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Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff. I'm mos Valoschen. On this show,

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Speaker 1: we talk a lot about technology that lives outside of

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Speaker 1: US computers, microchips, satellites, data centers. But today we're going

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Speaker 1: to talk about something built as a human technology, specifically

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Speaker 1: neuro linguistic programming or NLP, which shows up everywhere from

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Speaker 1: Hypnobirths to Tony Robbins to the Nixian cult. But does

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Speaker 1: it actually work. Our guests today are the hosts of

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Speaker 1: mind Games, which is a co production of Kaleidoscope and

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Speaker 1: I Heart Podcasts. Alice Hines and Zoe Laskaz are both

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Speaker 1: journalists and professional skeptics who met at a shamanic sound meditation.

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Speaker 1: Zoe is a science journalist and Alice has exposed various

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Speaker 1: wellness scams and cults. So they are the perfect pair

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Speaker 1: to tackle a practice that is both revered and maligned.

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Speaker 1: So let's jump in. Welcome Alice, thank you so much.

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Speaker 2: Great to see you us.

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Speaker 1: Great to see you Alice.

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Speaker 3: And welcome Zoe, thanks so much, thanks for having us.

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Speaker 1: It's a special day today. I'm holding a copy of

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Speaker 1: the New York Post. What does it feel like to

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Speaker 1: see ourselves and the show covered in the New York Post.

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Speaker 2: I'm incredibly flattered. There's a picture of me and Zoe.

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Speaker 2: Zoe is shooting a target at What range was that, Zoe?

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Speaker 3: That was a shooting range in the suburbs of Washington,

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Speaker 3: d C. And the target was seventy five feet away.

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Speaker 1: Oh shoot boggles the mind is the headline. Novice to

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Speaker 1: gun expert in three days.

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Speaker 3: I'm just relief they didn't drag us through the mud,

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Speaker 3: although we would have been in very illustrious company if

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Speaker 3: they had, with the Bernie Sanderses of the world. So also, well,

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Speaker 3: that ends.

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Speaker 1: Well, you used NLP to become a shop shooter. I did.

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Speaker 3: I went down and spent three days with a guy

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Speaker 3: who worked closely with Tony Robbins in the nineteen eighties

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Speaker 3: on a military contract. The US Army hired them to

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Speaker 3: make expert marksmen out of new recruits.

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Speaker 1: And did it work.

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Speaker 3: The proof is in the puddig. I hit the target,

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Speaker 3: which is somewhat remarkable because I'd never held a handgun before,

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Speaker 3: let alone fired one at something very far away. That said,

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Speaker 3: it was a inherently flawed experiment. You know, we don't

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Speaker 3: have a control group. There aren't multiple mes that we

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Speaker 3: could test using other methods. So with that caveat, yeah,

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Speaker 3: it worked, I hit the thing.

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Speaker 1: I want to hear more about it, but Alice first

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Speaker 1: tell us what is NLP.

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Speaker 2: Neurolinguistic programming, which is often called NLP is a set

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Speaker 2: of techniques drawing from psychology and linguistics that are designed

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Speaker 2: to change belief and behavior. So this is kind of

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Speaker 2: in the self help world, and you can attend seminars,

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Speaker 2: there are books where you can sort of learn these

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Speaker 2: techniques to try to solve certain problems that you may have.

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Speaker 2: People also use these techniques on others unwittingly, so these

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Speaker 2: are also something that you may have experienced without necessarily

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Speaker 2: knowing about it.

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Speaker 1: Can I make a confession? Yeah, as a teenage boy,

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Speaker 1: I was quite intrigued by NLP and I bought an

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Speaker 1: NLP book.

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Speaker 3: What did you hope to use it for?

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Speaker 1: What do you think you be? Well? Or at least

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Speaker 1: I at least I was attracted to the idea that

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Speaker 1: you could control people's response to you.

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Speaker 3: And how did that work out?

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Speaker 1: You know? I never I never really I never really

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Speaker 1: employed it, but it was my first sort of introduction

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Speaker 1: to the idea of like this world of using your

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Speaker 1: mind as a tool against itself, I would.

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Speaker 3: Say, and potentially against others.

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Speaker 1: Against others, although I never I mean I didn't really,

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Speaker 1: I didn't really get very into it. But it's a

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Speaker 1: kind of I reference myself as a teenage boy because

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Speaker 1: there is a kind of teenage fantasy at the heart

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Speaker 1: of being able to use your mind to control people.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that a lot of teenage boys

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Speaker 2: and teenagers in general are slightly awkward.

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Speaker 1: I don't want to I was front of the line, Alice.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So this is a tech. This is a

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Speaker 2: sort of they call it a human technology that allows

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Speaker 2: you supposedly to become very charming, very personable. You can

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Speaker 2: kind of learn these social skills in a book that

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Speaker 2: you know, some people are born with and others aren't.

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Speaker 2: I attended an NLP seminar taught by the co founder

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Speaker 2: of NLP, this guy Richard Bandler, who's a big part

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Speaker 2: of our podcast, And there are definitely some of those

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Speaker 2: types sweet, sweet people who were taking an alternative approach

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Speaker 2: to learning communication.

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Speaker 1: What is this what human technology or this phrase human

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Speaker 1: technology mean?

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Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's symptomatic of our general cultural

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Speaker 3: obsession with optimization. This notion that you can hack your

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Speaker 3: problems and improve them. You can become wildly successful at

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Speaker 3: anything if you just get the user manual to this

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Speaker 3: complex thing called the human brain. That's the basic promise

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Speaker 3: of NLP, that you can simplify this really difficult thing

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Speaker 3: which is being alive. Basically you can suddenly, you know,

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Speaker 3: be the person you've wanted to be in pretty much

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Speaker 3: every respect. So there's a lot of overpromising, but at

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Speaker 3: the same time these really valuable techniques, and I think

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Speaker 3: that's a big part of our show, trying to parse

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Speaker 3: and excavate what's useful and what is a lot of

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Speaker 3: snake oil.

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Speaker 1: I believe that the scientology guy l Ron Hubbard called

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Speaker 1: some of what he did technology as well, right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's definitely this gesturing at science and technology

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Speaker 2: at the heart of well obviously scientology and NLP as well.

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Speaker 2: I think maybe we can talk about the origin of

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Speaker 2: the name. Yes, would love to so NLP neurolinguistic programming.

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Speaker 2: This guy Bandler, who I mentioned before, I think he

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Speaker 2: got pulled over, right and someone asked him, and the

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Speaker 2: cop asked him what he did, and so he basically

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Speaker 2: had a bunch of library books on the floor of

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Speaker 2: his car neuroscience, linguistics and computer programming, and he just

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Speaker 2: made up the name right then and there, right he.

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Speaker 3: Said, I'm a neurolinguistic programmer. Well why the cop didn't

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Speaker 3: have more questions after that, like you're a what?

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Speaker 2: Anyway, he was an undergraduate who had been developing these

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Speaker 2: therapy techniques, the sort of all therapy techniques influenced by

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Speaker 2: linguistics and hypnosis with his professor and trying them out

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Speaker 2: on his students fellow students in this kind of avant

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Speaker 2: garde seventies new age California culture.

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Speaker 3: This is taking place in Santa Cruz, so it's right

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Speaker 3: down the road from Esslyn, which is headquartered in Big

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Speaker 3: sur and it's sort of part of this broader nineteen

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Speaker 3: seventies alternative fringe psychology context. But unlike a lot of

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Speaker 3: those techniques like primal screaming or re enacting your birth,

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Speaker 3: NLP actually bridged the gap between the seventies and that

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Speaker 3: moment to the present day and it's now everywhere. I mean,

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Speaker 3: it's baked into corporate HR speak. Tons of companies use

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Speaker 3: NLP knowingly and unknowingly, and some of the characters we've mentioned,

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Speaker 3: like the co founder of the sex called Nexium, like

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Speaker 3: Ross Jeffries, the pickup artist who maybe authored one of

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Speaker 3: the books your teenage self was checking out, and a

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Speaker 3: bunch of other people in between.

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Speaker 1: And you came to the story before, Zoe. Is that right?

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Speaker 2: We came to it together. We developed the idea together.

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Speaker 2: But I think maybe what you're referencing is that I

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Speaker 2: was aware how I became aware of neurolinguisty programming. Right.

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Speaker 2: So the group Twin Flames Universe, which is an alleged

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Speaker 2: cult that I did some reporting on for Vanity Fair

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Speaker 2: and later became a docu series for Amazon. They took

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Speaker 2: methods from a lot of different spiritual gurus and they

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Speaker 2: also referenced NLP. So they had a program called MAP,

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Speaker 2: a Mind Alignment Process where they promised to quote reprogram

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Speaker 2: people's traumatic memories. And so they were interested in NLP

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Speaker 2: and developed this and it ended up becoming quite abusive

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Speaker 2: according to people that I interviewed for my Vanity Fair piece.

