Uncover the chilling reality of how psychological manipulation can lead to murder. Explore the power of manipulation and how to protect yourself through recognition.
“Can we be manipulated, through the familiar forces of social pressure, to commit murder?”
That’s the question asked by world-renowned and self-named psychological illusionist, Derren Brown, in the opening of his jaw-dropping Netflix special, The Push.
It is a question that has become frighteningly relevant.
If we’ve learned nothing over the past few years, we’ve learned that our behaviours can be easily manipulated, and that good people doing bad things isn’t relegated to the distant past.
But murder?
Not just accidentally or unknowingly, but cognizant of the act of ending someone’s life?
And not someone suffering or asking to end it.
Upon first watching this horrifying experiment, I needed to process what I’d seen.
I was deeply disturbed and quite frankly shaken — which is saying something, given everything we’ve witnessed over the past few years.
The lack of critical thinking, emotional intelligence or simple discernment that was on display by good and moral people is something we still haven’t reckoned with.
And if we’re going to understand what happened in the near past, and ensure that it never happens again, we’re going to need to understand human nature.
I’ve been in an ontological inquiry about what it means to be human for nearly 30 years, but until recently, my focus was on human potential.
The wide open vista of what’s possible.
The Push is about the other side of being human — the dark side.
In an elaborate psychological experiment involving months of planning and preparation, great expense, and dozens of actors, Derren Brown shows the subtle steps to move good people to do bad things.
Of the many lessons to be learned here, the first is how easy it is for someone to assume authority and get a complete stranger to do something they would never normally do.
How many of us obstructed our own oxygen by covering our noses and mouths, abandoned healing hugs and stood 6 feet apart, or followed arrows on a floor in order to stop a virus — because the TV told us to?
How many cut off friends and family members who chose not to get a medical treatment?
Or left loved ones to suffer and die alone because someone we don’t know and who didn’t know us said so?
In the opening of The Push, Derren Brown gets a total stranger to steal a baby in a matter of minutes.
How could these things possibly happen?
Weaponized compassion is a powerful tool.
If people think they’re doing the ”right thing“ or advancing the ”greater good,“ they’re capable of the most heinous things.
It wasn’t until the last few years that I came to understand the old adage, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Many of the people who complied with the Nazis, informed to the Stasi, or snitched to the Soviet state were good people who thought they were doing the right thing — for the greater good.
In one evening, Derren Brown demonstrates that even murder is possible for decent people, using simple psychological manipulation, one baby step at a time.
It all starts with a compelling and moral narrative.
The whole evening is about doing ”whatever it takes“ to help the kids.
The repetitive use of this phrase is just one of the many techniques used to manipulate the subconscious mind, which is particularly susceptible in a state of fear.
Any recognizable phrases come to mind, that were repeated over and over during the Covid years when people were too scared to activate their executive thinking function?
That was the point.
When we are afraid, our subconscious mind kicks into high gear, taking over from the conscious thinking mind and seeking safety in the familiar through repeated phrases and images and actions.
The subconscious understands that there’s safety in numbers, and therefore automatically follows the herd.
"The subconscious seeks what is familiar, not what is logical or rational."
Jason Christoff
You’ll see all this and more control techniques in The Push.
The use of status to get people to comply, including celebrity endorsement, menial tasks, and even clothing.
The social pressure of groups, particularly strangers.
And to my mind the most dangerous, the complicity in little lies that inculcate the subject into bigger lies from which they feel they can’t escape.
This is the slippery slope that each of us must contend with.
If we went along with the ruse of unsocial distancing, the idea that some airborne disease stops at an exactly measurable distance, as if hitting an invisible wall of kryptonite, what other behaviour will our malleable minds justify for the greater good?
We cannot simply scoff and mock or blame those who were sucked into illogical and anti-science thoughts and deeds.
We must be vigilant with ourselves.
Integrity is the foundation of the life we build.
As with a bridge, if it is not solid, it will collapse under pressure.
Building and fortifying our integrity is the best defence against future attempts at manipulation.
I highly recommend watching The Push not just as what one reviewer called, “The most nightmarish and provocative piece of pop culture in TV history,” but as a sobering study of our own psychology.
Click here for a free screening link 👇
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Propaganda warfare is combated by keeping true to yourself and how you feel and enter a situation with calm remembering how you feel is what counts. When manipulation comes you are secure in your own feelings. You won't be manipulated.
Are they really good and moral people, then?