A powerful alien creature of unknown origins which was brought to Earth by the Master. Housed in an electronic apparatus, it thrived by absorbing negative emotion. Posing as a scientist named Keller, the Master kept it fed by installing it in prisons as a means of permanently pacifying convicts. After six months of successful treatment in Swiss jails, the Keller Process was introduced to the British prison HMP Stangmoor for evaluation.
The first convict to be processed was a man named George Barnham. The Doctor and Jo Grant attended as UNIT observers, as he had concerns about the machine. It took more than just Barnham's criminality, leaving him in a childlike state. A series of deaths then began, with people seeming to perish from their deepest fears. One journalist who was scared of rats died with rodent scratches on his body, and Keller's assistant - Professor Kettering - drowned in an empty room. The alien parasite was triggering these fears then feeding off the resulting emotion. The US delegate at a peace conference was attacked by a Chinese dragon.
The Doctor was also attacked, confronted by flames - taken from his memories of seeing an alternate Earth destroyed by volcanic processes. When it turned on the Master, his greatest fear was being mocked and belittled by the Doctor.
Realising he could no longer control it, the Master forced the Doctor into helping contain it. A device was set up to simulate passive human brain waves. The Doctor noted that the creature became inactive in the presence of Barnham, as it had nothing to feed upon.
He used the convict to transport the parasite to an abandoned airbase where the Master had a hijacked nerve gas missile stored. This was used to destroy the parasite when it was self-destructed.
Appearances: The Mind of Evil (1971).
- There is some debate about the chronology of the Master's stranding on Earth, after the Doctor stole his Dematerialisation Circuit. Was he already using the Mind Parasite in Switzerland when he began his campaign against the Doctor by helping the Nestene Consciousness - or was there a lengthy gap between the second Auton attack and events at Stangmoor?
- Why select a relatively peaceful nation like Switzerland? Was it an attempt to keep the parasite under-fed and therefore less powerful?
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