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Comment by iterationx | Hacker News Reader

If you get really good at this sort of thing you can take people's wallets just by asking http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR4y5iX4uRY

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The problem is that sort of video doesn't show the failures, so we have no idea how real the success rate is.

The video states that it worked on about two-thirds of people.

I want to see that IRL. Is there any more compelling evidence that that actually works?

If you study Neuro-Linguistic Programming, the Structure of Magic I & II, Milton Erickson, and Alfred Korzybski, it won't seem that magical.

Part of the trick is that during a routine operation - like a handshake - or asking for directions - you're brain drops down a level of awareness - you are basically on auto-pilot - but the illusionist interrupts the operation, you're still stuck in sub-optimal awareness pattern, and then you get manipulated in some fashion.

If you liked that one, this one cracks me up everytime, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdlItEIj8bg

I interpreted that last video more as a status game, actually. The guy, immaculately dressed with a posh british accent, creates a status differential by talking fast and flawless, by touching her a lot. This makes it very unappealing for her to flat-out contradict him. She's just giving him socially acceptable answers.

It's not arbitrary touching. When he's asking her about something she's unsure of, he consistently touches her left shoulder. When he talks to her about something sure, he touches her right. Then he uses those same touches when he wants to make her unsure or a color, or feel sure that a color is the wrong one he says it is.

I don't know to what degree that actually works, but it's pretty interesting.

That could just be misdirection...

Also known as kinesthetic anchoring, the bread and butter of basic NLP. It's pretty controversial like the rest of the material and is probably utterly ineffective.

There are a lot of subtle details required to make this effective, so it is indeed art.

The fact that _he_ believes it is important which shoulder he touches produces enough an effect that one can be fooled into thinking the touches have the power instead of the belief.

Incredible. I thought you were going to link to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awK0NrgHUbk

I've watched tons fo Derrin Brown videos. His experiments are pretty interesting. Subliminal advertising and the chess grandmaster ones were the most interesting.

See what happens when you leave a wallet on the ground: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxYCh_p2Mjs

Just don't forget that he's a showman, and explication is part of his act.

I agree, the advertising one was pretty cool. But the chess grandmaster thing was just a lame trick. He let all of them play against each other through his memory and beat some random scrub (which was probably planned).

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