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An extract from Mind Control: Brainwashing, Hypnotism and Psychological Mentalism soon to be released on Mental-Magic.com

Case study: James McDonald Vicary

September 1957, the headline on page 44 of Printer's Ink , an American advertising journal, reads: INVISIBLE ADS TESTED: New Process for TV and Movie Commercials Stepped up Product Sales in First Test. The author was James McDonald Vicary, a self-styled motivational research consultant, and this article would be the start of a new idea that would capture the imaginations of people worldwide: subliminal advertising.

The article gave details of a press conference that had taken place eight days previously. Fifty reporters from various newspapers and magazines were invited to a New York cinema to witness something amazing. The journalists settled in their seats and the screen before them flickered into life. A short film was played and the lights were turned up, the audience were then asked if they had spotted anything unusual. No-one had. What was going on?

Vicary revealed his secret, while the film was playing he'd used a modified tachistoscope to project images onto the screen. These images were flashed on screen so fleetingly, remaining for less than a 1000th of a second, that the human eye could not perceive them. According to Vicary, although the human eye missed these images the brain did not. The journalists sitting in the audience had received a hidden message without even noticing it. If anyone present was unsure of the practical application of such a device, Vicary had a press release ready to spell it out.

The press release gave details of a sixteen-week experiment recently conducted in a New Jersey movie house. Over that period just under 50,000 cinema-goers were exposed to the messages 'Eat popcorn' and 'Drink Coke' whilst they watched a film. The results were impressive – Coke sales up 18.1% and popcorn sales up by 57.7%. Vicary claimed that his technique put the ideas directly into a subject's brain without him or her being consciously aware of it. So the implanted ideas would be experienced as spontaneous thought as opposed to considering a sales pitch. In a normal advert, the advertiser has a short amount of time to persuade the viewer to buy their product. Vicary's device promised to bypass the persuasive process and have the viewer think he came up with the idea himself. He called this process SUB ( beneath ) LIMINAL ( threshold ) perception because the information managed to fly 'under the radar' directly into the brain.

The timing was just right for Vicary's demonstration. Advertising was changing, with new psychological techniques replacing the old straightforward messages. People were no longer told to buy products simply because they were better than anything offered by the competition but rather that people needed these items. Psychological experts, so-called 'depth men' scripted advertising copy to manipulate audiences into parting with their cash. Investigative journalist Vance Packard published, in the same year as Vicary revealed his device, his investigation into psychologically manipulative advertising: The Hidden Persuaders . In his book, Packard observes: 'Americans have become the most manipulated people outside of the Iron Curtain'. Brave New World author Aldous Huxley, saw subliminal advertising as an indication of his nightmare world becoming reality, speculating that such a technique would 'abolish free-will almost completely'. Newsday described Vicary's discovery as 'the most alarming invention since the atom bomb'. The implications were clear to everyone – if cinema audiences were compelled to 'buy Coke' what would television audiences do if 'vote Republican (or Democrat)' were flashed on screen?

Interestingly, Vicary was surprised at the negative reaction to his device, which he saw as a positive thing. Subliminal advertising could reduce an entire days worth of advertising down to a few seconds. Television audiences would not have to put up with endless repetitive advertisements and could enjoy their programmes uninterrupted.

It wasn't just advertisers that were taking an interest in subliminal messages however. Unsurprisingly, the CIA were keen to see if such a technique could help improve their less than successful attempts at hypnotic conditioning. A CIA report dated 17 th January 1958 reads: “It might be that in order to lessen the resistance of an individual to the hypnotic induction process, the use of subliminal projection may be considered. This technique has achieved success in commercial advertising, as 'Eat popcorn' or 'Drink Coke' projected in certain movie theaters for 1/3000 of a second intervals. It may be that subliminal projection can also be utilized in such a way as to feature a visual suggestion such as 'Obey [deleted]', or 'Obey [deleted]' – with similar success.”

While the CIA ran secret experiments, advertisers and TV networks were carrying out their own attempts at subliminal advertising. By 1958, less than a year after Vicary's first experiment, over 41% of American's polled had heard of subliminal advertising. In 1980, the process was so well known that over 80% of Americans had some knowledge of subliminal advertising. In fact the process is so well known that Mentalists such as Derren Brown can take for granted that his audience will known what he means when he references the idea in his effects. What is less well known is that subliminal advertising doesn't work and never has.

If we look back at Vicary's press demonstration we can see that he never actually proves his devise or the technique works. The gathered journalists are asked to watch a short film and then report that they didn't see any hidden messages. They are then told that a similar experiment occurred a few weeks previously and that it was a success. The tachistoscope used to project the images is never examined because Vicary had not patented the device and was concerned about security. All the 'witnesses' have before they go to print is Vicary's word that subliminal advertising works.

