Jamming NLP
Apologies for War and Peace.
As I'm on a bit of a psychic self-defense vibe this morning (and poorly, thus looking for shit to do), I thought I'd share some of my thoughts on being resistant to NLP. One way I found helpful was to try to anticipate the practitioner's expectations of me and deliberately mis-match the results they felt they required. Last time I tried this was in church, of all places. There was a visiting *prophetic minstry* that evening, and I'd decided to go along to check out what the fuss was about, as my friends in leadership had been using them to provide input into what they were doing for the last year or so. He'd also given a couple of prophecies to some friends of mine, a couple of whom had no prior experience of that kind of thing. The feedback I'd heard left me feeling a few warning signals: the man seemed to talk in non-specifics, and seemed to want to flatter the subject rather than edify.
(Quick glossary entry: Christian prophecy is the strand of the charismata that deals with telling a person what God needs them to hear at any given moment in time. It can refer to people, situations, thoughts or places from their past, present or future. It can also include what may purely be timely encouragement or advice. It's usually done unaided by any external object or framework, although it can be. When I was trained, I was taught not to focus on the subject for guidance from their actions or reactions, as their responses can often be misleading. And yes, this is an area that is fraught with dangers, as you've probably picked up by now.)
I quickly picked up that the guy was using NLP as opposed to prophecy. Not that there's anything wrong with that per se, the problem was that he was engaged in the practise of the former under the guise of the latter. Perhaps he just didn't know the difference, and thought that what he was doing was prophetic. What interested me first of all was his preamble, priming the congregation. I didn't like it one bit, it felt manipulative from the outset. I ran something like this:
"I know that you've had prophetic ministries who have come here before, and that many of you have struggled with the outworking of what they've said. You may not have seen those things come to pass. Many people have given the impression that God moves in waves, and that has a tendency to leave some people behind, as not everyone will be able to catch every wave that comes along. Now, I know that the movement of God is more like a stream, in constant motion, which can leave no-one behind. What's more, when you recognise that God's actions are like a stream, it means that there can be no importance placed on high profile ministries, that we're all just people invlved in the same movement of God, all equal. Now, I'd like everyone who wants to do business with God to come to the front of the hall."
Translation:
"Access a memory of disapointment with what you've been told is prophecy. I'm not going to be specific: you decide. Remember how it made you feel. These people who did *that* to you don't understand the ways of God, and their misunderstanding has hurt you. I'm not like them, and I'm here to do something better than they did. I do understand the ways of God, and it's something that can include you all. However, there's nothing special about me, and my humility reinforces that I'm on your side. Oh, and by asking you to come forward if you want to do business with God, I've placed an artificial option before you. It would be theologically wrong to respond in the negative and stay where you are if you're a Christian. Now come up here where I can notice every tiny move you make, every sound you make."
So he's already set everyone up before he's started. Everyone is right where he wants them, making him appear to be a successful ministry when all he's done is set them an option that can't be refused. Everyone present has a memory to the fore that he can interact with using predicates that match their representational systems, and everyone's now so close that he can observe their body language with total accuarcy.
My first means of jamming him was to stay at the back of the meeting when he asked everyone to come forward. I'd deliberately contructed my body language to appear as though I was deep in some kind of ecstatic experience (which actually wasn't far from the truth, as I'd had a great time in the meeting up to that point). The minister's immediate response was to attempt to force me into the role that he expected of the rest of the congregation. He specifically asked me to come to the front with everyone else: again, it was a command that can't be answered in the negative, as it would have been disruptive to the meeting (especially considering that everyone there - with the possible exception of the minister himself - knew that I was the son of one of England's most respected prophetic ministries). I may have observed what appears to be manipulation on a mass scale, but I couldn't presuppose that the visiting minister was aware of that, or that it was impossible for him to do any good using those tactics. I've grown accustomed to God deciding to be God no matter how determined individuals are on screwing things up.
So I came to the front. Perhaps I should have made a point of refusing on principle. After all, anyone who had been trained in prophecy would have known to respect my decision to remain where I was. Forcing me to respond is bad etiquete and verging on an abuse of my freedom. If he genuinely felt that he had something important for me to hear the correct protocol would have been to approach me in private after the meeting and ask my permission before delivering it. For some reason he didn't do that, and my instinct told me that it was because he had nothing for me (yet), that he had some internal need to be the dominant factor over everyone's individual experience of God, and that he needed me to be closer so that he could suss me out.
He asked me to stand in a line with three other people that God specifically wanted to talk to that evening. I put up another layer of defense, and again used body language to do it. I smiled a serene little half smile, looking perfectly at peace, all the while moving my clasped hands gently in time to the rhythm of the band (interestingly enough I had a profound experience that evening, largely because of a synchronicity between the word of a song that the band was singing and my internal experience. A powerful experience that helped me a lot, and something that had everything to do with my own ability to access the sacred rather than anything done by the visitor). The visiting minister then proceeded to give "prophecy" to everyone in the line, apart from me. Whenever he reached me he would say a few words and pass me by. I hadn't broken my posture or my poker face, and he seemed to be getting put off. The words he gave the others were entirely non-specific in the way that process-oriented therapists are encouraged to model. I have a strong suspicion that he realised that he'd have to jump in the deep end with me and not use my body language for cues. When he finally did overcome his fear of "flying blind" he placed his hands on top of mine, to prevent the rhythmic movements that were clearly disrupting his concentration.
I have to apologise for the anticlimax here, as I made a point of not listening to a word he said. I have no respect for the words of an untrained man delivering process therapy and mass hypnosis under the guise of prophecy, breaking etiquette like a rank amatuer with something to prove (he may well have known who I was, something I'd hope to avoid). I have a surplus of "genuine" prophetic input into my life already. What I did manage to pick up on were that he again used process oriented language, giving nothing specific. The meeting was recorded, and I could probably obtain a transcript if anyone here is interested in picking apart the linguistic techniques. I've probably bored you enough already, but if you'd like to continue we probably can after I make a couple of phone calls.
Finally a point I'd like help with (Sebastian, come on down). The following section of Frogs into Princes really interested me: "You may think that the word "think" is one represenational system. It's not. The words "think, understand, be aware of, believe, sense, know, " are all unspecified. Do not use those word because the response you get will be random." Italics theirs. I'd probably add words like "imagine," "intuit," and "perceive" to that list (although the latter has more of a traditional connection with a visual representational system). How can we use these to create a language style to defend against NLP practitioners? |
