Many of the effects in the book read as impossibilities. The magician takes out a lighter and lights a cigarette. He asks the spectator to stare into the silvered surface of the lighter and name a card. She does so. The mage exhales a stream of smoke at the lighter, which suddenly has the named card engraved upon it, in color, on both sides. On 2 September 2021, A Book of Secrets: Finding Comfort in a Complex World was published by Bantam Press. [83] [84] My techniques are concerned with reading signals from people, tiny unconscious clues that betray their thoughts. I tend to see it like a game...

Brown states that he uses a variety of methods to achieve his illusions including traditional magic/conjuring techniques, memory techniques, hypnosis, body language reading, cognitive psychology, cold reading, and psychological, subliminal (specifically the use of PWA; "perception without awareness"), and ideomotor suggestion. Others additionally ascribe methods to him that he denies, ranging from the pseudoscience neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) to paid actors. [40]The interest in Lego may have come later. Certainly the grown-up Technic variant, with it gears and cogs and motors, fascinated me the most, and presumably some way into adolescence, as I remember constructing a colourful mechanical Wanking Machine during long periods upstairs in my room. The inevitable problem of round pegs and square holes sadly rendered this particular project fruitless, on many levels, but the manufacturers might like to take note of the idea when planning other themed kits for their teenage boy demographic. History is littered with examples of normal people being persuaded to act in deviant, criminal or irrational ways. How do you persuade someone to do something they would not normally be prepared to do? Some people might think of hypnosis. However, hypnosis isn’t really what it appears to be. It’s only a kind of play acting and no one would carry out an instruction to really commit a robbery any more than they’d murder someone if they were told to. Alexander, Ella (24 November 2014). "Derren Brown on the disappointment of coming out: 'It's not that people react badly to it – they really don't care' ". The Independent . Retrieved 10 September 2023. Whilst having his makeup done) This is the makeup process. I’ve been here since half past five this morning. So would you say you’re bringing out a beauty that’s already there? How does it work? How do we hide the bald patch? I’m going to teach them some genuine skills that I use, peppered with some spurious pop-psychology and quite a lot of bullshit.

Brown's first two books were intended for magicians; they were written before his fame. He has said that he pulled them from the market when he found that non-magicians would bring them to his shows for autographs. He says he felt bad because, "...they're spending a lot of money on those things and...if they wanted to find out how I was doing the TV shows it wasn't really answering that question." [82] Derren Brown [1] was born in the Croydon area of London [2] on 27 February 1971, [3] the son of Chris and Bob Brown. [4] He was raised in the nearby area of Purley, which he described as "the epitome of middle-class suburbia". [5] He has a brother nine years his junior. [6] He was privately educated at Whitgift School in Croydon, where his father was a swimming coach, [6] before going on to study law and German at the University of Bristol. [7] [8] While there, he attended a hypnotist show by Martin S Taylor, which inspired him to turn to illusion and hypnosis as a career. [9] Derren Brown: Underground". 31 October 2016. Archived from the original on 16 February 2018 . Retrieved 16 February 2018. Both Pure Effect and Absolute Magic have been around for the six or so years that he's been on TV and he's never worried about 'explanations' for his conjuring being out there. Neither books are concerned much with what he's done on TV, and he's always been very open about the magic content of what he does.In answer to the question ‘Were you at all scared of Chris Ryan?’) I wasn’t scared of Chris Ryan although I was a little bit put off by his white jeans. As a straight man that’s been in the SAS I found that surprising and it did throw me a little bit.. When we are customarily annoyed by what we see as the failings of others, we are judging them by a ludicrous standard: we are assuming that they fully understand our desires, quite possibly better than we do, and that they have nothing to do but arrange things to fall seamlessly into place around our probably ill-communicated wishes.