The Sourcebook of Magic E-Book

L Michael Hall

• Herausgeber: Crown House Publishing
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 554

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2003

Beschreibung

In The Sourcebook of Magic you will discover afresh the basic 77 NLP patterns for transformational magic. This newly revised version streamlines the patterns so that they are even more succinct and offers some new insights into how the patterns work.

Leseprobe

The Sourcebook of Magic

A Comprehensive Guide to NLP Change Patterns

Second Edition

L. Michael Hall, PhD

with Barbara P. Belnap, MSW

Contents

Title Page

The 77 Patterns of NLP Magic

Acknowledgements

Preface by Ian McDermott

Foreword: A Magician’s Sourcebook

Part I: The NLP Model: The Source for Magical Transformations in Modeling Excellence and Running Your Own Brain

Chapter One Introducing NLP Magic: Magic Has Structure

Chapter Two NLP as a Model: Its Design, Language, and Components

Part II: NLP Patterns: The Incantations for Transformation and Growth: The Sourcebook

Chapter Three The Basic Patterns: Patterns For Running Other Patterns

Chapter FourParts: A Part of the Whole—When Parts War

Chapter Five Identity: Inventing and Re-inventing “Self”—Patterns for Building Empowering Self Images

Chapter Six Emotional States: The Art of Managing Neuro-Linguistic States

Chapter Seven Languaging: Patterns for Communicating with Precision, Clarity, and Empowerment

Chapter Eight Thinking Patterns: Sorting Patterns that Govern Thinking

Chapter Nine Meanings and Semantics: Patterns for Enhancing Neuro-Semantic Reality

Chapter Ten Strategies: Patterns for Building Empowering Action Plans

Part III: Pattern Applications: Thinking Like a Magician

Chapter Eleven Thinking in Patterns: Pattern Thinking as an Art and a Skill

Chapter Twelve Figuring Out What to do When

Chapter Thirteen Domains of Use: Hints for Using NLP Patterns in Business, Education, Therapy, Sports, Health, Relationships, etc.

Epilogue

Appendix: The “Is” Biz

Bibliography

Glossary of NLP Terms

About the Author

Index

Copyright

The 77 Patterns of NLP Magic

The Basic Patterns

Foundational Patterns

#1 Well-Formed Outcome Pattern

#2 Pacing or Matching Another’s Model of the World

#3 State Calibration

#4 Checking the Ecology of a Pattern

#5 Flexibility of Responses

#6 State Elicitation

#7 State Induction

#8 State Interrupt

#9 Anchoring

#10 Accessing Positive Intention

Primary NLP Patterns for Transformationand Excellence

Patterns for Incongruity of “Parts”

#11 Collapsing Anchors Pattern

#12 Parts Negotiation Pattern

#13 Six-Step Reframing Pattern

#14 Aligning Perceptual Positions Pattern

#15 Agreement Frame Pattern

#16 Aligned Self Pattern

#17 Resolving Internal Conflict Pattern

#18 Advanced Visual Squash Pattern

Patterns for Identity and “Self”

#19 “Sub-modality” Belief Change Pattern

#20 Dis-identification Pattern

#21 Re-imprinting Pattern

#22a Time-line Pattern

#22b “Time” Elicitation Pattern

#23a Change Personal History Pattern

#23b Meta-stating Change Personal History Pattern

#24 Swish Pattern

#25 Circle of Excellence Pattern

#26 Decision Destroyer Pattern

#27 Core Transformation Pattern

#28 Meta-transformation Pattern

#29 Making Peace With Your Parents Pattern

#30 Loving Yourself Pattern

#31 Self-sufficiency Pattern

#32 Receiving Wisdom From Your Inner Sage Pattern

Patterns for Neuro-Linguistic States

#33 Visual-Kinesthetic Dissociation: The Movie Rewind Pattern

#34 Accessing and Managing Resourceful States Pattern

#35 State of Consciousness Awareness Pattern

#36 “As If” Frame Pattern

#37 Chaining States Pattern

#38 “Sub-modality” Overlapping Pattern

#39 Threshold (or Compulsion Blowout) Pattern

#40 Transforming Mistakes into Learnings Pattern

#41 Becoming Intentionally Compelled: Godiva Chocolate Pattern

#42 Decision-Making Pattern

#43 Pleasure Pattern

#44 Reducing Pleasure Pattern

#45 Breaking Up Limiting Synesthesias Pattern

#46 Filing Away and Memories Pattern

Patterns for Languaging and Re-Languaging

#47 Meta-Modeling Pattern

#48 Meta-Model III Pattern

#49 Denominalizing Pattern

#50 Problem Defining/Formulating Pattern

Patterns for Thinking Patterns, Meta-Programs,and Cognitive Distortions

#51 Identifying and Pacing a Person’s Meta-Programs

#52 Recognizing and Challenging Limiting Meta-Programs

#53 Meta-Programs Change Pattern

#54 Identifying and Disputing Cognitive Distortions

Patterns for Meanings/Semantics

#55 Content Reframing Pattern

#56 Context Reframing Pattern

#57 Reframing “Sub-modalities” Pattern

#58 Six-Step Reframing as a Meta-States Pattern

#59 Pulling Apart Belief Synesthesia Pattern

#60 Establishing Your Value Hierarchy Pattern

#61 Kinesthetic Hierarchy of Criteria Pattern

#62 Thought Virus Inoculation Pattern

Patterns for Strategies

#63a New Behavior Generator Pattern

#63b Day End Review: New Behavior Generator as a Day End Review

#64 Forgiveness Pattern

#65 Allergy Cure Pattern

#66 Grief Resolution Pattern

#67 Pre-Grieving Pattern

#68 Healthy Eating Pattern

#69 Resolving Co-dependence Pattern

#70 Speaking Assertively Pattern

#71 Responding to Criticism Pattern

#72 Establishing Good Boundaries Pattern

#73 Magical Parents Pattern

#74 Transforming Mistakes into Learnings Pattern

#75 Thinking/Evaluating Wisely and Thoroughly Pattern

#76 Disney Creativity Strategy

#77 Spinning Icons Pattern

Acknowledgements

This Sourcebook of Magic originated with those early pioneers who were directly responsible for the birth of NLP:

Richard Bandler John Grinder Robert Dilts Judith DeLozier David Gordon Leslie Cameron-Bandler

Many others, having learned the magic hidden in language and symbols, have become magicians in their own right. Among these, the following have significantly contributed to the NLP Model:

Tim Hallbom Suzi Smith

Preface

I can still remember how the change I wanted in my love life came about … While I was enjoying considerable professional success I didn’t feel particularly happy or fulfilled in my relationship. I was on an NLP training and reached a threshold: I became aware that I really needed to change some of my own personal history, or at any rate the meaning I had made of it. I needed to do this if I was going to be able to allow myself to have the loving kind of relationship I wanted.

