The Making of a Mind-Controlled Killer

[Stephen Morgan]

I for one am not remotely surprised by this. the level of revelation Brown is doing is really amazing. Much of what he can do reliably on a general population basis is game-changing (for "us" to know about it), when you realize how programmable/systematized this can be... This is a guy who can RELIABLY walk up to a race track betting window and collect on a loosing ticket. Just by interacting with the person behind the counter for 90 seconds or less.

He put up a poster with a bizarre geometrical shape on it once , in a supermarket, and massively increased the sales of a certain item, the location of which was hidden in the sigil. Of course he's also a magician, so he probably can't do some of the things he can do. Like the racing track one, not the one you're talking about, which he revealed at the end to be an elaborate trick. Not that it isn't all tricks, but a tricky trick.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

as for the hypno thing, they always say you can't get someone to do something they would normally be totally against, but what if the person also believed the gun was a water pistol?

The easiest way to do it is just to convince the "subject" that the "target" is an extreme threat to them or their family, or the world in general. Hypnotists can not only make people do things, but see things as well.

I think it was in A Criminal History of Mankind that Colin Wilson mentions a hypnosis experiment where they made a normal housewife pour what she believed was acid onto a baby in a crib (the baby was a doll, the acid was water) by implanting the belief in her that the baby was a monster and a threat to her own child.

She did it, and remembered nothing afterward.

Worth remembering that Derren Brown doesn't call himself a hypnotist or a magician but an illusionist. An illusionist's job is only to convince you that the illusion is real. TV makes that easy. The race track thing was "faked" like Stephen said, and his national lottery premonition was hilariously badly done and caused a lot of damage to his rep. But he does have some kind of power, whatever it is - NLP, body-language, imprinting, personal magnetism, whatever. And hypnosis too of course.

I only caught the very start of this one and got annoyed 'cos he was saying "Could it really be possible to create an assassin through hypnosis?" He knows fine well it's possible, and that the CIA and others have done it.

Will need to watch the whole thing before judging, though. It sounds like it gets better - and of course it's mainstream TV so he can hardly just say outright what he surely must know.

[Wombaticus Rex]

^^Watched it last night and it's couched exactly like that...but then again, that candy coating is what got it on the air.

[OpLan]

How do we watch this if we're outside of the UK?

If you are using firefox,try an addon called Modify-Headers

Try substituting 3 random numbers for the zeros in 82.0.0.0 for a uk ip addy.

It doesn't work with all bans.Its quite easily mitigated by the website you're trying to access.
Remember to switch it off when you've finished with the banned website or you might find lots of your own countries websites inaccessible.

[Metric Pringle]

Just watched this too, and would highly recommend it. He doesn't even sit on the fence in regards to Sirhan Sirhan, and ties the whole thing up with him in the conclusion. It took be aback to be honest seeing this on prime time TV. Highly recommend!

[David]

Am I the only one who doesn't buy this? I think it's very possible Sirhan was programmed to kill, but this does not feel genuine to me. This is a TV show. Derren Brown is an entertainer. I could be wrong, but my carny meter is pretty good.

[Stephen Morgan]

^^Watched it last night and it's couched exactly like that...but then again, that candy coating is what got it on the air.

He mentions "showmanship" as one of the things he uses for his tricks in pretty much every programme he does. Showmanship means presenting it as an experiment rather than a demonstration. Also, simplifying by making out that Sirhan actually shot RFK, rather than Cesar.

For people here who know the CIA hypnotised one of their secretaries into shooting someone with an unloaded gun, it's not particularly revelatory.

I still wonder how he "predicted" the lottery result. Not a particularly interesting stunt, but the "explanation" that he had trained up a group of people to form a lottery-predicting gestalt, was fascinating even if bullshit. I wonder if any of those people ever came forward to tell their stories.

[Searcher08]

Am I the only one who doesn't buy this? I think it's very possible Sirhan was programmed to kill, but this does not feel genuine to me. This is a TV show. Derren Brown is an entertainer. I could be wrong, but my carny meter is pretty good.

There were quite a few people at Derren Brown's comment page who found it unconvincing.

Doug says:
21/10/2011 at 11:14 PM

I smell a rat. You’d think at least one person at that talk would have said “Oh, by the way, funny thing happened at the theatre tonight. Stephen Fry got shot three times in the chest, and then Derren Brown showed up.” Why hadn’t we heard about it before tonight?

