Extracts from Tricks of the Mind

by Derren Brown

Derren Brown's television and stage performances have entranced and dumbfounded millions. His baffling illusions and stunning set pieces - such as The Séance, Russian Roulette and The Heist - have set new standards of what's possible, as well as causing more than their fair share of controversy. Now, for the first time, he reveals the secrets behind his craft, what makes him tick and how you can adapt his techniques for use in everyday life.

Three extracts from Tricks of the Mind take you on a journey into the structure and psychology of magic.

Magic: Derrren guides you through a coin and a card trick, revealing how you can instantly transform a simple trick into a convincing illusion.



Memory: Some simple, fun systems to improve your memory, transform aspects of your life and wow an audience with your amazing powers of recollection.



Hypnosis: Learn the key techniques behind successful hypnotism, including the preparation of your subject, inducing a trance and awakening your subject.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, Magic, Science, Biography, Philosophy, Personal Development

Audio CD

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Derren Brown is an English mentalist, illusionist, and author. He has produced several shows the stage and television and is the winner of two Laurence Olivier Awards for Best Entertainment. He has also written books for magicians as well as the general public.

Reviews

[Monique · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well... I had high hopes for this book, but I was left feeling somewhat disappointed. Those of you who know Derren Brown will know what to expect from this book: some information about a few tricks, some stuff about the power of the humand mind and some funny anecdotes, all presented in an interesting if at times somewhat bizarre writing style.

That's what you would expect, right? Right. That's what I expected, anyway. And I got all of that, in about half of the book: some stuff about coin and card tricks, some mnemonic devices that seem useful enough, and a nice writing style. So far, so good. However, that's only in the first half of the book. The second half is devoted almost exclusively to Mr. Brown's opinion upon things such as NLP, mediums and alternative medicine. While I really do not begrudge him his opinion and while I do respect his strong sentiments on these matters, I really don't care to read this bloody much about them. While Brown is undoubtedly something of an expert on what the mind can do and about conning, I really don't need to read some 150 pages about how he thinks alternative medicine is useless and psychics are all cons.

It's not that I'm offended by his opinion, it's just that I don't find it important enough to read about for *that* long. Some of his points are interesting, but when I as a reader buy a book by such a brilliant performer, I want to read about the kind of stuff he does in his shows. If I want to read someone's lengthy opinion on all sorts of things, I'll go and find a message board on the internet somewhere and post some controversial statements.

This book could've been so much more interesting if Brown hadn't been so deeply in love with his own convictions. As it is now, you get one coin trick, one card trick, some info on messing with spectator's minds, a few nice mnemonic devices and then this huuuuuge one-sided rant against all things paranormal. Kind of like my rant about that rant here, but 100 times as long. ;) I read on because I hoped some more interesting stuff was coming, but alas... I should've skipped straight to the 'correspondence' section at the end, which *was* fun. ;)

[Jade · Rating 1 out of 5]

I bought this with the intention of learning some helpful memory tricks, and maybe getting an insight into how Derren Brown does some of the things he does... How silly of me.
Apparently I missed the part of the blurb where Derren Brown lists his credentials as a historian and scholar of Christianity, and states his intention of disproving God. The first chapter just sees Mr Brown going off on a diatribe about Christianity and seemingly religion in general. I respect the fact that he is an atheist, but just as I don't appreciate religious clerics or followers shoving their beliefs in my face, the same is true for an atheist, particularly a new age one.
We get it- you love Richard Dawkins. Now can we get to the reason we bought the book? You know, the stuff you're actually famous for?

All in all I found the first 30 pages so repetitive and annoying in their continued misinformed denunciations of religion that I left the book on the train, rather than submit some poor sod to buying it from a charity shop.

There could have been some great stuff in the other chapters but he put a bad taste in my mouth so early on that I couldn't bear to venture on.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightful induction into a palace of memory tricks, performance tips, language hints, and the danger of invisible rhinos.

[José Castro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Took me 8 years to read this book.

The two magic tricks in the beginning sparked so much curiosity that I had to put down the book for a while as I delved into the world of magic.

I then side-tracked into dozens of magic books, took a year of lessons from one of the world’s greatest magicians (none other than Michael Vincent), travelled to a series of magic conventions, briefly met Derren Brown himself during the early stages of this adventure (and told him about the beginnings of this journey), spent a couple thousand hours practicing, reading and performing, and every now and then I got back to reading a bit more of this book.

I finished it yesterday.

My book shelves now contain over 100 books that wouldn’t be there if I hadn’t gotten my hands on this one.

I am now capable of astonishing pretty much anyone.

My wife’s first memory of me is watching me perform for - and astound - a group of 50 people at a dinner at the salsa club (never mind the fact that she had danced with me several times during the previous couple of months).

Our first kid, who should be born any day now, will likely be known to his little friends as the son of the magician or, fingers crossed, as the magic kid himself.

I never did turn to performing professionally, but I have done my gigs at restaurants, weddings, corporate events and whatnot. Successfully.

Instead, I continued my professional career in Computer Science, now armed with a deck of cards and an aura of astonishment that has drawn people towards me and has opened doors everywhere I go.

I made tons of friends in magic and many others outside of it thanks to magic, I inducted several people into the world of illusionism and I even relit the spark on many a folk who had long before put down their decks.

Long story short: I became a magician, got married, am about to have a kid.

Even my father has now done a few kids shows with great success.

And I know that if I crossed paths with Derren again (which might easily happen, as we now have a few friends in common) and performed in his presence, I would not embarrass the craft.

I think it's fair to say that this book changed my life.

And life is good.