Synthesising a number of NLP techniques, I spent several hours with myself. I was ready and primed and that was the perfect time. Did it work? Perhaps the best way I can answer that is that within 24 hours a new woman whom I had never met before came into my life. And not just a new woman, but a different kind of woman. She was entirely different to those I had known before. Generous in spirit, not so self-preoccupied and much more available. In fact, itseemed quite magical.

So did we marry and live happily ever after? Actually, no. For while what happened inside of me to make this possible was an extraordinary experience, it was not the end of the story. I had more to do. That took time. Even with NLP, it took time. Yet this was the turning point and that relationship represented the next stage in my personal journey. From then on things only got better until eventually I did meet the woman I married—and am still married to.

Right now you are holding in your hands the tools that can help make such change possible. In this masterly and comprehensive survey of what NLP has to offer Michael Hall has made it easy to understand when to use what. Even so, learning how to use these processes is best accomplished experientially. Because the learning is in the doing, if you want to get good at NLP I would strongly suggest you take an NLP training. (Choose an organisation that has a proven track record and trainers you can trust.)

NLP is frequently referred to as a technology and—in part—it is. Those science fiction dystopias that depict a world where technology has got out of control remind us that while technology can make a very good servant, it makes a very bad master. The same could be said of any advanced technology, including NLP. You get to be in charge of this particular technology by being clear about what you want to achieve with it and then engaging with your experience. With its many examples this book will show what is possible.

The technology itself is rigorous, evidence-based and can be calibrated to each individual. However, if you were to ask me what is the most advanced and important application of this advanced technology I would have no hesitation in my answer. I would say that it offers the means to enhance and nourish that least attended to and most important relationship in anyone’s life—your relationship with yourself.

Often NLP is presented as offering invaluable interpersonal communication tools. And it’s true. In addition, NLP practitioners have modelled human excellence in a wide variety of fields. In fact NLP can be useful to anyone who is interested in answering the question “Just how do you do that?” of any human activity. However, in the final analysis I believe the power of NLP derives not from how it can help us become more influential with others or even model excellence. The real power of NLP is that it can enable us to become more influential with ourselves. Over time, if we choose to cultivate this relationship with ourselves, and consistently use the many NLP tools described in this book we may even move beyond excellence to some smidgen of wisdom.

Then there’s the world of work. As a consultant I frequently find the methodologies, the techniques, but also just the way of thinking that characterises NLP, to be liberating and productive in organizations, and not just for managers. My strategic and systemic work with leaders is made much easier by being able to call on a variety of NLP models and interventions. Every business I work with wants to know how better to manage crucial relationships and maximise client satisfaction. NLP has specific tools to help achieve these goals. What organisation wouldn’t benefit from those within it knowing how to put themselves in others’ shoes, be they colleagues or clients? What employee wouldn’t want to know how to better manage upwards? Again, NLP has specific techniques that make these learnable skills.

Recently I have become aware that I am now seeing an increasing number of coaches coming to take our NLP Practitioner and Master Practitioner trainings. When I’ve asked them why, their answers are remarkably consistent; because of its precision and techniques NLP means they can be more effective in the limited time frame of the typical 30 minute coaching call. Their other reason is very market driven. With so many people now calling themselves coaches, NLP enables them to deliver more effective results more consistently and so improve word of mouth referral rates. This makes a lot of sense to me because NLP offers us the tools for understanding how we do what we do and what works—and also what is not working. Its range of applications will be limited only by the variety of people who get involved. In my office at home I have a special bookshelf reserved for the complimentary copies my students send me of the books they have written applying NLP to their own fields of expertise. These range from business, to athletics, to medicine, to headship, to equestrian excellence.

However, at its best NLP does so much more: it makes possible a practical compassion that enables us to effect profound structural change. It is inclusive, recognising that there may well be many ways of achieving a successful outcome. But it is also rigorous in delineating how some ways are much, much easier than others. Again, it is respectful and realistic because it acknowledges that we each have our own map of the world. It stresses we need to have that map honoured if we are to be available to new opportunities that take us beyond the boundaries of our previous thinking. I also value NLP because it is demystificatory and democratic—using NLP you will find your experience has a structure. This means you can make sense of what you’ve been doing and change it if you wish.

For myself I work in the field because I have a vision of what is possible using these tools, this way of thinking and what they ultimately can give rise to, which is a way of being. Potentially NLP is not just life changing but world changing. Sometimes it can even be the difference between life and death.

I have been inspired by my work with doctors and seeing just what is possible with the many NLP health applications that have been developed. I felt humbled when one of my students, a barrister, told me that he found his NLP skills meant he was able to counsel a senior Caribbean political figure who then commuted death sentences on a number of political insurrectionists. I felt new hope when another of my students started using NLP in the restorative justice programmes he pioneered with the police in the UK. Here crime victims and perpetrators come face to face and achieve resolution. The success of his work as measured by a staggering drop in recidivism sets me thinking, what if NLP was to be used in international mediation work? So I feel called to contribute when my Islamic students ask me to help them make NLP available in the Middle East. For me these and many other similar examples make the magic of NLP pale into insignificance when compared to the magic that people can do with it.

However, the best way to start changing the world is by putting your own house in order. Starting with oneself is a very good place to begin applying NLP if you want to come across as credible and congruent—and if you want to be successful over any length of time. NLP makes it possible to become aware of at least some of the presuppositions that are running our thinking and our behavior—and hence our lives. It’s useful to know what yours are. It’s also nice to know that—as I can attest from personal experience—you can use NLP to change them if they’re not working for you.