Also, if (and this is a very big if) such programming were possible, why aren’t more people doing it? If it’s within Channel 4′s resources, it’s surely within the power of any government, multinational corporation, and mafia syndicate on the face of the earth. And why aren’t more accused murderers using it as a defence?

^^ ^^ Critical Thinking FAIL

A surprising feature of the comments is the number of times "Evidence of Revision" is mentioned.. however the comment that grabbed my attention was

Liz says:
22/10/2011 at 11:56 AM

Doug – I was at the Stephen Fry talk where it all happened and we were asked by Derren not to say anything whatsoever – Not to anyone!! It would have obviously spoilt the programme if it got out so out of respect for the much respected Derren Brown we all kept stuum. And Bubbles – yes there was a ringtone. You could hear it loud and clear. There were no stooges. I am a genuine member of the public as was everbody else in the audience

[tazmic]

Am I the only one who doesn't buy this? I think it's very possible Sirhan was programmed to kill, but this does not feel genuine to me. This is a TV show. Derren Brown is an entertainer. I could be wrong, but my carny meter is pretty good.

If this had been a demonstrative investigative documentary, instead of wrapped up as entertainment (by an illusionist, where the clever veiwers like to figure out the scam), it would be quite a shocking program, right?

[BrandonD]

Some of Derren's shows (Hero at 30,000 feet or whatever it's called, for example) are very obviously entirely staged and played by actors. This, of course, calls the veracity of all his shows into question.

However, I do appreciate that he made this Assassin program, whether it is authentic or not. I suspect that the program is at least partially staged, as the genuine CIA mind-control programs involve *torture* in order to fragment and bury certain memories and experiences. This could not legitimately be done on an entertainment program, and so Derren staged the scenario in order to bring attention to the little-known but genuine subject of government mind-control.

At least, that is my subjective take on it.

[Searcher08]

This is just a drive-by "Welcome to R.I.", BrandonD !

[BrandonD]

This is just a drive-by "Welcome to R.I.", BrandonD !

Thank you

[Stephen Morgan]

Some of Derren's shows (Hero at 30,000 feet or whatever it's called, for example) are very obviously entirely staged and played by actors. This, of course, calls the veracity of all his shows into question.

However, I do appreciate that he made this Assassin program, whether it is authentic or not. I suspect that the program is at least partially staged, as the genuine CIA mind-control programs involve *torture* in order to fragment and bury certain memories and experiences. This could not legitimately be done on an entertainment program, and so Derren staged the scenario in order to bring attention to the little-known but genuine subject of government mind-control.

At least, that is my subjective take on it.

There's more than one way to skin a cat, torture doesn't always have to be used for relatively minor things. Not like he wanted to make him a lifelong slave, is it?

[Gnomad]

Indeed. And he did select for the most hypnotically suggestible person from amongst the crowd.

CIA certainly uses a variety of psychoactive drugs, some of which we probably do not even know about. I think that much is a given, considering how many compounds even creative hobbyists (like Dr. Shulgin) have come up with, and what those kinds of compounds are able to accomplish when combined with torture, sensory deprivation, or some unknown methods like direct electrical etc. stimulation of the brain, or even embedded electrodes to certain brain areas. This is nothing new to them, and I fear there is much we don't know about their techniques. Knowing a bit about a few psychoactives, I shudder to think about it.

For a very mundane example, large amounts of alcohol combined with benzodiazepines or barbiturates can easily cause a state where the person is blithely unaware of what they are doing, and possibly unable to later recall much of it. Many violent crimes are committed under the influence of such "recreational" cocktails by the unwary idiots who like such stupors, same goes for some dissociatives like PCP. Many people might be easily persuaded to do things they would not do by just egging them on while they are incapacitated enough. Same with Rohypnol, the infamous date rape drug - during its effects memories may not be processed normally, and may not be recallable later. And these are very "low tech" drugs, in widespread use.

The show, of course, did not even hint at this.

[BrandonD]

There's more than one way to skin a cat, torture doesn't always have to be used for relatively minor things. Not like he wanted to make him a lifelong slave, is it?

True, it may be that torture or psychoactive drugs are only needed to *significantly* bury the memory/state, like for a long or indefinite amount of time, with the intention of making a person who is able to be "activated" at some later date whenever their service may be required.

However, if one is planning on utilizing the hypnotic programming of that person right away, then perhaps trauma is not needed at all because the memories do not need to be deeply buried.