DOES NOT COMPUTE
The Structure of Magic I – Richard Bandler and John Grinder
Right then, hypno-peeps. No ramble through the annals of hypnosis tomes past would be complete without a visit to neuro-linguistic programming, aka NLP.
Yes, it is time to roll up our sleeves and reopen our NLP ‘source books’. We’ll cover these in a series of posts in chronological order… broken up by fun stuff so I don’t get too bored.
I’m going to assume readers of this tremendously niche blog are familiar with NLP. Hence I won’t dwell on what it was or is, wasn’t or isn’t, or could, should or would be. I will, however, provide the Wikipedia link for any absolute newbies. You’re welcome.
I should add that this first book is devoid of ‘hypnosis’ – overtly or covertly, as is now part of the fabric, and legend, of NLP. Instead, Bandler and Grinder’s opening gambit is, broadly, an introduction to the ‘patterns’ of “wizard therapists”, such as Virginia Satir (family therapy) and Fritz Perls (Gestalt therapy). But key influences also include Milton Erickson and Jay Haley, so it will be interesting to track how and when hypnosis was subsumed into NLP.
My last bit of preamble is to confront that NLP can be a polarising topic in hypnosis/NLP circles. Let’s agree the four basic positions on NLP, as I see them, so that I can – hopefully! – keep even its most devout followers along for the ride!
1. NLP is real and works (for me and/or those I know and trust, and in my/our experience, with anecdotal/no evidence of short-/medium-/long-term results among those who are NLP’ed). Kev and I are friendly with earnest NLP practitioners who otherwise consider themselves on the side of science and reason, but who do not accept this as confirmation bias. It just works. And maybe it does… for all the above bracketed reasons. But, alas, science is about finding what works, in ways that are replicable, scalable and reliable, for the many rather than the few.
2. NLP is a pseudoscience and has been satisfactorily disproved and debunked by science. Full stop. Check out Professor Irving Kirsch’s sensational lecture on the scientific evidence for what works and what doesn't with regards to hypnosis and suggestion. I think it’s fair to say Kev falls into this camp. Many people in group one believe science should revisit NLP because academics were/are biased against it and/or that the science is/was faulty. On the former, it’s hard to watch Kirsch and still hold that opinion; excitement about the Human Potential Movement was real and palpable. On the latter, the scientific process fundamentally embraces that there is always room for improvement and progress; but the burden is now on NLP to provide extraordinary evidence for its extraordinary claims (which, via the lucrative Richard Bandler franchise could be achieved by funding independent studies).
3. NLP is a sad, outdated, misguiding and misguided movement, but from which we can cherry-pick a few compelling, sexy morsels. (Which are somewhat ‘effective’ because it is all just hypnosis/suggestion anyway). I’d describe this as The Derren Brown Position – his less than flattering recollections of, and varying opinions on, NLP shine through in Tricks of the Mind, and are a recurring theme in his popular and magic books. This is how I feel about NLP (when in a generous mood).
4. I am curious about NLP and would like to learn – it’s what Derren Brown uses, right..? No comment! But note that, while The Church of NLP was keen to capitalise on the Derren association early in his career, Derren did not reciprocate.
So! Without much further ado, we begin with The Structure of Magic I by Richard Bandler and John Grinder, first published in 1975!
Before I found my way to NLP, I was fascinated by 60s counterculture and the Human Potential Movement. The crazy, culty training of ‘est’ particularly spoke to my time at a corporate leadership and mindset-change consultancy. I was excited that NLP seemed to offer a saner, accessible and tried-and-tested theory of change and growth compared to being locked in a room and yelled at til you ‘get it’ (or wet yourself).
Since the science of NLP is best left to Kirsch and Kev, I wanted to muster my belief in ‘human potential’ in rereading this book… Alas, The Structure of Magic I is surprisingly dull.
Bandler and Grinder spotted an opportunity to identify a unifying theory of psychotherapy at a time when it seemed the field was mostly just a bunfight over who was best: Freud vs everyone else. (Clark L Hull had already revolutionised the science by shifting to qualitative data, but Bandler and Grinder don’t seem much troubled by evidence or academia.)
This was a clever move. But it’s a wonder what eventually became ‘NLP’ took off at all given how bogged down this book is by ‘transformational grammar’. Grinder was a linguist who studied Noam Chomsky’s theories. While the explanations of linguistics, human minds, models and therapy, the meta-model and so on and so forth seem impressive, I’m not convinced they’ve made a coherent case for mashing up Chomsky (who is not without his critics) with their emerging unified theory of therapy.
But what is (or, rather, was) compelling is mashing these up with the then-new ‘human minds as programmable computers’ metaphor. The book is littered with such metaphors – “language,” “coding”, “programming”, “binary information”; people communicating ‘in digital mode’ to an ‘analogue thinker’.
In Mesmerized: Powers of Mind in Victorian Britain, writer Alison Winter reminds us that modern technology has always served as a metaphor for mind. Victorians drew upon the steam engine or electricity; NLP tapped into computer programming; we are now inspired by networks, machine-learning and AI, hacking.
The tired, crude metaphors in The Structure of Magic I help to loosen us from the shackles of metaphors being mistaken for facts – people from the 70s equating human minds with modems is no more plausible than a Victorian gent blustering about steam engines or a modern hypnotherapist claiming “blah blah neuroplasticity blah hacking blah blah”.
So when you strip back Chomsky, computing metaphors, the ‘patterns’ of a unified theory of therapy, and Bandler and Grinder’s unqualified views on what works, what’s left? Very little.
Their framing that the “restricted meta-model” is mostly illustrative is kind of sad; the robotic, stripped-back therapy script is what NLP became. People in pain aren’t, IMO, best served by NLP’ers busily translating ‘the music of life’ into notes and chords in real-time, and recalling what Bandler and Grinder said it all means; they should be listening, empathising, empowering and problem-solving.
The useful morsels that have stayed with me include comments on people making the best choices available to them – a fantastic bit of wisdom for building empathy. I’m also a big fan of ‘The Prince and the Magician’ fable about disillusionment in the preface.
It’s funny that a book that starts with a fable about disillusionment seems to end with a clear intent to illusion people. Because the inklings of ‘a cult’ are all there… That you, too, can become a “people helper” crops up a few times (as opposed to a qualified psychologist, etc). And the computing metaphors must have excited those who wished to become a ‘people programmer’ in an age of rising tech stars. Learning transformational grammar plus the meta-model to unlock the mysteries of the human mind and create change is no small task, while the notion that you can “train your intuition” is sufficiently vague to keep people working at becoming such ‘experts’ for a lifetime. The closing pages tee-up that you can apply all this to yourself, too – coming soon in Volume II!
All that said, the cover is wizard!
