Changes

== Is NLP a cult? ==

== Is NLP a cult? ==

Dejakitty, I agree "the purpose of Wikipedia is to inform, not indoctrinate". Consistent with that objective, any expert opinion which characterises NLP as a psycho-cult, cult-like, business cult should be included in the article. To do otherwise would be to allow the article to serve as a PR piece for the NLP industry/cult. This would amount to advocacy and promotion. Advocacy and promotion disguised as education is inimical to the the credibility of Wikipedia. HeadleyDown isn't making an "accustaion", he is reporting expert opinion. You are again correct, "[a]ccusation of cultism is a serious charge and should not be taken lightly", that is why the expert opinion of cult authorties such as Singer should be reported. Like HeadleyDown I too do not comprehend your equation of cults with conspiracy or global organisation. Cults may be conspiratorial and globally organised but they need not be. None of the models of cults that I am familiar with require conspiracy or global organsiation for identification. Lifton (1981) identifies cults using three criteria:  

Dejakitty, I agree "the purpose of Wikipedia is to inform, not indoctrinate". Consistent with that objective, any expert opinion which characterises NLP as a psycho-cult, cult-like, business cult should be included in the article. To do otherwise would be to allow the article to serve as a PR piece for the NLP industry/cult. This would amount to advocacy and promotion. Advocacy and promotion disguised as education is inimical to the the credibility of Wikipedia. HeadleyDown isn't making an "accustaion", he is reporting expert opinion. You are again correct, "[a]ccusation of cultism is a serious charge and should not be taken lightly", that is why the expert opinion of cult authorties such as Singer should be reported. Like HeadleyDown I too do not comprehend your equation of cults with conspiracy or global organisation. Cults may be conspiratorial and globally organised but they need not be. None of the models of cults that I am familiar with require conspiracy or global organsiation for identification. Lifton (1981) identifies cults using three criteria:  

::Charismatic leadership  

 

::Thought reform  

:Charismatic leadership  

::Exploitation (sexual, economic, other) of group members by the leader and the ruling coterie  

:Thought reform  

:Lifton is an authority on cults, unfortunately he hasn't taken an interest in NLP. By Lifton's criteria, NLP is a cult -- not one large global cult -- but a multitude of small cults each with their own leadership and peculiarities. The OR prohibition prevents us from including Lifton's criteria. However, other authorities have taken an interest in NLP and have concluded that it is a cult. Any person with their critical faculties switched-on that attends a Bandler NLP or DHE seminar will arrive at the same conclusion. Consider a typical Bandler seminar: you pay US$3000-5000 to attend, Bandler enters stage with triumphalist music playing, he assumes his center stage seat where he delivers what is essentially a sermon (the shaman/high-priest talks, the disciples listen -- no questions asked), the flock learns a bunch of techniques that don't work, Bandler fictionalises his biography (claiming to have a doctorate, claiming to be a physicist, computer scientist, holographer, information scientists, claims he was in a band, claims he worked for the CIA... ostensibly for the purpose of ''state elicitation'') and denigrates any ideas and individuals that compete in the commercial and intellectual markets with him (I've yet to hear a Bandler seminar where he doesn't denigrate psychology and psychiatry and indoctrinate his students against these professions). Cogntive dissonance and social pressure prevent any expression of dissatisfaction. I have a report from a person that attended a DHE seminar that a short-sighted person attended. Bandler claimed that using DHE and making the student "hallucinate" a pair of spectacles the student would be cured of his mypoia. After Bandler performed his shamanistic ritual on the student the student exclaimed his cure. Contrary to expectations the student spent the rest of the seminar squinting and bumping into furniture. The myopic student didn't put his spectacles back on. My reporter tells me that the myopic student probably feared the censure he would be subjected to as a "non-believer". At the end of the seminar when he left the hall he promptly put his spectacles back on. This anecdote illustrates several psychological forces and ploys that you'll find in many cult gatherings. I provie this only for ''your'' education. My conclusions and those of HeadleyDown are irrelevant -- it is the conclusions of experts that matter and that is what's being reported. [[User:Flavius vanillus|flavius]] 02:37, 2 January 2006 (UTC) [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Neuro-linguistic_programming&diff=prev&oldid=33547020]

:Exploitation (sexual, economic, other) of group members by the leader and the ruling coterie  

 

