Linguistic Game of Repeating a Word Again and Again
NLP or Neuro-Linguistic Programming is one of the world's most prevalent methods of mind control, used by everyone from sales callers to politicians to media pundits, and information technology's nasty to the core. Here's x means to make certain nobody uses it on yous… ever.
Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is a method for controlling people'due south minds that was invented by Richard Bandler and John Grinder in the 1970s, became popular in the psychoanalytic, occult and New Age worlds in the 1980s, and ad, marketing and politics in the 1990s and 2000s. It's become then interwoven with how people are communicated to and marketed at that its use is largely invisible. It'due south too somewhat of a pernicious, devilish force in the world—nearlyeverybody in the business of influencing people has studied at least some of its techniques. Masters of it are notorious for having a Rasputin-like ability to trick people in incredible ways—most of all themselves.
After explaining a scrap well-nigh what NLP is and where it came from, I'm going to break downwards 10 ways to inoculate yourself against its use. You lot'll likely exist spotting information technology left, right and center in the media with a few tips on what to look for. Full disclosure: During my 20s, I spent years studying New Age, magical and religious systems for changing consciousness. One of them was NLP. I've been on both ends of the spectrum: I've had people ruthlessly utilize NLP to endeavour to control me, and I've besides trained in information technology and fifty-fifty used it in the advertising world. Despite early fascination, by 2008 or and then I had largely come to the conclusion that it's next to useless—a way of manipulating language that greatly overestimates its ain effectiveness equally a discipline, actually doesn't achieve much in the way of any kind of lasting change, and contains no real core of respect for people or even true understanding of how people work.
After throwing it to the wayside, notwithstanding, I became convinced that understanding NLP is crucial simply so that people can resist its use. It's kind of like the whole PUA thing that was popular in the mid-00s—a grouping of a few techniques that worked for a few unscrupulous people until the public figured out what was going on and rejected information technology, like the body identifying and rejecting strange fabric.
What is NLP, and where did it come from?
"Neuro-linguistic programming" is a marketing term for a "scientific discipline" that two Californians—Richard Bandler and John Grinder—came up with in the 1970s. Bandler was a stoner student at UC Santa Cruz (just like I later on was in the 00s), then a mecca for psychedelics, hippies and radical thinking (at present a mecca for Silicon Valley hopefuls). Grinder was at the time an associate professor in linguistics at the university (he had previously served as a Helm in the Usa Special Forces and in the intelligence community, ahem non that this, yous know, is important… aheh…). Together, they worked at modeling the techniques of Fritz Perls (founder of Gestalt therapy), family therapist Virginia Satir and, most chiefly, the preternaturally gifted hypnotherapist Milton Erickson. Bandler and Grinder sought to decline much of what they saw every bit the ineffectiveness of talk therapy and cut direct to the eye of what techniques actually worked to produce behavioral alter. Inspired by the computer revolution—Bandler was a computer science major—they besides sought to develop a psychological programming language for homo beings.
What they came up with was a kind of evolution of hypnotherapy—while classical hypnosis depends on techniques for putting patients into suggestive trances (even to the point of losing consciousness on command), NLP is much less heavy-handed: information technology'southward a technique oflayering subtle meaning into spoken or written linguistic communication so that you lot can implant suggestions into a person's unconscious listen without them knowing what you're doing.
Richard Bandler, co-creator of NLP, in 2007. (Via Wikimedia Commons)
Though mainstream therapists rejected NLP equally pseudoscientific nonsense (it has been officially peer reviewed and discredited as an intervention technique), it even so defenseless on. Information technology was still the 1970s, and the Human Potential Move was in full swing—and NLP was the new darling. Immediately edifice a publishing, speaking and preparation empire, by 1980 Bandler had made over $800,000 from his creation—he was even being called on to railroad train corporate leaders, the ground forces and the CIA. Self-help gurus similar Tony Robbins used NLP techniques to go millionaires in the 1980s (Robbins at present has an estimated net worth of $480 one thousand thousand). Past the center of the decade, NLP was such big business that lawsuits and wars had erupted over who had the rights to teach information technology, or even to use the term "NLP."
