WATCH: This Magician Can Do Crazy Things to Your Brain
Over the last nine years since my 2004 TEDTalk "Brain Magic" I have been studying hacking into the brain and reprogramming its most basic functions. In 2010, I made a series of five one-hour TV shows with the Discovery Channel called "Deception with Keith Barry."
Photo credit: Discovery Channel.
This series explored the relationship between the brain and how it can be deceived and manipulated into doing what I want it to do. I delved into the most secretive of areas, such as, is it possible to program someone else's mind to do something against their morals or their beliefs and without their permission. In one of the episodes, "Black Ops Hypnosis," I reprogrammed a man's mind to become a covert operative and tasked him to do something he would never have done otherwise. The result was extraordinary -- even when shown the tape of himself doing the covert operation he could not believe that he had done what he was looking at, he was 100 percent sure that it was only a dream. His brain was still in denial given his strong morals and beliefs and it still read the reality as a dream.
Photo credit: Discovery Channel.
The power of hypnosis is a constant source of debate. My own research and the fact that I have now hypnotized over 3,000 people give me a unique and personal view of how the brain functions subconsciously. I am constantly asked can anyone be hypnotized and does it really work? Yes, and it does.
How does the subconscious mind work, is it independent of the conscious mind, is it programmed by experiences or instructions?In 2006, when doing a live stage show in Ireland, I tried for the first time to instantly induct a subject on stage, something I had never done before nor did I know if it would ever work. The result almost cost me my career, the man I grabbed and instantly inducted went out cold and fell to the floor. I barely caught his head inches before it smacked off the solid floor. My manager at the rear of the hall nearly collapsed in laughter as did I because we were the only two people in a room of over 1,000 people that knew one thing -- I had no clue what to do next! That changed my whole view of how the brain took instructions and the power of talking directly to the subconscious mind.
Photo credit: Gary Ash.
In the last seven years, I have come to respect the power of the subconscious mind and its ability to take new instructions from an outside source. How does the subconscious mind work, is it independent of the conscious mind, is it programmed by experiences or instructions? Many questions come up, but the one answer is common: if you can access the subconscious, then you can reprogram it, period!
Strive for Extraordinary, don't moan and sleep when you're dead.
From filming on location in beautiful Johannesburg, South Africa,
Keith Barry.
