transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] This podcast is proudly brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform to help entrepreneurs stand out and succeed online. I am a long time Squarespace user. Sounds like a cult.com is a Squarespace website. I'm not that techie, but I do not struggle with making a website that I think looks really nice. And that's thanks to Squarespace's features, including their design intelligence, which combines two decades of industry-leading design expertise with cutting-edge AI technology. Squarespace payments also makes it incredibly simple to manage all your payments in one place, and sellers can also sync their product catalog directly with social media platforms. To reach more customers, head to squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com/cult to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. This podcast is brought to you by Liquid IV. Being a water girly has never been my thing. And you know what, that's fine, because Liquid IV makes your water taste delicious and hydrates better than water alone. One stick of Liquid IV in 16 ounces of water helps replenish electrolytes and offers essential vitamins to support everyday hydration. It gives you 100% of your daily value of B vitamins, is an excellent source of vitamin C, and is backed by a scientific advisory board. I would not survive those dry plane rides and all the running around and the rigmarole without Liquid IV. Soak up unforgettable memories with on-the-go hydration from Liquid IV. Tear, pour, live more. Go to liquidiv.com and get 20% off your first purchase with Code Cult at checkout. That's 20% off your first purchase with Code Cult at liquidiv.com. The views expressed on this episode, as with all episodes of Sounds Like A Cult, are solely host opinions and quoted allegations. The content here should not be taken as indisputable fact. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only.

Speaker 2:
[01:45] Amanda, I want you to close your eyes and I want you to imagine being on the ski slope wiping out in front of the popular girl. Where do you feel that in your body?

Speaker 1:
[01:55] It's like this rumble of heat within the gut.

Speaker 2:
[01:59] So I want you to see her standing above you and feel that sort of grotesque rumbling heat of embarrassment and just how awful it is. And I want you to turn the volume on that feeling up to 11. Let it overwhelm you and now shrink it down, banish it. Lizzie is a flamingo. Now go back to the embarrassment. Feel the rumble again. It's horrible. You're so embarrassed. Now shrink it down again. Lizzie's on the horizon, the side of a postage stamp. Concert violins come in and everything is tinted green. How do you feel about falling right now?

Speaker 1:
[02:33] I think I might be over the Lizzie memory. This is Sounds Like A Cult, a show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm your host Amanda Montell, author of the books Wordslut, Cultish and The Age of Magical Overthinking all out now in paperback. Every week on the show, we discuss a different subculture or celebrity or brand that puts the cult in culture, from Taylor Swift to essential oils to the manosphere. To try and answer the big question, this group sounds like a cult, but is it really? And if so, which of our three cult categories does it fall into? A live your life, a watch your back, or a get the fuck out? Because the thing is, cultishness these days isn't a binary. There is a cult continuum. For example, I don't know, fan fiction, or people who might just shop at IKEA a little bit too much, usually don't end up in the territory of abuse, death and destruction. But some modern day groups, like conversion therapy believers or MAGA youth influencers, can be far more dangerous and manipulative and indeed culty than they may appear. Today's topic, some may argue, is incredibly persuasive, perhaps even reliant on a particularly programmable audience. Culties today, we are slipping mind and body into the ever so questionable world of neural linguistic programming, NLP for short. If you clicked on this episode with absolutely no idea what the heck we're talking about, that reflects well on you. It is understandable. This is a cult predicated on confusing its potential recruits and its loyalists, but it is deeply fascinating and more relevant to your life than you might think. And I am honored to have two extremely special expert guests joining me later today, who are going to spill some flavorade and help us understand. But first, a little background, a little context. What is NLP? Who invented this unfortunate acronym and why might it be considered a cult? NLP was born in the 1970s, of course, classic cult era, to a couple of creepy old cult daddies named Richard Bandler and John Grindor, a writer and a linguist. They are still alive, by the way. They wrote this seminal book on the practice of neuro-linguistic programming called The Structure of Magic, not to be confused with the age of magical overthinking, out now in paperback. According to its founders, Bandler and Grindor, NLP is a set of techniques that reprogram the way we behave, think and communicate. It was a kind of anti-therapy, invented to hack your brain by modeling the patterns of successful people and replicating them in every area of your life. Confidence, motivation, phobias, bad habits. NLP was like an early wellness bro invention, promised as a kind of magic bullet to cure your whole life. Per Bandler and Grinder, it was also capable of healing your allergies, myopia, okay, Jesus curing the blind, and the common cold. These sort of kitchen sink approach to healing claims are, of course, a classic cult recruitment tactic, because if you can promise a solution to every type of problem a person might walk in with, no one ever really runs out of reasons to stay. Now, before you assume this NLP stuff is just a bunch of malarkey that has nothing to do with you, let me be clear, most of us have probably already engaged with NLP to some degree, whether we know it or not. Since the 1970s, it really embedded itself into a lot of different pockets of our culture, from the self-help quotes that your aunt might share on Facebook with a sunrise graphic, to the optimize your life, I woke up at 4 a.m. and now I'm unstoppable TikToks, for my manifestation, girlies. NLP is the foundation underlying so many Pinterest vision boards, journaling practices. One of the many, many, many reasons why corporate culture, the self-help business and wellness all have this air of do the system perfectly and you will find success and happiness and hotness. And if you don't, well, it's not the system's fault, is because of the manipulative and mystical nature of NLP, which has snuck its way into so many of these industries over the years. Since the 1970s, NLP has spread into life coaching, corporate training, education, law, medicine, and even psychotherapy. But the wild thing is, is that there is no universally agreed upon definition of NLP. There is no regulatory body, no standardized certification required to call yourself a practitioner or even an expert. And that's not an oversight. It's actually pretty structurally convenient, because while we think of a cult as having these rigid hierarchies and one easily identifiable charismatic leader, in some high-control systems, the absence of a fixed standard means whoever is in charge of their own mini subcult gets to start their own thing and move the goalposts whenever they want. NLP can mean whatever a practitioner needs it to mean. For them, specifically in that moment, which can make it pretty impossible to challenge and tough to leave because you're never quite finished improving. Now it is probably no surprise for you to learn that NLP is largely considered a pseudo-science. Some therapists actually do incorporate it, but most scientists and medical professionals do not regard it as compatible with the scientific method. The only evidence in its favor is personal testimonials. Testimonials, which are so compelling and even necessary for a lot of religious cult recruitment in particular, and for NLP recruitment. Now speaking of science and religion, remember that book I mentioned that kind of helps start the whole thing, The Structure of Magic? I want to linger on that for a second because it is actually kind of a perfect encapsulation of NLP's entire energy. Take mystical thinking, dress it in scientific-sounding language and neuro-linguistic programming. And suddenly, magic feels like a methodology. Conflating metaphysics with science is an age-old trick in the cult handbook because it's how you get people to feel like they're being rational and enlightened at the same time. So brings us to the ultimate question. Is NLP just kind of a cheeky little harmless griff, or is it really hurting people? In a way, that's a lot darker than the palette of those Pinterest vision boards. That's exactly what we're here to figure out and to help us do it, we have two incredible guests joining us, Zoë Lescaze and Alice Hines, who are seasoned journalists and the host of a new podcast called Mind Games, an investigation that traces NLP from its origins at a new age compound in California in the 70s to Fortune 500 boardrooms, the US Army, and yes, even an infamous sex cult. I am such a fan of these two. I have been a long time follower of Alice Hines' work. She has blown the lid off so many culty subcultures from core power yoga to the Twin Flames universe. She did so much important work on that particular cult. NLP is just the latest and Zoë and Alice didn't just report on it from a safe distance. They tested the techniques on themselves. And in this interview, they even tested them on me. Without further ado, here is our juicy juicy discussion on the cult of neuro-linguistic programming with Alice and Zoë. This podcast is proudly brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform to help entrepreneurs stand out and succeed online. So whether you're just starting out or managing a growing brand, Squarespace makes it super easy to build a beautiful website that represents you and your content, connect with your audience, and sell absolutely anything from products to content to your valuable time. I am a long time Squarespace user. soundslikeacult.com is a Squarespace website. It was set up in minutes. I'm not that techy, but I do not struggle with making a website that I think looks really nice. And that's thanks to Squarespace's features, including their design intelligence, which combines two decades of industry-leading design expertise with cutting-edge AI technology to help you build the website of your dreams and unlock unbreakable creativity. Squarespace Payments also makes it incredibly simple to manage all your payments in one place and very usefully, you can use Squarespace to connect all of your social media accounts to your website as icons, direct links, or embedded feeds. And sellers can also sync their product catalog directly with social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook to reach more customers and reduce the number of steps necessary to make a purchase. Head to squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com/cult to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. This podcast is brought to you by Liquid IV. I'm going to be very real with you, culties. My life would be worse without Liquid IV. I don't know if I'm just not mature enough to drink plain old water, but being a water girly has never been my thing. And you know what? That's fine because Liquid IV makes your water taste delicious and hydrates better than water alone. One stick of Liquid IV in 16 ounces of water helps replenish electrolytes and offers essential vitamins to support everyday hydration. It gives you 100% of your daily value of B vitamins, is an excellent source of vitamin C and is backed by a scientific advisory board. I have personally been obsessed with Liquid IV's hydration multiplier, sugar-free mandarin orange, a vibrant burst of candy sweet mandarin orange balanced with delicate florals and a refreshing citrus zest. They've also got rainbow sherbet, mango pineapple and so much more. And now that the weather is getting warmer, it's even more important to stay hydrated. I have been traveling a ton. I'm in a hotel room right now and not to sound dramatic, but I would not survive those dry plane rides and all the running around and the rigmarole without Liquid IV. It's also amazing for festival season. Soak up unforgettable memories with On The Go Hydration from Liquid IV. Tear, pour, live more. Go to liquidiv.com and get 20% off your first purchase with Code Cult at checkout. That's 20% off your first purchase with Code Cult at liquidiv.com. Holy shit, welcome to you both. Sounds like a cult.

