Comments on: How Does NLP Work?

By: Occult Investigator » Ken Wilber Critique, Part 1

Occult Investigator » Ken Wilber Critique, Part 1 — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 18:30:27 +0000

[...] for it’s own sake. I find myself drawn increasingly to the approach that fields like Neuro-Linguistic Programming take; they say, “we don’t have a theory& [...]

By: alistair

alistair — Sun, 17 Jul 2005 12:22:28 +0000

nlp, while my favorite thing, is nothing new. the methods of nlp are innate in the way we communicate. i have a friend who is a master covert hypnotist yet i am fairly certain he came about his art intuitively. the jesiuts are master nlpers. i gew up with one and my study of nlp has answered a lot of my questions regarding my father`s way of communicating. i have become convinced that my father was unaware of his methods.
nlp and hypnosis are interchangeable. parts of one are the other.
the validity of a communicated message is in how it`s understood. that is the only validity in nlp. it is important to learn how to communicate but it is critical to see how what you are saying is recieved. it is a relationship.

By: name

name — Sun, 17 Jul 2005 09:07:49 +0000

I am on my way to the NLP Practitioner. I can give no opinion on the scientific foundations (or lack thereof) of NLP, but, NLP works, so much I can say from observation and experience.
IMO the Wikipedia entry is accurate enough, but the assertions quoted in the article above dont do NLP justice. There seems to be some misconception there regarding what NLP is. First and foremost, NLP is a communication technique. Second, as my teacher puts it, NLP is “the study of the structure of the subjective”.
As a technique of communication it states, in different words, not much more than what Aristoteles said when he wrote his Rhetoric some 2000 years ago: First, there is a speaker, a message and a listener or public. Second, depending on the message and the listeners, the speaker must discern how he says what he wants to say so that it is understood in the way he wants it to be understood. NLP would say that you are responsible to ensure that your message is understood. What sets NLP apart from classic rhetoric is that it states that communication is more than just words, and it gives its practitioners effective methods and techniques to communicate.
The reason why NLP is of obvious interest to the inhabitants of tinfoil hat land is because of the connections attributed to many of the founders of NLP, and because it lends heavily from hypnosis and makes heavy use of induction of trance states and suggestion. Erickson, Bateson, Grinder, Bandler (and others) are said to have been connected with the various MK projects in the 1960s and 1970s, and much of their work was supposedly financed by various spook agencies. I find it interesting, to say the least, to see the names of the NLP founders quoted in connection with the infamous MK projects, child ritual abuse, induction of multiple personality disorder, satanism, occultism, LSD, Aldous Huxley, Leary, Scientology …

As a result of my own observations I am inclined to opine that NLP is, in part, a rediscovery and formalization of various techniques of communication used since antiquity by religious institutions for their own purposes. I conjecture that. over the millenia, monks have discovered and refined subtle methods of influencing people, what would be one of the secrets behind their undeniable power in all societies of which I am aware. And that is exactly what “occult” means: something hidden. In this case, an effective technique which gives certain groups an advantage over the rest, hidden for a long time until it was rediscovered or reinvented outside of the walls of monasteries.

By: alistair

alistair — Sat, 16 Jul 2005 22:34:13 +0000

i am intrigued to see what you find tim.

By: Occult Investigator

Occult Investigator — Sat, 16 Jul 2005 21:38:11 +0000

Yeah, I was trying to begin by looking at what that one skeptical author wrote about NLP, and using his story and analysis of it to backwards-engineer what his underlying suppositions are. I can definitely see the effectiveness of that as a technique.

By: alistair

alistair — Sat, 16 Jul 2005 21:35:24 +0000

as an nlp practitioner i will state catigorically that ALL of my work begins with the distortions, deletions and editing of the person i`m helping. without understanding how a person does what they do, i can`t begin to show them how to change. science will only begin to understand and measure nlp when it understands that. grinder and bandler developed nlp by synthesising milton erickson, virginia satir, gregory bateson, korzebski and others into a way of developing models of behaviour. this developement continues to this day.
anecdotes and testemonials are a window into how people see thier world. that`s where aliens, ufos, succubi, faith healing, magic and all the other stuff hides from science.

By: wildgarden

wildgarden — Sat, 16 Jul 2005 20:52:51 +0000

I find this interesting because I have some little experience with NLP.

I know that the practice has a rap in this community and not without reason. But it’s a powerful tool to be used for good or ill.

I think that some answers might be forthcoming by exploring the interface between linguistics and psychology. Language has more subtle role in reality creation than I find is generally recognized. I’d also suggest reading some of the early work of Grindler and Bandler, to go to the original source material.

Another piece in this particular puzzle might be the work of Milton Erickson.