(BTW, I especially enjoyed - and made use of - the chapter on memory)

[Angela Randall · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was really impressed with the memory section, thinking that this is exactly the sort of thing children should be taught early in order to make the best of their education. Conveniently wrapped up with a healthy dose of scepticism, challenges of religious beliefs, reminders to pay attention to how others perceive you, showmanship and magic. I think this is an important book for any person to read as early as they can handle it.

[kim]

So far, it is scary how much this man knows about the human brain! I have certain beliefs which (until now) I would have argued blind to defend. Now I am not so sure, afterall, as Derren put it himself - What is a belief, where do they come from and aren't we just subjective to what we really want to believe?

I challenge you to read it!

[Alex Kørup · Rating 5 out of 5]

At first I found this book funny, but nonetheless weird and in lack of editing.... But read on now... :)

Derren Brown didn't seem to have a specific goal with the book, but instead he pours his head (and heart?) out on a lot of subjects from memory and card tricks, self help psychology and rampages about religion, fake psychics and practitioners of alternative medicine.

The book is easily read. And humorous too.

But why mix his insights in hypnosis and psychology with religion and fake psychics. What's the connection to the way we let ourselves be conned again and again by the same stupid coin-trick? Well, obviously because these are the things that occupy his strange mind, but also because, as you will see if you read the book, they are connected through the way our brain plays tricks on us constantly.

And that's why I decided to give the book 5 dazzling stars. It all adds up in the end. This is truly a book about "The Tricks of the Mind", and Derren Brown speaks right out of the bag.

After finishing the book I looked at it and thought: "That was weird! But definitely in the good way.". I mean, what should I expect from a true illusionist and con? ... ! I jumped in my seat, and quickly checked my pockets, and wouldn't have been surprised if something had been missing...

[Sam Fleming · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before I review it, I’d better ‘fess up about my ambivalent feelings towards Mr Brown.

I am not fond of hypnosis used for the purposes of entertainment. This is an understatement so vast you could use it as an air-craft carrier. It takes an effort of persuasion or morbid curiosity regarding a particular stunt for me to watch any such performance on the television. The only Derren Brown show I have ever enjoyed was the one in which he went around debunking charlatans who were profiting from the gullibility of others (the school teaching blind people to see energy, in an effort to give them the kind of preternatural sight afforded by melange overdose to Paul Atreides, was an excellent case in point). I found his Zombie show repellent, believing, as I do, very strongly in the notion of informed consent.

My problem with Mr Brown comes down to that one critical idea: informed consent. As his show is one of magic and illusion, by its very nature he cannot explain how he does it. He is not the masked magician giving away Magic’s Greatest Secrets (not that I’m convinced by that, either). It is necessary for him to refrain from explaining himself and I appreciate that. It means, however, that the people he involves in his illusions and “experiments” cannot know precisely what he is going to do to them. It wouldn’t be so entertaining for the audience, otherwise. He needs them to be, as he describes the subject of Zombie in his book, of “naïve status”. Notwithstanding his insistence that

“It is very important to me that they enjoy themselves immensely and finish with a very positive experience of the process.”

I take issue with putting someone through any form of experience that, let’s be blunt, messes with his head, without prior full disclosure.

We all know that what is written on the back of the book may not necessarily reflect what the author thinks the book is about. Mr Brown does this in the preface, explaining, by way of what is presented as an amuse bouche
On this front I have no disagreement. Mr Brown does indeed discuss the techniques he employs in his performances. He discusses mnemonics and hypnotism, sleight-of-hand and illusion, the power of persuasion, cold-reading, statistics, the way people are swayed by emotion, and the commonalities of the human experience that can be relied upon to make an individual treat a generic, stock answer as being a treatise on the dark corners of her soul. What it does not do is tell you exactly how he performs any one of his particular tricks. Indeed, he specifically says that he deliberately obfuscates so that what might look like a memory trick is actually manipulation and misdirection and vice versa.

Do not buy this book expecting to find out precisely how he pulled off Russian Roulette, or how he made a table levitate for Dr Robert Smith of UCL (although there is a good picture of the latter in the glossy middle pages). Do buy this book —or borrow it from a library— if you would like to read about Brown’s fascination with mnemonics and what he got up to as a student. Get it for the discussions of how what seems self-evident doesn’t hold up when analysed mathematically (always change your mind when presented with the last two boxes in the Monty Hall problem). If you liked the depiction of Hannibal Lecter’s Memory Palace you may well enjoy the exercises that start you on the road to creating your own.

He has a bee in his bonnet about pseudo-science, which is fair enough. He is only slightly less harsh about homeopaths and alternative medicine practitioners than Ben Goldacre, although makes no mention of TAPL. He does, however, lump a big section of the environmental lobby (including, by textual proximity, Greenpeace) in with the anti-MMR brigade, and misrepresents the Precautionary Principle used in environmental protection to a degree that makes it seem like environmentalists are as risk-averse as the mythical PC Health & Safety brigade (the one that insists that a banana must be straight just in case someone wishes to use it for a purpose other than consumption and runs the risk of injury as a result of excessive curvature).

He discusses, for instance, the banning of DDT and Carson’s Silent Spring, stating that he read in a book by Dick Taverne that “no tests have ever been replicated to show that DDT damages the health of human beings”, thereby missing the point of Carson’s work. Equally, GMO crops and the questions about growing them don’t have as much to do with their effect on the people eventually eating them as on the ecosystem as a whole. In slamming the green lobby for preferring “ideology over evidence” he shows a very human-centric view, and makes himself seem quantitatively, if not qualitatively, to be as much of an idealogue as those he is criticising; one that sees the odd scientific fact and juicy rational tidbit and pounces on it, much as he describes those who believe in spiritualism and horoscopes as doing. I suppose that this only goes to show that we all do it, whether we like it or not, and a little amount of knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

I wouldn’t presume to offer an educated view on magic, memory and illusion. I appreciate Mr Brown’s desire to debunk charlatans and pseudo-scientists, but I do think he should be a bit more circumspect in how he chooses his examples.