Speaker 2:
[13:03] Thanks for having us.

Speaker 3:
[13:04] Thanks, Amanda.

Speaker 1:
[13:05] Long time fan, as you know, could you both introduce yourself and your work to our listeners?

Speaker 3:
[13:10] Yes, absolutely. I'm Alice Hines. I am a reporter, a documentary producer, and I also did some on-camera work for Vice News. I have a new podcast series out with my great friend, Zoë, and it's called Mind Games, and it's about mind games as they may have been used on you, or as you could use potentially on other people. So it's a psychology podcast.

Speaker 2:
[13:36] Hi, I'm Zoë Lescaze. I'm a journalist. I write about a lot of things, but often the way art and science intersect, and that can take a lot of shapes. But my first book was about how humans have imagined prehistoric animals in their world, which might not sound relevant to our podcast, but actually I was thinking about it. And the book is basically how, like, everyone knows what a dinosaur looks like now. Like every kid can draw a t-rex, but like how? How do we know that? And so I guess you could say I'm interested in these things that sort of lurk in plain sight, but bear further examination, like our knowledge of prehistory and in this case, neuro-linguistic programming, which is kind of the most famous alt-psychology form of therapy you've never heard of.

Speaker 1:
[14:22] A human after my own heart, I think everything comes back to dinosaurs. What's your favorite dinosaur?

Speaker 2:
[14:27] Ooh, that's tough. My favorite dinosaur isn't actually a dinosaur. I really like the whole family of pterosaurs, which I think most people would accept that answer. I just want to clarify before the paleo-nerds get on my case. They're a tough crowd.

Speaker 1:
[14:39] Incredible. Mine is, and correct my pronunciation if I'm getting it wrong, but a Parasaurolophus.

Speaker 2:
[14:46] Oh my God, I think you just out paleo-nerded me. Wait, tell us about these guys.

Speaker 1:
[14:51] They're omnivores and they have a very cool hollow crown. All the better for projecting whales far and wide, my dear.

Speaker 2:
[14:59] Okay, Amanda, I have a huge crush on you. If I have a huge crush on you, I think every paleo-inclined listener is actually in love with you right now. So that was a flex. Good job.

Speaker 1:
[15:10] Wait, oh my God, I'm sweating. Actually, I'm sweating. I turned up the heat too high. I'm home. Great. So we're gonna transition now into the conversation at hand. And I hope it devolves into flirting, as cult dynamics often do. And that is the cult of neuro-linguistic programming, NLP, out of the gate. I was wondering if each of you could describe some of the cultiest experiences you had in your reporting on this topic. Places you visited, stories you heard, things you saw. Like we want the culty, juicy, nightmare stuff.

Speaker 2:
[15:42] Okay. Well, I guess I just want to jump in quickly and make the disclaimer that I don't think NLP is a cult. Only because it is used in so many ways. Sorry, sorry. Whoops. Did we mislead you? No, it has been used by a lot of cults. But I just want to say NLP is used by so many different people for so many different things, like for everything from curing nail biting, to curing cancer, to getting women into bed. Like it's so diffuse and generalized that it's hard to just distill it into one thing and that thing is a cult. That said, I'm going to let Alice talk about the cultiest aspects she's encountered because she has some great stories.