This does not been that the process went completely untested. In 1957, Vicary was invited by the Copy Research Council and asked to demonstrate subliminal advertising in conditions set by the US Psychological Corporation. The demonstration failed. In 1958, Vicary had another go, replicating the 'Eat popcorn' experiment for the Federal Communications Commission. Again the demonstration failed. Then someone did what should have been done in the first place, a journalist from Motion Picture Daily tracked down the manager of the cinema used in the initial experiment and asked him for his version of events – according to the manager there had been no increase in popcorn or Coke sales in the past year! Later that year Stuart Rogers, a psychology student from Hofstra College, Long Island did the apparently unthinkable, he went and visited the cinema. The first thing he noticed was the obvious, the cinema was in no way big enough to accommodate 50,000 people in the time stated by Vicary. Rogers approached the cinema manager and asked him directly what was really going on – the manager admitted that he didn't know anything about the experiment. The subliminal advertising experiment that caught the world's imagination never took place! By the end of 1958 the papers all reported that there was no proof that subliminal advertising worked. But it seems that message never got through as over 80% of people polled today still believe the process is real.

Vicary disappeared shortly after his process was exposed as a failure but was tracked down in 1962. He claimed that information was prematurely leaked to the press before his experiments were complete and from there things snowballed out of control. Staggeringly, Vicary not only admitted that the newspaper reports were premature but that 'we hadn't done any research, except what was required for filing a patent. I had only... a small amount of data – too small to be meaningful. And what we had shouldn't have been used promotionally'.

Vicary wasn't the only person unable to get subliminal advertising to work. The CIA were also unsuccessful after many trials concluding that 'it's operational feasibility is exceedingly limited'. Several public trials also took place. Most famous of these was probably the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's flashing 'Phone now' 352 times during Close-Up, a popular Sunday night TV programme – the switchboards were silent. But despite the continual failures and not one successful trial, the idea of subliminal messages stuck.

Two popular applications of subliminal messaging that remain today are in learning and dating, however the former is dying a death. The once popular idea ($50million annually) that it was possible to learn languages, improve memory or develop self-esteem through listening to recordings during sleep has pretty much run its course. This is more than likely due to the initial popularity of such methods. So many people have tried to improve themselves while they sleep and found that it simply doesn't work. With so many trials and no apparent results people are beginning to accept that the process doesn't work. In 1992 the British Psychological Society conducted research into subliminal learning and reported their findings: 'They [subliminal recordings] simply do not work. There is no evidence that commercially available auditory tapes have any genuine utility for enhancing performance... We do not recommend purchasing them.'

A more successful application of so-called subliminal messaging is that applied to dating, or more accurately, in men successfully getting women to date them. The method supposedly works by phrasing sentences in such a way that hidden messages find their way into women's brains without them noticing. A crude example 'works' as follows: a man wants the woman he is talking to to think sexual thoughts, become turned on and be more receptive to the idea of sex. And so, the man may say a sentence like 'the people in the apartment below me are a really sweet couple.' Seems innocent enough but with a sleight slur and light emphasis he can send out the message 'blow me' (the people in the apartment blow me are a really sweet couple). People pay more attention to the words at the end of a sentence so the woman overtly hears the man approve of couples ('a really sweet couple') but subconsciously receives the sexual message ('blow me') and becomes aroused. Thus, supposedly, she is more open to the man's sexual advances. If this all sounds ridiculous it is probably because it is.

Programs that teach such techniques do give their students tools that genuinely enhance their chances of dating success. Firstly, the student's belief in the power of subliminal messaging bolsters his confidence since he believes he has a secret weapon. Secondly, the need to script his opening lines means that he is better prepared to speak to women having practiced his lines over and over. Those two factors combined will make him appear less nervous and tongue-tied (a technique that only seems to work for Hugh Grant). Thirdly, the programs always have their students practice on as many women as possible. Thus they play the percentages game (as well as improving their technique) as the more women they approach, the more chances they have of success. So, these programs do get results but crucially not better than similar programs that don't bother with the subliminal angle. The idea of subliminal messaging is only useful as a placebo effect to boost self-confidence. It doesn't matter if it works in the way it's supposed to or not.

Similar examples can be found with weight-loss and self-help programs. Any reduction in calorie and fat intake, with an increase in exercise will bring about weight-loss and so any diet that encourages this will work to some degree. The food-combing (Hay) diet, the Zone, the Atkins, and so on all make followers analyze and control their food intake. If followed properly weight loss will follow. Similarly, the I Ching encourages followers to analyze their lives, to examine their options and decisions. Anyone who gets into the habit of this will naturally see improvements as they become more reflective rather than rushing into things without thinking.

With regards to hypnosis, it is not possible to hypnotize a person so they buy a particular product, or lose weight or choose to go out with you. However you can use hypnosis to help a person with their will power, so that they stick to a diet or become more confident asking people out. We'll discuss this further went we come to hypnotherapy.

The truth behind subliminal messages