Everyone’s favorite street mentalist is at it again . . . pissing off a whole new country and upsetting a whole bunch of fundamental beliefs. Ah, that’s the spirit.

Brown just had yet another controversial program last weekend . . . I live on the wrong side of the planet so I didn’t get to see it but from what I’ve heard, it was smashing. This time, Brown looked at religious beliefs in his Messiah program. My understanding is that this one offended more folks than the Seance program did . . . and that one generated more complaints than any other program in BBC history.

Of course, while Brown sets himself up as using a skeptic and a debunker of frauds and charlatons with no real agenda in and of itself, he still has an agenda . . . to entertain us through confusion, confoundment, and illusion . . . and, he’s quite good at it.

If anyone has a copy of the latest program and would like to share it, please contact me.

I love the Mind Control series and have used the Seance program in classes. For those who are unfamiliar with it, the Seance program was purported to be an experiment in authentic nineteenth century spirtualism in which Brown gathered a group of university students together for a seance to contact the spirit of a student who committed suicide with a group of others in a suicide pact in some thirty years ago.

Brown then used several psychological manipulations and prestidigitator illusions to create psychic effects that convinced the students they were in actual communication with the dead girl’s spirit. I won’t say any more as you really should watch the program . . . and be sure to go along with the experiments for home viewers while you’re at it.

I’ve often taught a unit on spiritualism and skepticism. My old syllabus would include first a viewing of John Edward’s Crossing Over followed a week later with Penn & Teller’s Bullshit episode on psychics. I often start the unit by demonstrating fortune telling and psychic prediction on my own . . . I will pick a student at random and then begin telling them intimate information about themselves that I could not possibly know without psychic or supernatural assistance. After presenting the pro-psychic programs, I then present the counter programs and teach the students exactly how I managed the effects via cold-reading, psychological manipulation, and the like. All in all, it’s a very worthwhile course in critical thinking.

Of course, I signpost to students that just because I am not really a psychic and just because many psychics are frauds and con-men, it does not in any way lessen the possibility that there are real psychics out there. For instance, when we discuss pastlife hypnosis, I always point out that while I believe it is silly to use hypnosis as proof of pastlives, this does not mean that reincarnation does not exist nor that it’s not possilbe. My personal faith incorporates beliefs in psychic ability, supernatural phenomena, and reincarnation . . . however, this should not mean that all persons claiming those phenomena are honest . . . just as the folks who are Christian have a right to their faith, they should also understand that a large number of faith healers are in fact conmen. The public should explore new beliefs and ideas, but they should do so with both an open and a skeptical mind.

Before accepting the improbably, eliminate the likely.

See more on Derren Brown here, here, and here.

All the best,
Brian