That aside, the book is far more entertaining than his television shows. I still will not be persuaded that the more extreme examples of what he does are not a form of assault that is television-friendly.

At the end of the day, the book is also a performance. I doubt, despite his assurances, that the reader will learn much of the real Derren Brown. He swings from being deliberately self-deprecating to being self-aggrandising in a way that we are no doubt supposed to take tongue in cheek. On the other hand, as he says, who you are in an objective sense isn’t so much who you believe you are as how you present yourself. It’s not about what you think, feel or intend but about what you do. If what Derren Brown does is hypnotise people without asking into believing they are fighting zombies, or take potshots at the environmental movement because people who worry about the effect of bioaccumulative pesticides on apex predators are “eco-fundamentalists”, then I am content to carry on avoiding his shows and let him make his money from people who enjoy that sort of thing.

[Aurélien Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amusing and humble, the famous illusionist opens here some doors to his universe, revealing in part what makes a good mental trick. Such glimpse at human psychology, body language, NLP and other interesting fields forms a quick but interesting read. True to himself, Derren Brown also sizes here an occasion to debunk some bullshit, from the paranormal industry to, being himself a former Christian, the fallacies lurking behind any irrational thinking. Sadly, the whole is poorly structured - we go from one topic to the next quite randomly, it can be repetitive and, as it embraces many fields, some chapters will obviously be more interesting than others (depending on what the reader is looking for) which makes for an unequal read. Typical from Derren Brown, it remains however both entertaining and instructive. Not a must-have, but still a nice pick.

[Alex Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Derren Brown’s Tricks of the Mind was released in 2007. Obligatory disclaimer: This book will not fully explain the tricks and illusions you see on television. Instead, this book covers basic cognitive principles that allow these illusions to happen.

Derren Brown’s Tricks of the Mind is a good book; it covers a good bit of information on memory, suggestibility, and body language. It’s good, but it’s hard to recommend to others. The book begins with the idea that you know who Derren Brown is and that you are at least a little familiar with his television specials. What you will learn in this book is filtered through Derren Brown’s prose, which is scattered, tangential, and often humorous. Too often though, it felt as if passages that went on too long were placed just to increase the word count. Additionally, the material covered in this book is so scattered that it often feels disjointed. With exception of the chapter on memory, most of the material is covered at a level that is too shallow to gain much practical use of; instead, a good portion of this book serves as a primer for other subjects (like skepticism, suggestibility, or unconscious communication).

That’s the bad stuff. The good news is that Tricks of the Mind is quite fun. Many of the anecdotes are humorous (again, you are required to know who Derren Brown to find these at all interesting) even if they aren’t directly related to the content on hand. The tone of the book varies from self-aggrandizing to self-deprecating, but it always tries to engage and humor the reader. The most useful chapter is probably Memory, as it includes many things you can put into practice in your daily life. Now, these techniques are not novel, but they are written in a very accessible way. I would almost recommend this book based on the chapter alone. Familiar psychological methods are brought up (linking, method of loci, peg system), but this book treats them as fun exercises rather than tedious phenomenon. Another thing I really appreciated was Brown’s skepticism to his own anecdotes — while he is a hypnotist, he doesn’t make any ridiculous claims that aren’t confirmed by scientists. The latter half of the book serves as a polemic against pseudoscience, mysticism, psychics, and other forms hogwash. The end of the book provides a great list of books that are worth reading; it’s just nice that they are all listed in one convenient location for people who may be interested in pursuing more skeptic literature.

I think a lot of the material covered here is of interest to many, but I think the way it is written and the way that subjects are handled makes the barrier to entry a little higher than it ought to be.

[Redfox5 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had the wrong idea about Derren Brown. I'd never seen him on tv, just thought he was some silly magician who brought in to all that medium/hypnotist rubbish. My sister informed me this was not correct and gave me a copy of the book.

This is the kind of book that appeals to me, I don't believe in any of that rubbish and Brown does a wonderful job of informing us how the "experts" make people believe. It's all in the mind, something which I often tell people who swear blindly they've seen ghosts. I used to think I saw ghosts, I grew up and realised it was my imagination. As a book reader having a vivid and over active imagination comes easy to me. I can create a world inside my head instantly and clearly. Which is why I know that my mind will see things that are not there. It's bloody powerful. But maybe some people who are not used to this kind of imagination, you know, those people who think books are boring and they would just rather wait for the film to do all the work for them, find the thought of such an imagination unnatural and would rather see "ghosts". Someone one should look into that, see if there is any connection?

I really hate mediums, you can't talk to the dead. There is no one to talk to because they are dead. And the dead can't talk. They prey upon the grief stricken and the weak and it winds me up. My mum saw a medium, the medium said one of your children is surrounded by photos, so many photos. My mum assumed they were talking about me as I take lots of them, just like millions of other Facebook users. What a guess.....

I'm sounding a little outraged today and it's nothing to do with the book. It's Russell Brand who's wound me up today saying that a vote for Labour was a vote for democracy, conveniently forgetting that if Labour get in they don't want the people to be allowed their say on the EU...urrm is that not how democracy works? And while I was trying to read my mind kept drifting back to this and all the sheep who are following him. Argg!

Okay rant over back to the book.

