Monday 23 May 2011

Derren Brown's Miracles for Sale Show (extract)

It was in mid July last year; just by chance I took a look at my Youtube account which had not been used in ages. I used it mainly to put up a few rant videos and put some of my 3rd Heaven Project music on to get it noticed. Upon looking I noticed an email from a lady named Genna who had seen my blogs (this must have been before I had removed them) and wanted to get in touch about a film that was being made.  I got back in touch and the ball got rolling after many questions and answers. She was very keen for me to come down to London after hearing my story and I thought that it would be a very nice day out and indeed it did not disappoint.

Arrangements were made for me to travel to London by the end of the month. I was informed that everything was to be very secretive so I was not allowed to tell the taxi driver what I was going to be doing which was easy as I did not know much anyways. So there I was travelling by train down to London, something I had never done before and enjoying a cappuccino while gliding through the countryside finding that the electronic music being played thorugh my mp3 player went well with the journey, I was already very grateful for the experience.

After the brief wait for the taxi outside of Euston Station and a journey made very entertaining by the non stop chatter from the taxi driver I arrived at a very large and very well to do school in Norh London. I was greeted by Genna, a real lovely soul and then taken through the process before being told the real reason I was here and filling in of forms.

I had seen a few of Derren Brown’s shows but not enough to make me a “die hard” fan, however; there was a feeling of honour at being able to meet and be interviewed by the rather clever man himself.

After being told what the plan was I was filled with enthusiasm with the idea as I thought that the Christians in the States would be easy to fool. The problem was I did not realize until later on that they were intending to put their preacher man in one of their churches, a all but impossible task as these bastards are as thick as theives and would never allow someone they did not know to preach their bullshit to their followers.

I waited outside for my interview in the lovely afternoon sun and enjoyed a very nice lunch and chat with Genna about my “church days” and then met Mark Haville, the man who made the very interesting “Signs and Wonder Movement Exposed” documentary who had just come out from being interviewed and I found it facinating how he kept looking at my sun-spirial wooden medalion during our brief conversation. Before I knew it I was introduced to the lovely make up lady Jenny who had her work cut out as I had been out in the sun too long and I was a little burned. Before going into the very grand chapel, I had some time to chat to Derren about his former church days and what a nice chap he was as was the rest of the crew. They were a real lovely bunch of people who made me feel very welcome and at home. I was a little dissapointed saying goodbye to them that day.

The interview seemed to last for an age. It was very stop start afair due to external construction workers noise and light problems. As the interview progressed, Derren asked me about my life in the church, the techniques they use to keep people in, the use of music to induce an altered state of consciousness and how they get money out of their followers. To be honest, with the cameras and the people looking on, it did feel a little intimidating for the first few moments, but to be fair to these people, a few encouraging words, smiles and I then settled into it all very nicely.

So the interview ended and as I was leaving the building Derren came across and thanked me for taking part and asked me about my knowledge of the bible and asked if I would, if needed come back and help out. I said I would and then I was put back into my taxi with a military precision and returned home after enjoying an excellent day with some lovely people. Derren and the Executive Producer Dave were a joy to be around and did not seem to allow the stress of a whole days filming to get to them. Genna and Jenny were great company too and I was very well looked after from leaving Bangor to getting home.

I was contacted again and asked if I could go down to London again to meet “Pastor James”, aka Nathan, also I was asked on my thoughts on Derren’s pre written sermon for him, which was very good. It was then that the journey really began.

I had given so much to this cult, time, energy and money. I had for the last four years, been researching, battling crazy American fundamentalists online with their bigoted blogs and comments, I had to go through the process of de-programming myself with no outside help and there were times when it was painful and I thought that I may be going mad, but this was, for me a vindication of all that I had been put through. The moment that interview with Derren began I knew that there was no turning back now, the story I was to tell was never going to be taken back or retracted.

The Leaving Bethel Project had gone from fetus to new born.

(The full account will appear in my book "Leaving Bethel")

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