Lol, how would I know? I’d weigh the evidence to see how it looked, tasted, and smelled. Then I’d listen to the arguments on both sides.

He’s tricking both. And masterfully.

Of course, sooner or later you can become curious and wonder how you know you don’t have a good enough reason to worry about it or a way to make a definitive judgment about it either way.

– Jon

Here’s an NLP approach… how would you know if something were at stake in what you believe about Derren’s videos?

Maybe another relevant question is who is Derren tricking… the advertising guys or those viewing the video?

Personally, I think I prefer to be entertained and leave it at that. I don’t have a good enough reason to worry about it or a way to make a definitive judgment about it either way.

-Louis

Actually, I think you’ve raised an interesting point: “Nothing is at stake so we can accept any theory we like… maybe he did, maybe he didn’t.”

I’m not so sure there IS nothing at stake. To me it demonstrates very well the power of suggestion and its capacity for deception. It behhoves us in all things to take a rational and critical approach to things.

Consider, too: isn’t Derren using a massive and staggering presupposition here, that “this was achieved by subliminal advertising” when in reality Occam’s razor tells us the sleight of hand method is the most likely. I strongly encourage you to read James Randi’s “Flim Flam” and “The Truth Abour Uri Geller”.

And yes: EVERYTHING is marketing. In my experience, anyway.

– Jon

That’s why I said awed and entertained. I definitely wouldn’t want to try to learn to practice NLP by watching Derren. Some say he’s not even doing NLP in his videos… that they’re magic tricks or mentalism or something. Without seeing him in person or knowing him, it’s hard to say. Nothing is at stake so we can accept any theory we like… maybe he did, maybe he didn’t.

NLP Guru,

You’re welcome here even if you don’t prefer marketing applications. It does make one wonder though… when it comes down to it, isn’t everything about awareness, influence, persuasion and (gasp!) marketing? Hmm.

- Louis

Here’s one example of how the wool can be firmly pulled over one’s eyes. I watched the Derren Brown video on “subliminal advertising”.

Actually, there’s no real evidence this trick worked the way Derren claimed it did at the end. That is most likely the “real” trick.

Consider: it would have been easy to have had the information from the cameramen passed outside of the room to Derren, thus allowing him to draw the pictures in “real time”.

Then, for a man of his immense talents, it would have been a cinch for him to have swapped envelopes with sleight of hand.

Which is most likely?

The latter of the two hypotheses, of course, because it’s quite simply… the simplest.

And for anyone who wants to poo-poo my hypothesis: that’s cool, and I’m perfectly happy to be shown to be wrong. But show me EVIDENCE, not theory.

Here we have two hypotheses, and both are given the current evidence equally plausible. Unless there’s other evidence, we can NOT choose between them.

In cases like this, statistics tells us it’s safer to follow Occam’s razor.

– Jon

As an NLP Guru, perhaps you’re asking to highlight the benefit you feel the practitioner course has. If you noticed the 2nd point of my NLP list, I did mention the practitioner course. As I said, it really depends on the outcome you’re trying to achieve.

If you want to learn traditional NLP or get a certification, by all means take a practitioner course. If you’re trying to learn the marketing applications of it, the practitioner courses are probably some of the slowest, most expensive routes you can take. Why reinvent the wheel when folks like Kenrick and myself have already done the heavy lifting? Get our stuff, apply it and move on to something else.

John,

Thanks for your kind words.

To all,

Steve Bauer posted a more comprehensive source on modeling than I listed above. I updated the post to include it.