I found the first half to be dull. I have no interest in learning any mind control tricks, and there are several times you are urged to put the book down and have a go. I wasn't really interested in having a go and skipped some parts. As noted above, the cynic in me was loving the discrediting parts and Brown is genuinely funny.

If you hold all these methods in high esteem then you are going to be just as outraged by this book as I am about Brand. I'm sure it will make for some pretty entertaining reviews. :)

[Sunny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought the book was ok overall and actually very funny in places if you can understand his sarcasm! The book is about mind tricks and hypnotism among other mind related stage activities Derren takes you through. There are some funny stories to keep you amused through the book although at the end it gets into the psychosis side of things which I found personally a bit boring. There were a few really good memory tricks which I have started applying already. Other chapters covered coin tricks, suggestion techniques, memory tricks, hypnosis, language, NLP, personal change, curing phobias, playing with pictures, spotting lies, unconscious communications, thinking traps and psychics. I have to admit that I always got him and paul mckenna mixed up.

[Leona · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can't finish this.

Derren's words are too big for me. I've also reached the part of the book where he wants me to try magic tricks and I'm like, derren mate, I'm in bed.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

4½ stars
TL;DR: Derren Brown's Tricks of the Mind offers insights on psychology, belief, and memory, blending wit with personal stories.
—
Just finished Tricks of the Mind by Derren Brown. I’ve been meaning to read it for ages—I’ve followed Derren’s work for years now, from the early stage shows to the more recent, quieter, more introspective stuff. I’ve always admired the way he blends performance with psychology, that kind of subtle commentary on belief and how easily we’re swayed by suggestion. So yes, going into this, I already had a good handle on a lot of the concepts he talks about. Memory techniques, misdirection, the flaws in how we perceive things, why we fall for psychics, that sort of thing.

To be honest, there wasn’t much in the book that surprised me. No big revelations. But weirdly, that didn’t bother me. I wasn’t looking to be surprised—I just wanted to hear it all in his own words, and that’s exactly what I got. And it was strangely satisfying.

There’s something comforting about the way Derren writes. He’s witty—dry in that very British way—but also thoughtful. I found myself smiling through bits I already knew simply because of how well he put them. He’s not just smart; he’s good at sounding smart in a way that doesn’t make you feel small. He talks to you, not at you. That makes a big difference.

What really stuck with me was the more personal stuff. I’d always wondered how he got into this line of work—what the path looked like before the TV shows and the big theatre productions. Reading about his early interest in hypnosis and magic, how he started off feeling a bit out of place, figuring out how to use these tools to connect with people—it made everything I’d already seen from him onstage make more sense. You get a glimpse of the scaffolding behind the performance, and it somehow makes it even more impressive.

The structure of the book is… well, let’s say “loosely organised.” It jumps around a fair bit. Some chapters are practical—like here’s how to build a memory palace—others dive into scepticism, or take a turn into big-picture philosophy. At times I found myself drifting a little, especially during the longer stretches where he gets into debunking alternative therapies or going deep into how belief works. Not because it wasn’t well argued—it was—but because I’d already heard him say most of it before, in one way or another. Still, I kept reading. There’s something about his tone that makes you want to keep going, even if you feel like you’ve heard the song before.

There were these little moments where something would just land—where a phrase or a passing comment would stop me for a second. I remember one bit where he talks about belief, not just in supernatural stuff, but in ourselves, in the stories we tell to make sense of life. And I found myself staring at the page for a moment, just thinking, “Yeah… that’s exactly it.” It’s not about tearing things down just to be clever—it’s about encouraging people to really look at how their minds work, and maybe get a little closer to the truth, however messy that might be.

It’s also strangely calming to read someone who clearly values precision. Not just in performance, but in language, in thought. It reinforced my desire to think more clearly. I found myself questioning things—not in a big, dramatic way, but in those quiet, private little ways that matter.

I didn’t walk away from the book with a list of new facts or skills. That wasn’t the point. What I walked away with was a sense of Derren as a person—a little more of his internal world. That mix of performance, intellect, and curiosity I’ve always admired was there, but layered with a kind of openness I hadn’t expected. He’s not just trying to impress; he’s trying to share.

And even when I disagreed with something, or found myself thinking, “Alright, I’ve heard this part before,” I never felt like he was wasting my time. There’s value in hearing someone articulate ideas well, even if those ideas aren’t new to you. There’s a kind of pleasure in being reminded of things you already believe, but hearing them said better.

Would I recommend it? Yes, I would. Especially to someone just discovering him. But even for long-time fans like me, it’s worth it. Not for what you’ll learn, necessarily, but for the quiet satisfaction of seeing how all the pieces fit together—from the memory tricks to the belief systems to the man himself.

It’s not perfect. But it’s real. And in a book like this, that counts for a lot.

[Tom Oldale · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellently written and genuinely funny insight into magic, memory, hypnosis and scepticism.

I really enjoyed this book and read it within a week as it is brilliantly organised into bite sized sections all as fascinating as the last. Some of you like me will get very little from sections like magic (as I have no interest in being a magician) but those sections are still interesting and within this book I’m sure is something of interest to everyone especially if you have even a minor interest in psychology.

The techniques, experiments and science explained in this book is truly intriguing and with Brown’s writing style becomes perfectly accessible.

Derren Brown obviously has a comprehensive understanding of the human mind and how to best manipulate it within his shows and this book gives you a fairly although not completely in-depth look into the techniques used. The only issue I had with it is if you are already a fan of Derren Brown and/or have an interest in psychology as I do, you will find yourself very often already knowing a lot of what is explained here. The book is I dare to say it, preaching to the converted in the last quarter in terms of pseudo-science and psychics etc.

