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Sometimes I get weary of discussions about

"MANIPULATION"

PRO & CON.

Certainly God is against people manipulating one another in any heavy handed, control freak sense.

But where does "manipulation" start and stop and "influence" start and stop?

We ALL seek to influence those around us more or less all the time--hopefully in good, open handed, open ended, truly free will-released sorts of ways for good motives.

NEURO-LINGUISTIC PROGRAMMING--NLP

I was taught a measure of it. Certainly have read some of the best in the business.

Many people are ignorant of it's development. It all started by a couple of characters called Bandler and Grinder who decided to study what the best therapists had in common. What made the most successful so successful regardless of philosophy, methodology etc.

A long story short . . . the set of principles discovered constitute NLP.

We all function with some measure of NLP. Being hypnotized by the stripes on the highway or by a preacher's cadence is a function of NLP principles, phenomena.

The Sermon on the Mount and the Parables of Jesus have been skillfully analyzed in terms of NLP principles--probably fairly accurately.

Does that mean that I think that Jesus was a master manipulator through 'artificial' (whatever that means in this context) NLP methods in some sort of premeditated, calculated etc. process, delivery etc.?

NO!

Jesus was/is God, Love, Peace, Hope, etc. And, He was/is/can only be

HIMSELF.

Being Himself, He's certainly going to be super effective at whatever He does--including telling stories, preaching a Sermon on The Mount etc.

Metaphor can be a very powerful aspect/tool of NLP.

And, men--male gender--men's brains are evidently structured much more to take in and evaluate much better, more rapidly, accurately etc. INFORMATION

RECEIVED IN STORY FORM.

When men get together. They tell stories about work, hunting, cars, sex, computers etc.

When women get together, they talk about relationships, feelings, intuitions etc.

Actually, it appears to be quite true that: IF a wife wants to persuade her husband of something and IF she constructs very well just the right story using the husband's primary reference modalities (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, audio/digital etc.) and the metaphors, themes tailor made to the husband's priorities--he will have no defense against it.

Does that mean that NLP is part of the end times GREAT DECEPTION ETC.

No. I don't think so.

And, being aware that such exists CAN BE a very powerful defense against it.

Advertising uses NLP very well and did so before we knew there was such a thing as NLP.

Presenting information visually, auditorilly and kinesthetically and especially doing so repeatedly in more or less that order in a variety of ways in the same message--is VERY POWERFUL.

It does NOT make free will humans robots. But it IS very powerful.

I think it gets back to

WHO IS OUR LORD. WHAT ARE OUR PRIORITIES. Do we live in fear of man and march to a drum pleasing or seeking to please other people?

Or

do we listen to the still small voice of our Lord in all we do REGARDLESS OF ANY AND EVERYTHING ELSE?

The mind manipulators will only get more skillful--including various kinds of waves impacting the brain directly with images, thoughts, supposed dreams even supposed voices of God. We must be able to detect the authentic from the manipulated counterfeit.

I never bothered to become all that skillful at NLP. It required toooooo much calculated paying tooooooo close attention to the clients for me. I'm much more of an intuitive fly-by-the-seat-of my spirit sort of counselor.

If I had to stop and match my breathing, notice carefully all the time which direction someone's eyes looked up at precisely which words etc.--it became too complicated and took far too much away from the sponteneity of the dialogue, to me.

Besides, I don't seem to have had much of a problem getting clients to pay attention and hear what I had to say fairly deeply and on multiple levels. I guess it's just something God has gifted me with.

Do I think NLP is inherently evil?

I think it's a VERY powerful tool. I think it CAN BE USED for great evil.

Do I think it's an OK tool for Christians to use in ministry, evangelism, counseling?

Hmmmm. Tough question.

I suppose Holy Spirit can use any tool.

But I'd think that walking under the guidance of Holy Spirit, one wouldn't need to bother much about NLP. Holy Spirit would naturally use whatever features were fitting and ignore the rest. Having to make such decisions in the natural based on NLP training etc. would be a real bother, hindrance, hazard, to me.

Were I a parent, would I use NLP in my childrearing and family relationships? I suppose I'd keep some things in mind. That is, I'd probably want to know and pay some attention to what

THE PRIMARY REPRESENTATIONAL SYSTEMS were for each family member

AND THEN TO ACCOMMODATE THEM by trying to communicate to them primarily in their naturally, genetically preferred modes.

It's kind of a somewhat painfully humorous given--an audio-digital man--typical computer geek--will marry a very KINESTHETIC oriented woman.

Not only do they have the different REALITIES that gender brain etc. differences create--they have the very different realities of primarily perceiving, representing and talking about/communicating about VERY DIFFERENT WORLDS BASED ON THE VERY KIND OF OPPOSITE PRIMARY REPRESENTATIONAL SYSTEMS.

Those facts about individuals are evidently genetic givens. Each of us has our own primary representational system. Some are real birds of rare plumage like me--and tend to have a much MORE NEARLY equal dependence on visual, auditory and kinesthetic.

It is foolish to try and evangelize a Chinese person speaking to them in unknown Spanish.

And particularly in some situations, when time, crises, stress, fatigue, whatever are serious components of a situation--it is very foolish to try and communicate something crucial to someone UNLESS IT'S IN THEIR PRIMARY REPRESENTATIONAL SYSTEM or at least very carefully done.

Wise parents have known from the dawn of time how to instinctively speak each child's 'native' 'language' to get important things across.

IN some respects, it's nothing more magical or mysterious than that.

It's just that now we know from quite a bit of scientific study the details and components of what that involves--and we have labels and a whole system of understanding describing that.

And, knowledge is power.

And, it seems that humans have unlimited capacity to pollute, to use any kind of power destructively whether willfully or unwittingly.

I guess in summary, I think SOME awareness of NLP is likely of significant benefit to any bright parent willing to bother.

But, anyone living close to Holy Spirit and walking, communicating very in step with HIS MOMENT BY MOMENT LEADING--can probably by pass all that tedious stuff.

I rarely consciously get into NLP stuff. I seem to naturally communicate fairly powerfully--at least face to face.

I suppose I could have saved myself some grief if I'd have skillfully used such techniques in some situations. It is at best a rather gentle nudging sort of art. But, I'd have probably more successfully and constructively saved myself some grief if I'd been able to listen more intently and obey more fully Holy Spirit at the time. I'd prefer the latter.

I don't know if this ramble has been of any value or not. But I felt constrained to at least run out something like this for people to make more informed decisions about the topic you raised.

One of the classic books on it is THE STRUCTURE OF MAGIC--TURNING FROGS INTO PRINCES. It's a book basically on therapy. And it's not about occult magic at all. It's just that the principles of NLP used well sometimes give results that appear to have been magical to the uninitiated.

All the same, I don't like titles which even have that word in them--magic! But, it was a good book. Taught me a lot.