Derren Brown - Reminiscence

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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.á
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 about to look at their watch and say that
they must be going. How do we know? Because we are in strong rapport with them,
and when in that state it is common to suddenly know what they are about to say or
do. This is the same process. Let your breathing become relaxed, and just allow the
impressions to come into your mind as we do this. Sir, you may also wish to check the
pen and board that I will be using throughout this." I hand someone the pen and
board. All this has given our subject time to visualise the contents of the list.
I retrieve the props from the audience member, and place them on the table. To do so,
however, I first reassemble the cut pack and pick it up in my left hand. I take the card
from the subject and tell her to allow her eyes to close. In the action of bringing my
left hand to her head, I top change the top card for her force card, and leave the real
'Romance' card face down on the table. To facilitate this, I ensure that she is seated to
my right, and just back a little from the table. This way I can walk behind the table to
her, and take the card in my right hand as my left comes up to her face. The exchange
is done cleanly as the hands pass, with the right hand's card remaining, apparently
stationary throughout. I then drop the new card on the table, and ensure that no clutter
builds up throughout the routine, so that the audience maintains a clear view of the
card throughout.
The rest is easy, but there are some subtleties that improve the proceedings. I first tell
her that I will ask her some questions about the picture that she has in her mind, but
that I will be very specific when I want her to tell me what she sees - otherwise she is
just to answer 'Yes' or 'No'. I begin by asking her to think of the environment that she
imagines.
"Can you do that for me?"
"Yesá
[To audience] "I would like you all to now form a picture in your mind of where S is
in this picture. I shall write this down: What... is ... the ... place".
[I write 'Italian Restaurant' on the board, pause, and then show it. Remember that you
are trying to create in your volunteer's mind the idea that the audience is picking up
her impressions. She must think that you have written something like 'Where Is The
Place?' on the board and that the audience have formed their own answers]
"S, can you tell me the place that you are imagining?"
"A restaurant"
"Is there a particular nationality associated with this restaurant?"
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