Still, the content and writing style makes this book a great read for any fan of Derren Brown and I think even more importantly it is a great read for someone who hates Derren Brown but maybe likes healing crystals and psychics, you could learn a lot from this if you allow your mind to be opened just a little to the facts.

[Alexis Stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book but I'll admit I am definitely biased as it covers many things I am very interested in, already have good knowledge of, and Derren Brown is one of my favourite performers and mentalists.

The book is very loosely structured, around the idea of the tricks our mind can play on us, touching on everything from magic and illusions, to psychology, memory, pseudoscience, and to cold reading and psychic claims.

Derren Brown makes many great points throughout and shines thanks to his funny, clever, witty and charming writing. It feels familiar and engaging, capturing the same brilliance he brings to the stage and every show he puts on!

5/5, would recommend and will return to often to refer to snippets I want to recollect.

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Derren Brown has a real talent for engaging his audience, be it with his stage performance or, as I have just discovered reading this book, in his writing.

The author gives very some very interesting explanation on the general principle of "how it is all done". That made me go back to watching his shows with increased pleasure. He does keep the details of his performance secret though, which is probably for the best.

Highly recommended.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely my new answer to "who would you want to have a dinner party with, dead or alive" is Derren Brown. Long fan of his shows (thanks to youtube) and have an interest in his type of entertainment. So to get his side of the story on all things mental/suggestive/ etc is well worth the read.

[Rljulie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I save five stars for books I re-read or refer to later or pass on to friends. This is an old one, but so full of such necessary human information that I find myself passing it along quite frequently. To me, this book is best not for entertainment value, but for a simplified way of understanding how we think, and many of the ways that our brains can work against us in everyday life. Knowledge is power, and this book is an entertaining way to make your life more "illusion-proof".

The things that stand out about this book, as I recall it:

1)It's where I learned about "Barnum statements". It astounds me how long these have been working, and how effective they are on normally intelligent people, and how resistant people are to being told their astrologist/fortune teller/minister/therapist is just giving them basic cold readings. Brown demonstrates how our need to believe we're "special" and "unique" actually makes us, in fact, just like everybody else.

2) It demonstrated the importance of looking at techniques of emotional manipulation, indoctrination, hypnosis, and brainwashing. When one knows what's going on, one is less easily fooled by these techniques.

3) It teaches practical memory exercises. Brown outlines a few of these that, in the years since I first read this, I have practiced and used to great effect in my everyday life. I wish I could take it to the "genius" level, but in the meantime, it's helpful to have an easy way to remember what I meant to do today, or my grocery list. This is practical and helpful information you don't often find.

In short, I often find people in the world making outrageous claims of various sorts, and I wish I had a copy of this book to hand them, and say "Yeah, it's not that complicated. It's just due to the basic way our brains work. Here, read this: it's fun, funny, and will teach you a thing or two besides."

[Samuel Tyler · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have come to realise that I don’t like being taught. At school I would find it hard to concentrate on work that did not interest me, whilst things that excited me I would have an almost photographic memory of. For this reason I am a fiction lover and not non-fiction. I would much rather learn from a story and hope that the author has done their research, rather than be preached to by a textbook. I was hoping that ‘Tricks of the Mind’ by Derren Brown would buck this trend as he is a very personable TV personality and I believed that if anyone could make learning a bit more interesting, it would be him.

In part I was right. ‘Tricks’ is essentially a 101 guide to many of the tricks of his trade from basic magic, hypnotism and using words to distract a person. All these elements could be fun to learn, but you need to study to get good at them. At times this book does feel like a textbook that drones on in detail about technique. For someone genuinely thinking about taking on the role of a mesmeriser it will hold many juicy titbits, but for someone just looking to be entertained, it can be very dry.

This dryness is made even more apparent by the fun sections that pepper the educational section. Every now and again Brown tells a small vignette of his life. This autobiographical sections are far more interesting and you end up gleaning the book for them. Perhaps I came to this book with the wrong frame of mind, but I still think an educational book on magical techniques could have been a little more fun. If someone was truly planning to become a magician they could pick up some other dull volumes, Brown could have said a little less about practical magic and talked more about himself.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book felt very padded and often I skim read ends of pages as Derren had already come to a conclusion but waffled on.

The book is a general comment on magic, psychology, mental techniques and mysticism.
Nothing is particularly profound and most points are fairly common sense.
The memory exercise was fun and I was surprised at just how much I could remember - even backwards.
This worked less well in reality as Derren's list contained very unique items - but I am going to practice.

Derren's sarcastic, quipy tone does not work as well in print as it does in person and I found the cutting little comments started to grate about a third in.

There are some pictures in the middle of the book, most of which don't relate to the text, as well as pages of further reading and correspondence from fans.
It felt like Derren really struggled to hit the minimum page count.

For a short, big text book with lots of white-space this felt very long.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really interesting book - I got stuck in to the section on memory, and decided to memorize the periodic table as a small exercise. It was surprisingly easy - admittedly I had to fine-tune some of the techniques once I had learned them, but the results were incredible really! It would be diffcult to learn the periodic table just by repetition ( I did the majority of the work in under two hours ), and far too time consuming! However, if you learn a few simple techniques, you could surprise yourself like I did. Of course, there are other good books on memory also, and there is much more to this book than the one subject I have outlined above ( Although that subject was the one I got involved in quite heavily ), so this gets a five star review.