Speaker 3:
[16:20] The cultiest aspect that I encountered when reporting this podcast was definitely the Nxivm connection. I have been fascinated by Nxivm like so many other people for all the reasons that we all know. But what never was clear to me was where the Nxivm methods came from. There's a whole self-improvement dogma and doctrine that they presented as their own and Keith Raniere specifically presented as something he had come up with. But in a lot of cases, he was repurposing other methods. One of them was neuro-linguistic programming. So as part of the podcast, I interviewed Nancy Salzman, who was the co-founder of the company that became Nxivm. And she told me about her training in neuro-linguistic programming, what aspects of neuro-linguistic programming she brought to Keith Raniere and how he used them in ways that she says she could never have predicted and were not what she thought she was bringing to him. So she says he misused her work.

Speaker 1:
[17:17] Fascinating. So Zoë, you mentioned you don't think neuro-linguistic programming is a cult. What if I told you that on this podcast, we've called plant parents a cult, essential oils a cult, Swifties a cult. The question is not is it a cult? Because like everything is. It's more, is it a live your life, a watch your back or get the fuck out?

Speaker 2:
[17:37] Right. What kind of cult is it? Yeah, we can dig into that for sure.

Speaker 3:
[17:41] You have an expansive definition of cult on this podcast.

Speaker 1:
[17:44] Expansive is generous. Yes. We're just here to identify how cult-ish thinking and influence shows up in places you might not think to look. But you're absolutely right that NLP is this tool, ideology. It's very diffuse. It's not this one organized group with a leader at the helm, although I guess we'll figure out whether or not that's even true. And I'm wondering, Alice, if you could talk about the spectrum of NLP, like Nancy Salzman claimed to have used it in ways that were net positive, that were then bastardized by the evil cult leader Keith Raniere. Is there a helpful, good version of NLP, or is it doomed to be weaponized by these nefarious, pernicious figures?

Speaker 3:
[18:27] That's such a good question, and I think the answer is both. I think that there is a helpful aspect to NLP, and we learned in our reporting that it's helped a ton of people. We even used it on some of our own problems and some of our friends' problems in the podcast just to test it out. And with honestly kind of decent results, is it also destined to be weaponized by nefarious actors? History has proven that that's the case. So yeah, it's both. And I think with a lot of these groups who people often describe as cults, there is always something positive about it. I mean, even Nxivm, like there has to be some beneficial self-improvement aspect or people would never get in the door. So I think that's often true. I think that's the case of NLP. I even think that's the case of Nxivm.

Speaker 2:
[19:09] And I think when I say that it's so diffuse, so it's not a cult, in a way that is also what makes it open to abuse by would-be cult leaders. It's because it is so decentralized, there is no oversight, there's no licensing body that reviews the ways in which people are using NLP and takes their license away if they're bad actors. You can just shell out a few thousand dollars, go to a seminar, get trained in NLP, and then train other people. So that means it can take on a lot of different forms. And so yes, there are very nefarious forms of NLP out there for sure.

Speaker 1:
[19:44] Totally, yeah, I guess grading it on the curve of this podcast's interpretation of cults, I would align it more with the self-help industry, Pilates, maybe even, I was gonna say chiropractic, but there are sort of governing bodies of chiropractic, maybe QAnon, you know, like it is this kind of like disorganized cult that doesn't necessarily mean it's innocent. But I wanna talk about the key figures, if not the cult leaders that are on a pulpit, Jim Jones style, those being NLP's two founding figures, Richard Bandler and John Grinder. In your reporting, I'm wondering what classic cult leader type behaviors did you identify in each of these guys? And at this point in NLP's journey, would you say that there are certain cult leader-esque figures?

Speaker 3:
[20:42] Okay, you wanna know if there's charismatic, megalomaniac type personas that are part of NLP, or were part of it in its incipients?

Speaker 2:
[20:51] I mean, I think the answer is definitely. Like one of the things that jumps out to me about the Keith Renieri backstory, for instance, are these sort of wild, very easily fact-checkable claims he made about himself. Having this insane IQ and being a prodigious martial artist or a concert pianist or these kind of exaggerated talents. That is something we noticed about Richard Bandler. He didn't necessarily start all these stories about himself, and I should insert a disclaimer that he denies a lot of these characterizations. But there are all these stories swirling around him. He owned a topless bar when he was 16. He got a black belt in karate. He was involved in organized crime. I mean, one guy told me that Richard Bandler can hear radar. So that's kind of a crazy and maybe not so useful super power.

Speaker 1:
[21:41] Wait, I'm sorry. How do you respond when someone tells you that? Are you just like, oh neat, or are you like, no?

Speaker 2:
[21:47] Yeah, well, he sort of, it was weird. This guy had drank the Kool-Aid because he led with, yeah, I was skeptical at first too, but then I looked it up and this is a real thing. And I was like, what? And then I looked it up and I don't think that's a real thing.

Speaker 3:
[22:02] That kind of reminds me of, NLP very much presents itself as a science and it has this affect of being this combination of computer programming and linguistics. And there are definitely some linguistics and legitimate psychology within it. But I do think it's interesting when it does tend to veer into the supernatural and it happens occasionally. James Moreno, who was a good friend of Richard Bandler in the 80s, and ultimately accused him of having murdered someone, which became part of this sensationalist trial that we go into in our podcast. James Moreno was an NLP trainer and he claimed he could telekinetically control streetlights with NLP. So this is another claim where it kind of gets beyond the realm of science to like, is it magic? And NLP plays on that. There was an early seminal text of an NLP called The Structure of Magic. And so this idea of is it magic? Is it science? What is placebo? What is real? This is what NLP is all about.

Speaker 1:
[22:58] Totally. And like, the placebo is real. I love the placebo effect. Mm, feed me a placebo pill all day long. But please, God, let the person feeding it to me not be a power hungry, annoying man. You know what I'm saying? OK, but you did say that you derived some value from NLP. You did apply NLP to your own lives. You put it to the test. You joined the cult temporarily, one might say. Can you talk about that experience, what it felt like? Did it resemble cult activity in any way to you?

Speaker 3:
[23:33] I hypnotized Zoë's mom to help her get over her fear of biking. So I read a lot of the NLP texts and I watched a lot of videos online. Tony Robbins has a phobia cure. Richard Bandler has a phobia cure. A lot of it boils down to techniques that involve manipulating the sensory qualities of memories in order to change your emotional reaction to stimulus. So Zoë's mom was a fearless bike rider as a young person. By the way, she volunteered herself for this. We didn't just kind of pick on her.

Speaker 1:
[24:07] I was going to say like the sets mean. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[24:10] This was not covert. I had been working on this podcast with Alice for six months or so and talking about NLP. Eventually one day she was like, do you think that could help me?

