I remember, a few years ago when it seemed that everyone was making a big deal about subliminal messages. We were told that they existed everywhere. People were saying that many advertisements had these messages embedded into them. The brand name and product name repeated over and over but so low that you would realize it was inserted into the commercial. I remember thinking, hell, if you don't know its there, what good is it? It turned out that very few if any ads had subliminal messages, they were too busy knocking you over the head with real messages like, such and such kills 100% of all the germs in your mouth, which we found out later wasn't true and our brand of blank increases the iron in your blood which is good for you, which we also found out wasn't true. But who does use subliminal messages? Do they really exist?

I found one ad that, rather than hide a subliminal message, tells you how to make your own subliminal CDs. I thought this might be interesting so I investigated further. A company named Subliminal-Studio asks the question "Do you find mass-produced subliminal CDs effective?" I have to tell you the truth, I have never thought about the fact that there were subliminal cds for sale someplace, have you? But this wasn't really what I was looking for, I wanted to know if people were putting out subliminal messages that we didn't know about, I mean did Bush and Kerry use subliminal messages in their ads that we didn't know about, that would have been interesting? In his first election Bush was accused of doing just that. An ad by the Republican National Committee showed Gore's prescription drug proposal and flashed the word rats over and over. Bush denied that this was subliminal and who can say if it was or wasn't? Gore was also accused of doing the same thing when a Democratic commercial that looked like a normal attack commercial flashed a huge 'Senate Rejects' for a split second over GOP senators.

Another type of so called subliminal message really baffles me. That is the type where you play the record (something that used to look like a cd only bigger), backwards and you hear some sort of Satanic prayer. Friends, who plays anything backwards? How do people find these things out, do they say, "I guess I will play all of my records backwards to see if there are any Satanic verses in them? Gee who has the time?

Where did the idea of subliminal messages come from? James Vicary is generally credited with introducing subliminal advertising in the 1950s. Vicary had developed a machine that could flash pictures so fast within a movie that you wouldn't be conscious of it. He tried it out in a movie theatre with messages of eat popcorn and drink coke. He claimed that even though the audience didn't recognize the fact that these messages were flashing on the movie screen every five seconds, the sales of popcorn increased 58% and the sales of Coke by 18% No experiment since has been this successful. A tv station had announced it was going to use these messages but they encountered a storm of protests when they did and after a few weeks cancelled this type of advertising. A Canadian station tried an experiment and flashed 'telephone now' over and over during a half hour tv show. They then conducted a survey of 500 people who watched the show and only one said they felt an urge to call.

A trial took place in 1990, it was the Judas Priest trial. Judas Priest was a famous band. It was alleged that subliminal messages in the band's heavy metal rock music caused two boys to commit suicide. The name of the album that was supposed to have caused the suicides was Stained Glass. The suspected song was Better By You, Better By Me. It was claimed that the phrase "do it" caused the problems and it was a subliminal message to commit the suicides. Judas Priest was acquitted. They had denied the existance of any subliminal messages in the music. Interestingly, the judge had ruled that a subliminal message is not protected by freedom of speech since the recipient is unaware of it.and therefore it is an invasion of privacy.

It doesn't look like subliminal ads were much of a success in the 1950s but that was then and this is now. Since then, certain government agencies like the CIA have been accused of using subliminal programming. Some claim that today, using current techniques, subliminal programming is an effective way to influence the thinking of people who are unaware that it is being applied on them. Supposedly the technique has been improved so much, that it was claimed that in 1980 it was used to reduce store thefts. I find this hard to believe having had first hand information on the increasing of store thefts in some areas. At any rate, some people now believe that agencies like the CIA are able to apply this programming with some success. All I can say is this, if it works so well it would be the students answer to studying. Just play you lessons while you sleep and learn everything. Oh it it was only that easy!

If you have an urge you can't understand, watch out, you may have received a message you are unaware of.