Lifton is an authority on cults, unfortunately he hasn't taken an interest in NLP. By Lifton's criteria, NLP is a cult -- not one large global cult -- but a multitude of small cults each with their own leadership and peculiarities. The OR prohibition prevents us from including Lifton's criteria. However, other authorities have taken an interest in NLP and have concluded that it is a cult. Any person with their critical faculties switched-on that attends a Bandler NLP or DHE seminar will arrive at the same conclusion. Consider a typical Bandler seminar: you pay US$3000-5000 to attend, Bandler enters stage with triumphalist music playing, he assumes his center stage seat where he delivers what is essentially a sermon (the shaman/high-priest talks, the disciples listen -- no questions asked), the flock learns a bunch of techniques that don't work, Bandler fictionalises his biography (claiming to have a doctorate, claiming to be a physicist, computer scientist, holographer, information scientists, claims he was in a band, claims he worked for the CIA... ostensibly for the purpose of ''state elicitation'') and denigrates any ideas and individuals that compete in the commercial and intellectual markets with him (I've yet to hear a Bandler seminar where he doesn't denigrate psychology and psychiatry and indoctrinate his students against these professions). Cogntive dissonance and social pressure prevent any expression of dissatisfaction. I have a report from a person that attended a DHE seminar that a short-sighted person attended. Bandler claimed that using DHE and making the student "hallucinate" a pair of spectacles the student would be cured of his mypoia. After Bandler performed his shamanistic ritual on the student the student exclaimed his cure. Contrary to expectations the student spent the rest of the seminar squinting and bumping into furniture. The myopic student didn't put his spectacles back on. My reporter tells me that the myopic student probably feared the censure he would be subjected to as a "non-believer". At the end of the seminar when he left the hall he promptly put his spectacles back on. This anecdote illustrates several psychological forces and ploys that you'll find in many cult gatherings. I provie this only for ''your'' education. My conclusions and those of HeadleyDown are irrelevant -- it is the conclusions of experts that matter and that is what's being reported. [[User:Flavius vanillus|flavius]] 02:37, 2 January 2006 (UTC) [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Neuro-linguistic_programming&diff=prev&oldid=33547020]

Dejakitty, it is your conception of ''cult'' that is flawed. Your notion of a ''cult'' is a caricature with little relationship to the research of social psychologists and psychitarists on the topic. Part of your dissatisfaction with the edits stems from your self-referential cogitations: "''I usually think'' of highly secretively non-mainstream religion organization, with a tendency to mind control and brainwash people". You are not a recognised authority on cults (such as Lifton and Singer) so what ''you think'' a cult is, is irrelevant and forms no basis for accusations of bias and polemic against editors. Pre-empting all of the banal criticisms (such as yours regarding the definition of a cult) can be easily accomplished (because these criticisms don't stand up to critical scrutiny) but would come at the cost of brevity. Your admonition about considering the "potential biasis" of authors is specious and stinks of bad faith. There are numerous probelems with your admonition: (i) a declaration of an authors potential bias is OR; (ii) stating that an author may have a potential bias is at best conjecture; (iii) it reveals a double-standard on your part in that you demonstrate no concern for flagging "potential biasis" from NLP promoters; (iv) the notion of a ''potential X'' is informationally bankrupt, why not say the author is a ''potential liar'', ''potential genius'', ''potential saint'', ''potential murderer'', ''potential rapist'' (as per Andrea Dworkin Lesbian-Separatist propaganda), ''potential homosexual'', there are no boundaries regarding ascribing potential qualities to people without any evidence, knock yourself out. Why aren't NLP promoters ''potential cult leaders''? Everyone has influences on their beliefs that come from family, friends, religion, personal experience, temperament, age, gender and so on. An influence is not a bias. It is entirely possible to be ''influenced'' without being ''biased''. If you have a bias in favour of NLP then it suggests that your accpetance of NLP is not based on evidence, reason and education but on emotion, faith and/or pecuniary interest. Anything that you conribute from a position of bias would be unable to withstand any critical scrutiny and it wouldn't originate from the conclusions of topic experts (neurologists, psychiatrists, linguists, psychologists and philosophers). Reporting the consensus of expert opinion on the topic of NLP may proceed from a position of ''personal influence'' (eg. in my case I spent many thousands of dollars on NLP training and media and much time that proved worthless) without being biased. Bias would be demonstrated by failing to report methodologically sound research that demonstrates the efficacy of NLP or the integrity of its underlying theory. There is no such research. I have sought it on PubMed and PsycInfo and I have checked Bolstadt's list of NLP research. The experts quoted in the article have been entirely fair. Again my OR is irrelevant, I offer it only for ''your'' education. Experts such as Sharpley have performed exhaustive literature reviews and have even answered criticisms (which have subsequently gone unanswered). ''Prima facie'' the experts exhbit no bias (sure they have ''influences'' as we all do) -- the process of peer review would have flushed this out (refer to the dialogue between Sharpley (1984 and 1987) and Einspruch and Forman (1985)). Your concern with bias is misplaced. NLP is fundamentally a commercial enterprise. NLP Practitoner training is more expensive than even the most expensive private university in my part of the world (in terms of (tuition fee)/(service hours), service hours includes lectures, tutorials, one-on-one consultation, assignment grading, examination). NLP promoters trademark and copyright their every fart and burp and sell them as seminars, DVDs and CDs at exhorbiant rates (eg. Bandler's "State of the Art"). Contrast this with scientific research where not only are the latest research results available freely at academic libraries but for the cost of a typical NLP DVD set you can get an annual online subscription to a publishers entire catalogue of journals on a particular topic. Who is most likely to be biased: a salaried obscure academic whose findings can be found in a library at no cost or a charismatic, entrepreunarial NLP promoter that trademarks nelogisms and copyrights banality (with no research cost to recover) and sells them at rates higher than our learning institutions teach substantive disciplines such as civil engineering? [[User:Flavius vanillus|flavius]] 03:48, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Neuro-linguistic_programming&diff=prev&oldid=33553415]

