Cunning Linguists A Few Deception Techniques Of The Nlp Cult

Whilst researching the NLP Cult a section of this website http://www.johnlenardburnett.com/subjects/nlp.html caught my eye.

This is the passage:

CONFLICTS WITHIN NLP

A second branch of NLP referred to as a cult (NLP2) evolved during the mid 1980s from the growing mass desire for individual self fulfilment and craving for personal wealth, driven from a background of economic rationalism and corporate greed. The film Wall Street about the character Gordon Gekko played by Michael Douglas stated line "Greed is good" typified the era. NLP2 was ideally suited for exploitation especially when marketed to those with personal ambition in the corporate sector who do not have backgrounds in philosophy or psychology and therefore easily led into cult behaviour.

A cult can be described as an organisation of beliefs based on ranking or influence members have over each other. NLP2 awards orders of Practitioner and Master Practitioner in return for loyalty, training and money. The cult belief is that selected knowledge from the original NLP research can be used to manipulate and prosper in personal relationships, management practices, sport motivation and wealth creation.

This view of individualism that the 'self' is an actuality (not an illusion) that can be expanded and transformed into having God like qualities by simply changing ones internal thinking "releasing the power within" to achieve anything one wishes, including fire-walking and levitating is at the core of division between the original NLP and the latter cult driven NLP.

The cult versions of NLP are marketed as staged evangelistic events with thousands of people led by a charismatic male cult figure wikipedia.org / Tony Robbins (typical within US culture). The rise and monetary success of NLP2 cult movements caused many who were part of the original NLP research to publicly wash their hands of any further association with the NLP name. Unfortunately, much of the original NLP research has been left incomplete.

Let us examine the some of the tricks used to deceive you here.

He uses the term NLP2 to distinguish cult NLP as something different from "real" NLP. This is same trick governments use in naming taxes as anything but tax (London Congestion Charge?).

He then throws in the old NLP "rapport" confidence trick by mentioning the Wall Street movie. This is based on the theory that if you are similar to someone, can find something in common with them, you are more likely to trust them. Everyone must have seen Wall Street (or at least know what it is) so it's an obvious choice. He goes on with this for a while stating things you will recognise and opinions you probably agree with on the film and late 1980's culture. (Well if he's correct about that then everything else he says must be true). Although the rapport theory is in essence true it generally only works if you really are similar, not when the perpetrator is insincere and using it as a ploy to deceive you.

Now you have been buttered up, here comes the final deception, a blatant lie. NLP research has been left incomplete not because NLP transformed into a cult and the originators lost interest but simply because all research that had been carried out debunked it as utter nonsense. After something has been disproven there is no point continuing to spend research dollars disproving it again. Many other NLP websites will use the incorrect "fact" that "no serious research has been done on NLP since the 1970's" as in some way discrediting the results of that research. Much research has been carried out and all of failed to show any merit to NLP's claims.