Messiah (Derren Brown Special)
Messiah is a Derren Brown special originally shown on Channel 4 on 7 January 2005 at 21:00. In the episode, Brown travels to the United States to try to convince five influential figures that he has special abilities in their particular field of expertise: psychic powers, Christian evangelism, New Age theories, alien abduction and contacting the dead, with the objective of getting them to endorse him as a practitioner in their field.
The concept of the show is to highlight the power of suggestion with regard to beliefs and people's abilities, and failure to question them. Brown makes it quite clear that if any of the subjects accused him of trickery he would immediately come clean about the whole thing, a rule similar to one of the self-imposed rules of the perpetrators of the Project Alpha hoax. Using a false name each time, he succeeds in convincing four "experts" that he has powers, who openly endorsed him as a true practitioner. The fifth expert, the Christian evangelist Curt Nordheilm, is reserved in his response; whilst impressed by Brown's performance, he does not agree to a public endorsement without at least meeting him again. Brown concludes with his impressions of the experience and summary of how belief systems work.
Read more about Messiah (Derren Brown Special): Psychic Powers, UFO Abductee, New-Age Theories, Evangelism, Contacting The Dead, Conclusion
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