It is with some amusement that I read that Derren Brown has been forced to apologise to Richard Bandler for a number of remarks made in his last book. All future copies will be ammended. I have seen Derren live a few times but IMO has become a believer in his own hype and actually not that interesting as sensationalism and ratings have become his primary focus. Just a personal view of course...
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/pandora/pandora-derren-backs-down-in-battle-of-the-mind-games-857656.html
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Bandler on Farrelly
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This extract is from an interview I did with Richard Bandler a few years
ago when I asked him about Frank Farrelly.
"You know, Farrelly had to be one of t...
13 years ago
5 comments:
Nice use of NLP there.
"Derren Brown apologises to Richard Bandler?"
What's that NLP statement, 'The mind doesn't process negation'.
Or would it be just as fair to say:
"NLP, just a pyramid scheme?"
From the article. Derren Brown did not apologize, but withdrew his statements about NLP and Bandler, after Bandler threatend to Sue.
"...
In the book, which was released last October, he describes NLP as "resembling something of a pyramid scheme, with Bandler sat cheerily at the top", and took a further personal swipe in the book at Bandler himself, stating that it's "hard to tell whether he's hugely effective or a great, brilliant, captivating con"..."
I fail to see how being threatened by legal action proves anythying. Derren's views on NLP are known. I guess this must rankle seeing as Derren does the stuff that the NLPers claim to be able to do...but cannot.
What specifically can Derren Brown do that NLPers claim to be able to do and can't?
Derren is a brilliant magician and superb at sleight of hand. He combines suggestion, hypnosis, distraction and prestidigitation so that you can't tell easily where genuine mind tricks begin, and the traditional magician's tricks end.
He uses NLP anchoring, hypnosis, Ericksonian handshake interrupt and much of the repertoire of the NLPer, and combines it with trickery. That's his brilliance.
A great example is the trick in which he supposedly remembers the order of a pack of cards by a single flick through them. In his lectures, he demonstrates how this is done. Guess what? It's an old-fashioned switcheroo in which a previously prepared and ordered deck of cards is switched with the one just shuffled. No amazing mental powers, just great sleight of hand.
By that token, I'd say it's probably impossible to work out what is genuinely mentalism, and what is just a load of old-fashioned Paul Daniels-style magic.
So that all said, I think you're on pretty unsound ground when you say that he can do stuff the NLPers claim to be able to do but can't. Either you've been conned in to believing that what Derren says he is doing is actually what he is doing, or you don't entirely know what NLPers really claim to be able to do... Most of them are crap at hiding decks of cards in notebooks, as far as I can tell... But, properly honed, the skills of NLP are really useful.
It is interesting that Bandler has become so brazen. After escaping a murder charge involving cocaine and organized crime I guess he feels bullet proof? I wish I could say something kind about Bandler. Repeating the discoveries of those greater than yourself makes you more of a historian or a professor. Describing a building is not the same as designing and building it.
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