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1955 The Psychonaut’s Bathtub (book p. 140)
What would happen if the brain was cut off from all external stimuli? When neither a person’s eyes, ears, skin or nose could register a single thing? That was the question John Lilly wanted to answer in the 1950ies. He invented a sensory deprivation tank where he had halluzinations and other experiences "too personal to relate publicly", as he reported. In the 1980s, Lilly had isolation tanks (also known as Samadhi tanks) manufactured and marketed as relaxation aids. He became a guru of the New Age movement, wrote several zany volumes of autobiography, and combined his spells in the tank with acid trips. The plot of the film ‘Altered States’ (1980) with William Hurt was based on John Lilly’s experiments. To no ones surprise the real experiments were done with much less flashy equipment than the Hollywood ones. As a matter of fact Lilly sometimes had to switch of the light himself and then climb in complete darkness into a tank, that was more or less a oversized bathtub. Here is the title sequence with a very sophisticated vertical tank. "Altered States" (Title Sequence)Since the initial experiment Lillys tank pops up time and again as relaxation device and meditation machine. This footage is from 2006. Floating
1957 Psychology’s Atom Bomb (book p. 150)
This is probably the most famous experiment that actually never has been done. American market researcher James Vicary claimed that he had exposed the audience in a cinema unwittingly to the secret instructions ‘Eat Popcorn!’ and ‘Drink Coke!’ With the result that the sales of Coca-Cola in the cinema foyer increased by 18.1 percent, while those of popcorn rose by 57.5 percent. Later he admitted that the whole story had been fabricated.
Vicary’s experiment had its last major airing to date during the US Presidential elections of 2000, when in a TV advert promoting the Republic candidate George W. Bush unseen by viewers, the word RATS was flashed up momentarily across the whole screen when a Democrat policy was mentioned. See for yourself at 0:25. Controversial TV-Spot by the Republicans
1958 The Mother-Machine (book p. 154)
The cloth mother psychologist Harry Harlow built for his baby monkeys is one of the most enigmatic devices ever built for an experiment. In this old news footage he explains CBS television newscaster Charles Collingwood what it is all about.
Harry Harlow in a CBS Segment
1961 Obedient to the Last (book p. 161)
This may well be the most impressive footage ever in social psychology: researcher Stanley Milgram demonstrates the strong tendency of people to obey by making his subjects give life threatening electric shocks to a 47 year old Irish-American accountant for no good reasons (the accountant was a actor and the shocks were not real). You can watch the whole documentary here.
1963 Bullfighting by Remote Control (book p. 182)
Spanish neurologist Jose Delgado was not only convinced that electrical stimulation of the brain was the key to understanding the biological bases of social behaviour, but he was also prepared to prove his case in a rather risky fashion.
So on a spring evening in 1963 he came face to face with Lucero, a 250-kilogram fighting bull owned by the landowner Ramón Sánchez, who had granted Delgado the use of a small practice ring on his estate of La Almarilla in Córdoba for the experiment. Lucero lumbered towards him. Delgado pressed a button on the remote-control. The radio-controlled electrodes he had placed in the brain few days before the experiment activated. This instantly dissipated the animal’s aggression; Lucero skidded to a halt and trotted off. |