Culture:
Master of Manipulation
Britain’s most notable illusionist may be a confirmed atheist, but he grew up as a Christian. Martin Saunders asks: Is Derren Brown a dark and dangerous influence on modern culture, or is he shedding vital light on areas of deception – including those within the Church?
A member of the public is persuaded
to make an assassination attempt on
comedian Stephen Fry. A studio
audience is transformed into a baying
mob through deindividuation
techniques. A social worker is made to
feel so guilty he confesses to a murder
he did not commit. Welcome to the
extraordinary, mind-bending world of
Derren Brown.
These three scenarios were all part
of Derren Brown: The Experiments,
Channel 4’s latest series of specials
featuring the controversial illusionist
and debunker, which drew a Friday
night audience of over 2 million
through October and November.
Brown’s previous high-profile stunts
have included playing a live televised
game of Russian roulette, and
appearing to predict the results of the
National Lottery correctly. In the UK
he is currently peerless as a stage
performer. He is also a prominent
atheist, and a critic of some of the
more charismatic aspects of
evangelical Christianity. He has earned
the respect both of the magic
community and the cynical general
public, and has established a rare and
almost untouchable celebrity founded
on his apparent cleverness. Brown is a
modern icon of intellectual cool; the
Church will ignore him at its peril.
That’s a Church, by the way, that
lost Derren Brown. As a teenager, the
same man was seen enthusiastically
evangelising the heathen with the rest
of his Pentecostal congregation; even
at university, he retained his faith for a
time. Brown explains in his partautobiography
Tricks of the Mind that
at this point, when he began to train as
an illusionist and learned how to
manipulate people, he cross-referenced
this new knowledge with his
charismatic faith and found the latter
to be fraudulent. However, this
decision was also formed in a crucible
of bad experiences. Warned away from
magic by concerned Christian friends,
and shunned by his own church when
his attendance became more
occasional than religious, the final
straw came when, during one of his
early stage shows, members of the
university Christian Union filled the
back of the venue and prayed loudly in
tongues, seemingly in an attempt
to limit his demonic impact.
In his book, Brown makes a
few uncharacteristically
lightweight arguments against the
faith, and aligns himself with a
man he now lists as a hero,
Richard Dawkins. I’m not sure his
critique of Christianity quite rings
true; the much stronger subtext is
simply that he felt rejected by it. As
a gay illusionist, he probably
couldn’t feel more unwelcome in
most churches.
Brown is driven by a passion
for shedding light on the murky
world of those who make money
out of deception under the guise of
psychic insight. Mediums,
spiritists, psychics and faith healers
have all been tackled and shown
up as frauds through Brown’s TV
shows. He is pouring light into
areas which are dark purely
because they dangerously mislead
people. Yet it doesn’t stop there.
While he is balanced enough to
point out that not all of the
Church is manipulative, his
revelations around the power of
suggestion and mind control can,
and should be, levelled at some of
what is done in the name of Jesus.
Now, I have seen healings take
place in front of my far too cynical
eyes; I have received dead-on
words of knowledge from others
that would otherwise represent an
extraordinary coincidence.
However, there are elements of
some ‘Holy Spirit Ministry’ which
tremble under Brown’s critique.
For instance, he urges caution
at the amount of control a leader
can exercise over an audience;
especially with regard to the power
of suggestion. Hysterical
environments can be whipped up
and managed; a charismatic leader
can misuse their influence. This is
the case with stage hypnotism, and
even with Brown’s own West End
shows, where he is able to lead an
entire audience to make specific
choices through subtle use of
hidden language. In a religious
context, exactly the same effect
could be manufactured, with
congregations led to believe that
they have heard from God…or
that he is calling them to make a
donation. Not that Brown’s
challenge is to the charismatic
Church alone. His manipulation of
repetition and imagery to evoke
guilt and other emotional
responses also chimes with other
more traditional expressions of
Church and worship.
‘Cold reading’ is the art of
reading body language and other
‘tells’ when interviewing a subject
to quickly ‘know’ a seemingly
miraculous amount of information
about them. Brown is both a
master and a fierce critic of the
practice, especially in supposed
psychics; again, his concerns can
be applied to the Church. Ever
watched a TV preacher you didn’t
trust, delivering a remarkably
accurate ‘word’ for someone?
He is also concerned that
Christians take an uncritical
approach to their relationship with
God in prayer. When a prayer is
answered, he says, we claim it is
God; we quickly allow ourselves to
disregard and forget information
which doesn’t fit the pattern that
says he is active in our lives, or tell
ourselves the answer was ‘no’. In
addition, we can edit our faith
stories to make them more exciting
or interesting.
Some might see Brown as a
dark and dangerous man. Yet he
offers a vital challenge to the
Church. The truth is we are
sometimes guilty of many of his
charges, but we need to stand up
to them. Brown compels us to put
our house in order – to guard
ourselves against the subconscious
pitfalls of charismatic ministry. His
remarkable popularity means that
many people now approach the
idea of faith with new levels of
cynicism. Yet the truth is that we
follow a God who doesn’t need
hysteria or manipulation to move
among us. The fruit of the Spirit
cannot be faked or suggested; we
should look for and encourage it in
our churches, and through so
doing will become a body that
soars above Brown’s critique.
Five shocking Derren Brown moments.
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