So going back to my own romantic experience, does this mean ¼ “I owe it all to NLP?” Er, no! Do we ever really owe everything to just one factor? If I was going to say I owe it all to anything it would be to taking charge of my inner life and changing what I believed possible. But what I would say is that, from my own experience, I can assure you that you can have the changes you want if you just start to build a better relationship with yourself and get clear about what you really want. And NLP is one very good way of doing this.

From such remedial beginnings are generative possibilities born. Often we can barely imagine what these might be. In my own case it meant finding there was something beyond what I had known. When I met Paulette, who later became my wife, I was challenged in myself to love differently and more deeply. That process I wouldn’t call magical. It is more mysterious still. It is alchemical and it changes you in a different way again. (But that’s another book). Recently I received a letter from one of my students who had just completed our Practitioner and Master Practitioner training. In it she detailed the specific major new steps she was able to take after each module of these two programmes. These are the most profound changes to her life that she has ever experienced. Now 10 months later she has a new career, a new home, an apartment to let and is emotionally ready to share her life with someone. But her final line said more than all of this: “I’m so happy to be living life to the full now instead of just existing.”

I believe that, in the right hands, NLP has much to offer those who want to live life to the full and go beyond just existing. That’s why I think you owe it to yourself to read on. In this valuable contribution to the field Michael Hall has woven together the different strands of NLP and expertly delineated much of what NLP has to offer. I think you will find him enormously informative and trustworthy. I do. That’s why it’s a pleasure to welcome the second edition of this authoritative guide to the magic of NLP.

Ian McDermottInternational Teaching Seminarswww.itsnlp.com

Foreword

A Magician’s Sourcebook

“Magic is hidden in the language we speak. The webs that you can tie and untie are at your command if only you pay attention to what you already have (language) and the structure of the incantations for growth …”

—Bandler and Grinder (1975, p. 19)

The Birth of Sourcebook

Originally, I wrote this book due to a conversation that I had with Barbara Belnap about the need for a single source for the central NLP patterns for therapists. That conversation occurred at an NLP Conference in Salt Lake City and enabled me to catch a vision of collecting the central NLP patterns. I wanted to collect all of the central patterns that help us to create greater resourcefulness and excellence in everyday life.

When I first began collecting the patterns, I was a psychologist in private practice in Colorado and Barbara was a psychotherapist working in the context of Managed Care in Utah. Our idea was to present the NLP patterns as rich and wonderful processes for anyone who wanted to do brief psychotherapy with clients. All of that seemed to make good sense to both of us. After all, Managed Care in the USA at that time was highly focused on making therapy both brief and of high quality. To us, NLP was a natural and obvious choice. I thought we would identify the cognitive-behavioral processes in NLP and specify how to use this powerful change model in a step-by-step fashion.

To that end I set out to create a format that would fit that structure. It was then that chaos crashed our party. The chaos was the realization that NLP patterns apply to far more than just therapy. To only, or mainly, apply them to therapy falsely suggests that NLP is a therapy. It is not. NLP is more essentially a modeling of humanexperience, and especially human excellence. Therapy is for hurting or wounded people who need remedial assistance to get over traumas and to get on with life. Yet NLP focuses much more on excellence, health, mastery, genius—in a word, on what works well. It is much more oriented to generative change than it is to remedial change.

So that’s when I changed the focus of the book from NLP patterns for therapists, brief psychotherapy, and managed care, and redirected it in a more general way to collecting and categorizing NLP patterns for everyone. That’s what this volume of TheSourcebook of Magic is all about—offering 77 core patterns of NLP that manifest the structure of magic (language) and the incantation patterns of growth.

Magic for All Domains

If as Bandler and Grinder write, “magic is hidden in the language we speak,” and if we can use language and patterned processes for making transformative changes in the way we think, feel, speak, behave, and relate—then you will find all kinds of patterns in this Sourcebook for performing magic that changes minds and lives. These core patterns can easily be translated and applied to many domains:

Business Excellence, Management, and CoachingEducationPsychotherapyPersonal Growth, Development, and EffectivenessSports and Athletic CoachingInterpersonal relationsCommunication EnrichmentNegotiation, Mediation, Conflict ResolutionProfiling styles, personality, and skillsModeling

The Context of “Magic”

If this is a Sourcebook of Magic, then what is this “magic” and what is the context of the magic? The magic is what happens in the mind-body-emotion system when words and processes lead us to alter our maps and create a different reality. NLP began by noticing the magic that three therapeutic wizards created (Virginia Satir, Fritz Perls, and Milton Erickson) by the power of their language patterns. By just saying words, patients left their offices or trainings with a new lease on life. How does that happen? How do such magical interventions work?

If you are new to NLP, you will find a brief introduction in the first two chapters. NLP is a field about change. It is about transformation and development. It is about the structure of excellence—how it works, how to map it, and how to replicate the best practices. What the expert or genius knows, learns, values, and produces only seems like magic when we don’t know the structure. When we know the structure, the power and effectiveness is still there, but gone is the confusion, myths, darkness, and inability to pass the magic on.

The Metaphor of Magic

Why the word “magic?” What’s that all about? In NLP, we typically use the term magic in a special way. It does not designate external magic or any kind of actual magic that changes the laws of physics. “Magic” here means none of that. The term rather refers to the seemingly wild and wonderful and magical effects (the changes and transformations) that occur when we know the structure of subjective experience.

When we do not know how subjective experience (the way our mind-body-emotion system works for motivation, health, language and so on) works, we are clueless about our experiences. We are also clueless about those desired experiences which we would like to create and experience. We are in the dark about the whys and wherefores of change. And without knowing that, we are handicapped in how to transform things and in recognizing the leverage point of positive transformative change. When we do not understand human functioning (cognitive-behavioral or neuro-semantic functioning), we are left without a process about how to improve human efficiency, happiness, and effectiveness. This puts us in a world of darkness and confusion about the role of language in human consciousness, neurology, and health.

Conversely, when we do understand the structure of subjective experience, we have a working knowledge of the “magical wands” at our command for change, improvement, health, happiness, success, and excellence. Knowing the leverage point in the human system of mind-body-emotion along with memories, hopes, desires, and fears, provides us a place from which we can do some magic for fun and profit, for development of excellence and for making a significant contribution to human welfare.