But past that time, Bandler had bigger bug than copyright disputes: he was on trial for the declared murder of prostitute Corine Christensen in November 1986. The prosecution claimed that Bandler had shot Christensen, 34, point-blank in the confront with a .357 Magnum in a drug deal gone bad. According to the press at the fourth dimension, Bandler had discovered an even amend way to get people to like him than NLP—cocaine—and become embroiled in a far darker game, even, than heed command. A much-recommended investigation into the instance published byMother Jones in 1989 opens with these spooky lines:
In the morning Corine Christensen last snorted cocaine, she found herself, straw in hand, looking down the barrel of a .357 Magnum revolver. When the gun exploded, momentarily piercing the autumn stillness, it sent a single bullet on a diagonal path through her left nostril and into her encephalon.
Christensen slumped over her round oak dining table, bleeding onto its glass top, a loose-leaf notebook, and a slip of yellowish memo paper on which she had scrawled, in red ink, DON'T KILL U.s. ALL. Choking, she spit blood onto a wine goblet, a tequila bottle, and the shirt of the homo who would be accused of her murder, then slid sideways off the chair and fell on her dorsum. Inside minutes she lay withal.
As Christensen lay dying, two men left her rented boondocks house in a working-class section of Santa Cruz, California. I was her former boyfriend, James Marino, an admitted cocaine dealer and convicted infiltrator. The other, Richard Bandler, was known internationally as the cofounder of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), a controversial approach to psychology and communication. Nearly 12 hours later, on the evening of November 3, 1986, Richard Bandler was arrested and charged with the murder.
Bandler's defense was, simply, that Marino had killed Christensen, not him. Many at the time alleged he used NLP techniques on the stand to escape confidence. Yet Bandler was likewise alleged to really utilize a gun in NLP sessions in gild to produce dramatic psychological changes in clients—a technique that was later mirrored by Hollywood in the movie Fight Club , in which Brad Pitt's character pulls a gun on a gas station attendant and threatens to kill him if he doesn't pursue his dreams in life. That was, many said, Bandler's MO.
Whatever the truth of the matter, Bandler was indeed allow off, and the story was quickly buried—I've never spoken to a pupil of NLP who's ever heard of the murder example, I'll note, and I've spoken toa lot.The example hardly impeded the growing popularity of NLP, yet, which was now big business, working its style not simply into the toolkit of psychotherapists merely too into nearly every corner of the political and advertizing worlds, having grown far beyond the single personage of Richard Bandler, though he continued (and continues) to command outrageous prices for NLP trainings throughout the world.
Today, the techniques of NLP and Ericksonian-style hypnotic writing can be readily seen in the world of Net marketing, online get-rich-quick schemes and scams. (For more on this, see theexcellent article Scamworld: 'Go rich quick' schemes mutate into an online monster by my friend Joseph Flatley, one of the all-time articles I've ever read on the Web.) Their almost prominent public usage has likely been by Barack Obama, whose 2008 "Change" campaign was a masterpiece of Ericksonian permissive hypnosis. The celebrity hypnotist and illusionist Derren Dark-brown also demonstrates NLP techniques in his routine.
How exactly does this affair work?
NLP is taught in a pyramid structure, with the more advanced techniques reserved for multi-one thousand-dollar seminars. To oversimplify an overcomplicated subject, information technology more than or less works similar this: beginning, the user (or "NLPer," equally NLP people often refer to themselves—and I should note here that the large majority of NLP people, particularly those who are primarily therapists, are likely well-meaning) of NLP paysvery, very close attention to the person they're working with. By watching subtle cues similar eye motion, pare flush, student dilation and nervous tics, a skilled NLP person can quickly determine:
a) What side of the brain a person is predominantly using;
b) What sense (sight, odour, etc.) is most predominant in their brain;
c) How their brain stores and utilizes data (ALL of this can be gleaned from eye movements);
d) When they're lying or making information up.
Afterwards this initial circular of data gathering, the "NLPer" begins to slowly and subtly mimic the client, taking on non just their body language just also their oral communication mannerisms, and will brainstorm speaking with language patterns designed to target the client's primary sense.
