I had the great pleasure a few nights ago to see Derren Brown‘s new illusionist / mentalist, hypnotist show Svengali. It’s fantastic, and highly recommended. If you’ve seen any of Derren’s previous shows on TV, then some of the routines will be familiar. This fails to make them any less baffling. If you’re unfamiliar with his work, here’s a sample:
(Here’s a bit more). One of the main themes of much of Brown’s work is his ability to recreate the “powers” of psychics, mind-readers and spiritualists without the pretence of supernatural intervention or paranormal activity. For example, in 2004 he performed a seance “live” on channel 4, and in 2011 trained a member of the British public to become a faith healer.
There is an important and quite general lesson to be learned from Brown’s abilities. In the course of last night’s performance, Brown did a number of things which, if they had been performed by someone claiming psychic powers, would seem, if not totally convincing, at least on the way to suggesting psychic powers. I remain at a complete loss as to how Brown seems to read the minds of audience members and anticipate their seemingly free choices.
Suppose that Connie claims to be a witch – a real, proper, supernatural witch – and as proof of her powers, performs a great feat of mind-reading. Being the mathematical nerds that we are, we decide to formalise our inference that Connie is a witch (and should thus be burned). Help us, Rev. Bayes!
Let: (more…)
Letters to Nature 