BETTER LATE THAN NEVER
Tricks of the Mind – Derren Brown
I’m planning to write about the NLP ‘source books’ in a series of forthcoming posts. But I figured I’d better reflect on the book – and person – who inspired me to chase the wild goose I now consider NLP to be: Derren Brown and Tricks of the Mind, published in 2006.
I mentioned previously I’d first seen Uncle Derren at a philosophy conference in late 2015.
As someone who’d gone somewhat mad a year prior – ‘inventing’ a thrilling new form of communication I later discovered had already been coined ‘hypnosis’ – I naturally found in Derren a kindred spirit.
A few post-conference YouTube searches confirmed my biases that ‘conversational hypnosis’ and subliminal persuasion were absolutely real and replicable.
My task, I believed, was to research, refine and build upon my own genius ideas. And so this book was duly purchased in January 2016.
It’s been bittersweet rereading this book… I see now I received none of the framing, scepticism, facts and caveats Derren deftly weaves through his writing. I instead rampaged through it, picking up appealing gems, and convincing myself it was only a matter of time before Derren invited me round his house for tea and hypno-chat.
I recall being particularly struck by NLP’s eye-accessing cues, pacing and leading, anchoring, rapport and the ‘Tools for Personal Change’ section (ie, ‘Swish Pattern’, etc, which, to be fair, Derren seems to find worthwhile, at least at the time of writing).
Having been drawn to Derren because of apparent feats apparently attributable to NLP, I guess I filtered out commentary on its lack of science and credibility. (I enjoyed the anecdote that Richard Bandler maybe made up the term ‘neuro-linguistic programming’ when asked his profession by a traffic cop!)
Meanwhile, Derren’s recollections of the crashing ghastliness of NLPers didn’t apply to me; I wanted to plunder it, not join an Americanny cult of social misfits and the power mad.
My dalliance with NLP was mercifully short – and thus inexpensive – by many an aspiring hypnotist’s standards. But I booked myself onto a ‘Secrets of Hypnosis’ weekend with Richard Bandler and Paul McKenna not long after reading this book.
We’ll come to my reflections on NLP and its source books later. But perhaps part of the problem with hypnosis is The Rampage? You come to the hypno-party with your own ideas and issues, and greedily lap up whatever you can find – good, bad, ugly and mad, in no particular order.
For instance, I also pursued body language and placed far too much reverence on anecdotes despite Derren’s points and caveats. Doh!
Reading Derren’s final thoughts, however, I’m proud that I sought, in time, to challenge and disprove my ideas and beliefs despite completely misconstruing, and abusing, the sentiments of this book first time round. Derren probably should invite me round his house for tea to applaud me joining Club Sceptic rather than starting my own cult or what-have-you.
(Though I credit my changing my mind to the mindfuckery of Illuminatus!, myself and, later, Kev rather than to Derren Brown wheedling his way into my subconscious. But, hey, that’s the beauty of hypnosis – form an orderly queue for taking credit!)
In the interests of this blog collating hypno-history, this book contains some fantastic stories of Derren’s formative adventures in hypnosis. He tells the story of seeing hypnotist Martin S Taylor at a student gig, which inspired him onto his path, as well as that of a riotous experiment featuring a hallucinated rhino.
I confess that Derren’s questioning of his results probably did stay with me from the first read; the malleability, and fallibility, of memory is a fascination of mine. He also refers to Graham Wagstaff and the social compliance model, and questions whether participants are, consciously or unconsciously, playing along according to an expected role.
I’d love to know what Derren’s current view of hypnosis is, 15 years on from writing the book... Wagstaff later concluded suggestion couldn’t just be attributed to compliance. But if you’re Derren Brown – The Hypnotist, The Legend, The Brand – I’m not sure how you, now, escape the social compliance explanation…
Perhaps that’s also the beauty of hypnosis; those ‘star showmen’ who, through the ages, shape our perceptions of hypnosis and spark our interests in it can only show us one side of the ‘impossible triangle’ that is hypnosis.
I’m grateful to live in an age when our star showman questions it – and spreads the good word on why we should.
