This program was developed during the “Mindfultainment” phase of The Eureka Room.
The Concept
The idea was simple: learn how to control everything in the universe with your mind. In under 20 minutes.
Sure, why not? You’ve a few extra bucks in your bank account. Going to The Eureka Room to learn this seems like a pretty good ROI.
Here’s the major mechanic of the program:
A narrator asks you to look at something on the screen, for example a closed door:
The narrator asks you to concentrate on the image of the door. Then to imagine the door opening. If you use the powers of your mind correctly you can will the door to open.
You stare intently, imaginging the closed door flying open. Using your nascent powers to take your first step toward complete control of the universe you think: Open Door! Open!
You hear a deafening cymbal crash!
Ta-da! You have done it.
18 minutes more of this kind of training and the universe will be under your command.
Yes, if you had not thought of the door but instead thought of something else (perhaps, of the many things you might have spent your money on had you not purchased this training program), then the door might have opened with or without you.
Or maybe not. Perhaps it was one of the other people in the room that made it open and covered your ass on this one?
But most likely, it opened because the whole program is a pre-recorded movie and the door is fated to open every single time the movie is played, regardless of who is imagining what.
And that’s the critical thing about the program: If you don’t buy into it and imagine that you are in control then it’s going to be a very, very long 20 minutes.
What Else Happens?
OK, let’s do a walk-through of the highlights.
As we move along, please feel free to imagine the doors of your home or office opening and closing according to your will.
The beginning. It is completely dark. Spooky ethereal music plans. Then a creaky voice that sounds a lot like me says:
“It is your choice… to take this opportunity… to meet with the ancient of the ancients…. the one that talks with the spirits… the one that can lead you to a higher state of being… the one that can give you greater living… the one that can give you more life abilities… be warned! the ancient of the ancients will only show you what you wish to be shown…. Those that choose to believe… will feel greater living and more life abilities… those that choose to doubt will only see reasons to doubt….”
This was my pre-emptive excuse if the program didn’t work on you.
I used this character “the ancient of The ancients” because it seems if you attach the notion of antiquity to something than people trust and value it more. Ancient knowledge. Ancient practices. Ancient grains. Who cares about proof, the scientific method, or the fact that there’s was a lot of bad shit people were doing to each other in ancient times? If it’s ancient, it’s got to have value, right?
The program goes on to do a little resettting/ushering using some meditation for a minute or so. Then we get to the door training.
After that you use your mind to: make plants grow, make the room change colors, find a parking spot, pop a balloon and release a duck that is trapped inside, light a candle (which seems sort of a letdown after you’ve just released a duck from a balloon), then you inflate a bunch of balloons and pop them so the ducks come out.
From there you control sounds. You use your mind to change tempos, volume and appearance of some psychedelic congas. (They were made psychedelic to hide the boringness of this part.)
It takes a weird turn here and goes to some sort of futuristic abstractions that you have to mimic. Two colored lines race across the room and then you have think about them and make it happen again.
At your peak training you move the sun up and down.
Then there’s the final test.
This is when you are shown a mix of everything you learned and are asked to make all the things happen to them that you are now trained to do. It didn’t seem climactic enough so I have a sound effect of an aircraft engine starting up in the background mixed with some very repetitive electronic arpeggios. This adds tension and mystery I guess.
Congratulations!
You have completed the first level of Greater Living.
And then it ends abruptly.
Unfortunately if you want to see Level 2, you can’t use your powers. Because Level 2 was never really developed beyond some basic ideas. Looking at the Level 2 file now I have no idea what it was supposed to be. There’s a bunch of scrambled words and it appears you use your powers to unscramble them. And there’s something about reading 20 words a minute. Clearly the sequel is not as good as the original.
Lessons Learned:
- Creating all the different scenes resulted in a LOT of work. So many images and illustrations. And once they are in you have to get used to how to work with each of them and brainstorm around how the placement will be, sizing will be, etc. To do that for a 10 second bit many times over was a lot of work and probably not that worth it.
- This program only works if the guest makes it work. When the guest doesn’t make it work, then it is a horrible experience for the guest. Should I ever do this program I need to make it extremely clear what will be required of them. Perhaps even explain it in a teaser video.
- I thought I did a really good job getting novel and fitting music and tones for this one.
- The ancient voice was the right balance of crazy and questionable and authoritative.
- It was just a collection of stuff and then a test of all of it. There was no logistical or emotional arc. It would be better if the tasks got crazier or harder as it went on. It would help if there was more of a common thread between them, perhaps conceptually (eg, you are in a bread factory the whole time) or stylistically (the images seem to come from the same source and have a consistent feel).
- There was one kid that really liked a preview of this. It might have been because there was a duck but it also might have been that they got to have power and use their imagination and self consciousness wasn’t as much an issue for them. Or some other reason.