A Book of Magic—A Sourcebook

NLP and its techniques for “running your own brain” (which summarizes what we do with the patterns), essentially provide us with a Sourcebook of Magic. This reflects the theme from the first books that initiated the field of NLP, The Structure of Magic (Volume I, 1975; and Volume II, 1976). It reflects the works of DeMystifying Magic, Magic in Action, and Communication Magic (2001a, formerly The Secrets of Magic, 1998).

Now, as it happened, the founders of this domain—a linguist (Dr. John Grinder) and a student studying computer programming who became an unofficial Gestalt therapist (Richard Bandler)—specified that we could find the structure of magic in the representational systems (the sensory systems and the metasystem of language). These language systems of mind-body include not only words and sentences, but other “languages” as well, languages that operate at various “logical levels.”

At the primary level we have sensory-based sights, sounds, sensations, smells, and tastes (i.e. the VAK, see Chapter Two for a detailed description). This describes the Movies that we play in our mind. Within these movies we have the “language” of the sensory modalities. Within this level, we have the qualities (properties, distinctions, features) of the modalities. This is not a “sub” level of distinctions. These finer distinctions operate at a higher or meta-level of framing. So these falsely labeled “sub-modalities” are actually the cinematic features of our movies (Hall and Bodenhamer, 1999). These distinctions do not actually exist at a lower level. These qualities and characteristics of the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic modes (the VAK) make up the features that stand out as salient inside (or within) each of these awareness modes.

When we move up from the nonlinguistic level of sight, sound, and sensation (the sensory modes), we come to the first level of propositional language—sensory-based words. Here we have the empirical language of science, testable by the senses. Next we move up to another level, to another kind of “language”—evaluative language. This level enables us to interpret and evaluate from the previous language and create higher level abstractions. This process of abstracting then continues to move up to higher levels where we eventually get to the meta-levels of metaphor and story.

What is the significance of these levels of consciousness actual experience? The significance is that this describes the embedded system of thought-and-emotion that makes up our matrix of frames. And when we change these codes, our internal sense of reality changes. This is what we mean when we say that in such transformations magic occurs.

Learning the Incantations of Magic

In detailing here the NLP Model with its basic patterns, we offer two kinds of understandings. The first has to do with a theoretical kind of understanding, the second with a practical kind of knowledge. Together, this knowledge empowers us to “run our own brain.”

In the first part of this part of the book, you will learn how your brain operates and how to run it. Doing this empowers you to take charge of your life, build enhancing maps, move into social and relational contexts with more grace and joy, and achieve the outcomes you want in order to increase your overall effectiveness.

This kind of knowledge also distinguishes how we experience problems and solutions. Knowing that we have a problem, and even knowing why we have that problem in terms of its causes and origins differs radically from knowing what to do about the problem.

The first knowledge gives us theory, explanation, and causation. We can specialize in this kind of formal and technical knowledge. We can become an expert in explanations with this kind of information. Then we know about things. The second knowledge endows us with wisdom, practicality, and transformation. Then we know how to do things. This information makes us experts in practical how to knowledge.

The Sourcebook of Magic provides only a little bit of the first knowledge and a whole lot of the second knowledge. In the first chapters you will find an overview from the cognitive psychology field of the domain—Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). In the chapters that follow, you will discover multiple patterns of transformation that give you know how for taking effective action with regard to various problems and challenges that can sabotage effectiveness.

Emptor Captor: Warning—Magic in Action

Sourcebook is a concise NLP reference manual or a magician’s Book of Spells. Here you will find 77 specific patterns. I have designed the book so that it will facilitate your practice and use of Neuro-Linguistics as you work with yourself or others. This does not mean that merely reading this book will make you a practitioner in this field. It will not. You will have the tools and some general guidelines, but a practitioner is someone who practices and who has been trained to a level of competency of skills so that he or she has the understanding and skills to practice.

If you want to become skilfully competent with these patterns, then avail yourself of the required training in handling the NLP and Neuro-Semantic models. Such training will equip and enable you to practice the patterns in a safe and wise way, with the professional ethics and grace that allows you to be truly elegant and effective. Supervised learning and practice with qualified trainers will include specific coaching to bring out your best skills and intuitions. Quality training will empower you to be knowledgeable, competent, and congruent.

When contacting for any training in NLP or Neuro-Semantics, make sure that the training is competency-based. Because these models are experiential in nature, they are best learned through experience with a competent practitioner, not via a correspondence course. You have to experience them in person, first for yourself, and then as you work with others. Look for those programs that provide quality feedback so that you can become an effective practitioner.

After that, if you want to become a master in a field, you have to practice the skills and patterns over sufficient time to make them intuitive and fitting with your personality and style. So while the magic we do may sometimes seem to occur in a moment of time, mastery takes time and lots of practice.

A Touch of General Semantics

The terms neuro-linguistic and neuro-semantic goes back a long time, back to the 1930s and 1940s. It goes back to the tutelage of Alfred Korzybski who founded the field of General Semantics. He toured the USA doing “neuro-linguistic trainings” in those years. His landmark work, Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics (1933/1994) established the distinction between map and territory. His was a constructivist epistemology and it set the basic framework for NLP. It influenced Richard Bandler and John Grinder in the first NLP book, TheStructure of Magic. Korzybski also influenced anthropologist Gregory Bateson (Steps to an Ecology of Mind, 1972) who contributed to the presuppositions and theoretical frameworks of NLP.

In this work, I have used my background as a General Semanticist to utilize some of the linguistic formulations that Richard and John did not bring over into the Meta-Model. Korzybski argued that these extensional devices provide the human race with tools for both science and sanity. As you read this work, you will note these formulations in the writing itself. If you are unfamiliar with General Semantics, this may create some strange forms. For a fuller work on the linguistic contributions of Korzybski to NLP—see Communication Magic (2001a, formerly, The Secrets of Magic, 1998) that extends the Meta-Model using some of the Korzybskian “magic.” In this book, I have used some of the following:

Quotes

This extensional device marks terms and phrases that to varying degrees represent some questionable mapping. Quotes indicate that the reader should handle with special care some word, term, or phrase. For example, words like “time” and “mind.” Typically, we take these terms for granted. We assume that we know their meanings and we assume that they refer to different things. They do not. Several kinds of distortion have brought them about which make them problematic. These represent not only nominalizations, but also terms that one can use in multiordinal ways.