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Speaker 2: So this was something that was on my radar because

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Speaker 2: I was like, what is this NLP thing? And then Nexium,

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Speaker 2: the you know, another notorious cult also has used NLP,

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Speaker 2: and there's you know, there was a lot of documentation

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Speaker 2: already about that, but no one had really dug into it.

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Speaker 2: So that was one of the reasons why we were

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Speaker 2: interested in this. But I think the other reason is

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Speaker 2: that we were both personally fascinated by the science of

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Speaker 2: hypnosis in the brain, and that's a part of NLP

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Speaker 2: that we felt like is very legitimate, and so we

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Speaker 2: were really interested in learning about it and also trying it.

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Speaker 1: And what did you learn? I mean, did it work? Yeah?

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Speaker 3: I mean we used NLP on ourselves and on those

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Speaker 3: nearest and deors to us in a few different ways.

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Speaker 3: So I attempted to recover memories of my late father

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Speaker 3: using hypnosis. Alice used NLP on my mother to help

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Speaker 3: her overcome a fear of riding bicycle she's developed as

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Speaker 3: she's gone older. And Alice attended that seminar where people

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Speaker 3: were using it for all sorts of things. So whether

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Speaker 3: it works or not depends a lot on what you're

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Speaker 3: using it for, you know, the amount of sort of

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Speaker 3: buy in psychologically. I think Alice and I both suspect

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Speaker 3: that the placebo effect is a big part of this,

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Speaker 3: which is not actually an insult to NLP so much

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Speaker 3: as a compliment to the placebo effect. I mean, there's

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Speaker 3: tons of research on placebos right now, and it is

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Speaker 3: incredible how our brains are capable of having these real, somatic,

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Speaker 3: concrete effects on our health. Right Like, there's all this

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Speaker 3: mental power that we are generally not harnessing.

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Speaker 1: That was the first thing somebody said to me yesterday

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Speaker 1: when I sent the New Post story. They said, I'm

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Speaker 1: sure that our brains have more power than we give

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Speaker 1: them credit for.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I agree with that premise. And then

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Speaker 3: the ways in which NLP practitioners sort of claim to

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Speaker 3: harness that is, you know, at times credible and at

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Speaker 3: times spurious.

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Speaker 1: I'm curious, what is your take on this idea of

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Speaker 1: mind over meta.

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Speaker 2: The min over matter thing sounds like BS, but there

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Speaker 2: is actually science behind it. I was reading about this

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Speaker 2: study which is in Nature Medicine. It was published last

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Speaker 2: month where they gave people have B vaccines and then

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Speaker 2: had some of them do sort of like meditative exercises

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Speaker 2: where they sort of thought positively about the effect of

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Speaker 2: the vaccine, and those people had a different immune response

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Speaker 2: than people who did not use quote positive thinking who

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Speaker 2: were vaccinated.

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Speaker 3: I'm genuinely obsessed with placebo research. I mean, this was

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Speaker 3: a big part of our podcast that kind of ended

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Speaker 3: up on the cutting room floor. But there's this renaissance

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Speaker 3: going on in placebo research right now where researchers are

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Speaker 3: trying to move away from the history of placebos where

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Speaker 3: you have to dupe your patients into taking them basically

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Speaker 3: and not tell them they're getting sugar pills not real medicine.

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Speaker 3: Now the thing is telling your patients, hey, I'm giving

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Speaker 3: you a placebo, and they still work. There are all

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Speaker 3: these studies, like there's one guy at Harvard who does

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Speaker 3: a lot of research on this, and he had a

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Speaker 3: study of patients with IBS. He told them he was

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Speaker 3: giving them placebos and they still outperformed like actual medicine sometimes.

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Speaker 3: So yeah, the brain crazy.

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Speaker 1: One of the great things about this podcast is that

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Speaker 1: it is a podcast and the voices the NLP practitioners used.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you mentioned Nancy, you mentioned Richard Bandler, obviously,

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Speaker 1: Tony Robbins. I mean, listen to the show to hear

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Speaker 1: these voices, and we'll play some in this podcast as well.

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Speaker 1: But it's remarkable the consciousness with which these NLP gurus

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Speaker 1: modulate their voices. But Alice says, a bit more about

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Speaker 1: Richard Bandler and why he is important understanding this story.

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Speaker 2: I mean, Richard Bandler is just a fascinating guy. As

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Speaker 2: I mentioned, he was an undergraduate student when he came

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Speaker 2: up with a lot of these techniques through self experimentation

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Speaker 2: and also experimenting on his peers, and he, you know,

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Speaker 2: became very wealthy and successful through the promotion of this creation.

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Speaker 2: He's also someone who's very combative and who has had

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Speaker 2: high profile fallouts with his co founder, John Grinder, the professor.

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Speaker 2: You know, he he stood trial for murder in the

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Speaker 2: late eighties and he was ultimately acquitted. But the circumstances

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Speaker 2: of that trial and a lot of the press coverage

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Speaker 2: around it cast NLP in a very crazy light, honestly

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Speaker 2: for everyone who was paying attention. I mean, the one

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Speaker 2: witness at the trial said he could use NLP to

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Speaker 2: control street lights, right, I mean this is this is

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Speaker 2: people were sort of claiming supernatural powers associated with NLP

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Speaker 2: during this trial, and there was a speculation around whether

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Speaker 2: Richard Bandler hypnotized the jury to get acquitted, which we

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Speaker 2: don't think happened at all. Having read a lot of

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Speaker 2: these trial transcripts, I think that's that's not true. But

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Speaker 2: at the same time, there was just so much, so

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Speaker 2: much sort of mystery around who this guy was and

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Speaker 2: you know, what were the circumstances that led up to

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Speaker 2: these events? And then you know after that he only

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Speaker 2: became you know, more prominent. I mean I attended a

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Speaker 2: hypnosis focus seminar of his in London in last year,

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Speaker 2: and you know, there were tons of young people, I mean,

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Speaker 2: people of all ages. It was a full seminar and

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Speaker 2: it cost like seven hundred pounds to attend, so it

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Speaker 2: wasn't cheap and people were like, people were drooling over

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Speaker 2: this guy. People are obsessed with this guy. He is

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Speaker 2: a real like cult figure, not saying NLP as a cult,

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Speaker 2: but he is a cult figure for these people. And

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Speaker 2: so we were just so interested to know, you know,

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Speaker 2: what is it about this guy that have people dripping

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Speaker 2: over as every word?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and trying to get to the bottom of his

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Speaker 3: backstory too, because he's also sort of a fabuloust and

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Speaker 3: makes up these kinds of larger than life stories about himself.

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Speaker 3: We heard tales that he owned a topless bar when

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Speaker 3: he was sixteen years old, that he was a black

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Speaker 3: belt in karate, that he rolled with the Hell's Angels

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Speaker 3: or had organized crime connections, and you know, he has

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Speaker 3: this kind of tough guy exterior. Even fairly recently, he

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Speaker 3: told a journalist a story about deliberately electrocuting his stepfather

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Speaker 3: when he was ten years old. The stepfather was reportedly abusive,

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Speaker 3: and it was sort of a revenge thing. But you know,

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Speaker 3: this is a guy who stood trial for murder and

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Speaker 3: yet is still kind of making these violent actions part

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Speaker 3: of his public facing persona, which is interesting. You know,

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Speaker 3: he didn't sort of walk that back. He has a

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Speaker 3: track record of threatening people as.

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Speaker 1: Therapy with guns, right.

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Speaker 3: Yes, he claims that he was using cigarette lighters shaped

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Speaker 3: like guns.

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Speaker 2: That's what he told me, and we interview him for

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Speaker 2: the podcast. It was a slow burn and he blew

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Speaker 2: us off for a while that he finally did give

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Speaker 2: it an interview.

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Speaker 3: But it's still so crazy to me that you would

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Speaker 3: still threaten someone with a gun with a gun shaped

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Speaker 3: cigarette lighter, whatever you're threatening people with, Like there is

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Speaker 3: a demonstrated history of threatening people with violence will produce

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Speaker 3: behavioral changes, you know, like we know this, and yeah,

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Speaker 3: any dictator exactly, and so I don't know, I mean,

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Speaker 3: he's just such a loose cannon on the one hand,

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Speaker 3: but then so I think there's this kind of vulnerable

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Speaker 3: person in there yet a kind of rough upbringing. So yeah,

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Speaker 3: it was all part of why we became fascinated with

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Speaker 3: this guy, Richard Bandler.

