asking them to think about it” but the trick is that the magic is already over when he forced the celebrity’s name.