To think Derren Brown's gone too far this time?

[Destinysdaughter]

I don't know if anyone's just watched this but it was billed as an
' experiment in social compliance', where an adult is over time put in a situation where they feel they have no choice but to push a person off a building to save themselves from going to prison. It was very cleverly set up and thankfully the person they filmed didn't do it. But... Then they showed that they had done the exact same experiment with 3 other people who had done it! I was really shocked and think he's really gone too far, messing with people's heads and not considering the consequences for those individuals involved and traumatising them. Ok it may have been trying to show us not to comply but it's left a nasty taste in my mouth! Would love to know what other people think as it's left me a bit

I spent nearly an hour on stage with Derren Brown last year. I wrote quite a lengthy post at the time about how some of the stuff was done. Being on the stage I got to see/notice some stuff which the audience wouldn't have seen. The main "trick" I was involved in was (to me) very obvious trickery and nothing magical or special.

There was other stuff I couldn't work out how he did it. But three things I worked out for sure.

How do you deal with stress and what do you do when upset or angry?

Have you witnessed or suffered any traumatic experiences either in the past or recently?

Do you have any current symptoms of depression or anxiety?

How do you deal with stress and what do you do when upset or angry?

How do you handle authority? Do you like taking or giving orders?

How would you describe your childhood? – Did you enjoy school? What position are you in your family?

The above are just some of the questions on the application form.
If they're the questions on the application form, do you really think Derren's team didn't probe further? They also worked with a psychological team!

Ooh Simon is be interested to hear about that!

I'd.

The main one I can remember is they asked for volunteers to go on stage and about 20 of us went up. Totally random volunteers. We went up just before the interval and were seated on stage.

We all had to write stuff on bits of paper, the name of a loved one who had died, what relation they were to us, some facts about that person. We had to fold the bit of paper and write our own name on the outside.

An assistant came round and collected the bits of paper into a bucket. Apart from he had two buckets. He held one bucket out to 90% of people but a small number of people he held the second bucket out to. He then went to a huge glass bowl on a stand and tipped the main bucket Into there. He then went off stage with the second bucket with some paper in.

So we sit there for thirty min interval. Derren is back stage, and im sure swotting up on the bits of paper he has. He comes out onto the stage in the second half. He says there's no such thing as being a medium of psychic. He then "looks" into the glass bowl, but doesn't actually take any paper out but pretends to read a name off a bit of paper in there. He then tells the person whose name he read out all stuff about their loved one who died. Which he'd spent the break reading about!!!

Later on a different trick he got a rubicks cube behind his back. He had picked one out of two cubes. He said he could complete the cube in a minute behind his back. So a clock counts down and he looks like his hands are moving behind his back. His minute is up, he brings the cube out and shock, horror he hasn't managed to complete the cube. He looks very disappointed until he laughs and says he hasn't completed the cube but he has made the cube identical to the other one. I'm 99% sure the cubes were identical pattern to start with and he never changed the cube when it was behind his back.

His most impressive trick was when he three three frisbee at random into the audience. The three people who caught it came onto the stage. They weren't stooges as he was wildly flinging the frisbees a good distance, one came up near me in the circle and it was a scrum for it.

There were three chairs, three boxes and three envelopes. Each person was invited to pick a chair and sit. Bit of chit chat, asking who they were and what they did for a job.

They then in turn had to select a box each, boxes were different colours. Then the same with the envelopes. Then they could all choose to swap whatever they wanted with whoever they wanted. Chairs, boxes, envelopes. They could swap as many times as they wanted. So lots of changes.

Then they opened their envelopes in turn and read what was inside.

So 1st person opened their envelope and inside it said "I work in IT, I sat in chair number one, picked the purple box and the red envelope". Second person read out "I work in the nhs, I picked chair two, orange box, green envelope". Same for person three.

I have no idea how he did that!