Hyphens

The hyphen device enables us to deal with dichotomized and fragmented maps. As used in the phrase, neuro-linguistic programming, hyphens reunite the world torn apart into elements and when thereby creates an elementalism that does not exist. We use hyphens to heal the elementalism and dualism that so thoroughly affects Western thought. “Mind” and “body” references nothing tangibly real. These terms create a linguistic fiction. So does the words “time” and “space.” Yet mind-body and the time-space continuum do reference real phenomena and these hyphenated terms map things more true to fact.

Et cetera or etc.

Etc. can be a trite and over-used term due to bad habit. It can also, when used intentionally, convey a non-Aristotelian attitude. Why is this? Because in the infinite world, no map can say it all. To remind us of this non-allness in our maps, we use the term “etc.”. Etc. alerts us to avoid thinking that we have “said it all,” or that what we have thought or understood brings an end to the subject. As you read, let “etc.” cue you to think about the many other things that we could add. If in deletion we leave characteristics out, in “etc.” we remind ourselves of this mapping phenomenon.

E-Prime/E-Choice

E-Prime refers to English without (or primed of) the verb “to be” (the “is” verbs). When we prime English of this false-to-fact passive verb (is, am, be, being, been, was, were, etc.) we eliminate two entirely erroneous problems: the “is of identity” (“he is an idiot”) and the “is of predication” (“that chair is red”). These “ises” map out false-to-fact representations and misrepresent the structural relationship with the territory. That creates problems for sanity—for adjusting to the territory. (See Appendix.)

Process Language

Since reality at the quantum level (as we now know it via modern physics) is “a dance of electrons” and sub-atomic parts, “thing” language creates all kinds of problems in representation. We need a language that describes a dynamic world, a world in process. We need more of a process language consisting of verbs, actions, functions, and processes. This corresponds to the emphasis on de-nominalizing nounified terms in NLP (see Chapter Seven).

Ellipsis

When you find a series of dots (…) within a quotation, we have simply deleted part of the quote. When you find such in a set ofinstructions, we use that to signify, “Stop, go inside your mind … and experience these words and instructions fully.”

If you get lost—check the glossary and index in the back.

Pattern Sources

Where did these patterns come from? Who created them? When? For whom? In what context? What other individuals played a key role in evolving them to the form that we now have?

NLP primarily arose from Richard Bandler’s discovery of Fritz Perls’ work. In fact, Richard edited the book, The Gestalt Approach (1973), while still in his undergraduate work at the University of California at Santa Cruz. As a senior he received permission to teach a seminar class on Gestalt Therapy. Dr. Robert S. Spitzer hired Richard to do the editing. He then introduced him to Virginia Satir and later hired John Grinder and Richard Bandler to edit some tapes of Virginia’s, which became Changing WithFamilies.

In this, most of the original patterns, representational systems, reframing, parts parties, meta-modeling, integration of parts, etc. came from Perls and Satir. We can hardly say that any of these patterns belong to anyone, or that anyone exclusively developed them. Each actually reflects the growing evolving knowledge of the field—the “time-binding” process that Korzybski described. Of course, knowledge and use of these patterns will stimulate a person’s creativity to find new and productive uses. If you, or someone you know, did play a key role in the development of a given pattern, I would appreciate receiving that information and update The Sourcebook of Magic in its next edition.

L. Michael Hall, PhDColorado, USAAugust 2003

Part I

The NLP Model

The Source for Magical Transformations in Modeling Excellence and Running Your Own Brain

Chapter One

Introducing NLP Magic

Magic Has Structure

“While the techniques of these wizards are different, they share one thing: they introduce changes in their clients’ models which allow their clients more options in their behavior. What we see is that each of these wizards has a map or model for changing their clients’ model of the world, i.e., a meta-model which allows them to effectively expand and enrich their clients’ model in some way that makes the clients’ lives richer and more worth living.”

—Bandler and Grinder, The Structure of Magic, p.18

When we don’t know how something works, how it operates, or the principles that drive it—we live “outside the secret” of what seems like magic. Do you recall any moment wherein you suddenly experienced the shock of finding “magic” in your world?

How does flipping this switch turn on the lights?

You’ve got to be kidding! You mean by typing on this keyboard and pushing these sequences I can send emails around the globe?

You mean you put this food in the microwave and push these buttons and it will cook the food in seconds?

As an outsider to the secret of the magic, things often seem preposterous, incredible, unbelievable, nonsensical, etc.

How can the world be a globe that turns around the sun? That’s crazy! So how come we don’t just all fall off?

What wild flights of imagination! To think that we can build flying machines. Next thing you’ll know—he’ll think we can fly to the moon!

As an outsider to the secrets—such wild and wonderful ideas and experiences can only seem like “magic.” And yet knowing what we know today about gravity, aerodynamics, the electromagnetic spectrum, artificial intelligence, information processing via parallel processing units, etc., we no longer think of such as “magic.” The “magic” has been transformed into “knowledge” and “science.”

Similarly, suppose we learn some of the “secrets” of the magic that occurs in the human brain-and-neurology system? Suppose we know the factors, components, and principles that govern human neurological information processing so that we gain insight into how the bio-computer of our brain and nervous system works? Suppose that we become initiates to how the human internal world that we refer to as “mind,” “emotions,” “personality,” “genius,” etc. works? Further, suppose that we discover its structure of “magic” and, as with processes in other sciences, we could identify, specify, and effectively work with those “patterns” of magic? Now just suppose that!

When you fully imagine this dream of pushing the limits of scientific discovery into the internal, subjective and phenomenological world of human beings, you have stepped into the world that we call NLP—Neuro-Linguistic Programming.

The “Magical” World of Human Subjectivity

Actually, the breakthroughs in this domain of human neuro-linguistics have surpassed the limits of what many people can even imagine as possible. Similar to the way scientific discoveries in physics, electronics, quantum mechanics, etc. far exceed even our science-fiction imaginations—so NLP has also surpassed what many in the field of human functioning, psychology, and communication even think possible in their wildest dreams.

What incredible discoveries, you ask?

