Hi Phil

Thats an interesting article. The NLP following is a strange one. I would place it within the "belief field" of new age ideas. The reason it persists is because of people's need to believe in something.

The 1980s research on NLP has basically discredited the practice as a cult or fad. Since then the research tends to use NLP as an example of an "archetypal pseudoscience", in the same way that scientology is used. Instead of looking at the hypotheses or pseudoscientific concepts, they look at the pseudoscientific behaviour of the group.

It seems no matter what evidence is presented about NLP being discredited, you will always get a set of believers who either propose you try it for yourself, or who say science doesn't matter. Either way they are simply adopting the anti-science "scientology" arguments of the new age.

The basic problem is that NLP has been spread to elements of business organizations. But there is also a lot of concern by psychologists about the likes of NLP being used to "transform" the workforce and simultateously spread misconceptions about how the brain functions.

NLP really is an archetypal pseudoscience as can be seen by the behaviour of the cult of NLP. Ian.
 

Thanks, Ian. That's enlightening and fascinating. There are bits of NLP - the 'bits' that overlap with hypnosis - that seem to work with some individuals (as with Ronson in the example he gives in the Guardian article) and therefore the 'magical' aura that surrounds that kind of influence over people helps NLP spread, it seems to me. Paul McKenna was a hypnotist and DJ, after all, before becoming Bandler's partner in promoting NLP in the UK. As you say, cultism and pseudo-science help explain its spread. People's willingness to accept and practice a closed belief system - from this to Feng Shui, never ceases to amaze me.