The CIA And Subliminal Messages

The venue was a small movie theatre in New Jersey. The orchestrator was James Vicary. The subjects were unknowing movie goers. The experiment was 0.03 second subliminal messages and the claims were outrageous!

James Vicary claimed that by flashing subliminal messages to the movie audience instructing them to purchase coca cola and popcorn that the sales of these products were significantly increased.

The Vicary study caused controversy from the outset. It caused concern in government which eventually bled to the general public. The panic created soon paved the way for a complete ban of subliminal messages from TV and radio in several countries!

Vicary admitted in 1957 that his findings had been fabricated but the phenomenon of subliminal messages still lives on. Why is this?

Perhaps part of the answer lies in some 1957 subliminal messages experiments conducted by a very large and powerful organization.

While the battle raged over the effectiveness of

subliminal messages the CIA were quietly conducting their own research into the phenomenon!

The CIA was most interested in whether subliminal messages could be used to influence targets to think and act in certain ways. In classified documents, that were released under The Freedom of Information Act, is evidence of how the CIA were involved heavily in the research of subliminal messages as a method of forced control.

The CIA report, "The Operational Potential of Subliminal Perception", written in 1958 highlights some of their findings. In a 1980 article for High Times magazine Martin Lee states that a former CIA agent revealed that the agency committed themselves to discovering the effectiveness of subliminal messages in the manipulation of political outcomes!

The declassified CIA journal has a disconcerting entry where it is stated that it might be possible for the word "Obey" to be used in their subliminal programs.

Although we have no way of knowing whether the CIA ever stopped their investigations into subliminal messages we do know that it is prevalent in advertising. It is also used frequently in self improvement fields as a tool for self change. Subliminal messages are used in a variety of personal development products.

Below are some additional resources and information on the effectiveness of subliminal messages.

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