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Speaker 1: I was obsessed with the Nixime documentary The Vow, and

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Speaker 1: Nancy in particular just kind of played on the screen

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Speaker 1: that you couldn't take your eyes off her. And what's

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Speaker 1: fascinating what you learned in this podcast is that she

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Speaker 1: trained under none other than Richard Bendlett. Yeah, that's right,

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Speaker 1: and she has this amazing story about him drinking eight

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Speaker 1: martinis and then driving her.

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Speaker 2: Home eleven Martinez eleven Martini's.

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Speaker 1: This was the first interview that she gave since leaving jail.

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Speaker 1: Leaving prison, that's right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So we did this interview in late twenty twenty four. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: and she had been released earlier that year. She was

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Speaker 2: extremely excited to talk about NLP because you know, she's

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Speaker 2: obviously been in the media a lot. She doesn't like

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Speaker 2: how she was portrayed in the media. Really no, you know,

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Speaker 2: she considers herself a victim of nexim So you know

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Speaker 2: a lot of people would say, well, she also was

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Speaker 2: an abuser, but you know, from her perspective, and I

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Speaker 2: think she credibly did tell us in the podcast about

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Speaker 2: you know, situations where some of these quote, human technologies

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Speaker 2: that she brought to the group were then turned on

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Speaker 2: people including her. But yeah, it was It's just fascinating

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Speaker 2: to hear how you know, in spite of this really

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Speaker 2: complicated history with NLP and with this guy, Richard Bandler.

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Speaker 2: I mean, she loves Bandler. You know, she thanked him

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Speaker 2: in my interview, crying for teaching her these tools that

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Speaker 2: quote helped her get through prison.

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Speaker 1: Now, some of the commentators on the podcast have said, you,

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Speaker 1: Alice must be out of your mind because you let

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Speaker 1: Nancy You've had LP on you right before you were

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Speaker 1: about to have your kid.

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Speaker 3: That's right. Yeah, So.

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Speaker 2: I did do a hypno birthing session with Nancy Zelsman.

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Speaker 2: It was in the context of our interview. So what

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Speaker 2: we did in the interview was basically, she chatted with

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Speaker 2: me about my fears around childbirthgested this topic because I

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Speaker 2: had already even exploring hypnobirthing, and I knew that hypnosis

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Speaker 2: was a big part of NLP, so I thought that

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Speaker 2: that could be a way to learn some of the methods.

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Speaker 2: Some of these methods are just so hard to wrap

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Speaker 2: your head around unless you try them, and so this

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Speaker 2: was a concrete way to learn about it. I did

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Speaker 2: transcribe the hypno birthing tape that she sent me before

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Speaker 2: listening to it, which is something you listeners can do

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Speaker 2: as well. If you are listening to any sort of

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Speaker 2: hypnosis tape online. There are lots of them. Just like,

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Speaker 2: do a transcript, make sure that it's right for you.

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Speaker 2: I think that's best practices in general. And yeah, actually

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Speaker 2: her tape was pretty much like standard hypnobirthing.

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Speaker 1: It was like, yeah, you used it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I did. I So basically it's like a guided meditation,

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Speaker 2: I would say. And it was like only I think

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Speaker 2: it was like six minutes long or something like that.

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Speaker 2: And so it kind of the tape is like talking

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Speaker 2: about how you can relax and become more confident, and

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Speaker 2: this is how you can feel sort of in touch

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Speaker 2: with your b and how you're you know, this is

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Speaker 2: a very natural thing that you're about to do.

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Speaker 1: Was Nancy in your ear? Literally, why are you giving birth?

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Speaker 2: No? Okay, fair question, No, I had a I did

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Speaker 2: not use hypno birthing to give birth because I had

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Speaker 2: a scheduled CEE section for medical reasons. So hypno birthing

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Speaker 2: is great for pain control. H I had no pain,

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Speaker 2: so it was I was under anesthesia.

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Speaker 1: So yes, what is the difference between hypnosis and NLP?

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Speaker 3: Great question when we tried to unravel over the course

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Speaker 3: of the show. There's tons of overlap. I mean, NLP

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Speaker 3: borrows from a bunch of different modalities. It's kind of

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Speaker 3: this grab bag of various psychoanalytic techniques, VERYUS psychological techniques,

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Speaker 3: and a big one of those is hypnosis. So when

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Speaker 3: Bandler and his professor Grinder were at EC Santa Cruz,

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Speaker 3: they were sort of LARPing as these famous therapists. They

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Speaker 3: were trying out Fritz Pearls's gestalt therapy, they were trying

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Speaker 3: out Virginia Setar's therapy. But what really crystallized things for

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Speaker 3: them was when they went down to Arizona and they

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Speaker 3: visited Milton Erickson, who was this legendary hypnotherapist. He did

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Speaker 3: a ton to put hypnotherapy on the mainstream medical maps

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Speaker 3: and make a psychiatrist. Yeah, he made it a little

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Speaker 3: less fringe and kind of amazingly because the guy only

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Speaker 3: wore purple and was sort of an eccentric but apparently for.

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Speaker 2: You you hypno nerds deep cut, But yeah.

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Speaker 3: He only wore purple. He had, you know, this really

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Speaker 3: sort of strange way of hypnotizing people. That was very him.

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Speaker 3: He would tell you these stories while you were in

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Speaker 3: trance that would not seem related to your issue, but

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Speaker 3: he used metaphor anyway. The NLP guys were absolutely obsessed

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Speaker 3: with this and it changed NLP forever. They began using

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Speaker 3: hypnotic techniques. You mentioned the way these guys use their voices.

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Speaker 3: That's a hypnotic technique. When you put emphasis by dropping

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Speaker 3: your voice half an ho or start speaking a little

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Speaker 3: more slowly. It makes people focus on those phrases in

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Speaker 3: a different way. And theoretically you can use these techniques

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Speaker 3: to embed commands or whatever you want.

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Speaker 1: That was very good. You should be teaching the classes.

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Speaker 1: Could we play the tape of Nancy.

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Speaker 3: A knife in the hands of a surgeon is an

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Speaker 3: amazing tool. A knife in the hands of a murderer

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Speaker 3: is a weapon. We heard this from pretty much every

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Speaker 3: single person we interviewed. This is like, I don't know

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Speaker 3: if they all had to memorize this inn NLP school,

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Speaker 3: but it is the stock defense of NLP, and honestly,

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Speaker 3: we kind of came to a similar conclusion. It is

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Speaker 3: such a broad, slippery technique. You know, it's not a

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Speaker 3: cohesive thing. There's no oversight, there's no licensing body, there's

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Speaker 3: no official NLP academy. There are many so anyone can

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Speaker 3: shell out a few thousand dollars, get trained at NLP

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Speaker 3: and then practice it and they might try to work

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Speaker 3: on someone with severe trauma, they might try to cure

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Speaker 3: phobias on stage, they might just use it for themselves.

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Speaker 3: NLP becomes something very different if you're using it to say,

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Speaker 3: help someone through a traumatic memory, or to seduce someone

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Speaker 3: on the street. So it's very difficult to generalize. And

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Speaker 3: for that reason, I think, yeah, Nancy and everyone else

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Speaker 3: has a point when she says, yeah, it can be good,

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Speaker 3: it can be bad. It depends what your intentions are.

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Speaker 2: And I think that goes back to why they call

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Speaker 2: it a human technology, right, Like then a knife is

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Speaker 2: a technology, so it's a tool. So that's that same

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Speaker 2: metaphor you.

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Speaker 1: Took the words out of my mouth at LIS because

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Speaker 1: people often know about technology is dual use, right, the

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Speaker 1: same algorithm that can target you with an AD can

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Speaker 1: target you, you know, on a battlefield, right. So I

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Speaker 1: think it's it's interesting that technology connection that you.

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Speaker 2: Raise, and I think like people who are interested in

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Speaker 2: NLP really do want to see themselves as a technology

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Speaker 2: as well. I think that's where the optimization culture feeds

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Speaker 2: into NLP. I don't want to go as far to

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Speaker 2: say that NLP created that culture. I think it was

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Speaker 2: probably coming from the same sort of primordial soup with

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Speaker 2: twentieth century history and how our culture emerged. But I

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Speaker 2: think it is this idea that we can not just

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Speaker 2: perfect our bodies or make our bodies the perfect body,

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Speaker 2: but also our minds. That there are these hacks right

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Speaker 2: that talk therapy with its you know, years and years

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Speaker 2: of rehashing the same issues often from childhood. Is there's

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Speaker 2: a quicker way right there.