Speaker 1:
[24:20] Well, it's so crazy that you say that because immediately when we're analyzing NLP from a distance, I'm like, this is quackery. What Tomfoolery? I would never. But the second you start saying overcome a phobia, do it with the girlies. Like your daughter will do it to you. I'm like, wait, do it to me. Can you help me get over my phobia of podcast Apple reviews? I'll try anything.

Speaker 3:
[24:45] Well, I think I got it, Amanda. Don't read them.

Speaker 2:
[24:48] Oh. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1:
[24:51] Helped me finally. Okay. So we're with consent hypnotizing Zoë's mother.

Speaker 3:
[24:56] That's right. I also ripped some techniques off of guided meditations that I use, which are not branded as NLP or hypnosis, but which I believe to be very similar techniques to hypnosis after having learned about the structure of hypnosis. And yeah, I basically interviewed Zoë's mom about some of the reasons why she had this phobia and developed a guided meditation that I first did for her in person and then recorded for her. And then we went out to Governor's Island one day and did some sessions and actually biked. And I think it worked decently well. I think what we don't know is how well it would have worked just practicing biking. Practicing getting over something that you're afraid of also works by doing it. This is something that doesn't necessarily need hypnosis or NLP to be effective. So was it both of those things that contributed? How much was it the NLP? We really don't know the answer to that. But she is biking a lot more now and I think it's doing a lot better.

Speaker 2:
[25:54] Yeah, I will say that Alice is right. Practicing something that makes you nervous. Yes, eventually it will become less scary. But I personally tried to get my mom to practice occasionally with the help of a cocktail or two, which I guess in retrospect was ill-advised. I was like, come on, you'll just take the edge off. Let's hop on a bike, mom. No, there's not that much traffic. Don't worry about it. Anyway, that was not productive. I think the techniques that Alice used actually were really helpful because the way she ends up explaining it is that they distance you from your fear. Like Alice was saying, these techniques help you dissociate or detach from your memories and your triggers and your fear responses. She was able to look at her fear like it was over there on the other side of the room, and wasn't just this full body, my fear is me, synonymous, kind of we are one in the same experience of it. She was like, oh, yeah, that's over there and I can work on it. So it wasn't an instant fix, but it gave her the distance she needed to continue building on that.

Speaker 3:
[26:51] I will say that some of the techniques that NLP calls by different names, for instance, like Swish is one of the techniques that they've branded. They are sometimes very similar to things in cognitive behavioral therapy. Like there is a technique from CBT that's called imagery rescripting, where you rewrite your memories and change certain sensory details of those memories in order to change how you feel about a memory. And NLP does the same thing. They call it something else. So the question of how much of NLP is, you use the word quackery, Amanda. I think there's an element of it that absolutely is. For instance, I mean, there's been crazy claims, like there was a post we found during COVID where someone was like, NLP cures COVID. Obviously, that's not true. But there are elements of this that do have evidence behind them and do probably work for a lot of people. So I think it's a mix.

Speaker 1:
[27:39] Yeah. I mean, the way that you describe it, it reminds me so very much of something like essential oils, which like in a vacuum, great. Yeah, I'll dab some lavender oil on my pulse points and like make the room smell calming. And yes, there is evidence to suggest that aromatherapy has benefits or whatever. But now when somebody who is profit driven and power hungry is A, catastrophizing the fears of their vulnerable customers, followers, whoever they are, and then selling them an expensive, over complicated solution to those catastrophized problems they probably could have sought out on their own through like much simpler, more down to earth means. That's, I think, when you know you're getting into something slightly too cultish for comfort. And you mentioned the term swishing, which is just like a re-brand of something else that already exists and is perhaps more responsibly used by accredited therapists.

Speaker 3:
[28:44] Imagery rescripting.

Speaker 1:
[28:45] Yes, one of the signs of cultishness that I love to focus on is the development of specialized, loaded language that can be used to separate people into an us versus them, to identify those who are really committed to loyal versus troublemakers, to halt critical thinking. And there is such a robust vocabulary of special terms in NLP, anchoring, modeling, reprogramming, rapport building. In your research, did you find that this jargon functions at all like cults be?

Speaker 2:
[29:18] I mean, honestly, those phrases you just used are the tip of the iceberg. Those are the most legible and intuitively understood phrases. Like, okay, anchoring. What about six-step reframing? I mean, there's just these extremely convoluted terms that I think serve to make people feel like specialists who are not necessarily experts. It serves to dress up these ideas and make them not only seem new, but make them seem super sophisticated and technical and advanced. And like you, the person who just walked into an NLP seminar, gosh, you don't know what a six-step reframe is, so you better listen up. It puts certain people in a position of power where everyone has to look to them for the answers. And that's how gurus get created. It's like, I have the solutions and you don't know anything.

Speaker 3:
[30:08] I also think there's a secondary effect of the jargon as well, which is it can be so dense and so boring that it literally puts people half asleep where they are more susceptible to being hypnotized.

Speaker 2:
[30:19] These books are almost unreadable.

Speaker 1:
[30:21] Yeah. Are you familiar with Scientology's cultilinguistic method of word clearing?

Speaker 3:
[30:26] Explain it. I think I've read about it, but word clearing, that's an interesting combination. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[30:32] So much of NLP also reminds me of certain techniques used by Scientology, particularly the conflation of the mystical and the pseudoscientific. But word clearing is this technique that a former Scientologist spelled out for me that also preys on the stamina of followers to stick with something super boring and tedious. So essentially, if a follower is in a course reading a Scientology text, it's really boring, and they demonstrate any sign of fatigue or not paying attention or not understanding what they're reading, it could be something as simple as a yawn. Then a higher up in the room will bring them a Scientology approved dictionary and make them look up the word that they yawned at in this dictionary and read that definition. And if they continue to seem tired while reading that definition, then they might have to look up another word within that definition in the dictionary, which can create this dreaded word chain, as it's called, that can keep you in that course paying money for hours and hours and hours. And it's all just a demonstration of loyalty and confusion and gaslighting. People underestimate the power of boringness as a cult tactic.

Speaker 3:
[31:52] Boringness is super powerful. And confusion is extremely powerful. To me, that's been actually one of the main takeaways that I learned learning about hypnosis and about NLP. Confusion, deliberately ambiguous language, language that kind of makes your eyes glaze over and you start to go daydreaming, that can be used on purpose. And the point is not to distance you from what's being said. It's actually to create an opening of influence outside of the awareness of your conscious mind. And honestly, that's one of the most brilliant parts of NLP, because I think that this actually really works. And this observation of the NLP creators that this type of language has this effect on people, I mean, I think it's one of the more brilliant and also more dangerous aspects of NLP.

