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Derren Brown - outdone himself this time?

  • Thread starter Thread starter smr
  • Start date Start date
Slightly off topic, but on his show 'The Gathering' last night, how did he guess what streets were within the grid reference read out by people from a map book?
 
because he has a phenomenal memory, probably memorised the a to z street map tbh
pretty sure this is how he does a lot of his live audience stuff when he tells people what star sign they are and what day of the week they were born just by looking at them. Pretty sure he has all the info before hand and simply remembers who is sitting where.
 
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That is how he does it, it's purely memory. He employs a number of techniques, the most notable ones are: the linking system, the loci system, the memory palace system and photo reading. Photo reading is the technique he used to memorise the London A-Z.
 
Didn't see that one but his book teaches quite a few memory techniques. It's months since I read it and I can still remember something about monkeys, buttons & sausages so it shows it sticks.
 
lcg said:
Derren said he memorized the London A to Z street map, on the show that was after Predicting The National Lottery.
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Every single street, in the whole of London, including all of the grid references and pages? Plus, he said he did it in something like 4 months.

Amazing if true.
 
zytok said:
because he has a phenomenal memory, probably memorised the a to z street map tbh
pretty sure this is how he does a lot of his live audience stuff when he tells people what star sign they are and what day of the week they were born just by looking at them. Pretty sure he has all the info before hand and simply remembers who is sitting where.
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He can't do that for every show around the country that he's done for the last few years. How would he even begin to gather all the information without breaking the law?
 
zytok said:
Didn't see that one but his book teaches quite a few memory techniques. It's months since I read it and I can still remember something about monkeys, buttons & sausages so it shows it sticks.
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I can recite the whole list from memory, thanks to the linking system.

Telephone, sausage, monkey, button, book, cabbage, glass, mouse, stomach, cardboard, ferry, Christmas, athlete, key, wigwam, baby, kiwi, bed, paintbrush, walnut. I read the book a while ago and I honestly repeated that from memory, it's an absolutely amazing system. Derren always says about the importance of reviewing and making sure the information stays in place.
 
mr.sly said:
He can't do that for every show around the country that he's done for the last few years. How would he even begin to gather all the information without breaking the law?
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ooh it must be magic then.....:D

only other way is to have a bunch of plants (which he claims not to use) or he is getting fed the info through a headset which is lame.
 
zytok said:
ooh it must be magic then.....:D

only other way is to have a bunch of plants (which he claims not to use) or he is getting fed the info through a headset which is lame.
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So there's only 3 possibly ways he can read a person?

1) Stalk everyone who might attend his show, memorise their details and then find out where they'll be sitting on the night.
2) Different plants in the audience every night.
3) Given the information through a headset, still requiring him to collect information on everyone who might attend his shows, but he doesn't need to memorise the seating.
 
NeilFawcett said:
If that's the answer then it's just a massive cheat isn't it. It's stepped over the boundary of fairness that an illusionist (magicain) shouldn't go over.

If that door is open, then all manner of camera tricks and CGI are open for use and abuse and the entire thing becomes a waste of time...
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Why? whether he used camera trickery or not it was a very good television illusion... 18hrs later and people still haven't figured out for sure how he did it.
 
One of the comments on the theories blog made me laugh.

How ever it happened the funniest thing about the lottery draw was that nobody won it…its a rollover, Derren could have had the full 2.5 mill lol
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there may be other ways that I can't grasp but he sure as hell isn't able to tell exactly what a random person is thinking just by looking at them.
I dare say that quite a few other magicians know exactly how he did it as it appears to just be a very clever variation on the 'you pick a "random" card from a deck and I'll tell you what card you picked' trick. The numbers could only appear on the balls after the draw was made.
 
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zytok said:
there may be other ways that I can't grasp but he sure as hell isn't able to tell exactly what a random person is thinking just by looking at them.
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He just talks a lot and watches to see how they react to what he's saying. Then from all the facial movements, changes in posture he can figure out almost anything.
 
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