Speculations on How Derren Brown does his tricks

Weekend is here so what did I do last week and what's the plan for this week.

I've been watching Derren Brown who is a British Mentalist. He has a TV show in England and isn't that well known in the United States

• Watched Derren Brown the great art robbery which is great. If you like magic, puzzles or are curious you will love this.

I found out about Derren from a Scott Adams' blog post in the comments related to predicting horse races from The System



Now since Derren is a magician everything he does can be called into question as magic is basically lying to people. I've performed magic and it's a weird phenomena that something that seems so obvious to you can fool people.

Saturday March 19 2017

I started the day with this blog. I spent the day doing nothing.My weight started out at 169.8. I seem to be stuck weightwise.

I took my dog to the vet and she's in good shape except for the bill was $450. Ouch! Why is the doctor one of the scam places where the price is given afterwards and no negotiation is done. This should be against the law. It's like going to the store and buying non-returnable items and then finding out the price at checkout. 

When I came home I had a low carb bagel with butter and cheese. I was tired and took a nap for an hour.

I picked up my son from Jamaica Station leaving at 1 PM. At Jamaica I sat drinking a Tim Horton's coffee and there was a group of older men (30s- 40s) that I didn't trust. One was saying how either he or some sucker punched him...  I didn't get to eat lunch at Calda Pizza until 4 PM. I had Chicken a la Vodka and Buffalo chicken.  The pizza as usual was delicious. 

I came home but was tired probably from the pizza (carbs) and had to watch more Derren Brown videos and nap.

I got up at 7:30 pm and went to Vitamin Shoppe where I bought some ceremonial Green Tea for $19.99 there was some for $39.99. 

Got home and my son had a friend over but I felt tired and watched more Derren Brown Videos. Some were short clips but two appeared to be his live show.  His trick are amazing but I suspect there must be some form of trickery, either stooges or ear pieces.  Just as I wrote this there is a video of Derren guessing the amount of money in a wallet and I think I figured out how he did this trick. He could have pickpocketed the wallet, counted money replaced it and then guessed the amount. If you like magic he's very good. The other problem with a show that runs for a few months can't possibly be different each time. Has anyone seen the same show multiple times? 

There were a lot of short clips but there were 2 of his shows as part of the videos. The video says

 "There are no actors or stooges or stooges used in this programme and no research has been carried out on any members of the audience."

I'm doubting this as it appears the only way he could do the tricks he does is with both stooges and/or research. Magic is basically a lie, so why would I trust this opening credits. It is possible that some other method is used, such as hypnosis, maybe some other method but in any case it's impressive.