Altering a phobic response that has lasted for decades in as short as ten minutes.Modeling the internal processes (strategies) of “genius” and teaching others to replicate it consciously.Discovering the components of “consciousness” that makes up the “building blocks” of “mind,” “emotion,” “personality,” etc. in order to engage in some human “design engineering.”Finding and reprogramming the structure of “meaning” in human neurology and processing to eliminate negative and dysfunctional meanings and replacing them with enhancing meaning.Using hypnotic states to program one’s autonomic nervous system processes for health and effectiveness.Changing limiting and sabotaging beliefs.Intentionally and consciously evolving human consciousness and skills.Completely transform toxic states of self-contempt, loneliness, boredom, despair, seriousness, etc.

Wild dreams? Not any longer. NLP has actually developed modelsthat make such human technologies possible. In the twenty-eight years since the first neuro-linguistic programming book appeared (TheStructure of Magic, 1975), incredible discoveries have come to light that encourage us to think of the human neurological system of mind-and-body as a “computing” or information processing system that we can program. Having specified a paradigm about howhuman subjectivity works, NLP has made available a set of distinctions that initiates us into the very secrets of what otherwise seem as pure “magic.” And with these secrets about the structure of magic, we can now direct the processes involved.

In 1977, Richard Bandler and John Grinder revealed what they designated as “The NLP Ten Minute Phobia Cure.” They revealed it by doing such. They would work with a person with a phobia and make it such that they didn’t have it anymore. The person would walk in and couldn’t even talk about the phobic item (whether an elevator, a snake, public speaking, conflict, etc.) without feeling the panic, distress, and fear. Then after a few minutes of running them through a specific pattern, they would feel surprised to find that they couldn’t get the panic back. Magic.

What made this “magic” seem even more spectacular; they only talked to the person. Word magic! Or, at least, so it seemed. Yet in spite of the seeming “magical” nature of this process, the two co-founders of this new domain knew and simply worked with the very structure of the magic.

If in 1977 they had performed such wonders and with no explanatory model, they would have had a single piece of “magic” and no understanding of how it worked, how to teach it, how to replicate it, or how to discover more of the same. But they did have anexplanatory model. They also spent several years developing supporting tools, patterns, and processes for their work. They further had legitimatizing ideas that they had gathered from such domains as behaviorism, neurology, linguistics, cognitive psychology, general semantics, etc.

This explains why they did not dismiss their “magic” as mere flukes. John and Richard had discovered the structure of the magic. So the transformational technology that began to emerge from cutting-edge models of information processing, cognitive psychology, and linguistics in the early 1970s lead them to more discoveries. And since that time, the technology of magic has continued to develop.

The Story

Neuro-Linguistic Programming came together when two men, both outside the field of psychology (therefore, without its inherent biases), initiated a tremendous paradigm shift using their model of human functioning. Thomas Kuhn (1962) describes outsiders to a paradigm as those who typically bring about revolutions in science.

One man (Dr. John Grinder) came from the field of linguistics and specifically transformational grammar. The other man (Richard Bandler) could claim no expertise except he had a natural and wonderful genius of mimicking, detecting patterns, and an outrageous sense of “going for it.” As a young college student he had an innate genius in replicating (or modeling) patterns. In school at Santa Cruz in southern California, Richard studied mathematics and computer programming.

Together they stumbled upon some pieces of genius and excellence inhuman functioning. It just so happened that Richard met Virginia Satir and then Fritz Perls through working at Science and Behavior Books. The publisher, Dr. Richard Spitzer, first asked Richard to listen to audio and videotapes of Satir and transcribe them. Later he sent Richard to one of her trainings to run the sound equipment to record the family system processes.

As Richard ran the sound system for Virginia, Richard says he would play rock music in the sound booth and listen to Virginia through his earphones. And as he did so, he picked up on seven of Satir’s patterns that she used in her work that seemed too magical.

Later he said, “You simply use seven patterns and continually recycle through those seven.” She inquired as to what this young twenty-one-year-old kid thought were her seven patterns. He enumerated them—to her surprise. Richard later told me that she said she knew four of the patterns, but had never articulated the other three, but that he had correctly identified them.

The next genius that Richard met was Fritz Perls. He became acquainted with him via audio-and videotapes. Dr. Spitzer (1982) later noted that Richard would sometimes mimic Fritz so well that he caught himself calling Richard “Fritz.” When Fritz died, Dr. Spitzer, who had an unfinished manuscript of his, asked Richard to work on editing it. Richard selected various teaching films of Fritz and transcribed them, which then became the book The Gestalt Approach and Eye Witness to Therapy (1973).

From these experiences, Richard got permission as a senior in college to begin conducting a Gestalt Awareness Class at the college. Terrence McClendon (1989) described this in The Wild Days: NLP1972–1981. In those class sessions, Richard “became” a Fritz Perls from having only learned Gestalt Therapy by modeling Perl’s patterns as gleaned from tapes and books. Dr. Grinder entered the scene at this point, having become Richard’s supervisor for the course. McClendon writes:

“John with his brilliant modeling skills from linguistics in conjunction with Richard who had the experience in behavioural modeling skills and his knowledge in the new contemporary systems of psychotherapy, formed a relation which later on proved to be exceptional and beneficial to both.” (Page 10.)

Richard wanted to understand more about his own skill in replicating patterns. And inasmuch as the patterns that he replicated with Satir and Fritz primarily involved language, John provided the linguistic analysis. Reportedly, John promised to enter the adventure if Richard would teach him how he did it.

Richard, having worked as a computer programmer in modeling human tasks, breaking them down, and compiling programming formats, and John, a linguistic who modeled the structuring of language, then became engaged in a new form of modeling—modeling human excellence. Consequently, Richard and John set out to pull apart the component pieces that enable the human brain (actually the entire mind-body nervous system) to become patterned. This led them to asking all kinds of questions:

What comprises the components of a sequence?

What initiates it?

How does the sequence work?

What else happens?

What distinctions does the brain make?

How does it sort and code these awarenesses?

How does language facilitate this process?

Bandler and Grinder began this exploration viewing the human brain as a “computing” information processing unit that can become “programmed” with “programs” for thinking, emoting, behaving etc. As structure drives and informs language, mathematics, music etc., so structure also determines and runs human processes. As we can program a computer to do human tasks (i.e. as working with numbers, adding, multiplying, word processing, etc.), so similar processes must occur in us at neurological levels.