Speaker 2:
[32:34] Yeah, like when I interviewed Ross Jeffreys, the founder of the Pickup Artistry Movement, who learned all of his tricks from NLP, he spoke a lot about creating moments of confusion purposefully, where you can quote unquote get leverage in someone's unconscious mind. He demonstrated throughout our interview, he was using these techniques. I was asking him a question and then he interrupted me and seized on this one word I used and challenged me about it, to make me lose track of what I was going to ask him. I mean, it didn't work and we discussed it, but it was a very purposeful technique. Because when you don't know what's going on suddenly, then someone can just use that to flip the power dynamic and establish a new one.

Speaker 1:
[33:22] Yeah, because they're like, oh, you're confused in this moment, I have the answer. Lock in.

Speaker 2:
[33:26] Or let's just take this in another direction. Now we're talking about this and you're like, oh, OK. And just trying to grab at something so the conversation keeps making sense. We look for patterns as humans and we're trying to make this very disorderly, chaotic universe make sense all the time. And when you can make it not make sense, we flail.

Speaker 1:
[33:47] And language is the medium we use to construct our reality, our bearings. And so if someone is fucking with that, it's such an underrated way of controlling someone. And it also calls to mind another form of linguistic cult manipulation that I wrote about while drafting cultish, which was how religious leaders in charismatic Christian sex will encourage speaking in tongues or glossolalia, specifically to incite dissociation in their followers, to make them vulnerable so that they can swoop in and establish themselves as the person in power. So I'm also perceiving a little bit of forced dissociation here. I don't know if that's a stretch.

Speaker 3:
[34:29] I think forced association is one way you could describe the techniques that we've been referring to. I think that that describes them pretty well, actually. It's strategic confusion. It makes the person have a harder time creating meaning.

Speaker 2:
[34:42] And there are these rhetorical traps that people who are hypnotizing you with or without your knowledge will sometimes use, where they will present you with what seem like two options. You can either listen to every word I say or you won't listen to every word I say. But sort of no matter what, you're doing one of those things, right? So whichever one you do, it reinforces the fact that you're going into trance. There's no escape. So that's another way in which language kind of capitalizes on your conscious ability to not get hypnotized and appeals directly to your unconscious.

Speaker 1:
[35:15] You also know that something is probably bad when sub-sex of the manosphere are able to use it so effectively, that being like this pickup artist guy, like I would like to think I've never made anything that an incel woman hater would be like, oh my god, love this, can't wait to incorporate it into my business. I guess I don't know for sure. Speaking of confusion, just to illustrate with crystal clarity, what an NLP session or technique might look like, could you do it to me real quick or kind of walk me through what a session might look like? What if I brought to you a fear? I have a really good one. I am terrified of falling down in public. I get humiliated when I trip and fall in public.

Speaker 2:
[36:01] Does this happen to you a lot, Amanda?

Speaker 1:
[36:03] Okay, well, I avoid it. I think it's because when I was like 10 years old, I ran into a popular girl on a ski slope and I skied into a ditch in front of her, and I've been mortified by the prospect of falling down in public ever since. I can call to mind what it feels like to fall down in public. It's just it's not the embarrassment that I feel like is for me. I do things way more embarrassing than falling down in public all the time and it's fine. But that for whatever reason really gets me. Can you help me with NLP?

Speaker 2:
[36:37] Absolutely. Yes, Alice, we can talk to you in this.

Speaker 3:
[36:40] Yeah. No, go for it, Zoë. I think this is a perfect example that we can work with, though I do want to just let people know that it's not an instant thing. What we'll demonstrate now is something that if you want to continue with it, you can continue practicing.

Speaker 1:
[36:52] Got it.

Speaker 2:
[36:53] Yes. We are also not expert NLP practitioners. We're journalists who have tried to wrap our brains around this, but that all said, here we go. Okay, Amanda, I want you to close your eyes. I want you to imagine being on the ski slope, wiping out in front of the popular girl. Where do you feel that in your body? Where do you feel that mortification physically?

Speaker 1:
[37:19] Oh, it's like all in my... I'm cold because I'm in the snow, but it's like this rumble of just heat within the gut, you know?

Speaker 2:
[37:29] Okay, so I want you to imagine yourself, like what are you seeing? Like, are you looking up at her because you're on the ground? Is she laughing?

Speaker 1:
[37:38] No, she was a sweet popular girl, Lizzie. Shout the fuck out. I know she follows me on Instagram. No, she was a nice popular girl, but that made it worse in a way. Like in a way, I just like wanted her to laugh at me to like confirm that this was a really bad experience.

Speaker 2:
[37:53] Okay, so I want you to see her standing above you and feel that sort of grotesque rumbling heat of embarrassment and just how awful it is. And I want you to turn the volume on that feeling up to 11, turn it up to 20, just let it overwhelm you. And now shrink it down, banish it. Lizzie is a flamingo. Lizzie is in black and white. There's music coming in. There's death metal coming in. Okay. Now go back to the embarrassment. Go back to the embarrassment. All right. Let it feel the rumble again. Feel the rumble again. Lizzie standing above you. It's horrible. You're so embarrassed. Okay. Now shrink that down. Shrink it down again. Lizzie's on the horizon, the side of a postage stamp, like concert violins come in and everything is tinted green and it's upside down. Okay. So this is the swish technique and you would keep doing this. You would keep toggling back and forth and manipulating parts of this memory until finally the practitioner would ask you, okay, how do you feel about falling right now? Ideally, after enough, you would say, wow, I guess it doesn't bother me anymore, but actually how are you feeling?

Speaker 1:
[39:06] I'm so impressed that you were able to come up with those totally chaotic kaleidoscopic examples off the top of your head like that. That was really good.

Speaker 2:
[39:14] Frankly, me too. I don't know, the muse was channeling.

Speaker 1:
[39:17] She's on a postage stamp and there are violins and everything's green. I'm like, okay, David Lynch, what?

Speaker 2:
[39:25] Yeah, but the question is whether it worked at all, which I would frankly be startled by.

Speaker 1:
[39:31] I actually, I think I might be over the Lizzie memory. Okay. Yeah, I think I'm now embarrassed of how embarrassed I am by that, but that just might be by the nature of me saying it on a podcast. You know what it felt like? It felt like an improv exercise, which was cringey.

Speaker 2:
[39:48] You know what? That's so funny you say that because a lot of NLP had its origins in these kind of therapy LARPs where you would get a bunch of people to pretend to be the patient's family members. So if they're afraid of talking to their dad, you would have someone personify their father and then they could say all these things to their dad that they might not be comfortable saying IRL. So that is a big part of NLP if not this specific exercise or maybe yes and it's part of it all.