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Speaker 1: So you say, banded, I'll give you more therapy in

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Speaker 1: five minutes than you'll do in twenty years.

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Speaker 2: As I say that, yeah, yeah, so you know, and

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Speaker 2: maybe you have to be extreme about it. I mean

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Speaker 2: you do have to sometimes threaten people or you know,

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Speaker 2: what are what are what are the techniques that could

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Speaker 2: be most effective if we sort of take our gloves off, right,

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Speaker 2: Like that's what NLP is asking for, better or worse?

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Speaker 1: What do you think I mean this cult connection? Like

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Speaker 1: which is the chicken and which is the egg? Like

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Speaker 1: do people who want to start cults figure out all

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Speaker 1: the ways they can manipulate people and then NLP comes

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Speaker 1: up and they decide to use it? Or is there

435
00:23:12,119 --> 00:23:15,800
Speaker 1: something inherent in LP which is almost like the ring

436
00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:17,199
Speaker 1: in Lord of the Rings, where as soon as you

437
00:23:17,200 --> 00:23:19,880
Speaker 1: put it on you but used, your soul starts to decay.

438
00:23:20,440 --> 00:23:23,640
Speaker 3: I don't think if you use NLP you will eventually

439
00:23:24,080 --> 00:23:27,560
Speaker 3: and inevitably become corrupted and turn into NLPSRN.

440
00:23:27,640 --> 00:23:28,360
Speaker 1: You know it's.

441
00:23:30,080 --> 00:23:32,760
Speaker 3: I interviewed a lot of NLP trainers, close to two

442
00:23:32,840 --> 00:23:35,080
Speaker 3: dozen people in the NLP community, and a lot of

443
00:23:35,080 --> 00:23:38,800
Speaker 3: them have hearts of gold, and they genuinely believe this is,

444
00:23:39,160 --> 00:23:42,400
Speaker 3: you know, a really useful technology. It has the capacity

445
00:23:42,440 --> 00:23:44,919
Speaker 3: to change the world for the better if only people

446
00:23:45,119 --> 00:23:47,960
Speaker 3: would recognize it and accept it in a broader way.

447
00:23:48,040 --> 00:23:50,199
Speaker 3: And they're so motivated by trying to do good it

448
00:23:50,280 --> 00:23:53,639
Speaker 3: just drives them crazy that this isn't everywhere. On the

449
00:23:53,680 --> 00:23:56,920
Speaker 3: other hand, it's been used by some you know, nefarious

450
00:23:57,000 --> 00:23:59,560
Speaker 3: characters and bad actors. So this gets us back to

451
00:23:59,840 --> 00:24:01,360
Speaker 3: technology is neutral, right.

452
00:24:01,480 --> 00:24:03,919
Speaker 1: And you interviewed Tony Robbins, I did, why does he

453
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:05,399
Speaker 1: fit in this continuum for you?

454
00:24:05,840 --> 00:24:08,920
Speaker 3: Well, so, Tony Robbins probably did more than anyone else

455
00:24:08,960 --> 00:24:11,600
Speaker 3: to take NLP mainstream, right, I mean, Tony Robins has

456
00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:14,920
Speaker 3: a million billion followers all over the world and chanting

457
00:24:14,960 --> 00:24:19,560
Speaker 3: Tony Tony in his seminars. Tony emerged from NLP. He

458
00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:22,520
Speaker 3: was in his early twenties when he attended an NLP

459
00:24:22,640 --> 00:24:26,040
Speaker 3: seminar near the Los Angeles Airport with John Grinder, Richard

460
00:24:26,040 --> 00:24:29,520
Speaker 3: Bandler's partner and collaborator, and he was transfixed, I mean

461
00:24:29,560 --> 00:24:33,359
Speaker 3: really for the quick fixed reasons Alice identified. He thought

462
00:24:33,400 --> 00:24:35,680
Speaker 3: it was nonsense that you would spend years and years

463
00:24:35,720 --> 00:24:38,320
Speaker 3: and years and thousands and thousands of thousands of dollars

464
00:24:38,359 --> 00:24:41,280
Speaker 3: on your psychiatrist couch. Why not just do it quickly?

465
00:24:41,760 --> 00:24:44,160
Speaker 3: So he seized on these techniques and for a long

466
00:24:44,160 --> 00:24:48,080
Speaker 3: time he was identifying as an NLP practitioner. He changed

467
00:24:48,119 --> 00:24:51,960
Speaker 3: the name of what he does from neuro linguistic programming

468
00:24:52,200 --> 00:24:56,840
Speaker 3: to neuro associative conditioning in the early nineties.

469
00:24:56,920 --> 00:24:59,679
Speaker 2: Oh, he changed it back right now, he's sort of

470
00:25:00,119 --> 00:25:01,399
Speaker 2: firms his pastor with NLP.

471
00:25:01,640 --> 00:25:04,280
Speaker 3: There's a blog post on his website where he says, hey,

472
00:25:04,359 --> 00:25:07,000
Speaker 3: you know, NLP's great, check it out. He I haven't

473
00:25:07,000 --> 00:25:09,480
Speaker 3: seen him, you know, go on stage and say, hey,

474
00:25:09,560 --> 00:25:11,760
Speaker 3: I'm doing NLP and LP so great. But yeah, he

475
00:25:11,800 --> 00:25:14,040
Speaker 3: had Richard Bandler at one of his events lately. He's

476
00:25:14,080 --> 00:25:16,800
Speaker 3: open about his origin story or you know, he wouldn't

477
00:25:16,800 --> 00:25:17,920
Speaker 3: have talked to me for an hour and a half

478
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:22,120
Speaker 3: about his early days in NLP, but he did.

479
00:25:22,920 --> 00:25:26,440
Speaker 1: And I mean this stuff he does with like getting

480
00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:29,360
Speaker 1: people to walk on coals and stuff like how does

481
00:25:29,359 --> 00:25:30,040
Speaker 1: he actually do that?

482
00:25:30,840 --> 00:25:34,760
Speaker 3: Specifically coal walks? Yeah, coal walking actually isn't that difficult.

483
00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:35,560
Speaker 2: You can do it at home?

484
00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:36,360
Speaker 1: Really yeah?

485
00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:40,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh my god if you walk fast enough. I mean, yeah,

486
00:25:40,359 --> 00:25:42,040
Speaker 3: the coals are very hot. But if you sort of

487
00:25:42,080 --> 00:25:45,399
Speaker 3: walk briskly and purposefully, you know, you won't get severely burned.

488
00:25:45,480 --> 00:25:47,800
Speaker 3: People have gone burned at Tony Robbins's coal walks. But

489
00:25:47,920 --> 00:25:50,400
Speaker 3: all of this is about pumping people up. I mean

490
00:25:50,440 --> 00:25:54,280
Speaker 3: he operates from this position where you can't create behavioral

491
00:25:54,359 --> 00:25:57,119
Speaker 3: change unless people are at this sort of peak. Like

492
00:25:57,160 --> 00:25:59,040
Speaker 3: if you picture a bell curve, people need to be

493
00:25:59,080 --> 00:26:02,320
Speaker 3: at the absolute top. That's when they're receptive to changing

494
00:26:02,320 --> 00:26:05,480
Speaker 3: their behaviors, to changing their minds. And Nancy said something

495
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:07,879
Speaker 3: similar in her interview with Alice. You know, you really

496
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:12,120
Speaker 3: want to establish hypnotic anchors, for instance, when someone's at

497
00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:15,639
Speaker 3: peak emotions. So if you wanted to feel more confidence

498
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:19,159
Speaker 3: oz for instance as a teenage boy or otherwise, you know,

499
00:26:19,200 --> 00:26:22,359
Speaker 3: you would imagine yourself in a situation where you felt

500
00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:24,199
Speaker 3: on top of the world. You know, you just had

501
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:26,800
Speaker 3: a great success, and then you might squeeze your wrist

502
00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:29,960
Speaker 3: or something to anchor that peak emotion. But you have

503
00:26:30,040 --> 00:26:32,680
Speaker 3: to get yourself there. So that's why Tony Robbins has

504
00:26:32,720 --> 00:26:35,840
Speaker 3: people walk on hot coals, break boards and to create

505
00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:36,879
Speaker 3: their heads off.

506
00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:37,640
Speaker 1: Yeah.

507
00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:39,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, to be able to see it portable.

508
00:26:39,359 --> 00:26:41,200
Speaker 1: That feeling can be portable, right, and you can.

509
00:26:41,119 --> 00:26:42,520
Speaker 3: Go back to it at your leisure.