An NLP person essentially carefullyfakes the social cues that cause a person to drop their baby-sit and enter a state of openness and suggestibility.
For example, a person predominantly focused on sight will exist spoken to in language using visual metaphors—"Do you see what I'k proverb?" "Expect at it this way"—while a person for which hearing is the dominant sense will be spoken to in auditory language—"Hear me out," "I'g listening to you closely."
By mirroring body linguistic communication and linguistic patterns, the NLPer is attempting to attain i very specific response: rapport. Rapport is the mental and physiological land that a human enters when they let their social guard down, and it is generally achieved when a person comes to the conclusion that the person they're talking to isjust like them. Meet how that works, broadly? An NLP person essentially advisedly fakes the social cues that cause a person to drop their guard and enter a state of openness and suggestibility.
Once rapport is achieved, the NLPer will then begin subtly leading the interaction. Having mirrored the other person, they can at present brand subtle changes to actually influence the other person's behavior. Combined with subtle linguistic communication patterns, leading questions and a whole slew of other techniques, a skilled NLPer can at this signal steer the other person wherever they similar,as long as the other person isn't enlightened of what'due south happening and thinks everything is arising organically,or has given consent. That means it's really fairly hard to use NLP to get people to deed out-of-graphic symbol, only it tin can exist used for engineering responses within a person's normal range of behavior—like donating to a cause, making a conclusion they were putting off, or going home with you lot for the dark if they might have considered it anyhow.
From this point, the NLPer will seek to do two things—elicit andanchor.Eliciting happens when an NLPer uses leading and language to engineer an emotional state—for example, hunger. In one case a state has been elicited, the NLPer tin and thenanchor it with a concrete cue—for instance, touching your shoulder. In theory, if done right, the NLPer can thenthink the hungry state whatsoever fourth dimension they touch your shoulder in the same way. It'southward conditioning, plain and simple.
How tin I make sure nobody pulls this horseshit on me?
I've had all kinds of people attempt to "NLP" me into submission, including multiple people I've worked for over extended periods of fourth dimension, and even people I've been in relationships with. Consequently, I've developed a pretty keen immune response to it. I've likewise studied its mechanics very closely, largely to resist the nonsense of said people. Here'due south a few key methods I've picked upwardly.
one. Exist extremely wary of people copying your trunk language.
If you're talking to somebody who may be into NLP, and you lot notice that they're sitting in exactly the same fashion equally you lot, or mirroring the way you take your hands, test them past making a few movements and seeing if they do the same affair. Skilled NLPers will be meliorate at masking this than newer ones, only newer ones will e'er immediately copy the same motion. This is a good time to telephone call people on their shit.
2. Motion your eyes in random and unpredictable patterns.
Such NLP. So sociopathy. Wow.
This is freakinghilariousto exercise to troll NLPers. Peculiarly in the initial stages of rapport induction, an NLP user volition exist paying incredibly close attention to your optics. You may call up it's because they're intensely interested in what you're saying. They are, but non considering they really intendance nigh your thoughts: They're watching your eye movements to run across how you store and admission information. In a few minutes, they'll not only be able to tell when you're lying or making something up, they'll besides be able to figure out what parts of your encephalon you're using when you're speaking, which can then atomic number 82 them to exist so clued in to what you're thinking that they about come beyond as having some kind of psychic insight into your innermost thoughts. A clever hack for this is just to randomly sprint your optics around—wait upwardly to the right, to the left, side to side, down… make information technology seem natural, but do it randomly and with no pattern. This volition bulldoze an NLP person utterly nuts considering yous'll be throwing off their calibration.
3. Do not let everyone touch you.
This is pretty obvious and kind of goes without maxim in full general. But let's say you're having a conversation with somebody you know is into NLP, and y'all notice yourself in a heightened emotional state—maybe yous start laughing really hard, or get really angry, or something similar—and the person you're talking to touches you while you're in that state. They might, for case, tap you on the shoulder. What merely happened? Theyanchored you and so that afterwards, if they want to put you lot back into the state you were only in, they can (or so the wayward logic of NLP dictates) touch you in the same place. Just be like,oh hell no you lot did non.
