Derren Brown - Reminiscence.pdf - Derren Brown - mcgregor2001

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Reminiscence

"Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? " Job

XXXVIII 2

The Witchery" in Edinburgh, just next to the Castle, serves a starter of

exquisite locally cured salmon with fennel sorbet and a sprinkling of dill.

The icy, savoury joy of the sorbet has the peculiar effect of rendering the

salmon hot and sweet to the yearning, proud tastebuds. The

discriminating diner will be aware of cuisine that has him giggling with

delight - this hors d'oeuvre has such an effect. When a thing of beauty

presents itself in all its splendour and exquisitely wrought symmetry,

sometimes one can only respond with Homeric fou rire. And 'I confess that

as the following effect came together, it had me grinning like a twat.

This is not to say that I have discovered perfection, but "Reminiscence" is

for me something close enough for now. It has its origins in an effect by

Kenton Knepper to be found on the 'Wonder Words' tapes, and perhaps

beyond that in Docc Hillford's Q&A act that I had seen some time

previously. I have taken the notion of ambiguous scripts and double-talk

used in their effects to achieve some profoundly disturbing mind reading.

The first time I performed this at a magic convention, I had a good few

magicians and mentalists believe I was doing the real thing. Consider the

following:

A genuine volunteer is taken from the audience (this is a parlour effect)

and gently hypnotised. Whilst entranced, she chooses an area of her life

such as 'Romance', 'Health', 'Travel', 'Finance' and so on, by selecting a

tarot-like card that corresponds to that area. She is told to build in her

mind a picture associated with that area, which may be a memory or

constructed from her imagination. Once she has a picture, she is told to

step inside it and look around, noting as many details as possible.

Nothing is written down or drawn by the spectator, and she need only

answer the performer briefly from her trance-state from this point on. The

performer closes his eyes too and begins to describe the picture that the

spectator is seeing. She confirms that the details are correct. Let us

imagine that she has picked the 'Romance' card and is remembering a

meal with a boyfriend from when she was eighteen. The performer is able

to tell her precisely what she is picturing, and such things as the name of

her boyfriend and the type of restaurant as he wishes, without using cold

reading. Using hypnotic regression he encourages her to experience the

picture more vividly and is soon able to offer staggering detail such as the

colour of the napkins, the music played in the restaurant and a

description of the waiter. Some of this information he merely states and

has her confirm. However, to ensure that the audience does not just think

that she is merely agreeing with whatever he says, he asks questions

about the memory but writes down the answers on a whiteboard or pad,

in full view of the audience before she replies.

Once the picture has been accurately described, right down to the last

detail, the performer suggests further tests. He asks her to think of a two-

digit number, and then invites another member of the audience to join

him. The second volunteer is hypnotised and given the pen and board. A

demonstration of automatic writing ensues, where this second volunteer

allows the pen to move across the board outside of consciousness. When

the writing is finished, the board is turned around to show the number. The

first lady then names the number of which she was thinking - and it

matches exactly.

Finally the performer asks her to think of a celebrity, and he starts

sketching a caricature on the board, again in full view. He finishes and the

volunteer names the celebrity of her choice: the performer is correct

again. Fin.

This may sound impossible, and indeed I hope that it does. The spectator is

not playing along or acting as a confederate, and she is genuinely

remembering the information asked for. The effect can be repeated with

a different spectator who will of course think of an entirely different event

or image. There is no pre-show work, and the effect is extremely strong in

performance.

The effect was born out of a desire to perform mind reading exactly as it

should look, with no compromise in handling or presentation. The means

of deception is, in essence, rather simple, but there are layers of

secondary deception that bolster the first and make it impenetrable. Let

us look at the methodology, which is almost synonymous with the

presentation.

If she is merely to think of the information and you are to know it, how can

this be done without genuine mind reading? Answer - tell her what to

think. How to do this without her being in on the trick? Answer - control

two effects at the same time: in the first trick, performed for the audience,

you are describing a memory from the spectator's past as described

above. In the second, simultaneous trick, performed for the individual

spectator, the audience is able to pick up correct impressions from her, as

she visualises some information that she has been given to remember. The

two effects can run together due to the fact that when hypnotised, the

subject on stage has her eyes closed, and therefore cannot see your

actions that tie in with the words you speak. Those words will mean two

very different things to the audience on one hand and the spectator on

the other.

So the spectator believes that she is to memorise some information and

transmit it to the audience. Where does she get this information from? The

card that she removes from the set of category cards. One card is forced.