510
00:26:43,280 --> 00:26:45,399
Speaker 2: I think some of these techniques can be helpful. I

511
00:26:45,440 --> 00:26:48,720
Speaker 2: think unfortunately though, some people just get caught up in

512
00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:52,080
Speaker 2: like Tony worship and like probably spend money that at

513
00:26:52,160 --> 00:26:56,320
Speaker 2: least I wouldn't spend on like attending them of those seminars,

514
00:26:56,359 --> 00:26:59,000
Speaker 2: Like I mean, the Platinum Lions Club is like.

515
00:26:59,080 --> 00:26:59,640
Speaker 1: I'm not sure.

516
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:01,360
Speaker 3: Hang out with Tony Robbins Club.

517
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:02,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like eighty thousand dollars.

518
00:27:03,080 --> 00:27:05,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, a deal at a new price.

519
00:27:13,960 --> 00:27:18,440
Speaker 1: After the break. The link between NLP and EMDR therapy

520
00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:42,560
Speaker 1: stay with us. The fatigue with talk therapy is an

521
00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:47,320
Speaker 1: interesting thought, and the idea of shortcuts is interesting, especially

522
00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:52,520
Speaker 1: at a time when Ayahuasca I began get him in psychedelics.

523
00:27:52,600 --> 00:27:56,840
Speaker 1: What is there a connection between these sets of interests.

524
00:27:56,720 --> 00:28:01,760
Speaker 2: That's really interesting? You know, I don't know. I think

525
00:28:01,840 --> 00:28:04,520
Speaker 2: like I do think that sometimes people see especially I

526
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:08,800
Speaker 2: will say ayahuasca and I begain as as shortcuts. But

527
00:28:08,960 --> 00:28:10,960
Speaker 2: I guess I would place them more in the lineage

528
00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:15,240
Speaker 2: of pharmaceutical interventions, right, I mean, these are pharmaceutical interventions

529
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:20,040
Speaker 2: to brain chemistry, right. I mean NLP is essentially guide

530
00:28:20,080 --> 00:28:25,080
Speaker 2: in meditation and self hypnosis or communicative coercion, right, Like,

531
00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:25,600
Speaker 2: it's not.

532
00:28:26,320 --> 00:28:30,000
Speaker 3: A drug, no. But on the other hand, I think

533
00:28:30,040 --> 00:28:34,280
Speaker 3: it's interesting that we see psychedelics becoming increasingly co opted

534
00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:38,040
Speaker 3: by this very sort of you know, business bro, tech

535
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:41,440
Speaker 3: bro kind of contingent that wouldn't have you know, looked

536
00:28:41,440 --> 00:28:45,680
Speaker 3: at psychedelics twice forty years ago, fifty years ago, the

537
00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:48,480
Speaker 3: fact that this group of people, you know, like Wall

538
00:28:48,480 --> 00:28:52,120
Speaker 3: Street dudes are using ayahuasca, are going to ceremonies and

539
00:28:52,160 --> 00:28:54,880
Speaker 3: things like this. Like yeah, I think all of this

540
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 3: plays into a sort of culture of self optimization, such

541
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:01,600
Speaker 3: that we can become more efficient. And why do you

542
00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:03,320
Speaker 3: want to be better? Why do you want to improve

543
00:29:03,320 --> 00:29:05,400
Speaker 3: your mind, improve your body, get more sleep, wear an

544
00:29:05,440 --> 00:29:08,680
Speaker 3: aura ring so you can work harder, so you can

545
00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:12,440
Speaker 3: be better in your job, and essentially just produce more

546
00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:15,479
Speaker 3: capital for your employers. I mean, I think what's interesting

547
00:29:15,480 --> 00:29:17,840
Speaker 3: about self help is it's often branded as a sort

548
00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:21,720
Speaker 3: of like radical alternative to a mainstream way of living,

549
00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:26,560
Speaker 3: but really it reinforces these very business as usual norms

550
00:29:26,600 --> 00:29:29,040
Speaker 3: like go up, you know, wake up, go to your job,

551
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:31,840
Speaker 3: do well, come home, you know, go to sleep. It's

552
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:34,360
Speaker 3: not that it's not as out there when it falls

553
00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:37,440
Speaker 3: into the hands of people just trying to improve themselves

554
00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:38,920
Speaker 3: at any cost, I guess yeah.

555
00:29:38,960 --> 00:29:41,280
Speaker 2: And there's also I mean, the quick fix, the promise

556
00:29:41,280 --> 00:29:44,600
Speaker 2: of the instant fix. I think that's what connects some

557
00:29:44,840 --> 00:29:49,640
Speaker 2: NLP promises with you know how iahuasca and ibogain are

558
00:29:49,640 --> 00:29:51,520
Speaker 2: sometimes advertised the US.

559
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:55,280
Speaker 1: A Meal was interested in psychedelics and LSD in particular,

560
00:29:55,840 --> 00:29:58,720
Speaker 1: and they were interested in NLP. What was their interest

561
00:29:58,800 --> 00:30:02,320
Speaker 1: in LP and did it become an official army program?

562
00:30:02,680 --> 00:30:05,440
Speaker 1: And obviously I'm thinking about U Zoe and the holding

563
00:30:05,480 --> 00:30:07,000
Speaker 1: the gun in the in the New York Post.

564
00:30:07,560 --> 00:30:10,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the Army used NLP for a few different things.

565
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:15,120
Speaker 3: I spoke to a few former intelligence officers who were

566
00:30:15,160 --> 00:30:17,400
Speaker 3: trying to see if they could use NLP to improve

567
00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:22,080
Speaker 3: their spycraft, so to make people more effective in terms

568
00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:27,440
Speaker 3: of establishing rapport with sources, recruiting spies, you know, in

569
00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:31,800
Speaker 3: places of interest, and then rapidly downloading information from them

570
00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:33,440
Speaker 3: when they came back from the other side of the

571
00:30:33,480 --> 00:30:33,920
Speaker 3: iron current.

572
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:35,880
Speaker 2: You want to give a good trick, There's one good

573
00:30:35,880 --> 00:30:39,640
Speaker 2: trick that this spy gave Zoe. Oh yeah, I like

574
00:30:39,800 --> 00:30:40,200
Speaker 2: am like.

575
00:30:40,360 --> 00:30:42,840
Speaker 3: Low key filed away. This is great. This isn't really

576
00:30:42,920 --> 00:30:45,720
Speaker 3: an LP, but I'm willing to share it just out

577
00:30:45,800 --> 00:30:48,280
Speaker 3: of journalistic you know, fair youth.

578
00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 2: Yeah.

579
00:30:48,920 --> 00:30:52,560
Speaker 3: This spy I was interviewing said that a great way

580
00:30:52,600 --> 00:30:55,280
Speaker 3: to get information out of someone, if you are a

581
00:30:55,360 --> 00:30:56,760
Speaker 3: journalists and they don't want to tell you, or if

582
00:30:56,800 --> 00:31:00,040
Speaker 3: you're a spy, is to kind of say something so

583
00:31:00,120 --> 00:31:03,360
Speaker 3: egregiously wrong, they feel compelled to correct you. So he

584
00:31:03,400 --> 00:31:06,080
Speaker 3: moved into the corporate espionage space after he left the

585
00:31:06,160 --> 00:31:09,280
Speaker 3: US Army, and one of his tricks was like, if

586
00:31:09,280 --> 00:31:12,760
Speaker 3: you want to figure out what a rival company's profits are,

587
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:15,360
Speaker 3: be like, okay, so you guys, do you know two

588
00:31:15,440 --> 00:31:18,040
Speaker 3: hundred and twenty five percent every year? Right? And the

589
00:31:18,080 --> 00:31:20,200
Speaker 3: guy's going to say, no, no, what are you talking about?

590
00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:22,520
Speaker 3: You crazy? We do more like fourteen percent, you know,

591
00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:26,480
Speaker 3: whatever it is. And so yeah, people, Collor's just being right. Yeah,

592
00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:28,680
Speaker 3: that's right. Cannot resist being right. So they'll correct you

593
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:30,440
Speaker 3: and tell you something they shouldn't.

594
00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:32,640
Speaker 2: Versus, if you ask him point blank what's the increase

595
00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:33,800
Speaker 2: in profits year over year, they're not.

596
00:31:33,800 --> 00:31:34,240
Speaker 1: Going to say.

597
00:31:34,480 --> 00:31:36,160
Speaker 2: They'll be like, oh, they just asked me something I

598
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:36,920
Speaker 2: don't allowed to share.

599
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:40,240
Speaker 1: Right. Has it changed your lives doing this? Hmmm?

600
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:42,800
Speaker 2: I use certain techniques in my life.

601
00:31:42,960 --> 00:31:46,080
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, I definitely. I mean the experience I had

602
00:31:46,120 --> 00:31:50,480
Speaker 3: trying to recover memories of my father was extremely transformative.