4. Be wary of vague language.
Ane of the primary techniques that NLP took from Milton Erickson is the apply of vague language to induce hypnotic trance. Erickson found that the more vague language is, the more than it leads people into trance, considering there is less that a person is liable to disagree with or react to. Alternately, more specific language will accept a person out of trance. (Notation Obama'south use of this specific technique in the "Change" campaign, a discussion so vague that anybody could read anything into it.)
v. Be wary of permissive language.
"Feel free to relax." "You lot're welcome to exam drive this auto if yous like." "You tin enjoy this equally much every bit you like." Watch the f*k out for this. This was a major insight of pre-NLP hypnotists like Erickson: the best way to get somebody to exercise something, including going into a trance, is by assuasive them to give you permission to exercise and so. Because of this, skilled hypnotists will NEVER command you outright to do something—i.due east. "Go into a trance." They Will say things like "Feel gratis to become as relaxed as you similar."
vi. Be wary of gibberish.
Nonsense phrases like "Every bit yous release this feeling more than and more you lot volition discover yourself moving into nowadays alignment with the sound of your success more than and more." This kind of gibberish is the bread and butter of the pacing-and-leading phase of NLP; the hypnotist isn't actually saying anything, they're just trying to programme your internal emotional states and move you towards where they want you to go. E'er say "Can you be more specific about that" or "Tin can you explain exactly what you mean?" This does ii things: information technology interrupts this whole technique, and it too forces the conversation into specific language, breaking the trance-inducing utilize of vague language we discussed in #4.
seven. Read between the lines.
NLP people will consistently use language with subconscious or layered meanings. For instance "Diet, nutrition and slumber with me are the most important things, don't yous think?" On the surface, if you heard this sentence quickly, it would seem like an obvious statement that you would probably agree with without much thought. Yes, of course nutrition, nutrition and sleep are of import things, sure, and this person'southward actually into being good for you, that's great. Simply what'southward the layered-in message? "Nutrition, nutrition and sleep with me are the nearly of import things, don't yous remember?" Yep, and y'all just unconsciously agreed to it. Skilled NLPers can exist incredibly subtle with this.
viii. Watch your attention.
Be very careful nigh zoning out around NLP people—information technology'south an invitation to leap in with an unconscious cue. Hither'southward an example: An NLP user who was attempting to get me to write for his blog for free noticed I appeared non to be paying attention and was looking into the distance, and so started using the technique listed in #7 by talking about how he never has to pay for annihilation considering media outlets send him review copies of books and albums for gratis. "Everything for costless," he began hissing at me. "I go everything. For. Free." Obvious, no?
9. Don't agree to anything.
If y'all find yourself being led to make a quick conclusion on something, and feel yous're being steered, leave the state of affairs. Wait 24 hours before making any decisions, specially financial ones. Do Non allow yourself get swept upwardly into making an emotional decision in the spur of the moment. Sales people are armed with NLP techniques specifically for applied science impulse buys. Don't do information technology. Leave, and use your rational mind.
10. Trust your intuition.
And the foremost and primary rule: If your gut tells y'all somebody is fucking with you lot, or you experience uneasy around them, trust information technology. NLP people virtually always seem "off," dodgy, or like used car salesmen. Flee, or request they testify y'all the respect of not applying NLP techniques when interacting with you.
Hopefully this short guide will be of assist to you in resisting this annoying and pernicious modern form of black magic. Accept it with y'all on your phone or a printout next fourth dimension yous're at a used car sales lot, getting signed up for a gym membership, or watching a pol speak on Idiot box. You lot'll easily find yourself surprised how you permit yourself to detect more and more NLP techniques… more than and more… don't you think?
(For more on NLP, check out the book Introducing NLP past Joseph O'Connor or the immensely useful Neuro-Linguistic Programming for Dummies.As a bonus, hither's a great video breaking down the use of NLP techniques by media outlets on both sides of the political spectrum, from FOX News to Stephen Colbert. It gets a bit into Christian conspiracy thinking, but is VERY good information.)
(Epitome via.)
Source: https://ultraculture.org/blog/2014/01/16/nlp-10-ways-protect-mind-control/
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