They're ALL tricks.
At least Brown is honest enough to admit it.
Other performers are IMO a bit more cynical and take advantage of vulnerable people - often without too much harm done (in some cases a bit of good I suppose) but 'questionable' at least.
A good film to watch if you believe in any of this mass hypnosis or 'psychic performer' guff is Steve Martin's 'Leap of Faith'.
Once saw one of these 'how it's done' shows on American TV and they told you how virtually all these stage mediums operate.
People book tickets for the shows via credit cards weeks in advance, giving addresses, researchers go out and case their houses for details they 'couldn't possibly know'.
Other researchers walk in with the audiences and get chatting to them, finding out if they've any reason for going (lost loved ones etc) then relay all the info to the performer.
Others scour local papers for death notices and 'in memoriams' (full of groups of family names, pets' names and other details) which the performer then uses as his 'fishing' material.
Some hypnotists have stooges, others just turn up early and pay the people they'll eventually get up on stage. One or two punters will always be so 'into it' that they'll get up and do whatever he wants just to join in.
I once got dragged up on stage in Las Vegas by a so-called amazing pick-pocket act, Swiss bloke I think, world famous in the 1970s and 80s.
I could feel everything he did as he walked round the audience before the start of his act proper, taking watches and wallets. Told my wife 'this bloke's just taken my watch off, I felt him do it, it must be a pickpocket act'.
As he called me up on stage I stuffed everything deep into my pockets.
He barely came near me on stage once he realised. Concentrated on one half-p*ssed woman from whom he nicked all sorts while she giggled and two other 'ordinary blokes' who, it transpired, worked for him (took one shirt off, from UNDER a jacket - physically impossible).
When we went off stage to the back, he shook my hand and winked, saying 'keep the secret'.
I knew it was a scam, so did my wife, but the rest of the 800-or-so audience thought he was amazing.
Made a good living, fair enough.
And, as if by magic!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1_BpNAeeX0&feature=related Same act, different venue but the bloke on the left also looks very familiar!!!
Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2009 8:51 pm