After all, some people have the ability to perform high level math. Others have a “program” to use language eloquently and “magically” to bring about significant personality changes (e.g. Perls, Satir).

How do these “programs” work?What comprises their component parts?What creates the programming?How does one change such programming?How can one train one’s conscious and unconscious mind to develop the necessary intuitions to run such programs?

The paradigm shift that Bandler and Grinder initiated grew out of their collaboration. Eventually, the results of this became the field of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). Immediately upon studying Perls and Satir, they published two volumes of TheStructure of Magic—books about therapy and language. Virginia Satir and anthropologist Gregory Bateson wrote the introductions. These revolutionary books established the foundation of the technologies that formed the field of NLP—the field of modeling human excellence.

As they brought those books to press, Bateson introduced them to another magician, hypnotist Milton Erickson, MD. Bandler and Grinder immediately modeled Erickson’s marvelous language and nonlanguage patterns that informed his skills in hypnosis. The next year (1976), they produced two volumes of the hypnotic techniques of Erickson (Patterns, Vol. I and II), which led to finer distinctions in the NLP model.

There you have it. Using the formulations of linguistics, general semantics, and cognitive psychology (especially George Miller, Karl Pribram, Eugene Galanter, etc.), Bandler and Grinder modeled the models that they found in such diverse fields as Gestalt, Family Systems, and Ericksonian hypnosis. They didn’t create a new field of psychology. Instead, they created a meta-field. Through modeling, they sought to discover and understand the patterns and structures that work.

Each of these highly skilled wizards of communication facilitates wonderful life-changes when they talk with clients. What did they have in common? They adopted an entirely new focus—one never before used in psychology. Namely, outside of the “theories” that explains why it works, what processes describe how it works?

This summarizes the heart and passion of NLP: modeling, searching forprocesses and the how, and disdaining the why, and focusing on experiences of excellence rather than on cases of pathology.

Psychology for a hundred years had operated from a completely different orientation. Based on the medical model and physical “hard” science model, it looked at pathology (at distortions, perversions, pain, distress, etc.), seeking to understand the source—“Where did this come from?”, “Why is this so?”—and wanting empirical, external proof.

The paradigm shift completely uprooted the old formulations in psychology. The why question had focused clinicians entirely on knowing the source of a difficulty, in one fell swoop became irrelevant. Suddenly, a new focus emerged: How does it work? Empiricism, modernism, and positivism gave way to postmodernism, phenomenology, and constructionism. The basic question changed. It changed from, “What is the real nature of this problem?” to “How has this person constructed his or her felt and experienced reality?”

The Patterns of NLP

Since those early days, the field of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) has generated trainings, workshops, conferences, journals, and publications, thereby giving birth to change patterns. These gave people a way to “run their own brains” in new, creative, and productive ways. Some of these patterns radically transform a person from feeling caught up in immense pain and distress to freeing one to live a more sane and empowering life. Some patterns delineate the secrets of genius so that “ordinary” people can learn to do new and marvelous things. Some patterns simply identify the component pieces and sequences of basic living strategies—how to speak up assertively, how to eat sensibly, how to negotiate in business contexts, how to parent with loving firmness, how to read more intelligently, how to spell, etc.

From the mundane to the sublime then, NLP patterns give step-by-step instructions for how to run our own brains. They provide us knowledge about how to “program” our organic and neural bio-computers to create highly efficient experiences.

This means that while NLP has lots of psychotherapeutic applications, NLP does not merely describe another psychology. Indeed it began there. Having modeled two psychotherapists and two schools of psychology—it started in the field of therapy. Yet the cofounders, and those who followed, did not keep it there. NLP describes a much larger field, namely, the field of human subjectivity, and, even more pointedly, the field of human excellence.

Part of the radical paradigm shift that NLP brought to psychology has to do with its focus. Prior to the cognitive-psychology revolution in the 1960s, psychology had primarily focused on understanding the “why” question.

Why are people the way they are?What causes people to get so messed up?Where does human psychopathology come from?

In response, different psychologies invented different reasons and explanations: Freud used various Greek mythologies to explain the sexual drives that he held responsible for most problems; Adler explained the why in terms of inferiority; Jung explained the why in terms of the collective unconscious; and so it went. Almost everywhere, therapists focused on the source, assuming that people had to understand the why to get better.

Bandler and Grinder challenged that assumption, calling it “psycho-archeology” and “psycho-theology.” Coming from the Cognitive-Behavioral models of Korzybski (1933/1994), Chomsky (1957), Miller (1956, 1960), the semi-cognitive, existential, and humanistic model of Perls, the systems model of Satir, the cybernetic model of Bateson (1972), etc., they introduced a new focus. As inheritors of the information processing models of the cognitive revolution and computer science era, they focussed on the how questions:

How does this or that brain work?How do “minds” get programmed in the first place?What are the components of information processing in the mind?What representational components comprise “the difference that make a difference?”How does the programming work?How can we interrupt, alter, and/or transform the programming?

The Structure of “Subjectivity”

NLP, as a modeling field of human subjectivity and excellence focuses primarily on how things work:

How does language work?How does the human “mind” function?How many styles of “thinking,” processing, representing, sorting, etc. can we find?What difference do different processing styles make?What sequence of thoughts, representations, etc. create a human program?How can we run or program a brain to run more efficiently?

With this emphasis on structure the early developers of NLP began inventing and constructing all sorts of “patterns” for changing behaviors. These structured processes operate in human experience (consciousness, representation, feeling, etc.) as human technologies for change and excellence.

In that sense, these transformational patterns offer to the social sciences (communication, relationship, thought-emotion, states of consciousness, etc.) technological advances comparable to those we have seen for several hundred years in the hard sciences.

Transformational Patterns: Magical Incantations for Growth and Excellence

I offer this brief synopsis of NLP in order to hook your interest and capture your fascination in this model and its patterns (which we refer to as “techniques” or “technologies”). Since so many patterns have emerged, and so many more will emerge, we have focused on the original patterns that empower people to run their own brains as they construct subjectivity “realities” that will enhance their actual functioning. We have here written out and condensed those patterns to give you the know-how knowledge, hence the step-by-step format.