Speaker 1:
[40:14] I think a lot of these cult leader dudes were just like theater kids whose parents didn't let them let their freak flags fly. Like just send them to a theater camp. You know what I mean? Like just let them get their sillies out there and then they won't feel the need to start a cult one day. That's my thought.

Speaker 2:
[40:28] Could not agree more.

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 3:
[43:41] Well, I think that actually helps. Like the fact that there's nothing keeping it together and no one saying, you can't say this or you can't sell this this way, actually helps it spread because people can go to a seminar, learn it, and then put their own spin on it. Like I went to an NLP seminar in London and I went there because Richard Bandler, who is the guy we've been talking about, who was the co-creator of NLP and has a really weird backstory, he was actually teaching hypnosis. So I met all of these people in the audience and you would not believe some of the ways that they're applying it. I mean, there's everyone from a guy who sold Cairo Chambers to like billionaires, and he was like in like boutique longevity, and he wanted to hypnotize people in business transactions. He told me that. To a guy who was starting like a holistic gym, and like another guy who was like a sexual assault survivor, and who used it to get over his trauma. I mean, there was so many different reasons why people had come there, but I would say many of the people were trying to apply NLP to their professional lives in some way, as well as their personal lives. So I think that the fact that there is no glue that holds it all together, that it is this amorphous thing, it actually increases its ability to spread.

Speaker 1:
[44:55] Whoa, interesting. Do you think that people have been discouraged from pursuing more legitimate forms of therapy because their NLP, Sherpa or whatever kept doubling down?

Speaker 3:
[45:09] I think so. I think that's a big issue with NLP, and especially actually Richard Bandler really has it in for therapists. And if you mention even colloquially that some people find NLP therapeutic or this is a form of therapy, he hates the word. And there's a big anti-therapy thing within NLP from the leadership. However, there's also a ton of therapists who do NLP. So I would say despite that rhetoric, there are therapists with PhDs and master's degrees who practice NLP, who are also integrating it into their practice. I think that they're doing it in a way that they're clearly not discouraging people from using other forms of therapy. It's one tool in their toolbox.

Speaker 1:
[45:46] Do you think the fact that it has this convenient acronym NLP disguises the fact that the phrase neuro-linguistic programming sounds like such cockamamie bullshit?

Speaker 2:
[45:56] I'm glad you find the acronym convenient. I mean, I find even having to call it by a set of three letters so lame and alienating. And yeah, once you say the full phrase neuro-linguistic programming, it is a huge turn off. It was actually a huge issue as we were writing the podcast. Like how do we say this as little as possible while still reminding people what it is we're reporting on because it's off-putting. And yeah, I mean, I think this gets back to your question about technical jargon. And there is this sort of NLP lore surrounding the creation of the name that Richard Bambler was in a car and he got pulled over by a cop and he had to say what his profession was and he sort of cast about NLP didn't have a name at this point. This is the early 70s in Santa Cruz, California. But he looked down and in the passenger seat, he had a book on neurology, he had a book on linguistics and he had a book on computer programming. So he said, I am a neuro-linguistic programmer. And somehow this was helpful in that interaction with the traffic cop.

Speaker 1:
[46:51] So he was just playing Bananagrams.

Speaker 3:
[46:53] Yes, that's how it came up with the name.

Speaker 2:
[46:56] Supposedly. I mean, there's five other versions, which is part of what made this so difficult to report. Like this happened so long ago and everyone loves to invent their own mythology. So it's like, I don't know, that's one story.

Speaker 1:
[47:06] That's a really lame story. No offense to anyone.

Speaker 3:
[47:09] I think the name is not helping it. I just want to say one thing, which I think the name NLP is not helping NLP. And I think it's illustrative that Tony Robbins, who is the most famous NLP practitioner, who got his start in NLP, who we interview in our podcast and who became a multimillionaire from this. He, for a period of I think multiple years, stopped using the phrase NLP and he renamed it something else, Neuro-Associative Conditioning. Like he tried to re-brand it again, though I'm not sure if N-N-Neuro-Associative Conditioning is any better, to be honest.

Speaker 1:
[47:41] Oh my god. I'm like hardcore in my misandrist era. And this just reminds me of like how men are so bad at coining terminology. They literally are. Like sociolinguists find time and time again that like the best, most catchy slang is coined by young women of color, not middle-aged white men. And that's why they're all out here saying shit like biohacking. Like in a hundred, no one's gonna be saying that shit. They're so bad at this.

Speaker 3:
[48:06] That's really funny.

Speaker 2:
[48:07] Yeah, that's a great point. And I mean, yeah, the name neuro-linguistic programming, it's tricky too. Like it sucks when you do use it, but it's also one of the reasons a lot of people haven't heard about NLP is because a bunch of people stopped using it altogether.

Speaker 3:
[48:20] Using the word NLP, not the techniques.

Speaker 2:
[48:23] Yes, NLP techniques going strong, but the name a lot of people divorced from because Richard Bandler is super litigious. And at one point he filed this lawsuit with 200 John and Jane Doe's in addition to a bunch of prominent NLP trainers. So a lot of NLP practitioners around the country were like, uh-oh, I don't want to get dragged into this. Even if we win, this could destroy my finances. So I'm going to stop using that term. A lot of people rebranded. So that's also when people ask like, how is this everywhere? How does no one know it? It's like, well, people don't often call it that anymore, but it is out there.

Speaker 1:
[48:57] Have you talked to anyone who's like ex-NLP, like finally kind of was like, this isn't really delivering on its promises? And what was their experience of exiting that community ideology, betraying the resources they had invested in these ideas? What did that look like?

Speaker 2:
[49:15] I'm thinking of Elisa.

Speaker 3:
[49:17] Oh, I was thinking of Debra.

Speaker 2:
[49:18] Oh.

Speaker 3:
[49:19] Debra, Debra.

Speaker 2:
[49:21] All right, let's talk about Debra. So this one woman who was involved in the early days of NLP at UC Santa Cruz, she was a student, as was Richard Bandler. John Grinder was a linguistics professor there. She went to all these workshops, like her whole friend group was involved in NLP. And she was all in until this one Christmas party in the mid 1970s when John Grinder and Richard Bandler threw this Christmas party and they gave everyone a bespoke therapy gift, like a little exercise that was supposed to help them and be tailored to their particular bugaboos. So Debra goes to this party, she thinks it's a normal party. So she takes the mushrooms, she's tripping. And when it comes her turn to get her gift, John and Richard blindfold her, they hypnotize her, they do a double induction. So they're both speaking in both of her ears at the same time. They lead her outside, they tie her to a wooden cross, and then they set the cross on fire.

