Mind Control with Derren Brown  

I watched the finale of Mind Control with Derren Brown on the Sci-Fi Channel last night (Aug. 29, 2007). If you aren't familiar with this program, and you're interested in the area of mind control and mentalism, do see if you can find this program or any other program from Derren Brown for amazing demonstrations of his well-developed talent.

 In this episode of Mind Control, Brown went to Oxford University, outside London, and did some mind-boggling parlor tricks with a number of Oxford graduates.

One amazing card trick was done with a graduate named Matt. Brown pulls a playing card out of his suit coat pocket, but does not show the face of it to Matt. He allows Matt to see that there are no other cards or anything else in his pocket. Matt's job is to discern what the card is. He instructs Matt on how to do this.

"Don't try and guess it!" Brown says.

Starting at the back of his head, Matt is told to imagine the card moving up to the front of this mind, and see what the number, the suit and the color are.

"Don't think about it; just allow it to come to mind. And when you get it, just say what you think it is. Right out loud." "Seven of hearts," Matt says quickly.

Brown asks, "Is that a guess or does that feel right?"

"That feels right," Matt says.

"Reach in there," Brown says, nodding toward the pocket.

 Matt pulls out the card and turns it over. He recoils when he sees it, almost as if it were a poisonous snake. ... It's the seven of hearts.

Matt: "That's quite scary. I'm quite, quite worried about other things that people might be able to use it for."

"Anyone who has those sorts of powers or knows how they work, then ... I'm quite, quite worried," Matt said.

Further on in the Mind Control program, Mr. Brown divined whose cell phone ringtones belonged to which people in a group of 10 or so people. That didn't seem all that spectacular, but next he guessed the last three digits of one woman's cell phone number. He looked into her eyes and asked her to visualize each number, one at a time. Then he called the number, using his final three numbers, and the phone rang.

I don't know how he accomplished that one, and he didn't say. In another amazing demonstration, though, he did describe exactly how he did the trick.

Playing chess with the masters

He played chess against nine chess masters, some of them grand masters, and four international grand masters. These guys purportedly think 20 moves in advance. Brown claims as an aside to the camera, that he's actually a sh--ty chess player.

The nine players were in a circle of small tables, one chess board on each table. He went from one game to the next, making one move at a time. At the end of the exercise, Brown had won four games, lost three games, and two games were draws. The chess masters said they were amazed at his talent.

Not only that, but before the games started, Brown gave one of the players a piece of paper sealed in an envelope. After the games, Brown wrote a series of numbers on a board. The numbers, it turned out, corresponded with the number of pieces each player was left with when each game was over. Except for one number that was off by one digit, each number on the board was exactly the same as the number of pieces left on each game board, in the order of players. And the paper sealed in the envelope from the beginning of the exhibition included the same numbers, in order.

How did he do it? He explained.

Actually, what he did was remember each play of each player in such a way that the players were essentially playing against each other ... except for the ninth player. He chose the least experienced player for the odd-man-out position and beat him, perhaps by the power of his bluff. After all, he does control minds!

How did he know how many pieces would be left over on each chess board after each game?

"I forget," Brown quipped.