Dejakitty, it is your conception of ''cult'' that is flawed. Your notion of a ''cult'' is a caricature with little relationship to the research of social psychologists and psychitarists on the topic. Part of your dissatisfaction with the edits stems from your self-referential cogitations: "''I usually think'' of highly secretively non-mainstream religion organization, with a tendency to mind control and brainwash people". You are not a recognised authority on cults (such as Lifton and Singer) so what ''you think'' a cult is, is irrelevant and forms no basis for accusations of bias and polemic against editors. Pre-empting all of the banal criticisms (such as yours regarding the definition of a cult) can be easily accomplished (because these criticisms don't stand up to critical scrutiny) but would come at the cost of brevity. Your admonition about considering the "potential biasis" of authors is specious and stinks of bad faith. There are numerous probelems with your admonition: (i) a declaration of an authors potential bias is OR; (ii) stating that an author may have a potential bias is at best conjecture; (iii) it reveals a double-standard on your part in that you demonstrate no concern for flagging "potential biasis" from NLP promoters; (iv) the notion of a ''potential X'' is informationally bankrupt, why not say the author is a ''potential liar'', ''potential genius'', ''potential saint'', ''potential murderer'', ''potential rapist'' (as per Andrea Dworkin Lesbian-Separatist propaganda), ''potential homosexual'', there are no boundaries regarding ascribing potential qualities to people without any evidence, knock yourself out. Why aren't NLP promoters ''potential cult leaders''? Everyone has influences on their beliefs that come from family, friends, religion, personal experience, temperament, age, gender and so on. An influence is not a bias. It is entirely possible to be ''influenced'' without being ''biased''. If you have a bias in favour of NLP then it suggests that your accpetance of NLP is not based on evidence, reason and education but on emotion, faith and/or pecuniary interest. Anything that you conribute from a position of bias would be unable to withstand any critical scrutiny and it wouldn't originate from the conclusions of topic experts (neurologists, psychiatrists, linguists, psychologists and philosophers). Reporting the consensus of expert opinion on the topic of NLP may proceed from a position of ''personal influence'' (eg. in my case I spent many thousands of dollars on NLP training and media and much time that proved worthless) without being biased. Bias would be demonstrated by failing to report methodologically sound research that demonstrates the efficacy of NLP or the integrity of its underlying theory. There is no such research. I have sought it on PubMed and PsycInfo and I have checked Bolstadt's list of NLP research. The experts quoted in the article have been entirely fair. Again my OR is irrelevant, I offer it only for ''your'' education. Experts such as Sharpley have performed exhaustive literature reviews and have even answered criticisms (which have subsequently gone unanswered). ''Prima facie'' the experts exhbit no bias (sure they have ''influences'' as we all do) -- the process of peer review would have flushed this out (refer to the dialogue between Sharpley (1984 and 1987) and Einspruch and Forman (1985)). Your concern with bias is misplaced. NLP is fundamentally a commercial enterprise. NLP Practitoner training is more expensive than even the most expensive private university in my part of the world (in terms of (tuition fee)/(service hours), service hours includes lectures, tutorials, one-on-one consultation, assignment grading, examination). NLP promoters trademark and copyright their every fart and burp and sell them as seminars, DVDs and CDs at exhorbiant rates (eg. Bandler's "State of the Art"). Contrast this with scientific research where not only are the latest research results available freely at academic libraries but for the cost of a typical NLP DVD set you can get an annual online subscription to a publishers entire catalogue of journals on a particular topic. Who is most likely to be biased: a salaried obscure academic whose findings can be found in a library at no cost or a charismatic, entrepreunarial NLP promoter that trademarks nelogisms and copyrights banality (with no research cost to recover) and sells them at rates higher than our learning institutions teach substantive disciplines such as civil engineering? [[User:Flavius vanillus|flavius]] 03:48, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Neuro-linguistic_programming&diff=prev&oldid=33553415]