Speaker 3:
[50:15] She was supposed to cut herself free. That was like the lesson that so she could learn how to not be a victim. That was the therapy lesson.

Speaker 2:
[50:23] She has to ask someone in the crowd who's been given a knife to give her the knife to cut herself free. And somehow she manages to do this while tripping face, which is very impressive to me. And she was furious afterwards. She was really mad at them and laid into them. And they just kept insisting that they were trying to help her not be a martyr.

Speaker 1:
[50:43] Whoa, okay, so NLP also becomes this, I mean, not unlike the Bible, this text or this set of principles whose true authors can't really weigh in at this point that bad people can use to justify bad behavior, including major misogynists.

Speaker 3:
[51:01] Yeah, I mean, I think what's interesting is that Debra went on to become a therapist. So she's a professional therapist today who does not use NLP in her practice. So I mean, all of the, how do we help people heal, the psychology underpinning of NLP she's very interested in. But after that experience, she was like, no. And I think NLP is really known, especially in its development, for going to extremes to help people with, quote, therapeutic techniques that others would never try. Like, they were just ballsy. And sometimes it was great, and sometimes it was really dangerous and traumatic. So that's kind of what the story shows.

Speaker 2:
[51:38] Yeah, interestingly though, Debra, who does not use NLP as a therapist, she does use EMDR. This is one of the most fascinating things Alice dug into for the podcast, the secret backstory of EMDR.

Speaker 3:
[51:51] Yeah, EMDR was invented by an NLP trainer.

Speaker 1:
[51:54] Why does that make so much sense, actually? I know EMDR has helped so, so many people, and I even tried a version of it myself. It really helped my friend who was in a car crash, whatever. I know that it's empirically backed, but it always felt culty to me.

Speaker 2:
[52:07] But that's the thing. No one really understands how it works.

Speaker 3:
[52:10] Yeah, it's still being researched. The mechanism behind it is the subject of current research, even though it's been around since the early 90s. EMDR has elements that are shared with NLP. The big difference is that EMDR presented itself as a technique to be empirically verified by the scientific community, and it solicited this type of peer review that NLP really didn't, because NLP was already fringe. It was already something that was a sales technique. It was already part of these MLMs. It was already in this direction of, we don't really care if the powers that be put their stamp on us, that we're empirical. They didn't give a shit.

Speaker 1:
[52:50] Interesting.

Speaker 2:
[52:51] This gets back to the disdain for mainstream therapy, because people would try to empirically test NLP. Many researchers started taking specific exercises and saying, okay, how does that work? What's going on in the brain? Richard Bandler at least was fairly uncooperative. He was just like jokes on you if you want to dig in to the nitty gritty of all this. I don't really care. I've already moved on to this other technique. I don't even use that technique anymore. There was no core group of things that he really was like, yeah, this is NLP. I stand by this and I want you to prove it and blah, blah, blah. He's like, yeah, that's your bad, but I never said it.

Speaker 1:
[53:25] This might be one of the cultiest things about the whole rigamarole to me is the fact that it has claimed to be not only scientific but miraculous, and yet it rejects any standards of verification or accreditation. It's like sticking it to the man for no reason other than this guy wanted to be what? Like a cult leader pretty much.

Speaker 3:
[53:49] Yeah, he didn't want to join the establishment.

Speaker 1:
[53:51] Yeah. I do want to say for those who aren't familiar with EMDR, it stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, and it uses bilateral stimulation ostensibly to help the brain reprocess trauma. That's my understanding of it anyway. And yeah, it does slightly give NLP's older sister who went to grad school.

Speaker 3:
[54:16] That's right.

Speaker 2:
[54:17] I love that analogy. That's perfect. That's exactly who EMDR is.

Speaker 3:
[54:20] EMDR is super interesting. I also have a lot of friends who have benefited from it. One of the most interesting factoids that I found in the EMDR research when I dug in was that playing Tetris while thinking of your traumatic memory has been shown to be effective as well for trauma reprocessing. So save your money, friends, and try some Tetris.

Speaker 1:
[54:39] Oh my God. I learned that from Saraya Shamali's book on resilience. She also cites that study on Tetris. That's what I'm saying. There are a lot of free, uncomplicated ways to achieve the same result as this expensive, high-falutin, culty NLP bullshit. And that's true of a lot of things.

Speaker 3:
[54:57] Yeah, I will say there can also be benefits of telling the story of a traumatic memory to an empathetic therapist. That's another benefit. Beyond the bilateral stimulation effect, which is part of EMDR, there's also the presence of an empathetic listener, which has its own positive effect. So I'm not saying fire your therapist. I am saying that Tetris also works, so you could do that too.

Speaker 1:
[55:18] Totally, totally, totally. Oh my God. Yes, let's be very clear. OK, I have one and a half more questions and then I want to play a game. So as we've been mentioning, NLP turns up in some pretty sinister places, Tony Robbins Empire, the Pickup Artistry stuff, Twin Flames Universe. What do you think is the worst case scenario of this weaponization of NLP? Like where's the worst place it can go in terms of culty harm done to a practitioner?

Speaker 3:
[55:48] I think the worst impact of NLP that I've found was the use of it by organizations like Twin Flames Universe, which is the group that I reported on and made a docu-series about this alleged cult that said that they used NLP to quote reprogram your trauma and that actually ended up giving someone I interviewed memory loss and you know her memories were permanently altered because of this experience and you know she considered it very abusive. There was also other sorts of abuse going on in this organization. I also think NLP has been used in really scary ways by Nxivm. So that's probably the worst. I mean, we interviewed someone in our show who describes the branding, which occurred in Nxivm where many women were branded as an anchor. Right. So like a hypnotic anchor from NLP is a physical stimulation that is triggering an emotional state and a very extreme version of that could be a brand. So I think we don't have to speculate to come up with dark examples of how NLP has been used because unfortunately it's already been used in some dark places.

Speaker 1:
[56:51] Yeah, Alice is reporting on Twin Flames Universe and all of the media that you created around that still ongoing story is goaded. So thank you so much for that. And I know so many people who've been victimized by the Twin Flames Universe are really grateful for your work.

Speaker 3:
[57:06] Oh, thanks, Amanda. Yeah, unfortunately, they're still in operation, but they are under investigation by the Michigan Attorney General's office. So I'm happy about that.

Speaker 1:
[57:15] I have one more question, which is that NLP has been around for decades. Why do you think that this discussion, exposé analysis is important against the backdrop of our culture right now?