[MaryRary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved it. It's an interesting approach to psychology, human behavior, and magic tricks, with a nice touch of critical thinking. Derren Brown is a showman; he knows how to sell his story and knowledge. It's pleasant to read and informative, without any supernatural mumbo jumbo on hypnosis or magic tricks.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very meh book. Probably the fault of me for not reviewing prior to reading. The magic section held little interest for me even though Ive enjoyed Brown’s tv shows. The more psychological/skeptic sections were well written but I had encountered things like cold reading or nlp. His prose is sometimes funny but I feel like a lot of new authors he overwrites and tries to dazzle with his vocabulary. I’m with Orwell when it comes to prose. KISS

[Elisabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely brilliant. So enthralling I had to finish it even though my eyes were already closing due to late hour. Not to mention his great tricks and exercises that the reader can benefit from, his witty manner of writing numerous funny stories make it such an enthralling but critical piece of writing. Just brilliant!

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful, clever, exciting - and rather scientific too. I enjoyed his gentle charm and perspicacious views. This put me back into that enjoyment of magic I had lost years ago.

[Joey Vissers · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I have ever read. It is fun to read and Derren gives you a wide range of information of how he does his tricks.

I can only say I hope he keeps making these kind of books.

[Dimitris Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book, Derren Brown, famous British "illusionist, mentalist, trickster, hypnotist, painter, writer, and sceptic", sets out to reveal the secrets of his work and actually tell people "I have no real powers, and I hope this settles it!". We get to see all of the above sides of his: amazing breakdowns of his work and shows and spectacular analyses of what parts of human psychology and neurology he manipulates and why. Most of all, however, we see his sceptical side.

Derren Brown dedicates the majority of his book and prose on an excellent and thorough debunking of things like parapsychology, homeopathy and alternate medicine. He goes through them with an aura of "I would like these things to exist but they cannot, and here's why". The idea is that they're all a mix of delusions, confirmation bias, psychological tricks and many other "flaws" of the human psyche he actually explains are the reason he can trick people.

Now, my personal opinion still is that the scientific method is far from perfect and that a lot of what we see that works in these fields but shouldn't, based on what we can know and understand about the world, is not necessarily less real than what can be proven; conversely, the scientific dogma is trying to concvince us that if it can't be proven, it shouldn't work. However, anecdotal evidence from countless sources (which Mr. Brown rejects based on the fact that they cannot be integrated into a greater theory, but how could they ever be?) tells us a different story.

Repeatabiliy, correlations between cause and effect and the need for evidence are concepts inseparable from the scientific method, but the scientific method is only one way of looking at things. You might say it is the one that works more reliably, but that doesn't mean that it always works or even that reliability should be our end-all-be-all criterion when creating our world theories. For example, how does reliability and repeatability fit in with the double slit experiment? Or how about the decline effect (excellent article by the New Yorker), which questions the whole idea that once something is proven, it should be able to be repeatedly proven anew? What if it fails to? Is it a problem of the experiment or an incompatibility of the nature of things with the idea that, given the same known and unknown conditions, A should always lead to B? Maybe Douglas Adams had it right all along:

“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”

In short: if Derren Brown is an open-minded sceptic, I choose to be the unorthodox researcher, the explorer of the fringes, the one who looks for the truth that slips between the seams, what gets misunderstood by the scientists of its time, ridiculed, rejected by the dominant paradigm, including the rhetoric of this book of course. "I have the rational intelligence to be a scientist, but it's not in my personality to fill in cracks in established mental models. I seek anomalies that open cracks." ~Ran Prieur (there's more from him coming up)

I believe that the author's bias towards positivism is a resulf of him, as discussed in the book, being religious at a young age and at some point changing sides completely. Since then he seems to have kept insisting that the paranormal or parapsychology must have the same psychological root as religious belief. This is a bias which can also be seen in the studies he chooses to cite to prove his points, as well as the books he recommends at the end of the book for further reading; most of them are, predictably, reinforcing what he already talked about in the book - more scepticism in line with The God Delusion (which I'm curious to read). Is he making the same mistake of maintaining reverse cognitive and confirmation biases, the very same thing he set out to point out to us that everyone is doing?

All that said, even if I disagree with his scope and can see the limitations of his argument (which could be a cognitive bias of my own, mind you), I did enjoy his argumentation and have to commend his style. He didn't insult people who fall into the cognitive mistakes he outlines and who believe in these irrational behaviours he has taken advantage of to become who he is now; he didn't try to hold the scepticist view just to prove a point or win the argument, as too many people to count are used to doing, themselves becoming the very zealots they swore to destroy; he was gentle and careful with his explanations and approached the topics with an genuinely, not just a supposedly, open mind; his whole style gave off the impression that he is actually interested in the truth, that he has the real spirit of a researcher and isn't just the pretention of one. If we disagree in scope and -naturally- look at things from different perspectives... So be it. All I know is that I gained something from his healthy scepticism and his book is now serving as a platform for further investigation of mine in all directions.

An excellent example: from the books section of Ran Prieur's website:

Charles Fort was the first paranormal investigator, and he's my favorite natural philosopher. He spent 27 years in libraries collecting notices of physical phenomena unexplainable by science, and put them together into four books in the 1920's. You don't have to be into weird stuff to appreciate his style of thinking: that all our attempts to make sense of the world only seem true by excluding stuff at the edges that doesn't fit, and we can keep updating and revolutionizing our models to fit new observations, but there is no end to this process. This should not make us feel troubled, but awe-struck and amused. The Book of the Damned is Fort's first and best book, and his one-volume Complete Books are still in print. Here's another source of Fort online.

[...]

