Neuro-Linguistic Podcasting (Premium E252)

This episode is making me want to listen to a movie night episode about the film What About Bob? and Death Therapy

Okay I am 85% sure this guy read Plato’s allegory of the cave and used that to develop the generalization, deletion, and distortion technique.

Perhaps the linguist was just a Foucault fan

Penis envy psychotherapy is psilocybin mushroom therapy. PE is a variety of the species.

I’m in one of these programs right now. I like it though. It makes me have no negative thoughts. I mean I have them and then instead of like being sad I just go do whatever I’m procrastinating and then I don’t have the thoughts anymore. So that’s pretty good !

omfg thank you so much for this ep. Also, I've been wanting to say the new theme song is a beautiful opportunity every week to sing along and sound like Branson trying to make the party sound. Belting it out in the car is really chef's kiss.

Really glad you all covered this because I’ve always wanted to know more about NLP after watching the NXIVM documentaries. In some ways it reminds me of Nonviolent Communication in how it demands others use the same lingo or they are being violent or ignoring their needs or whatever.

I wanted to call you out on your joke about the average Patreon commenter... Then I read some of the comments.

i want to apologize for an extremely rude critical comment i've left before on the comments. you probably don't remember it or care at all but i wanted to voice my love for the pod and re-subscription anyway. i initially didn't like where the pod was heading, but i feel like you guys have done a great job with listening to feedback and trying to re-focus the pod. travis, jake, julian, annie, liv, and all other common contributors, thank you all so much. love your work.

My mom is a huge believer in a program called A Course in Miracles that teaches people the “3D world is an illusion”. It can be really frustrating to engage with.

Travis grocks Crowley, thats kinda shocking to me.

37:29 I hear "Jedi" and think Chevy Chase-style antics in a team of 19 yo marksman recruits.

34:50 Someone told her she had only a 3-1/2 percent chance? That's darned precise and highly suspect.

There seem to be a lot of rehashes of NLP these days - yes the cult (strictly defined) versions, but then other programs that are less strictly culty but involve coaching and $$$ and sometimes LGATs. I recently saw one that made similar health / cure claims to NLP (curing allergies, dyslexia, nearsightedness). What systems predate NLP and make similar language/mind/body health claims?

I heard the phrase "moist pink heaven" while using a lighter at work and strongly considered moving the flame over to just burn the shit out of my thumb

Love it when you guys shout-out sociology! Loved the C Wright Mills reference!

Another homerun

Tony Robbins used to come to a colonic irrigation clinic I was a manager of

3.52"

Have you guys come across an Texan influencer called Jason Breshears in your research at all before? A guy hiding from sex offenders registry people after spending 30 years in prison for an armed SA crimes who even Atlantian/flatearthers seem to distrust and recognise as cult? - Basically my British (once brief Corbyn supporter and union member/leader) mum has been obsessed with him for some while, and she has gone down every rabbit hole since, that you can think of to the point it's uniquely concerning, like she drinking urine, using it as skin healing ointment, flatearther, bleach drinker, non-stop antisemitism, non stop trying to get other ppl off their meds while simultaneously seeing if they can doubt the death numbers of the Holocaust with her, almost like she trying to collect harmful conspiracy beliefs like they're Pokémon. Looked this guy yesterday anyway, and he's got some shit going on like a cult, possibly called Archaix --- he's still in crime watch articles to this day due to that pesky registry stuff he's refusing to engage with too : -- https://bluebonnetnews.com/2024/04/26/crime-stoppers-names-this-weeks-featured-felons-43/. - - - - Am going to be continuing research on him myself either way, but would be great to hear from people who know what they're doing while doing it with grace and style, plus I'm not very experienced in this activity so am winging it to the bitter end to see if there's any hope of ever having a normal conversation with her again before she does something unforgivably harmful to her friends or family, or even herself. Out of all the influencers, this type is the worst type I'd feared she fall for: the cowering opportunist sex pest criminal. She got a young kid in her care who am aware she has bathed in the house cleaner 'borax' before cause she recommended it to me with a whole backstory about it also.

Ha! I went to UC Santa Cruz around the time "Bandit & Swindler" got started there and later worked with relatives of one of them at a computer company. NIce kids. I've watched the NLP stuff over the years, and it's great that you got around to it.

And that NLP certified cocaine cat went on to drive cars.. his name, Toonces.

Whenever someone talks to be about how magic(k) works, in that Crowleyan/Alan Moore sense, I'm always like "you mean rhetoric?" I mean if it helps them to think about it magically that's great, it just feels like we're using one word to describe two systems of thought and action here.

The whole group therapy scenario, where a volunteer is chosen and "treated" in front of an audience is such an uncomfortable place to be in.

fearless Julien haha

It will take a lot of bad shit for me to judge someone for prizing job security after the bullshit my wife had at her last job, all the bullshit I’ve had at my job, and my paranoia about becoming homeless and broke. Being in the precariat sucks and it would be hard for me to say you’re bad for avoiding it.

As soon as they mentioned "Distortion" I said "uh oh" out loud because that's the language that horrible child abuser and "therapist" Jodi Hildebrand uses.

Anyone else get hypnotized by the intro?

