From: radinsky@spot.Colorado.EDU (Wayne Radinsky)
Subject: Re: vote &  more
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 06:10:14 GMT

Here's the previous post in a readable form.  (I did this so =I= could
read it, then decided everyone else might benefit.  If I'm wrong, flame
me).

Doug, learn to hit the return key!  "Lines" that are really 4 or 5 lines
long are ugly!

P.S. I took the liberty of capitalizing stuff & imposing a paragraph
structure, too.

ferguson@uxuw03.cern.ch (Douglas Ferguson) writes:
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello,

I just discovered your group and would like to make a few quiet
observations.  Wading through the NLP discussion I kept hoping to read
about how NLP accomplishes what it claims to, how related/different is
it to hypnosis, and in general what states of mind are involved it the
topic.  I'm still confused.  George continually attacks Friday and
Sharon, they defend and in turn attack George. and so on, and on, ....
nowhere does the meat of the topic get really broached.  Many of the
last 2 dozen or so postings have wasted all or much of the time simply
arguing or praying for it to end.  Meanwhile for me, trying to find out
the fundamentals, the process of continually reading these postings
under the same header (N L P (FAQ)) hoping against hope for something
substantial to emerge and finding nothing becomes extremely
frustrating.  Could'nt the flames be listed under NLP:flames
(subtopic/target,etc) or such, the prayers under NLP:please-stop-it and
then serious discussion reserved for NLP:FAQ?  Also, even in the
beginning before the war erupted NLP techniques were not discussed.  Or
maybe I missed that (a repost anyone?).  Or maybe this forum is really
meant for professionals only; if this is the case would someone please
tell me and I will quietly pack my bags and go.  

As for voting: this is really inappropriate.  I hope you realise that
at various points you have all attempted to effectively silence the
other's voice; if George accepted this vote as binding he could then no
longer voice his primary concern about NLP.

George's argumentative style leaves some to be desired, esp. in some
earlier posts.  But his basic premise seems sound to me.  When a drug
company applies to the FDC for license to sell miracle X, it must
support its drug with proof that a)the drug really does what it claims,
and b)that it leaves no serious side effects.  

If the drug is extremely expensive, ie in the multi-thousand dollar
range for treatment, it is then more necessary to prove that it really
works.  (This is not to say that this shouldn't be done for the less
expensive drugs as well, but one could argue that in this case efficacy
testing by the company needn't be as exacting (and thus costly)).  As
for b) NLP is, to my inexpert eye, associated with hypnosis, which can
have rather damaging consequences if the hypnotist is incautious.  I
can imagine how I would feel afterwards if I were the young man with
stong feelings against gays, and then I found that I was dancing with a
man in front of all my peers.

I once knew a man with an intense fear of snakes.  What would happen to
him if he were to find a videotape of his "snake act" after going to
the stage hypnotist's show?  Supposedly NLP can help cases like this.
How, exactly?  Or even somewhatimprecisely?

Granted the side-effect argument's may not apply to NLP; since I have
not yet learned about NLP I cannot tell. but the general point is again
valid.  If this forum is not really meant to intelligently and politely
discuss issues like those, where else?!  Or if the resident NLP experts
do not wish to delve into those aspects can't a simple 'George: let's
just agree to disagree for now' suffice? IMO this would be a 'cop out'
though.

On to other subjects.  I have seen repeated pleas for self hypnosis
help in this group. this was actually the reason I was interested in
the first place.  I am planning on starting my own experimental program
in self hypnosis, and would greatly appreciate help and advice.  So if
anyone has the knowledge, PLEASE HELP!

(a subnote to other self-hypnosis fellows): 

If no one responds to this call, I am assuming that no one here
actually has an idea on how to proceed, or they are unwilling to help.
so, motivation is the key! I propose we form our own self-hypnosis-
guinea-pigs-(mini)-club and just proceed.  I am planning on devoting
considerable effort to this over the christmas holiday; if any one else
is interested then I will try to form a coherent account of my little
adventure into the depths. so how 'bout it?  in general, I am
interested in sh for 3 reasons: 

1) God did not gift me with the world's greatest memory, or even a
somewhat mediocre one.  After living with this for 25 years i've had
enough.  I have read that subjects in hypnosis have total recall
however, so I want to see if this can be somehow brought at least a
little closer to the surface, so to speak.

Also, I have noted recently that I tend to memorize bad incidents well,
particularly ones in which I was the bad one (both types are very
considerably enhanced over good/neutral memories @ facts).  This is
probably not a particularly healthy sign, why do I do this?  {A final
plea before I embark on my very own self guided tour: do I even have a
chance at success, or am I on the wrong boat?  Could a regular hypnotist
help?  Could your friendly local graduate student affordable?  NLP
practitioner help?  (same comment applies to hypnotist) or am I up the
creek without a paddle here? (sorry for the imagery) } 

2) recently I have become extremely melancholy, yet there is no medical
record of manic depressives in my close relatives.  I think i'm
reacting to the fact that I am sitting 800 or so miles to the west of
where the *** Serbians are bombing breadlines, but I am not sure.

3) self help aside, I just want to know what's up inside my skull.

-end sub note-

I also am ferociously curious about anything having to do with
consciousness and paranormal phenomena; several aspects of the latter
'seem to be' enhanced in meditation and trances.  BTW, for the person
who recently posted the precognition article (the bloody machine won't
give your article back after I made a short excursion to sci.physics,so
I can't give your name, sorry!) is there a more detailed account
somewhere?  paper?  etc. cripes that would be fun to try and repeat on
myself! (with some others drawing the pictures of course).  How deep
were the trances?  Were the pictures randomly drawn by computer or by
the hypnotist, or by someone else?  Were standard 'blinding' procedures
used?  How similar is 'similar', statistically?  How many trails were
performed?  Did the results show any correlation with the intervening
time interval?  I know I know, given the above comments I am somewhat
chomping at the bit but still.  Quite a whiles back I read a book by
Upton Sinclair (the muckraker).  It was titled _Mental Radio_ and dealt
with a series of experiments his wife and a cousin she had always felt
extremely close to performed in different rooms and then using
prearranged timings in different houses 40 km. apart. they had agreed
that at, say 4:00, they would meditate simultaneously, one would then
take a randomly chosen household object or a picture which they drew
(fork, umbrella, toaster, etc.) and concentrate on it, whilst the
other attempted to draw it. 

The results were OUTrageous!  Sinclair showed many pictures which show
significant similarities.  The most obvious similarity was that when
one drawing was somewhat spikey, with many straight lines, approx. 80-
90% of the time the other was too, with this correlation holding for
smooth, more flowing drawings as well. Several of the household objects
were identical as well (they both drew identifiable forks, etc.).

The Sinclairs went to great lengths in the book to convince the reader
of their sincerity; the argument essentially boiled down to 'this
internationally famous muckraker does not want nor need more fame, and
moreover this field is generally considered one of the best places to
ruin previously gathered reputations' they brought the results to a
statistician, who conceded that (barring fraud of course) the results
were indeed correlated.

As a final note, none other than Albert Einstein wrote the preface, in
which he said (cautiously) -I'm paraphrasing again- "call it what you
will, I'm convinced that there is a new phychological phenomenon at
work here. and yes, that means Mr. Sinclair isn't lying" for me,
personally, a blessing by Einstein lends an effort the utmost
respectability. however I am well aware of my frailites, including my
clear need to believe in the possibility of such things, so I am
interested in other such trance (or non-trance, of course!) induced
projects.

So if anyone cares to comment, 

fergie.                                 or email ferguson@vxaluw.cern.ch

Newsgroups: alt.hypnosis