Derren Brown: Messiah

I recently ran across this link, the Channel 4 homepage of a British psychological illusionist named Derren Brown. Clearly, the man is highly skilled as a magician: intelligent, confident, eloquent, and quite charismatic. Very entertaining stuff.

But Brown is a magician with a cause. In his recent (January, 2005) TV special, Derren Brown: Messiah, he tries to cast doubt on the paranormal. His technique is simple. He goes undercover and seeks out "expert" psychics, new-age mystics, UFOlogists, and spiritualists. He claims that he has some relevant paranormal power and then, using his illusionary techniques, as he puts it,

demonstrates to each of them an ability I have which is somehow proof to them of my talents in that particular field. I allow them to decide how much they are going to endorse it and embrace it. If, at any point they ask me if this is some sort of trick I will confess and tell them. The aim is to get pledges of support.

Invariably, the experts are unable to detect that he is a fraud. They endorse him as possessing supernatural powers. A fairly thorough description of what goes on in the program can be found here.

As it turns out, Brown used to be an evanglical Christian, and part of his mission is to discredit that faith as well. As he puts it:

I used to be a full on, happy clappy Christian until my mid 20s, and then I started to realise that my belief was just as prone to circular logic and self fulfillment as all the new-age nonsense which bugged me. And then reading the New Testament as a historical document finally rid me of any religeous belief.

Now Brown's methodology is to show that he can reproduce, using purely naturalistic means, phenomena which "experts" classify as paranormal. It seems, for instance, that he can make an avowed atheist believe in God simply by touching her on the side of her head, and he can make a roomful of atheists believe in God by telling them to close their eyes and feel God's spirit move within them.

OK, I know I'm dealing with a TV program that has been edited for entertainment purposes, not scientific accuracy. But let's assume all this is real and not a hoax. Let's assume that Brown is really using psychological techniques to achieve these effects in real people who are being honest about what they say they believe. What, exactly, does Brown's demonstration prove? Well, for the person who already disbelieves in the supernatural, Brown's demonstration provides a plausible explanation for the phenomena of religious conversion. It shows how an entirely humanistic, psychologically-based system could account for the existence and spread of religious belief.

How should we as Christians react to this? Well of course, none of it does anything to prove that Christian belief is false. Counterfeit conversions do not prove that there are no genuine conversions any more than counterfeit money proves that there is no genuine money. But even so, Brown's demonstration does undermine the idea that a conversion experience can be, by itself, sufficient evidence for the truth of what one believes. It seems that a subjectively satisfying conversion experience can be produced through psychological techniques. It would be wise, then, for us not to base our faith on something as shaky and manipulatable as human experience. Our mystical perception of God is not self-authenticating.