No single volume to date has collected all of these NLP patterns in this kind of format. Previously, one would have had to purchase dozens upon dozens of books to locate all of these patterns. Typically, a person can find from three or four patterns in a given book to up to ten to fifteen patterns. Books have even been written that only have one pattern in them. I have usually referenced works that offer more in-depth presentation of a given pattern in order to fill that void. I have also sought to provide, for those new to NLP, a picture of the extensiveness of this empowering and paradigm-shifting model.

You will find in the next chapter a very brief overview of the essential NLP Model. This is presented so that even a neophyte to this field can immediately begin using these know-how patterns. For the NLP veteran, this collecting and organizing of patterns will assist him or her in having an easy access to the patterns. My hope also is that this will stimulate additional creativity as practitioners use patterns, or component pieces of patterns, to create new arrangements.

From the beginning, the NLP founders recognized that this model functions not only remedially, but also generatively. Using both the model and its technologies, NLP offers processes for creating new and unthought of patterns of excellence. This enables us to develop and evolve more and more as we actualize more of the human potentials available. May that be forever true of your adventure into this domain!

Summary

As a model for “running your own brain,” Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) offers not only a theoretical model, but also actual patterns for doing so. These human technologies for change, transformation, and renewal enable us to examine the maps that we have built as we have moved through life and to update those that don’t serve us well.In the pages to come, you will discover this positive, solution-oriented model and the cutting-edge technologies of the mind-body for becoming increasingly resourceful in the way you “do” life.

Chapter Two

NLP as a Model

Its Design, Language, and Components

What are the components of our human neuro-linguistics?Why is this important?What do you need to know to work with your own neuro-linguistics?What knowledge and skills do we need to work with the neuro-linguistics of another?

In any full-fledged model there are at least four parts. There are component pieces, the elements that we work with. Then there are the principles or theoretic frameworks that enable us to understand what we are doing. From there we have guidelines for how to work with the elements to make changes. And when we do so, that gives us processes or patterns.

Component pieces or elements of the modelTheoretical principles and theory of the modelGuidelines for how to use the model in actual practicePatterns and processes that translate the model into life

In NLP, the components and elements are the representational systems, meta-program distinctions, meta-model distinctions, cinematic features (“sub-modalities”), etc. The NLP Presuppositions slip in the theory and theoretical framework of the model as well as a few of the guidelines. Finally, the patterns offer specific processes for using the model to make changes.

As a model, NLP focuses on modeling human excellence. It does this in order to create cutting-edge human technology or patterns. To what end? So we can improve our quality of life by running our own brain. In NLP we model human excellence by finding, identifying, eliciting, and designing various patterns or “programs” that work within the mind-body (neuro-linguistic) nature of our experience.

The Elemental Components of the Model

In NLP we work with the three components of neurology, linguistics, and programs. These make up the heart of our neuro-linguistic states.

Neuro or Neurology

“Neuro” or “neurology” refers to the voluntary and autonomic nervous systems through which we process experiences via our five senses (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory and gustatory) and our “made-up” sense—language—which we call “auditory digital.” This highlights the importance of human neurology and physiology as part of the human information system.

Linguistic

“Linguistic” refers to language and nonverbal symbol systems by which we code, organize, and attribute meaning to neural representations (re-presentations). Linguistic does not refer only to words and propositional language, but to all symbol systems: the sensory systems of visual, auditory, kinesthetic, etc. and the nonpropositional symbol systems of mathematics, music, art, etc.

Programming

“Programming” refers to the process of getting ourselves into regular and systematic patterns of responses, responses that habituate into dependable habits. Unfortunately, when people don’t relate this term to the computer metaphor out of which it arose, they contaminate it with ideas of “manipulation” and “control.” Yet, in context, “programming” operates as just another word for patterns and positively refers to the organized “plans” and processes that can become installed in human functioning. In some parts of the world, the “P” of NLP has been changed to stand for “Processing” or “Psychotherapy.”

“Mind” Components

One of the early NLP books carries a title that highlights the focus of this model. Using Your Brain—For a Change (Bandler, 1985b) describes the centrality of thought and locates NLP as a cognitive-behavioral model. Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT, formally, RET) similarly focuses on “thoughts” as primary in driving human experience. In REBT, however, “thoughts” show up primarily as words, self-talk statements, and beliefs, and more recently as internal imagery.

While NLP accepts analysis of the cognitive nature of human mental processing, it does not stop there. It enhances the cognitive model significantly by extending its analysis of “thought” to include the five sensory modalities (modes) of awareness. These include:

Visual (pictures, sights, images)Auditory (sounds: noise, music, etc.)Kinesthetics (sensations, feelings)Olfactory (smells)Gustatory (tastes)

Figure 2.1: The Representational Systems of Modalities and “Sub-modalities”

In NLP literature, you will see these sensory modalities summarized as the VAK (i.e., the visual, auditory, kinesthetic representation systems). These sensory representations comprise the basic components of “thought” by which we represent (literally, represent) sensory information to ourselves. These representations make up the language of our bio-computer and so, by using these representational systems, we not only re-present information to ourselves but also program ourselves. We experience them as themovie that plays in our mind, usually just little snippets of snapshots and scenes but sometimes as longer movies—movies with a sound track that we can step into and experience from within.

Since we experience our “awareness” via these sensory components, treating the representations that make up the movie playing in our mind as our programming language gives us a way to understand, model, and transform experience. Bateson noted this in his introduction to Structure of Magic with both surprise and regret. He said that the genius of Bandler and Grinder used something as simple as our senses as the core components of human representation.

Bandler and Grinder constructed the NLP model of “mind,” “personality,” and experience using our representational movie (the VAK as an inner movie) as a notational system. In doing this they provided a simple, yet profound, way for describing with precision our subjective internal experience. Prior to this, introspection had always failed to produce any accurate, useful, or legitimate approach. Even though modern psychology—beginning in the 1880s with Wundt’s introspective method—sought to identify the “table of elements” in thought with a precise language, such introspection proved unwieldy and ultimately untrustworthy.

With the introduction of the sensory systems as comprising the elemental components of “thought,” NLP provided a precise language for describing and manipulating the introspective world inside consciousness. This new precise language of the mind also provides a way to describe the processes (or strategies as “sequences of representations”) that we use in our minds-and-bodies to create our programs that make up our unique models of the world.