Derren Brown Tricks Of Mind Paperback – Import, January 1, 2007

I should do a video review and may, a bit later, but for now wanted say this book was amazing. Epically informative (and FUNNY! -- db's british humor is brilliantly funny! seriously!) I loved the loci palace memory methods. He provides three excellent memory mnemonic mind tools "peg, loci, and link" all work fantastically. Have read many books on memory methods and many of the ones in other books are pony and trivial and ineffective. All three of darrrens' mnemonic devices are extremely effective and powerful. They're the only three that work. If you add any more than tthe link, peg, and loci you'll just be repeating variations of one of those three. So even three mbnemonic methods may be unnecessary, but that part WORKS.His discussin of detecting deceit was fantastic and revealing . I loved how he showed ways to to detect deceit from Two angles: Look for signs of truth-telling, look for signs of deceit! He reveals both of those classifications of signs.I loved his intellectual slaughtering of alternative medicine, spiritualism, psychic BS, and religion and have listened to the full Dawkins God delusion audio and plan to delve into that liberating field by scrutinizing and reading more of dawkins and Hitchens.I learned and practiced the two tricks he taught in the book (which really do work, althoguht they're presented as something somewhat metaphorical. I performed the coin one in the squalor of los angeles, but in a pretty cool place at the house of blues, and was met by a gleeful audidence chick.) One thing I LOVED is his humorous and insulting phrases he calls participants "dunderheads" or merry-Andrew or mooncalf. LOL hysterical righteously.what else His discussion of hypnosis was more biographical. Didn't learn much anything new there, but worthwhile to learn about the greatest showmanship hypnotist EVER's bio of hypnotism. Some of the stories, namely the hypnotism as self-defence were extremely amusing.Part5 he goes into ALL of these tells. An enormous array of tells. how voice tone, hand gestures, even EYE flickerings, and micro-face movements all give away lies (or truth if said aberrations are absent). THAT was truly fascinating. he lists 14 signs of truthfulness in speech, voice, body. after this huge assault of give-aways to lying, and patterns that liars use and how their lies are revealed in changes in their wording, their voice tone, everything. That was IMMENSELY cool.by far the coolest part of the book was the short miniscule sub-chapter on "Muscle-Reading". I consider that derren's greatest trick. And unfortunately there was only a short bit on it.Most uplifting was his outright direct cool scientific dissection of the pendulum and ouija board fraudulence and how that works simply through ideomotor effect. This book is something that i can trust. when there's SOOO much fallacious crap (spiritualism, religion, utterly atrotious mysticism crap that's actually published?! How can that stuff get publihed! Dispecable). out there. This is a book is comforting in that it attacks that. So basically this is one of the few books (along with dawkins and science textbooks) that I can actually trust! lol.Fantastic book. And my review is most certainly highly skewed because of my enormous reverence for DB. Fantastic character, easily hands down the most shocking nad impressive stage performances ever (that likely encompasses all genres. Rock concerts are likely sometimes more "energizing" but certainly not more impressive in a way than DB. let's just say they're on par with entertaining) but he does it one-man show, so even more awe-inspiring. Music is still cool. This is quite rambling. but the bottom-line: fantastic book, informative, GREAT anecdotes for detecting liars in body and voice, debunking fallacies of psychics and mediums crap, being extremely humorous and funny, being british (i like and trust british authors MUCh more and by far, the bulk of the authors I've read have been british from Roald Dahl as a kid to Brown, hitchens, and Dawkins now and Douglas adams too of course), entertaining and massively rich with techniques and tricks to expand your mind, slaughter bad thinking, and learn how some part of one of the greatest magician's EVER works!This is VERY good book. It's informative. I will read it again to master the mnemonic techniques, the deceit-detection, touch up on teh card and coin trick, and read up on again and reabsorb the whole Part5:Unconscious communication bit likely. But I read the book very thoroughl, found it informative because of the above mentioned, humorous and incredibly amusing.A joy to read of the candid inside world to this truly World Class International hypnotist and magician.The BEST part of this! is the striking irony that DB simultaneously aims to mystify and awe with his magic as he does simultaneously aim to debunk all fake psychics and BS spiritualitists.The last part on pseudo-science and bad thinking was great, but I'll leave that up to Dawkins and Hitchens. Derren offered obviously a less intellectual, more entertaining, sexier, more performance-based discussion of the kind of dawkins-hitchens anti-religion discussions. That WHOLE anti-pseudo-science anti-religion, atheism thing is very much my bag. Tricks of the mind is an integral text to that "atheist bag" and found this book extremely valuable.

This is exactly what I was hoping it would be: Derren writing to hobbyists and the interested layman. There are a few basic magic tricks, but the focus is on theory and presentation.This is a good book if you’ve already been at magic or mentalism and really want to understand how to relate to spectators as well enhance your effects to make them feel more impossible. Also good if you want a nice summary of memory techniques, the basics of hypnotism, and some exploration of “psychic” abilities. Or if you just want to get into a magician’s mind.Don’t expect to learn how he pulled off TV stunts. This isn’t a tell all book for people asking “how the heck did he do that,” though by the end you’ll get the general idea how much of it works in theory.Also if you’re thin-skinned when it comes to someone daring to say they don’t believe in God (like some reviewers here), then you’ll likely be offended. He includes this because you really must understand his background and beliefs to understand where he is coming from.Overall I think this is a great read if you’re genuinely interested in learning about mentalism. Its enough to satisfy the intellectually curious, though It’s not going to get you there by itself if you want to do it yourself. Luckily Derren also leaves a huge list of recommended reading and other resources at the end.

I don't even know where to start with this review, as the book is absolutely packed with insight. First, if you are the sort to be offended by criticisms of organized religion, you will likely be offended from page one and throw the whole book out as a result. Ironically, that just proves much of the premise of the book. But I digress. Darren Brown is one of the greatest thinkers of this relatively young 21st Century. I cannot remember a book that was able to balance cunning wit with intellectual acumen from start to finish-- most books usually sacrifice one for the other, but not so in this case. For example, he writes, "I have a neighbor, Mike. (That's not his real name, to spare the guy embarrassment. His real name is Guy.)" in the same paragraph in which he addresses the use of sham medicine to take advantage of a sick person in his most vulnerable state.In this book, you will learn: how to defend yourself from a robbing at gunpoint; remember virtually any name (I tried it the same morning I read it, using a dog and the dog's owner I met on a walk with my own dog, and I will never again forget either of their names again); for once and for all put the question to rest whether hypnosis works; learn how to put somebody in a "hypnotic" state (with appropriate caution); compliment somebody who gave a ridiculously wrong answer and correcting him without making him feel stupid; create mass hysteria over the fictional release of tarantulas (not that you should do that); recognize that nobody thinks about us as much as we think they do; detect more accurately than a polygraph whether a person is lying (hint: it has little to do with eye contact, at least as we think we understand it); counteract confirmation bias; among many other things.The world needs more Darren Browns, but because there is only one, it is best that he teach the rest of the world how to think as he does. While we may ultimately fall short, it is really worth a try.