Speaker 2:
[57:30] For me, I think it has a lot to do with the obsession with self-optimization that we see virtually everywhere today, whether it's your meditation app that is sort of gamifying your meditation experience and encouraging you to compare how many minutes you've meditated with everyone else. It's competitive. Everything is sort of turbocharged to make you a better you, a calmer, healthier, skinnier, happier you. Why? So you can be more productive. I mean, this is like a whole industry predicated around what you can churn out. It's often couch. It's for you and for you to have more agency, but it's really just so you can wake up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and work more and churn out more capital. So I think NLP, which began in this really idealistic sort of new-age setting in 1970s California, it was developed down the road from Esalen and Big Sur. It emerged from a very similar ethos of like, let's improve ourselves, let's heal ourselves. So by extension, we can heal our communities and heal the world and blah, blah, blah. Then we see with NLP how it rapidly became a persuasion technology, a way to boost sales, a way to make money. And so I think that kind of loss of innocence that we see in the NLP story is something we see in America's drive to improve at any cost today.

Speaker 1:
[58:56] Oh my God, yeah. Framing it as a loss of innocence story is really interesting. OK, now it's time to play a game that is a classic Sounds Like A Cult activity called Culty Quotes. So I'm going to read you a sequence of quotes that were either said by an NLP guru or text or another classic cult leader from history. And you will simply have to guess whether the quote was said by a cult leader or an NLP person. The first quote goes like this. Emotions make excellent servants, but tyrannical masters.

Speaker 3:
[59:34] That's hard.

Speaker 2:
[59:35] I mean, the fact that it could go either way so easily is really tough.

Speaker 3:
[59:39] I'm going to say cult leader, not NLP, because it's pithy.

Speaker 1:
[59:42] Okay. And NLP people are like long winded.

Speaker 3:
[59:45] Blah, blah, blah, blah. It'll be way longer.

Speaker 1:
[59:48] In fact, that actually was an NLP person. It was John Seymour. He identifies as a psychologist and NLP trainer. He co-wrote a book called Introducing NLP, Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People. I'm not shouting at that book. Literally do not buy it, but that is just who he is. The next quote is as follows. The best testimony we can make is to say that we are a free people.

Speaker 2:
[60:13] I would go with religious leader cult figure.

Speaker 3:
[60:18] I'm on board with Zoë.

Speaker 1:
[60:19] You are correct. It was Jim Jones. Sociopolitical leader turned religious leader, turned one of the worst people ever. Okay. Next quote. When we believe in something, we act as if it is true. NLP. Correct. That is an NLP quote that is found all over all the literature. It was sifting through. Hate it.

Speaker 3:
[60:39] Yeah. It's sort of like the behavioral change. Like you can change your behavior. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[60:42] Just what if you didn't feel that way? What if you just didn't? Which can be productive. That can be a productive exercise. But when it's like, hey, what if you were really happy about getting branded instead of feeling violated by that?

Speaker 1:
[60:54] Yeah. What if you handed me $100,000? That'd be amazing. Okay. Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

Speaker 3:
[61:02] Not NLP.

Speaker 2:
[61:03] I feel like that's like on an inspirational calendar. You'd like find in a waiting room or something, or like a recovery room. It feels like an AA. Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[61:13] That is a common aphorism in everyday English, but it was first coined allegedly by Chuck Diedrich, the cult leader of Sinanon, which was the group that my dad forcibly spent his teenage years in, which was founded as an alternative to AA.

Speaker 2:
[61:29] That's really funny. Okay. All these things just get put in a blender and like come out like this crazy toxic smoothie.

Speaker 1:
[61:36] Yeah, totally. Yuck.

Speaker 2:
[61:38] Ew.

Speaker 1:
[61:39] Oh, what would that taste like? Last quote, there is no such thing as reality, only our perception of it.

Speaker 3:
[61:45] That's NLP.

Speaker 2:
[61:46] 110%, straight up.

Speaker 1:
[61:48] You are absolutely correct. That is from a book, again, I'm not shouting it out, called NLP for Rookies.

Speaker 3:
[61:56] I'll shout out my actual favorite NLP book if people want. Use Your Brain for a Change was my favorite one, I think it's the least jargony.

Speaker 2:
[62:04] Oh, I thought you were going to talk about Magic with a K.

Speaker 3:
[62:06] I also love Magic with a K. Yeah. Okay, this is my actual favorite book.

Speaker 2:
[62:10] This is a book just to set you up that Alice found on what I believe was a anarchist PDF share and then started borrowing from to hypnotize my mother.

Speaker 3:
[62:21] I love this book. So this is Esoteric NLP. It's called Visual Magic with a K by Jan Fries, F-R-I-E-S. And it's a practical guide to trance, sigils and visualization techniques. I'm not an esoteric person, but the way that this book uses magic is more as a metaphor for the unconscious and how to harness the power of your own unconscious. And I really like this book. It's well written too. It's a fun read, unlike some of the jargony NLP texts.

Speaker 1:
[62:49] Okay, great. Sounds like a cult book club. That can be our June pick. Okay. My last question for you, it's very important. The culties take this very seriously. Out of our three cult categories, live your life, watch your back, and get the fuck out. Which category do you think neuro-linguistic programming falls into?

Speaker 3:
[63:11] I would say watch your back.

Speaker 2:
[63:13] Yeah, second thought, 100 percent. I think because it can go either way. And again, it's like there's two sides of the coin, right? Like, oh my God, your brain has so much unconscious power that you're not harnessing, woohoo, but also yikes, you know? So it sort of depends who is in the driver's seat, you or the guy at the front of the room who you're like, you're my new guru.

Speaker 1:
[63:37] For sure. You two have swayed me before this interview. I would have jumped to the conclusion that it was a GTFO. But you're right. It's a watch your back. Thank you so much for joining this episode. If people want to keep up with you and listen to your podcast, how can they do that?

Speaker 3:
[63:53] Mind Games. Search for it wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1:
[63:57] Well, that's our show. Thanks so much for listening. Stick around for a new Cult next week. But in the meantime, stay culty.

Speaker 2:
[64:04] But not too culty.

Speaker 1:
[64:14] Sounds Like A Cult was created by Amanda Montell and edited by Jordan Moore of the PodCabin. This episode was hosted by Amanda Montell. Our managing producer is Katie Epperson. Our theme music is by Casey Cold. If you enjoyed the show, we'd really appreciate it if you could leave it five stars on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, it really helps the show a lot. And if you like this podcast, feel free to check out my book, Cultish, The Language of Fanaticism, which inspired the show. You might also enjoy my other books, The Age of Magical Overthinking, Notes on Modern Irrationality, and Wordslet, A Feminist's Guide to Taking Back the English Language. Thanks as well to our network, Studio 71. And be sure to follow the Sounds Like A Cult cult on Instagram for all the discourse at Sounds Like A Cult Pod, or support us on Patreon to listen to the show ad-free at patreon.com/sounds like a cult.