Derren Brown: The Cult??

This week's offering was quite an interesting episode, though Trick and Treat in general seems to present Derren Brown more as a therapist of sorts than as an entertainer.

In this week's episode he turned an IT consultant from an introverted and negative individual into an outgoing and funny man purely by altering his self image.

There was an interesting trick in the midst of all of that - where by copying the body language of a stranger, this week's participant could read his mind.

This raises an interesting point. This was clearly an illusion - and a good one - but the way Derren presents it as implied fact, suggests the basis of a cult.

He used the illusion, presented as plausible fact, to convince the audience that this is possible. And as I've seen at Derren Brown's live shows, 50% plus of the audience do believe that what Derren does is not "just magic".

This seems mightily hypocritical of Derren, a man who claims to fight untruth, and even made a show defrauding religious organisations in America. And yet here he is, doing sort of the same thing they do. And people believe him.

Anyway, that was what happened this week. It's quite a good episode with a well told story.