Ultimate Mind Control

Derren Brown. This guy is amazing. I'll never get bored watching his videos and presentations. He is cleverly mixing elements of hypnosis, mentalism and magic into often somewhat controversial performances.

In this particular video Derren Brown asks a person to place a bet on a dog which will almost certainly lose. Then he's going to collect money on a losing ticket. And surprise, surprise... the woman dishes the money out without lifting a brow! He explains how he's done it and asks the man to try it.

In this case Derren is using indirect hypnosis, also known as conversational or waking hypnosis. In other words, he is controlling minds of people without them being aware of it. This is freaky if I think that it could be me who was under the spell! What's even more worrying, you cannot fight something you're not aware of.

This is also the principle of conversational hypnosis. No wonder, this stuff is so powerful. But my question is whether it is ethical to use such techniques of manipulation on people. There are courses in conversational hypnosis freely available on the internet but what if it gets in wrong hands?

Oh and by the way, I hope the poor woman got that money back!