603
00:31:50,560 --> 00:31:52,640
Speaker 3: You know, he died when I was six. Pretty used

604
00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:55,200
Speaker 3: to him being, you know, dead, It's not something that

605
00:31:55,240 --> 00:31:57,120
Speaker 3: shakes me up on a daily basis, but it was

606
00:31:57,200 --> 00:32:00,840
Speaker 3: extremely emotional work and extremely productive. I do feel like

607
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:05,040
Speaker 3: hypnosis helped me cultivate this sort of posthumous intimacy with him,

608
00:32:05,080 --> 00:32:07,200
Speaker 3: and you know, it was very different than sort of

609
00:32:07,240 --> 00:32:09,640
Speaker 3: just sitting on my couch saying, Okay, I'm gonna think

610
00:32:09,640 --> 00:32:11,440
Speaker 3: about Dad. Let's try to remember stuff. You know, the

611
00:32:11,520 --> 00:32:14,840
Speaker 3: hypnosis was very helpful. So I used it for that.

612
00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:16,760
Speaker 3: And then there was the shooting. We didn't talk about

613
00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:19,400
Speaker 3: the other thing the Army used NLP for, but they

614
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:21,520
Speaker 3: did try to see if they could cut down on

615
00:32:21,560 --> 00:32:25,160
Speaker 3: the training time required to make new recruits expert marksmen.

616
00:32:25,760 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 3: So using a few different techniques, they tried to make

617
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:30,920
Speaker 3: their soldiers better shooters.

618
00:32:30,960 --> 00:32:33,840
Speaker 2: And we should disclose that this kind of didn't work. Yeah,

619
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:35,080
Speaker 2: the Army cut the program.

620
00:32:35,360 --> 00:32:38,480
Speaker 3: The Army did not pursue this because the National Academy

621
00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:41,520
Speaker 3: of Sciences did a report on not just NLP but

622
00:32:41,560 --> 00:32:44,920
Speaker 3: a lot of the wackadoudal New Age technologies they were

623
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:47,160
Speaker 3: pursuing at the time. You know, they were doing remote viewing,

624
00:32:47,240 --> 00:32:48,880
Speaker 3: they were doing spoon bending all that.

625
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:51,000
Speaker 2: Also, like also meditation, Yeah.

626
00:32:50,880 --> 00:32:53,840
Speaker 3: Meditation, And you know, the researchers were like, hey, meditation

627
00:32:53,960 --> 00:32:56,800
Speaker 3: seems cool. I don't know maybe it seems to reduce stress. Great,

628
00:32:56,920 --> 00:33:00,400
Speaker 3: but yeah, in terms of endorsing that or NLP as

629
00:33:00,520 --> 00:33:03,080
Speaker 3: like a formal program, they're like, yeah, no, yeah.

630
00:33:03,120 --> 00:33:06,600
Speaker 2: They basically really discredited NLP with this report in the

631
00:33:06,640 --> 00:33:08,960
Speaker 2: late eighties, and so this is one of the main

632
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:11,560
Speaker 2: reasons why when you look when you google NLP, you

633
00:33:11,640 --> 00:33:15,080
Speaker 2: will find that it is a pseudoscience. And we agree

634
00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:17,240
Speaker 2: with that. Is it is a pseudoscience. It hasn't been

635
00:33:17,360 --> 00:33:20,840
Speaker 2: it hasn't been rigorously vetted, and that was in part

636
00:33:20,840 --> 00:33:24,320
Speaker 2: a deliberate decision on the part of Richard Bandler and

637
00:33:24,640 --> 00:33:27,280
Speaker 2: other people involved in NLP. But I think what's been

638
00:33:27,320 --> 00:33:29,680
Speaker 2: interesting to me and Zoe is to say, Okay, like

639
00:33:29,760 --> 00:33:32,680
Speaker 2: we know that parts of this arebs and parts of

640
00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:37,320
Speaker 2: this are also nefarious, right, so is there a middle ground?

641
00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:41,000
Speaker 2: Can we can we look at this program and find

642
00:33:41,440 --> 00:33:44,280
Speaker 2: elements of it that are worth salvaging. And I think

643
00:33:44,280 --> 00:33:46,600
Speaker 2: we were surprised that we actually did.

644
00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:49,400
Speaker 3: Absolutely Alis and I went into this, I think being

645
00:33:49,600 --> 00:33:54,520
Speaker 3: way more sort of skeptical of NLP, regarding it very rarely,

646
00:33:54,560 --> 00:33:57,040
Speaker 3: and we're pleasantly surprised by there being tools that we

647
00:33:57,120 --> 00:34:00,200
Speaker 3: do continue to use every day. And I think other

648
00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:02,320
Speaker 3: goal of ours was to figure out how to make

649
00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:05,560
Speaker 3: use of those techniques without falling in the thrall of

650
00:34:05,600 --> 00:34:08,600
Speaker 3: a guru, like of a Tony Robbins, of a Richard Bandler.

651
00:34:08,640 --> 00:34:11,040
Speaker 3: And one of our takeaways is you can use these

652
00:34:11,080 --> 00:34:14,560
Speaker 3: techniques without sort of hitching your wagon to someone who

653
00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:17,440
Speaker 3: then kind of ends up having more control over you.

654
00:34:17,480 --> 00:34:19,560
Speaker 3: I mean, that's one of the ironies of NLP and

655
00:34:19,640 --> 00:34:22,160
Speaker 3: a lot of other self help techniques, right that you

656
00:34:22,200 --> 00:34:24,400
Speaker 3: go into it to get more control over your life,

657
00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:28,239
Speaker 3: more agency, more willpower, and you end up just giving

658
00:34:28,280 --> 00:34:31,799
Speaker 3: away your agency, give away your willpower to what you know,

659
00:34:32,120 --> 00:34:34,759
Speaker 3: this like charismatic leading figure tells you you should be

660
00:34:34,840 --> 00:34:35,680
Speaker 3: doing with your life.

661
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:38,200
Speaker 2: I think it's that power dynamic that creates cult leaders,

662
00:34:38,200 --> 00:34:40,680
Speaker 2: by the way, I think it's a combination of people

663
00:34:40,800 --> 00:34:44,560
Speaker 2: who are else already have maybe that narcissistic personality trait

664
00:34:44,920 --> 00:34:48,360
Speaker 2: referring to your question earlier, but also the power dynamic

665
00:34:48,400 --> 00:34:51,160
Speaker 2: of being a guru who is teaching all of these

666
00:34:51,160 --> 00:34:55,360
Speaker 2: people who often want to give someone a lot of

667
00:34:55,400 --> 00:34:58,640
Speaker 2: power over their lives because they want answers, because they're struggling,

668
00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:01,520
Speaker 2: Because it could be a range of issues that these

669
00:35:01,520 --> 00:35:04,120
Speaker 2: people are dealing with that make them want to turn

670
00:35:04,200 --> 00:35:07,319
Speaker 2: to you the guru for answers. And I think that

671
00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:12,000
Speaker 2: level of credulousness that is so prevalent is sort of

672
00:35:12,040 --> 00:35:15,399
Speaker 2: what makes people take advantage. And I do think that

673
00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:19,600
Speaker 2: certain aspiring cult leaders go looking for tools and find NLP.

674
00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:22,840
Speaker 2: My opinion is that's probably what happened with twin Flams Universe.

675
00:35:23,560 --> 00:35:28,480
Speaker 1: One part of an LP is EMDR, right or was EMDR?

676
00:35:28,520 --> 00:35:31,359
Speaker 1: Which is? What is EMDR? Does it come from n LP?

677
00:35:31,560 --> 00:35:33,720
Speaker 1: And why does it show up today in mainstream therapy?

678
00:35:34,040 --> 00:35:37,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is such an interesting facet of therapeutic history.

679
00:35:38,120 --> 00:35:43,440
Speaker 2: So EMDR is a prevalent therapy for trauma that is

680
00:35:43,560 --> 00:35:48,560
Speaker 2: endorsed by the World Health Organization. The Veterans Administration has

681
00:35:48,680 --> 00:35:51,520
Speaker 2: videos on its website explaining how it works. It's got

682
00:35:51,520 --> 00:35:54,800
Speaker 2: a lot of great evidence behind it. It outperforms placebo.

683
00:35:54,960 --> 00:35:59,560
Speaker 2: We know that EMDR does work to relieve symptoms of PTSD.

684
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:02,239
Speaker 1: It has to do with moving your eyes while you

685
00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:03,479
Speaker 1: tap your body or what.

