Atheism and Religious Experience.

Wednesday 06 Jan 2016

This is a synopsis of an experiment by Derren Brown which I would like to connect to the next blog that looks at Atheism as an extreme or opposite to Unctuousness spoken about in the previous blog. The next blog will be called “The Middle Way” For the moment I would like to describe the Wonders of Derren Browns experiments because they illustrate the virtue of the “Middle Way”,

Derren Brown is a popular UK hypnotist. He is a well-known atheist and makes television programs that follow a lot of the current experiments and insights that we are gleaning from the latest in physics and psychology.  On the net you will find programs that he has made casting various beliefs in things in a different and often stark light. He is a very compelling artist and is good at what he does.  He has made a two program series which he called Fear & Faith. This film and the following blog will look at what it means to have the view that we have of ourselves totally undermined, and then replaced with such an easy manipulated belief.

The fear program essentially looked at how a placebo can transform people’s fears to allow them to do things not possible before. How the psychology that underpins someone’s fears can be changed with sub-conscious suggestion.  Essentially we see how the mind is conditioned and how it can be reconditioned. This show can be found on the net.  The second show I wish to concentrate on more fully because it focuses on instilling a belief that is more profound. A belief that was not there before and it shows the ease with which it can be done. (I have embedded the faith program into my blog below.)

Derren Brown - Fear and Faith Episode 2 by costello74

In this program Derren Brown proposes to give a confirmed atheist a belief in an experience of God that will profoundly change them. The hypnotist chooses a subject least likely to be persuaded. He does this by asking all of his subjects to sit in a dark crypt under a church. The participants have been told it is likely haunted as many dead people have been in there and they were asked if they would report anything unusual. The chosen subject sat very peacefully and serenely and enjoyed the experience while the others saw shapes and things that scared them. They had let their minds play tricks. The chosen subject was a scientist working with stem cells and had always been an atheist only attending church for ceremonial reasons. 

Before Derren gave the lady the religious experience he demonstrated in a side bar experiment to show how the idea of God or someone looking over us causes us to be more honest, ethical and moral. He did this by using an apparatus that has a ring designed to be tracked over a curving rail without touching it. When touched the apparatus beeps. Two groups of subjects were asked to record how many times the curving rod was touched in order to grade their skill in keeping the ring off the rail. It was also a test of honesty which the people did not know about. One group did it without information, the other group were made aware of a sofa chair that someone had died in with the belief that the person had become a ghost and still sits in the chair.  The first group cheated outrageously while the second group were very honest, proving that if we think we are being watched we tend to be more honest.

In another side bar experiment to show how deeply rooted belief can be in us, Derren did an experiment that I have talked about before in my blog Good & Bad Energy on Aug 7th 2012. A version was first shown by Tony Robinson in his show called Gods & Monsters.

Derren had the audience bring in a photocopy of a photo of a loved one. He then asked for volunteers to take a satanic oath and stab the photo with a knife.  There were only about 5 people in the audience prepared to do it and the guy selected did it without apparent concern. Because the photo was just a photocopy and because the oath was said to be meaningless it was supposed to show that we should have no trouble doing this. The audience clearly had trouble which demonstrates our deep anxiety and belief and in our beliefs. (I am not sure that this is a good example because Derren Brown should know the power of the sub conscious to make things like this real. It may well be insidious for the guy who did it. I would not do this, I think it is unskilful!  What makes this different to the belief experiment to follow?)

Anyway back to the girl who was selected to be touched by God in the form of Derren Brown.  The setting was a church like stage with candles and crosses all well-lit with staged light spilling in. Derren spent 15 minutes making suggestions without mentioning God. He used tapping to connect random situations and feelings that he made up for her. Perhaps some were real for her or at least connected to real previously felt feelings. He suggested patterns in her life connected to loving experiences felt from a father figure to awe and wonder and being cherished then suggestions of faith and a grand plan or agency in her life. 

Derren demonstrated the propensity of our human condition to read patterns and make real things from randomness by doing another side bar where he selected a girl to take a camera in order to make a video diary on proposed good interventions he was going to set up in her life. He suggested the events may be subtle or perhaps not so subtle, he would use actors and people around her. He had a bizarre scenario acted out at the coffee shop where they were talking. He predicted her water would be spilt, which it was. She went away with this expectation and collected many events where she thought Derren was intervening, but the fact was that Derren never did a thing. Non-the-less she did feel the patterns and stories she made out of the random events in her life did enrich her because she was expecting them to.

The final part of the “delivering a God experience” was Derren standing up before the girl and announcing he would be gone for a couple of minutes. He continued suggesting that all these great felt things could happen and tapped to connect all the suggestions, and finally with his hand outstretched, a short distance from her head, like he was giving a blessing, he was literally showing her the feelings on his hand as all these feelings were clearly arising in her, he suggested a feeling might happen when she stands. He left the room and she rose up taking her head through the space where his hand was and was clearly experiencing something amazing. She burst in to tears.

Derren did explain to the girl the process he went through to achieve the experience in her and he did not try to devalue her emotional experience. She said the experience felt more artificial since she found out how it got there but could rationalise it as a good and positive thing in her life. 

This experiment for me has both good and bad outcomes and as I will discuss in my next blog “The Middle Way” and why Atheism should be seen for what it is.