supplemental material

I’ve also included a second show called Messiah. In this show, Brown travels to the United States to try to convince five influential figures that he has special abilities in their particular field of expertise: psychic powers, Christian evangelism, New Age theories, alien abduction and contacting the dead, with the objective of getting them to endorse him as a practitioner in their field.

reflection

Derren Brown’s personal journey beyond the sincerely held evangelical faith of his youth, was deeply connected with his early interest in magic and psychology. By learning the arts of misdirection, manipulation and deception, he began to see how susceptible we all are to mistaking illusions and fantasies for reality. In many ways, much of Brown’s best work can be seen as object lessons in some of the insights first systematically developed by Freud. 

Not only this, but Brown also holds the same kind of ethical stance as that of Freud. It’s worth noting that Freud rejected ‘therapeutic’ treatments that worked by acting as a type of external authority manipulating the individual (such as hypnosis, or the therapist becoming a substantive parental figure). For Freud, individuals shouldn’t be manipulated or persuaded into certain behavior, even if the outcome could be judged as good (such as giving up smoking, or being less angry). Rather, analysis consists of helping an individual have a confrontation, and conversation, with their unconscious. In this way, they become more aware of why they act the way that they do, and slowly become less in the thrall of seemingly inexplicable, and often damaging, behavior. This is not dissimilar to the rejection of the ‘Noble Lie’, a position that claims we are justified in deception if it leads to a good outcome. In the same way, Brown wants to help expose people to the ways that they can be manipulated and lead astray. He isn’t interested in telling a person what they should think, but rather to better equip individuals, so that they might resist being deceived by others and by themselves.

Ideological structures are often sustained by appealing to peoples hopes and fears, while simultaneously excluding or downplaying critical thinking, the exploration of alternative positions or insight into how beliefs are formed. For some, all forms of faith fall foul of this tendency, while for others, faith can, and must, transcend this type of ideological entrapment. Westphal, as we have seen, condemns the type of faith expressed above as ‘instrumental’, while Bonhoeffer rejects it as the faith of the ‘Deus ex Machina’ and Tillich bemoans it as mere ‘superstition’. Later in the course we’ll encounter Bonhoeffer and Tillich directly, as well as some contemporary thinkers who link the political critique of ideology with the theological critique of religion.

All this to say, I included Brown today as a great example of someone who understands our susceptibility to being uncritically ensnared by various ideologies, who is dedicated to helping people see this in their own lives and who courageously applied the insights into his own life.

After watching this master magician at work, it is hard not to become more sensitive to potential ways we might have been duped in our religious, cultural and political ideas. 

Converting an Atheist

Derren Brown (1971-) is an English showman, illusionist, and author who has spent considerable time helping to expose the methods of mediums, faith healers and evangelists. Brown mixes traditional magic with psychological techniques and the power of persuasion to create spectacles that are often designed to warn people against the power of manipulation, demonstrate the dangers of group think, and encourage free thinking.

In his teenage years, Brown was an evangelical Christian, and has since created shows like How to Convert an Atheist, Messiah, Miracles for Sale and Miracle to expose how people can be fooled into thinking they have had a supernatural experience.

His latest Netflix special Miracle is definitely worth watching in the context of Atheism for Lent (particularly the second half), but I wanted to offer something that is freely accessible. So I’ve gone for an episode from a television show he made called Fear and Faith. This episode is called How to Convert an Atheist, and in it he explores the nature of persuasion.