Great episode 👍

had just finished jenny nicholson's hour long youtube essay on Bronycon earlier that day and i kept hearing NLP as MLP (my little pony) and cracking up

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) founder Francine Shapiro has been called out for erasing her connection to NLP, as reported in "Revisiting the Origins of EMDR" by Gerald M Rosen (2023). I'm in an EMDR training and what you guys reported sounded scary familiar to what I am being instructed on. Thanks for ruining it for me but also thanks for illuminating this problematic history. So many psychotherapies claim to be "evidence-based" or "empirically-supported" but ultimately don't stand up to scrutiny of the research.

Fantastic episode. I first heard about NLP when reading Robert Anton Wilson/ Timothy Leary's work, specifically "The Cosmic Trigger" and "The Game of Life". I never took it seriously, more of a "get high and chuckle at how these guys are more melted than I am" Are you or your guests familiar with these Leary/Wilson collabos?

Bob Newhart "Stop It" Therapy https://youtu.be/jvujypVVBAY?si=wfv9QbQ5JSBCFnF6

Omg....when I was very young I saw a psychologist who kept bringing up NLP. I had no idea what it was. But she also mentioned Deepak Chopra being amazing. I googled him, got the psychology ick and stopped seeing her. Bullet dodged 😵‍💫

The older I get, the more I believe that men, in general, should NEVER be allowed access to money and influence.

This actually sounds a lot more like The Master than scientology did

Great episode. Everyone was being especially quit witted and hilarious 🫡 A very fun time bravo!!

Best intro in a long time, Spectral Voyager energy

I learned the “going to the movies” technique Brad used in his intro, in the book Psycho Cybernetics. It was a good explanation of positive visualization techniques, I recommend it.

As soon as you said Gandalf, I thought “I hope they talk about LSD” aaaand then you did 🧙‍♂️

Jeeze... This was a fun episode. With all the shit going on I forgot what fun episodes were like. I really love these deep dives into weird corners of woo and conspiracy adjacent nonsense. Thanks for the reprieve.

Help I keep hearing MLP not NLP and getting seriously confused - then again, it'd be about time you mentioned the MLP-incel overlap in the Venn diagram, why not in this context? Nothing feels real anymore either way

The "10% of your brain thing" has always *infuriated me* as someone with epilepsy who studied neuropharmacology in college. 1) You can't really actually quantify the "amount" of our brain we use because our brain rapidly shifts blood flow and electrical signaling to different lobes depending on the thoughts or tasks happening in a specific moment. 2) Activating more areas than are needed is called a seizure.. and it's awful. You don't want to do that. 3) LSD and psilocybin actually reduce brain signaling in large areas, causing more information (thoughts, sensations, vision) to flow freely. Increasing brain activity beyond a certain point (and that point has a surprisingly low threshold) is called excitotoxicity and it causes tremendous brain fog, sensitivity to light, and very stiff muscles. Sarin nerve gas works via the same/similar system.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Mankind Project is lurking somewhere in the background of y'all's researching of reactionary cults. I'm pretty sure they are adjacent to the Manosphere, at least

During my trauma therapy class in grad school, there was a day we covered cult trauma. The teacher put a list of popular cults on the board, and I had attended trainings at two: Landmark Education and the Mankind Project. Thanks to my neurodivergence, i could not countenance either of these cults

Yessssss! So stoked to listen because I think about this a lot. I think NLP can be an effective tactic for manipulation and gaslighting… so it doesn’t mix well with people like Keith Rainere or others who have a good understanding of psychology and want to subjugate literally everyone.

I have no idea what they’re talking about

I was not ready for Grinder to be Anti-Oedipus pilled but as a linguistics PhD you'd probably be familiar with Saussure and from there it's not that far a jump to structuralism and then...

Elden ring mentioned (great bonfireside chat ep forever ago btw)

Landmark. Yeah, that's the ticket. My partner's sis and husband are really into that. They blather about the importance of being "authentic. " of course, to us non-landmarkians, that means insulting any Christmas or birthday gifts we give them (among many other charming behaviors). So, after a while my partner and I informed them that, instead of giving them Christmas gifts they wouldn't like, we were making donations to charities in their names. Well, they didn't take the news well. In fact they threw a shit-fit. The husband's gift was a donation to The Southern Poverty Law Center. I spent the sister's gift money on paying the vet bills, and adoption fee on an older black Labrador Retriever at the local shelter. Sister still whines about that. The dog was adopted immediately. My partner and I now only buy gifts for select children under 10. Everyone else get a charity donation. We're proud of be authentic.

i love him complaining about brain meds like even that aspect of psychotherapy is full of stigma to this day

As someone with ADHD I wonder how well NLP would work on me. After about 2 mins of someone talking I'm already zoning out, hell I have to listen to most podcasts 2 or 3 times before it finally sticks.

Paw-OO-see! 🤣

Julian is a T-shirt from the nineties is the name of my new gwar cover band

wait isnt that the voice from Dune

y'all need to look into brainspotting.

One of the many dumb things I had to learn about as an English major. I can't believe I still owe $20k for that bullshit.

I could feel the vape smoke as I hear Jake’s words

I don't see how any of this is related to Project Gestalt....

Prefer cunning linguistic podcasting myself but I suppose this’ll have to do