Subliminal derives its name from the word “liminal” which , according to Webster’s online dictionary means “barely perceptible “. The “sub” means “below” Therefore subliminal literally means below the threshold perception.  

Therefore subliminal messages are designed to be perceived below the level of conscious awareness.  It has long been believed that anything truly below the level of detectable perception could not, obviously, be perceived.

However, is it so obvious? 

There are millions of people who attest to the power of subliminal messages is it possible that these people have been fooled by the placebo effect or worse that they are all suffering from delusions? 

The argument against subliminal messages lies in the fact that they are said to be below the threshold of conscious perception. If we cannot perceive something, the argument goes, then how could it possibly have any effect on us? 

The belief in the power of subliminal messages to effect the thoughts, beliefs and behaviours who people stems back to a 1957 experiment conducted by James Vicary.

Then an advertising promoter, Vicary claimed to increase popcorn and Coca-Cola sales by some 58% and 18% respectively. His experiment was conducted in a New Jersey movie theatre where he “flashed” the subliminal messages, "Thirsty. Drink Coca-Cola", and "Hungry. Eat Popcorn."  

For years other investigators were unable to replicate Vicary’s findings in similar experiments until eventually Vicary admitted that he had fabricated his findings (many people doubt he even conducted the experiment). 

However, due to Vicary’s claims the USA, British and Australian Governments banned subliminal messages from television and radio in it even lead to a CIA investigation of the uses of subliminal messages for “covert operations”! 

However, without any real empirical evidence to suggest that subliminal messages work the general consensus in the scientific community has been one of scepticism!  

The scientific community, at large, has argued that there was no evidence at all to suggest that subliminal messages were effective because they do not even reached the brain.

However, recent research is proving them wrong! Scientists at the University College London have shown that subliminal messages which are hidden can have an affect on the brain and its attention while a person is totally unaware that there are visual images present!

Researchers, lead by Bahador Bahrami, discovered that a subject's brain was able to register images that were faint or those flashed at high speed if they were in their visual line of sight, even when the subject was adamant that they had not seen anything - i.e. they were using subliminal messages.

Although current psychological assumptions work on the belief that what we pay attention to and what we are aware of are the same, this study shows otherwise. Bahrami and his team have shown that we do not need to be aware of subliminal messages for them to have an affect on the brain!

Are you interested in finding out just how powerful subliminal messages are? Would you like to change any area of your life effortless? Then visit Subliminal Power and find out how easy it can be!