686
00:36:03,480 --> 00:36:08,239
Speaker 2: Is the Yeah, so it has to do with bilateral stimulation.

687
00:36:08,560 --> 00:36:13,000
Speaker 2: So what an EMDR practitioner a therapist typically does is

688
00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:16,719
Speaker 2: they'll have your eyes follow either their finger or a

689
00:36:16,800 --> 00:36:20,440
Speaker 2: light or sometimes they will tap on your shoulders while

690
00:36:20,480 --> 00:36:24,680
Speaker 2: you re experience and recount a traumatic or problematic memory

691
00:36:24,719 --> 00:36:28,480
Speaker 2: for you. And so this process we don't know why

692
00:36:28,560 --> 00:36:31,680
Speaker 2: it works. This is the sort of controversy and strangeness

693
00:36:31,719 --> 00:36:34,960
Speaker 2: about EMDR. What is this doing in the brain to

694
00:36:35,040 --> 00:36:39,040
Speaker 2: make people's traumatic memories less acute, less vivid. There's a

695
00:36:39,040 --> 00:36:41,600
Speaker 2: lot of debate on that. We're not really sure. So

696
00:36:41,760 --> 00:36:46,200
Speaker 2: that's EMDR, and what is the connection to NLP. The

697
00:36:46,280 --> 00:36:50,480
Speaker 2: founder of EMDR, the creator that I guess, the developer

698
00:36:50,560 --> 00:36:54,000
Speaker 2: of this technique, Francine Shapiro, who came up with this

699
00:36:54,120 --> 00:36:57,080
Speaker 2: and who developed this program. She has a secret hot

700
00:36:57,120 --> 00:36:59,840
Speaker 2: back history as an NLP trainer. Before she got her

701
00:37:00,680 --> 00:37:03,480
Speaker 2: she was very involved in the NLP community. She wrote

702
00:37:03,600 --> 00:37:08,120
Speaker 2: articles about NLP. There's an academic who publishes about this

703
00:37:08,160 --> 00:37:13,279
Speaker 2: who we interviewed, Gerald Rosen, and he found a wealth

704
00:37:13,280 --> 00:37:17,680
Speaker 2: of archival material tying Francine Shapiro to NLP, which is

705
00:37:17,719 --> 00:37:21,160
Speaker 2: not something that's commonly known or reported and perhaps something

706
00:37:21,239 --> 00:37:24,840
Speaker 2: that figures within AMDR, who have a lot of mainstream

707
00:37:24,840 --> 00:37:27,520
Speaker 2: credibility and recognition, have kind of kept under wraps because

708
00:37:27,520 --> 00:37:29,719
Speaker 2: this is sort of a connection to something that is,

709
00:37:29,760 --> 00:37:32,000
Speaker 2: you know, if you google it, it's supposedly NLP is

710
00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:35,399
Speaker 2: a pseudoscience, and yet I think it's I think, having

711
00:37:35,480 --> 00:37:39,840
Speaker 2: learned about EMDR and NLP, there are a lot of connections.

712
00:37:39,880 --> 00:37:43,879
Speaker 2: I mean, NLP has a big focus on eye movements, right,

713
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:47,440
Speaker 2: it's not using eye movements as a therapy, but you

714
00:37:47,560 --> 00:37:50,840
Speaker 2: use eye movements and NLP to diagnose someone's cognitive state.

715
00:37:51,360 --> 00:37:54,560
Speaker 2: And I think it's absolutely in the context of being

716
00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:57,400
Speaker 2: influenced by these ideas and being part of NLP that

717
00:37:57,440 --> 00:38:02,640
Speaker 2: Francine Shapiro would have thought to research something like eye

718
00:38:02,640 --> 00:38:07,719
Speaker 2: movements for therapy and trauma therapy. So yeah, it's really interesting,

719
00:38:07,960 --> 00:38:09,920
Speaker 2: kind of murky backstory.

720
00:38:09,520 --> 00:38:12,520
Speaker 3: Because Francine Shapiro, she told the press that she came

721
00:38:12,640 --> 00:38:14,759
Speaker 3: up with EMDR while she was going on a walk

722
00:38:14,840 --> 00:38:18,360
Speaker 3: in the park and somehow noticed while she was thinking

723
00:38:18,360 --> 00:38:22,319
Speaker 3: of something unpleasant that if her eyes darted rapidly, it

724
00:38:22,320 --> 00:38:25,800
Speaker 3: didn't seem to bother her anymore. And a few researchers

725
00:38:25,840 --> 00:38:28,480
Speaker 3: have pointed out that there's no way you would be

726
00:38:28,760 --> 00:38:32,440
Speaker 3: conscious of the extremely rapid eye movements that you know

727
00:38:32,480 --> 00:38:34,920
Speaker 3: are involved in this while just strolling through the park.

728
00:38:35,400 --> 00:38:39,040
Speaker 3: So Joel Rosa and the academic Alice mentioned dug into

729
00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:41,680
Speaker 3: this a little more and was like, maybe this emerged

730
00:38:41,680 --> 00:38:45,920
Speaker 3: from her really well established background in NLP, which does

731
00:38:46,120 --> 00:38:49,799
Speaker 3: put tons of emphasis on eye movements. It's not a coincidence.

732
00:38:50,239 --> 00:38:53,040
Speaker 1: Do you look at polygraphs in this context? Oh no,

733
00:38:53,480 --> 00:38:55,440
Speaker 1: it's kind of similar thing, right where it's I think,

734
00:38:55,480 --> 00:38:57,719
Speaker 1: I think polygraphs are considered a pseudoscience and not to

735
00:38:57,719 --> 00:38:59,279
Speaker 1: mispels evidence, but also.

736
00:38:59,120 --> 00:39:00,920
Speaker 2: Like Depinda going to use them, Yeah, yeah.

737
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:04,040
Speaker 3: Right, exactly. No, it's like hypnosis. I mean, I think

738
00:39:04,080 --> 00:39:05,839
Speaker 3: Elis and I are both interested in these sort of

739
00:39:06,400 --> 00:39:08,719
Speaker 3: fringe things that are on the one hand, you know,

740
00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:12,800
Speaker 3: credible in some ways or are widely regarded or institutionalized,

741
00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:17,640
Speaker 3: but on the other hand exist in this spooky, supernatural realm.

742
00:39:17,680 --> 00:39:21,120
Speaker 3: You know, Hypnosis is something that you know, it's probably

743
00:39:21,200 --> 00:39:24,640
Speaker 3: the only mainstream medical therapy that also sells out stadiums

744
00:39:24,680 --> 00:39:27,319
Speaker 3: in Las Vegas, And you know, on the one hand, yeah,

745
00:39:27,360 --> 00:39:30,360
Speaker 3: there's tons of research behind hypnosis and it's proven to

746
00:39:30,360 --> 00:39:33,719
Speaker 3: be extremely useful for pain relief, for anxiety, for all

747
00:39:33,760 --> 00:39:36,200
Speaker 3: sorts of stuff. On the other hand, we tend to

748
00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:40,000
Speaker 3: regard it as this spooky's Bengali mind control tactics.

749
00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:42,600
Speaker 2: So also there's lots of debate like what even is hypnosis?

750
00:39:42,680 --> 00:39:45,959
Speaker 2: Is it the state of trance? We can't find biological

751
00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:50,279
Speaker 2: markers that define hypnosis in every person? Is it a practice?

752
00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:54,000
Speaker 2: Is it related to trance states in non Western cultures?

753
00:39:54,040 --> 00:39:55,719
Speaker 2: Like what even is hypnosis?

754
00:39:55,760 --> 00:39:56,160
Speaker 1: Like that?

755
00:39:56,719 --> 00:39:59,600
Speaker 2: Is? That is still an unanswered question. And so the

756
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:02,520
Speaker 2: fact that there's a lot of medical evidence behind it,

757
00:40:02,560 --> 00:40:05,319
Speaker 2: but there's these fundamental questions that we just do not

758
00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:07,520
Speaker 2: understand about it is fascinating that there's.

759
00:40:07,480 --> 00:40:10,840
Speaker 3: No collective definition. I mean, what's incredibly interesting is that

760
00:40:11,280 --> 00:40:14,360
Speaker 3: all these people researching it can't really agree on what

761
00:40:14,440 --> 00:40:17,520
Speaker 3: it is because you know, you might have someone visualize something, well,

762
00:40:17,560 --> 00:40:19,200
Speaker 3: a different part of their brain is going to light

763
00:40:19,280 --> 00:40:22,440
Speaker 3: up on an ekg Than someone who is accessing a

764
00:40:22,480 --> 00:40:26,239
Speaker 3: memory maybe or who's having another experience. So there's just

765
00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:29,279
Speaker 3: no one size fits all hypnosis, which makes it both

766
00:40:29,280 --> 00:40:31,600
Speaker 3: difficult to study and lesslie compelling.

