Derren Brown: Messiah

For his show “Messiah,” Derren Brown traveled to the United States to try to convince five leading figures that he had powers in their particular field of expertise: Christian evangelism, alien abduction, psychic powers, New Age theories, and contacting the dead. Using a false name each time, Derren succeeded in convincing all of the “experts” that he had powers, and four openly endorsed him as a true practitioner. The concept of the show was to highlight the power of suggestion with regard to beliefs and people’s abilities, and our failure to question those beliefs. His conclusion was that people tend to hear only things that support their own ideas and ignore contradictory evidence; this is known in psychology as confirmation bias.