The title of the thread represents the conclusion I came to after going to Derren Brown's Infamous. The show was great, but that's not what I want to point out with this thread.
So there was I, in the first rows of the Palace Theatre in London, watching Derren do what he does best. Entertain.
On to his next effect, he asked a lovely lady from the audience to write a word she is thinking of down on a piece of paper, fold it and put it in her pocket. He then asked her to come on stage. When she arrived, Derren gave her a letter that she had to read out loud. The letter said something along these lines: "Please don't react, but I believe you are thinking about the word *airplane*" She read this text out loud. Then she asked her what word she was thinking of. Of course it was *airplane*. My immediat reaction was one exactly opposite to what one would expect from this kind of effect. I wasn't impressed at all. The effect was good, of course (or dare I say, only the method was good), but it didn't get any reaction out of me. "I'm used to this stuff and I have an idea about how it works" I said to myself. I looked around me only to notice that nobody was having a positive reaction. Everybody was like "meh..."
When mentalists do the classic type of prediction which is having the spectator call out what he is thinking and ONLY AFTER reveal the prediction, people are amazed!
This *perfect prediction* as I took the liberty to call it, didn't get any reaction at all.
Now why is that?
So there was I, in the first rows of the Palace Theatre in London, watching Derren do what he does best. Entertain.
On to his next effect, he asked a lovely lady from the audience to write a word she is thinking of down on a piece of paper, fold it and put it in her pocket. He then asked her to come on stage. When she arrived, Derren gave her a letter that she had to read out loud. The letter said something along these lines: "Please don't react, but I believe you are thinking about the word *airplane*" She read this text out loud. Then she asked her what word she was thinking of. Of course it was *airplane*. My immediat reaction was one exactly opposite to what one would expect from this kind of effect. I wasn't impressed at all. The effect was good, of course (or dare I say, only the method was good), but it didn't get any reaction out of me. "I'm used to this stuff and I have an idea about how it works" I said to myself. I looked around me only to notice that nobody was having a positive reaction. Everybody was like "meh..."
When mentalists do the classic type of prediction which is having the spectator call out what he is thinking and ONLY AFTER reveal the prediction, people are amazed!
This *perfect prediction* as I took the liberty to call it, didn't get any reaction at all.
Now why is that?