I've been into paranormal and new age writing for most of my life. My advice is not to exclude it completely or your mind will become cramped and inflexible. It's safe to dip your toes into it, but if you go into it deeply, you have to commit to going all the way through. Because you'll reach a point where your mind cracks open and you'll think you suddenly Know the Truth, and you'll be tempted to stop and set up camp. You must not stop, but keep looking at different perspectives. Then you'll think, wait, now this is the Truth, and now this... Hold on here! It's looking like reality itself is so packed and multifaceted that it's easy to make any nutty system of thought seem like the Truth -- including the dominant paradigm itself. Now you're getting it!

The smartest and most thorough book on the "paranormal" is The Trickster and the Paranormal by George P. Hansen. Even though his writing style is aggressively clear, it's still hard to read because the ideas are so difficult. He covers anthropology, literary theory, shamanism, stage magic, UFO hoaxes, psychic research, and more, and the general idea is that it's the very nature of these phenomena to only exist on the fringes. How can this work? The answer is simple but sounds so crazy that even Hansen only hints at it. Another big idea is that real unexplained phenomena and hoaxes are not opposites, but blend together.

I love the books of Fortean paranormal researcher John Keel. They're all great, but my two favories are The Mothman Prophecies and The Complete Guide to Mysterious Beings. Like Keel, I think UFO's are an occult phenomenon (which means something very hard to explain), and an even smarter author who thinks like this is Jacques Vallee, whose most important book is Passport to Magonia.

A great source for all kinds of fringe books is Adventures Unlimited.

Some books that try to merge woo-woo stuff with hard science: The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot, The Field by Lynne McTaggart, and The Self-Aware Universe by Amit Goswami. And for a critique of the untested assumptions that underlie science as we know it, check out The End of Materialism by Charles Tart or The Science Delusion by Rupert Sheldrake.

[...]

So when Wilhelm Reich developed physical tools to work with the esoteric energy he called "orgone", or when Royal Rife cured serious diseases with precise frequency generators, or when Louis Kervran found biological creatures transmuting chemical elements (his book is Biological Transmutations), or for that matter, when ordinary people experience UFO abductions or miraculous healings, these are not hoaxes or delusions. They are honest and accurate observations that fail to be integrated into consensus reality... so far!

*deep breath* Okay. I've written this much already and I haven't even mentioned any of the more practical things covered. Mr. Brown included tricks for improving one's memory and memorising things (like the incredible Method of Loci), techniques for spotting lies and deception, and others shared with the foundation of NLP for disconnecting with bad memories and reinforcing positive visualisations. You can even find the fundamentals of hypnosis in there, but it's a topic which, to be honest, he muddled through, unable to tell us precisely or convincingly what it is but very keen on telling us what it isn't. Now all I'm left with is "what's hypnosis finally?"

Yes. This review is too long. If you skipped to the end, let me tell you that this book is worth it. It will make you think and it will make you look into real techniques that are both impressive and useful, if only you can just sit down and practice them (which it's doubtful I will, not because of lack of interest but because of lack of dedication - for now).

To think I haven't even watched his shows...

[Eva · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the way this guy writes (or maybe it's his writing partner). Hilarious. I was just disappointed that so much of the book was about stuff I'd already read about a number of times: memory tricks, pseudo-science, and spiritualism.

My favorite part was the preface; here's part of that:

Some time last spring I thought I would visit Her Majesty's Fish in the aquarium, which sits beneath the gently disappointing London Eye not far from our production offices. At the time I had just had a fish-tank installed at home and was looking for sea-monsters with which to fill it. Tentacled, multi-limbed, slithering creatures which are entirely at home only when attacking submarines or James Mason were what I was after, and the thought of visiting a place where such things as giant octopodes (I notice that Microsoft is not only unhappy with the correct plural, but also allows octopi, which those of you who delight in annoying others will know is in fact wrong) might glare at me through toughened and confusingly-focused glass struck me as far too exciting for words. As it turned out, Zone Twelve of the Aquarium was irksomely short on invertebrates of any sort, and the highlight of the afternoon proved to be looking at an enormous American lady squashed against the glass from the opposite window of the shark tank.
I was, throughout my tour of largely similar fish, doing my best to read the little plaques next to each tank, which told me and other curious visitors the name, feeding habits and musical tastes of whatever was diving, swimming or floating upside-down inside. About halfway through this fabricated subterranean labyrinth, my conscious mind suddenly latched onto an oddity. I realized that underneath the descriptions of the various natant ichthyoids there was a translation of what I presumed to be the same information in Braille.
For a while this seemed quite natural, and then I caught myself wondering:on average, how many blind people a year visit the London Aquarium? Now I don't wish to sound insensitive, but I imagine the number must be negligible.
I would welcome any answers from blind people to a couple of questions that have been bugging me since. Firstly, how do you know where the Braille sign is located? This must be relatively straightforward in such things as lifts, but what about in an alien environment? If alone in a train toilet, how does one find Braille instructions for the use of obscured or unusual soap dispensers or toilet flushes? That sounds like an unpleasant and even unhygienic search to be undertaking while bumping around somewhere near Didcot Parkway. My second concern, clearly, is if a blind visitor found the Braille sign in the Aquarium, of what earthly use would it be? Aside from possible fleeting strokes of a passing stingray in the 'touching pool', the London Aquarium seems to be an experience ill suited to visitors with severe visual challenges. It occurred to me that the Braille signs, if located, would at best provide the blind visitor with no more to take with him from his afternoon than a list of fish. A list of fish.
...
So, taking on board the wide range of people who might watch my shows, I have tried to pitch this book to the intelligent reader with a layman's interest in things mind-related. Some of those things I feel passionately about and others are drier subjects:I just offer my thoughts at the level at which they occur in my enormous round bearded head. The subjects covered the diverse, and some are a little more academic in tone than others. Equally, I have rejected the option of writing an anemically 'light' introduction to exciting mind-feats, which would make for easy reading and quick writing but would undoubtedly be misleading,and instead incorporated a level of skepticism where I feel it is important. This comes from a desire to make the contents of the book as worthwhile and unpatronizing as possible('patronizing,' of course, means 'to talk down to people').
I do hope that you are inspired to delve further into one or more of the areas to which this book will introduce you;if not, it should make an excellent and inexpensive bath-toy for your least favorite child. I would love to feel that this book can give you information you can apply practically, or use as a springboard for further useful discovery. That would be my aim. I would hate you to leave with just a list of fish.


