Derren Brown quotes - page 4
There are people who have the ability to wake up a minute or even seconds before their alarm goes off or to know what time they've woken up without even looking at a clock. Now, thank God, I don't have to get up in the mornings but the potential of the body to keep such accurate time is remarkable.
Derren Brown
Séances date back to the 1800s after three sisters by the name of Fox claimed to be able to contact the dead. They toured America with their demonstrations and attracted the rich and famous and by the end of the century séances had taken off all over the western world. Spirits were manifested, tambourines flew, ectoplasm impossibly erupted from entranced mediums. Then, after forty years of this, rather embarrassed by what they'd started, one of the sisters, Margaret Fox, confessed that they were frauds. The miracles which had started it all off had been a scam. But her confession made very little difference and spiritualism continues to appeal to many people today.
Derren Brown
The interest in Lego may have come later. Certainly the grown-up Technic variant, with it gears and cogs and motors, fascinated me the most, and presumably some way into adolescence, as I remember constructing a colourful mechanical Wanking Machine during long periods upstairs in my room. The inevitable problem of round pegs and square holes sadly rendered this particular project fruitless, on many levels, but the manufacturers might like to take note of the idea when planning other themed kits for their teenage boy demographic.
Derren Brown
History is littered with examples of normal people being persuaded to act in deviant, criminal or irrational ways. How do you persuade someone to do something they would not normally be prepared to do? Some people might think of hypnosis. However, hypnosis isn't really what it appears to be. It's only a kind of play acting and no one would carry out an instruction to really commit a robbery any more than they'd murder someone if they were told to.
Derren Brown
The potential for self-loathing comes from the unavoidable problem that one is engaging in a childish, fraudulent activity: although it has the capacity to delight and amaze, the performer is also a hair's breadth from being justifiably treated like a silly child. It is, after all, just tricks.
Derren Brown
It seems silly and churlish to attack others for their private beliefs, unless one is entirely convinced of the greater view that harm is caused by the persistence of that belief in society; but when pressed into engaging on the matter, I recall the question I asked myself many times until I found my own faith breaking down: Bearing in mind we can all utterly convince ourselves of things that are not true – and that therefore important truths about the universe must surely always be based on more solid foundations than what my easily fooled, fickle feelings tell me – what is it that supports this belief other than my own already-existing conviction?
Derren Brown
Now for Heaven's sake go to bed. Don't worry about how it was done just go straight to bed. Leave the washing-up and get into bed fully clothed. If any of you want to know how any of it was done, please feel free to write in to me at my home address which will come up on the screen in a moment and I will give you a full and honest explanation of anything you may ask.
Derren Brown