767
00:40:31,880 --> 00:40:34,839
Speaker 1: I mean, a lot of today's AI scientists came out

768
00:40:34,840 --> 00:40:38,160
Speaker 1: of studying the brain, and you know this huge desire

769
00:40:38,280 --> 00:40:40,440
Speaker 1: to make the brain legible using AI and stuff. So

770
00:40:40,480 --> 00:40:45,320
Speaker 1: it'll be interesting if in our lifetimes this becomes more legible.

771
00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:47,640
Speaker 3: To that point. Just briefly, it's worth noting that Richard

772
00:40:47,680 --> 00:40:51,719
Speaker 3: Bandler and John Grinder were early distributors of Apple computers,

773
00:40:52,040 --> 00:40:54,759
Speaker 3: which were developed very nearby when they were at UC

774
00:40:54,920 --> 00:40:57,839
Speaker 3: Santa Cruz in the nineteen seventies, and so I don't

775
00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:01,160
Speaker 3: think it's a coincidence that they kind of developed this

776
00:41:01,200 --> 00:41:05,880
Speaker 3: affinity with this company that made technology extremely user friendly.

777
00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:07,960
Speaker 3: You know more about this auce, but you know, my

778
00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:12,560
Speaker 3: impression is Apple computers aren't necessarily inherently better than say IBM,

779
00:41:12,840 --> 00:41:15,680
Speaker 3: but they are a lot more intuitive and friendly and like, hey,

780
00:41:15,760 --> 00:41:18,120
Speaker 3: you can do this. You know, it's a window, it's

781
00:41:18,160 --> 00:41:20,720
Speaker 3: your trash can you know, it's just all very cute

782
00:41:20,760 --> 00:41:23,560
Speaker 3: and easy to use and LPs kind of like that

783
00:41:23,600 --> 00:41:25,759
Speaker 3: in some ways, Like, man, you thought having a brain

784
00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:29,040
Speaker 3: was complicated and tricky. It doesn't have to be like

785
00:41:29,120 --> 00:41:31,400
Speaker 3: here's how you do that, five minutes you're done. You know,

786
00:41:31,640 --> 00:41:34,840
Speaker 3: there's this user friendly ethos that pervades both to.

787
00:41:34,920 --> 00:41:37,719
Speaker 1: Out standing out stadiums. I mean Steve's jobs, self presentation,

788
00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:41,400
Speaker 1: the iconography of himself that he created, way he spoke,

789
00:41:41,480 --> 00:41:44,040
Speaker 1: the way he looked. I mean it's interesting.

790
00:41:44,680 --> 00:41:47,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think Richard Banler, you know, in addition

791
00:41:47,080 --> 00:41:49,480
Speaker 3: to cultivating this tough guy image of himself, I mean,

792
00:41:49,480 --> 00:41:52,600
Speaker 3: he often referred to himself as a mathematician, as a

793
00:41:52,600 --> 00:41:56,600
Speaker 3: computer programmer. He took some undergraduate courses in these subjects

794
00:41:56,600 --> 00:41:59,000
Speaker 3: from what we can figure out, but they weren't his

795
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:03,640
Speaker 3: major Even so, I think his fascination with being that

796
00:42:03,760 --> 00:42:06,480
Speaker 3: kind of rogue genius too isn't coincidental.

797
00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:10,399
Speaker 2: And people sometimes confuse NLP with natural language processing, which

798
00:42:10,440 --> 00:42:13,400
Speaker 2: is so hard to read, which is yeah, which is

799
00:42:13,520 --> 00:42:16,480
Speaker 2: you know, a field of computer science that greatly influenced AI,

800
00:42:16,640 --> 00:42:20,640
Speaker 2: and it's unrelated, but the NLP creators probably wish.

801
00:42:20,440 --> 00:42:21,520
Speaker 3: It were related.

802
00:42:23,040 --> 00:42:26,640
Speaker 1: Just to close, Zoe, you mentioned this idea of you know,

803
00:42:27,120 --> 00:42:30,640
Speaker 1: taking psychedelics and then using them essentially to optimize in

804
00:42:30,760 --> 00:42:33,960
Speaker 1: order to do more work. NLP emerged from Santa Cruz

805
00:42:34,000 --> 00:42:37,680
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies in and around the technology industry,

806
00:42:38,280 --> 00:42:40,480
Speaker 1: and now in the twenty twenties, there's this you know,

807
00:42:40,640 --> 00:42:44,280
Speaker 1: optimization culture with psychedelics and with aura rings, et cetera

808
00:42:44,760 --> 00:42:47,800
Speaker 1: emerging from the Silicon Valley of today. Are there any

809
00:42:48,280 --> 00:42:51,000
Speaker 1: explicit parallels to be drawn? Is there anything about kind

810
00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:54,359
Speaker 1: of that part of California. Like, what have you thought

811
00:42:54,360 --> 00:42:57,200
Speaker 1: about the connections between Silicon Value now and Santa Cruz

812
00:42:57,200 --> 00:42:59,560
Speaker 1: in the seventies in terms of what people are aspiring

813
00:42:59,600 --> 00:43:03,440
Speaker 1: to terms of transcending themselves in one way or another.

814
00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:07,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think some of the aspirational language

815
00:43:07,080 --> 00:43:10,000
Speaker 3: around both, you know, they have that in common, right,

816
00:43:10,040 --> 00:43:12,160
Speaker 3: I mean in the nineteen seventies in a sort of

817
00:43:12,239 --> 00:43:16,280
Speaker 3: New age context, like Santa Cruz or Esslon down in Bigsar,

818
00:43:17,120 --> 00:43:19,520
Speaker 3: you have people saying, Okay, well, we have to sort

819
00:43:19,560 --> 00:43:22,680
Speaker 3: of reinvent our relationship to our own minds such that

820
00:43:22,760 --> 00:43:25,839
Speaker 3: we can be better people and have better communities and

821
00:43:25,880 --> 00:43:29,719
Speaker 3: save the world. And there's this kind of notional altruism

822
00:43:30,040 --> 00:43:33,400
Speaker 3: or this you know, grandiose thinking about the implications for

823
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:35,880
Speaker 3: what you're doing, you know, with your friends in your

824
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:38,640
Speaker 3: dorm room. You know. Does that resonate with what's going

825
00:43:38,680 --> 00:43:40,960
Speaker 3: on in Silicon Valley? Yeah, kind of. I mean, people

826
00:43:41,000 --> 00:43:44,080
Speaker 3: claiming that these technologies are going to, you know, deliver

827
00:43:44,239 --> 00:43:47,480
Speaker 3: us from work and jobs that no one wants to do,

828
00:43:47,600 --> 00:43:49,719
Speaker 3: when who knows, maybe they'll put us all out of

829
00:43:49,800 --> 00:43:53,000
Speaker 3: work again, you know, won't be the saving grace. They're

830
00:43:53,040 --> 00:43:54,320
Speaker 3: sometimes billed as.

831
00:43:54,640 --> 00:43:58,040
Speaker 1: Alice Zy, Thank you so much. Congratulations on an incredible podcast.

832
00:43:58,160 --> 00:44:00,640
Speaker 1: Very proud to have it on the Kaliascope network and

833
00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:03,960
Speaker 1: check out the show mind Games. It is a must listen.

834
00:44:04,200 --> 00:44:05,760
Speaker 2: Thanks us, Thank you so much.

835
00:44:05,880 --> 00:44:19,120
Speaker 1: Thank you. That's it for tech Stuff this week. I'm

836
00:44:19,120 --> 00:44:22,279
Speaker 1: os Voloshin. This episode was produced by Eliza Dennis and

837
00:44:22,320 --> 00:44:26,040
Speaker 1: Melissa Slaughter. It was executive produced by me Caroen Price,

838
00:44:26,120 --> 00:44:30,000
Speaker 1: Julia Nutter, and Kate Osborne for Kaleidoscope and Katrian Novel

839
00:44:30,040 --> 00:44:34,360
Speaker 1: for iHeart Podcasts. The engineer is Paul Bowman. Jack Instantly

840
00:44:34,400 --> 00:44:37,160
Speaker 1: makes this episode and Kyle Murdoch wrote our theme song.

841
00:44:37,520 --> 00:44:40,359
Speaker 1: Please rate and review the show wherever you listen to podcasts,

842
00:44:40,400 --> 00:44:42,960
Speaker 1: and send us an email at tech Stuff podcast at

843
00:44:42,960 --> 00:44:54,640
Speaker 1: gmail dot com.