[Kevo]

He's at it again, this time in the form of a 'heist'.

He used to be fresh and original and above all entertaining.
His best work was when he conned all the American 'spiritual phonies' by playing them at there own game.

But now he's just doing the same old trick with his 'mind manipulation/thought suggestion' mixed in with a bit of TV trickery and Copperfield like melo-dramatics'

C4 must absolutley love him. I certainly don't

[Battlestar]

He used to be fresh and original and above all entertaining.
His best work was when he conned all the American 'spiritual phonies' by playing them at there own game.

Dont remember that one, what did he do to them?

[Kevo]

It was about a year or two ago on C4 I think.

He went to the US to convince various leaders of different spiritual/psychic groups that he was the original (and best) article in that particular field.

Needles to say, using his usual manipulative techniques that he impressed them all.
They were all keen to have him on board and he demonstrated his skills at various shows in front of real audiences.
But at least he had the decency to come clean and explain to all that he was a 'fake', which was the whole point of the programme, as he was only using the same phoney techniques as they were, plus with his own conjuring skills mixed in.

He even convinced one that he had invented a 'black box' that could record your dreams

It's well worth a watch to see him expose these fakes who obviously think they're the 'real deal'. Might even be available on DVD

[raigraphixs]

If Brown is for real, why cannot he programme real criminals not to reoffend?. That would be great for society.

[Razor]

Originally Posted by raigraphixs

If Brown is for real, why cannot he programme real criminals not to reoffend?. That would be great for society.

Or women not to moan.

[johnscarlet]

Originally Posted by Razor

Or women not to moan.

I love moaning women , nagging women on the other hand

John

[NicolasB]

Originally Posted by raigraphixs

If Brown is for real, why cannot he programme real criminals not to reoffend?. That would be great for society.

The people used in his more spectacular stunts are subject to a fairly rigorous selection process. In the "Heist" show, for example, a largish number of applicants was whittled down to 13 attendees by means of psychological testing, and only 4 actually went through to the final "round". Only a small minority of the population is suitable for this sort of thing. People of low intelligence and with short concentration spans make very bad subjects for this kind of thing - you need people who are intelligent, strong-willed, and with exceptionally vivid imaginations. I wouldn't be surprised if the average crook was of below average intelligence and with a short concentration span, so they'd be the least suitable people around.

Also, there's a huge difference between generating a piece of behaviour on a one-off basis in very highly controlled conditions, and creating a general, long-term change.

That said, it might actually be possible to help some criminals to avoid reoffending by using techniques like this, if they were agreeable to entering an appropriate treatment programme. The problem is that no one is interested in doing this - they'd much rather shove them in prison instead. As a card-carrying wet liberal I've never really understood the attitude that punishing people is more important than actually preventing them from reoffending, but... (shrug)