Misc. other quotes:

We should all go together to a magic convention. They are extraordinary events, at once both unintentionally hysterical and staggeringly depressing. One year I was attending such a convention inLlandudno and was walking back to my hotel in the early hours of the morning. I had quite long hair at the time, as well as the Emperor Ming goatee, and was wearing a velvet jacket, waistcoat and fob watch; in those days I thought I had an old-world dapper charm, when in fact I looked like a gay time-traveller.

Signs of Truthfulness

Sometimes it is easier to identify signs that a story is true rather than look for elusive lying tells. German psychologists have developed the popular Statement Validity Assessment to be used in cases of alleged sexual offenses to children, to determine the credibility of the child’s testimony. At the heart of the SVA isa nineteen-point list which forms the criteria-based content analysis phase of the assessment. Here we see a number of signs which point to a credible testimony which are of use to us here. If someone is telling you a story which you believe may not be true, it is worth being aware of some of these points. Aldert Vrij discusses the system in his book Detecting Lies and Deceit, which is where I first came across it. Since then I have found myself using it as a checklist when listening to people’s stories. The list also represents a lovely insight into the sorts of patterns we all fall into when relating events. Here are the most valuable criteria from the system:
1.
Unstructured production
Truthful stories, unless they have been told many times, tend to involve all sorts of jumping forwards and backwards across the timeline of the narrative. A person will ge tso far into a story and commonly have to backtrack to give background information on something which he realizes is about to come up. While we tend to feel we’ve ruined a story by doing this, it is in fact an extremely common pattern. Equally, a person may well tell the story not from the start but rather by explaining the essential point they want to communicate first before then filling in the background and providing the narrative. The chronology will most likely be all over the place,especially if the story is emotive and relatively fresh.
2.
Quantity of details
The richer the details, the more likely the story is to be true. As we have already discussed, a typical liar will not elaborate on details when questioned about the specifics of an event. He’ll just tend to repeat himself. An openness to providing additional information is a good sign of truthfulness.
3.
Contextual embedding
This occurs when the person places events within the context of his daily life rather than as isolated events which sound like they could have occurred in a vacuum. For example, ‘I was just sitting outside in the garden to relax a bit after cleaning the kitchen – the sun had just come out and I didn’t fancy watching Countdown
which I normally would, so I thought I’d sit on the patio for a bit.’ These contextual references tend not to appear when the story is a fake.
4.
Descriptions of interactions
Truthful stories are more likely to involve details about how the person interacted with other key characters. For example, ‘I asked him what he was doing there, and he laughed weirdly – so I felt a bit threatened and backed off a bit.’
5.
Reproduction of speech
Few liars will reproduce parts of a dialogue in their stories, preferring instead to report what was said rather than say it in the story. For example, ‘I said, “Don’t do that you’ll mess it up,”’ is more likely to point to a true story than ‘I told him not to do it or he’d mess it up.’
6.
Unexpected complications during the incident
If the story contains neither interruptions nor unexpected events that interfere with its flow, it’s less likely to be true.
7.
Unusual details
These are details offered along the way that stand out. For example, the fact that a person in the story had a gold tooth. Details may be superfluous to the main flow of the story.
8.
Accurately reported details misunderstood
Classically, this would involve a child too young to understand sexual activity talking about a perpetrator’s sexual actions in naïve terms. But it can happen in other contexts; an event might be referred to where its meaning was lost on the person relating the story, but is understood by the interviewer.
9.
Accounts of subjective mental state
Here we would expect the person to refer to how she was feeling at different times in the story, or what thoughts were going through her head.
10.
Attribution of the perpetrator’s mental state
Here, the person describes how another character in the story seemed to be feeling. For example, ‘He was clearly annoyed because he took his glasses off and raised his voice.’
11.
Spontaneous corrections
Little corrections or dropped-in additions make a story more convincing. Here are both: ‘He was using his laptop to write – he had one of those little Sony Vaios – and sat there for hours and only ever ordered a coffee. Well, no, he did get a muffin at one point,but he was there for ages.’
12.
Admitting lack of memory
A truth-teller has no need to worry about spontaneously admitting lapses of memory or details he cannot remember whilst telling the story. It would be quite normal for him to say something like, ‘Can’t remember why we were there but we were all staying at this hotel.’However, this criterion is not fulfilled by giving an answer such as ‘I don’t know’ to a direct question.
13.
Raising doubts about one’s own testimony
The truthful person might admit that certain parts of the story might be wrong or misremembered.
14.
Self-deprecation
Here the person refers to details which might incriminate himself or make himself look foolish. E.g., ‘That was my own fault, I knew I shouldn’t have left him alone.’Sometimes this may extend to pardoning the guilty party in the story altogether.


Its importance was discovered around the end of the Second World War by an American anesthetist,Henry Beecher. He found that he could administer a saline solution instead of morphine to terribly wounded soldiers before an operation and not only would they experience greatly reduced pain, they also wouldn’t suffer from the cardiovascular shock that is expected during operations or amputations without a painkiller.