Messiah by Derren Brown

Performance film

Shown on7 January2005,Derren Brown travelled to theUnited Statesto try to convince five leading figures that he had powers in their particular field of expertise：Christian evangelism,alien abduction,psychicpowers,New Agetheories andcontacting the dead.

Using afalse nameeach time, he succeeded in convincing four of the five "experts" that he had powers, and they openly endorsed him as a true practitioner. The fifth expert, the Christian evangelist Curt Nordheilm, whilst impressed by Derren's performance, asked to meet him again before giving an endorsement. The concept of the show was to highlight the power of suggestion with regard to beliefs and people's abilities, and failure to question them.Brownmade it quite clear with each experiment that if any of the subjects accused him of mind control or trickery, he would immediately come clean about the whole thing, a rule similar to one of the self-imposed rules of the perpetrators of theProject Alphahoax. His conclusion was that people tend to hear only things that support their own ideas and ignore contradictory beliefs.

Psychic Powers

DerrenBrownasked a leading figure at a psychic training school to go into another room and draw a number of simple pictures on any topic she wished. After each picture had been completed, Derren would have his prediction of what the picture was written down by the other members of the training school in the room with him. He was 100% correct. On one occasion when Derren was telling the participant to draw the next picture, he instructed the lady to "let some ideas sail into your mind" and not to go "overboard on detail". She drew a boat in water.

New-Age Theories

DerrenBrowninstructed a leading new-age theorist to sleep with a machine attached to her pillow for five days. She was told that this machine used crystal technology to record her dreams. In fact it was simply a box with a switch which turned aLEDon and off. Derren recalled the dreams correctly, including the fact that some were in black-and-white instead of colour. The participant was so impressed that she invited Derren to appear on her radio show the next day, which he declined.

Christian Evangelism

Derren performed instantconversionson a group consisting of members of the public, all of whom wereatheists. After the first instant conversion many of the group chose to leave, concerned by what they had just witnessed. Derren then proceeded to convert another individual and then the remainder of the group at once. In each case, he caused the participants to at least accept the possibility that there was a God, when previously they had all refused to do so. At the end of the show, a notice on screen announced that the participants had all been "de-converted" before they left.

Contacting the Dead

Derren believes that all successfulmediumsuse a technique calledcold reading. To illustrate this he arranges aclairvoyant demonstrationwith"fairly scepticalNew Yorkers". During theséanceDerren tricks three women into believing that he is in contact with deceased loved ones and many tears are shed. Afterwards it was explained to the participants that it was a trick and those appearing allowed the broadcast.