Basically, if you know how the human mind works, you can exploit it the same way hackers exploit computers. The British magician Derren Brown managed to steal the same things from the same people multiple times in less than a minute, smiling all the time: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j25qV5RO-nU&feature=related"]YouTube- Derren Brown robs a guy 1‎[/ame] In another video, he bought, among other things, jewelry using blank pieces of paper: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Vz_YTNLn6w"]YouTube- Derren Brown - "Paying with Paper"‎[/ame] EDIT: youtube video formatting on the forum is messed up...
I don't know. I'm a little sceptical. It seems like all of this could have been staged. I find it hard to believe any store employee would just accept blank paper as if it were legitimate money, no matter how charming you might be.
Yeah, does he have anything more to say about the blank paper stuff? Like how it worked? Also, it not a very good thing to do, even if it works, because you make yourself so memorable that you'll be arrested no doubt. Still cool though.
Derren Brown is no more a "magician" than tarot card readers and other "psychics". It's 100% psychology, and Brown admits it: Telemarketers, car salesmen, politicians, and religious leaders all do similar things, whether maliciously or not.
Magic is the implementation of techniques and props to manipulate yourself or others without the audience being aware of what and how you're doing.
I've done a bit of reading about him after watching some of his videos. From what I understand, it's mostly NLP being used. It's been years since I’ve seen it, but one NLP expert dissected a particular Brown video, and laid out what he was doing play by play. The explanation made sense to me; a good deal of building rapport through various unconscious means (mirroring speech, posture) and implanting subliminal anchors in some instances.
I guess I'm just splitting hairs then, but your definition of magic fits under psychology. I was thinking of magic more as "supernaturalism". eh
I keep a simple mindset for this: Any stranger who is interested in you, wants something from you, and it probably isn't you.