The audience do not see the face of this card (although they do after

you've exchanged it), and the subject does not see the faces of the rest

of the pack. Neither knows of the discrepancy involved.

The audience sees only cards similar to this:

Whereas your subject sees a card bearing the following:

ROMANCE: The Italian Restaurant

Remember and visualise all of this:

It is your 18th BIRTHDAY and you are having a meal with PETER The waiter is

VERY SHORT

There are RED and GREEN NAPKINS on the table. There is NO MUSIC in the

restaurant.

Peter has a BLACK shirt with a large number 22 on it.

FINALLY - Next to the table is a big picture of WOODY ALLEN .

I force the card by severely rigging the deck. Ten or so cards are made up

bearing the various category headings, and on top of these rests fifteen or

so blanks that are strung together through the centre. The face card of

the strung packet bears the legend, "TRAVEL". Between the two sections

rests the force card, which is shortened and narrowed. You must also

make this card doublethickness, to avoid the problem of the writing

showing through during performance. When the subject cuts the deck,

she will do so directly to the force in a way that feels absolutely natural.

On top of the assembled deck is placed the real Romance card, which

will be top-changed for the subject's one a little later. For the start of the

effect, place the force card on the very top of the deck, where it must

reside for now. There is our basic deception.

You must also use a white-board and marker, along with a cloth for

erasing. In your right pocket is a duplicate pen with the ink source

removed and the nib also empty and dried up. When you begin the

routine, place this pen on the chair just to your right.

Now we must look at the words used to make it elegant and appear real.

Firstly, a lady is borrowed from the audience and hypnotised. In my

routine, I have already hypnotised her for the 'Lift' effect, so I can re-

induce the state quite quickly. I look her in the eyes, place my hand on

her shoulder, and tell her to look at my eyes and to feel the weight of her

own eyelids. I then switch my focus so that I am looking though her,

knowing that this will make her feel a

little dissociated, and then start to mirror her blinking, while relaxing myself

fully. She is seated and I am standing by her side, so she must look up at

me. This means that her eyes will naturally tire after a while. But my non-

verbal suggestion given by my blinking which becomes slow and heavy,

and my accompanying encouragement of "That's right" and so on as her

blinking becomes more laboured, will soon have her relaxing deeply and

closing her eyes. I then gently push her head forward and down and

gently push down on her shoulders to slump her further. This will have the

effect of increasing the trance-like state that she is experiencing.

I then remove the cards, which I have often wrapped in a handkerchief

to suggest that they are tarot-like in nature. I use the following as a basic

script as I talk, which will suggest to the audience that the subject will

invent a picture from one of the headings, while for the subject slumped in

the chair, I could just as easily be describing cards that show lists of

information that she is to memorise and visualise.

"People who perform psychic readings know that the areas of concern in

people's lives fall into some classic and predictable categories. These

cards (I begin to casually display them, peeling off the cards into my right

hand, showing the faces) show such headings, and as you can see, each

heading gives you a whole list of images, and details that can be

visualised to form one picture. 'The Future', 'Finance', 'Dreams'...and so on.

(I reach 'Travel' and peel the force card from the back onto the back of

the last of the category cards.) For example, if I picked Travel, I would

think of a recent trip to Germany, the chicken that the stewardess served

me for lunch, the coffee stain on the chair, the bumpy landing in Frankfurt

- all these details and images that I can put together to form one picture."

I walk across to the spectator and place the pile of cards face down on

the table. I tell the subject to open her eyes whilst still remaining in the

trance, relaxed and heavy. She does so, and I instruct her to reach over

and cut the pack into two. She does so, directly to the force. I take the

force card from the pile and hand it to her, saying, "Take the card and

focus on it. Use it to form a picture visualise those details and images that

come under that heading and project it onto the card as if it were a

screen. This picture is what you will project to the audience, and we shall

see how well they pick it all up.„

A few points about this. By telling her to remain in the trance as she opens

her eyes, and by keeping her actions a little laboured by speaking rather

slowly to her, the fact that she is going to apparently stare at this card will

be explained to the audience as her still sleepy response. Similarly, telling

her to project the image onto it and to "not give anything away by

looking around", she will have a motivation in the audience's eyes for

looking at the card for a long time. In reality, of course, she is spending

time reading the information written on it. This will now seem perfectly

natural to the audience. However, you now stand in front of her, blocking

the audience's view, and address the audience.

"The rest of you, please put your feet flat on the floor and your hands on

your laps. Your task is to relax and pick up the images in S's mind. Now,

there is nothing psychic about this. We have all had the experience of

sitting in conversation with a friend and suddenly knowing that they are

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