Derren Brown - The Truth

What is Derren Brown doing? Does he really have psychic powers (It is an unwritten law of watching Derren Brown with more than two other people that someone will inevitably say "But what if he really IS psychic? As if they were the first person to ever say it.)
Interestingly, there is no real definitive source on what Brown actually does in his TV shows and entertainment.
Since Derren has been around ten years or so, there is now so much material by him that explaining every trick he has ever used would be very time-consuming. I'll explain the specifics of many of them in the coming months, but for the moment let's look at the general claim Brown makes at the start of his programmes.

For an individual who thrives on deception,  when it comes down to it  he is basically telling the truth when he says:
"I mix magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship"

However, this sentence gives away more about his methods than is apparent. Misdirection and showmanship, while they can be applied to other fields, are basically terms used almost exclusively by magicians. Additionally, suggestion is really just a part of psychology. 
Bizarrely, Derren Brown's commercially successful form of headfuckery, even when is explaining it, is messing with your mind. He could just say "I use magic and psychology" but where's the showmanship in that?


So, when stripped down to basics we know that Brown is basically use only methods. Brown claims to be "honest even when he's lieing" and tell you when he's tricking you. The rather more prosaic truth is that Derren Brown explains what he's doing when the trick is kind of cool, and doesn't tell you when the trick is rather obvious and boring. Which is most of the time.

Brown seems to have an acute awareness of the fact that the public is deeply, deeply uninterested in the old school magical techniques of bowtie-wearing pigeon producing performers. For this reason he generally never explains any trick which involves conventional sleight-of-hand magic. He just knows that will disappoint us. 


Additionally, and confusingly, there is a third element to what Brown does which doesn't mention at all in his introduction, that of statistical trickery, manipulating his audience through selective editing of what he actually shows them. Since this often amounts to little more than editing out his failures and showing his successes, it is hardly surprising he isn't that upfront about this. 
Imagine I say "I'm the greatest bowler in the world". You then see me on film hitting ten pins over twenty times in a row in a bowling alley. Then you find that I edited out the three hundred times the ball went down the side alley. Impressed much? No. 

So, a more accurate if less interesting introduction to Brown's shows would be "I mix magic and psychology, mostly magic, while selectively editing out my failures". That would be more honest, and also partly explains why Derren Brown has got rich from selling himself and I haven't....