[Neurons] 2012 Meta Reflections #50

[L. Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

Meta Reflections 2012  #50

Oct. 1, 2012

Book Review: 

The Magic of NLP Demystified 

(2012) by Byron Lewis, Crown House Publ.

 

 

 

DEMYSTIFYING "MAGIC" 

 

 

One of my favorite books in the field of NLP which I found just a few years
after I entered the field of NLP was the book, Magic of NLP Demystified: A
Pragmatic Guide to Communication and Change (1990) by Byron Lewis & Frank
Pucelik.  Following on from the original books, The Structure of Magic
Volumes I and II (1975, 1976), this book focused on simplifying and
de-mystifying the structuer of language as coded in the Meta-Model of
Communication.  Now originally, that book was titled, Meta Principles for
Communication and Change (1980) which really is an excellent summary of what
NLP is primarily about and used for- communication and change.

 

Now today, 2012, after more than two decades, Byron Lewis has updated and
extended the book.  In fact, in this updated version he has especially used
the work of Tosey and Mathison NLP: A Critical Appreciation for Managers and
Developers (2009) and my work Communication Magic (2001 Crown House Publ.)
in extending the book Magic Demystified.

 

Now in terms of the term "magic," this term does not refer to real magic or
to stage magicians.  People seem to easily confuse "the structure of magic"
in NLP with these.  Instead, it refers to what seems like magic in experts.
That is, when someone is highly skilled in a particular domain, what they do
can seem like "magic" to those who don't know how they do it, the models
they use to guide their perceptions and performance, or the distinctions
that they are making.  This was the original case with Fritz Perls, Virginia
Satir, and Milton Erickson when Bandler and Grinder first found them and so
began modeling the structure of their expertise so that the so-called
"magic" could be understood and replicated.  And that gave birth to this
field that we call NLP.

 

Byron's newest edition of Magic Demystified contains the same chapters as
the original books and so presents the essential modeling of NLP and the
original tools that were developed for modeling.

1: Models

2: The Communication Categories Model

3: The Meta Model

4: The Visual Model

 

If you ever tried to read the original books, The Structure of Magic,
Volumes I and II and found it thick and undecipherable, then try Magic
Demystified.  It is an excellent introduction to NLP and the models of NLP,
a much user-friendly version.  And in this edition, Byron quoting Susie
Linder-Pelz has put the Meta-States Model in Chapter 1 as part of the basic
NLP model.  This is the first time I've seen this in any work other than
what Bob Bodenhamer and I did (User's Manual of the Brain, Volume I, Crown
House Publications).  So in answer to the question, "Is the Meta-States
Model part of NLP?"  The answer has always been yes, and works like this
keep supporting that.

 

Also, in Chapter 3 on The Meta-Model, Byron adds all nine of the
distinctions that I added to the Meta-Model in 1997 (the book was then
titled, Secrets of Magic and now it goes under the title, Communication
Magic, 2001).  Byron Lewis has taken and used the research I did at that
time when I reviewed the development of the Meta-Model, extended it with
linguistic distinctions and questions (challenges) from Korzybski and
others.  I did that in 1996-1997 at the bidding of Richard Bandler who
wanted the book to be co-authored, but who later got upset with me and
refused to complete the co-authoring project.  Eventually it was published
by Crown House Publications anyway under my name alone.  And now you can
find those nine extensions of the Meta-Model in this book (Magic
Demystified) along with Byron's correlation of the different Meta-Model
distinctions and how they fit and overlap.

 

Here are some great quotations from the book:

"This systematic demystification of normally out-of-awareness aspects of
communication gives the client a heightened sense of control over himself
and his environment." (p. 2)

 

"One of the most important ingredients in being influential is the ability
to elicit the belief that you understand.  Understanding implies that you
can 'join' a person at his model of the world." (p. 18)

 

"Susie Linder-Pelz ... explains that people 'layer' information from the
outside world and then 'frame or meta-state that information as they feed
back to themselves more information about that information; that is, they
feed back to themselves layer upon layer, beliefs and understandings." (p.
30)

 

"Language is the only system that can represent all of the other
representational systems.  It can create models of each system including
itself." (p. 41)

 

"Even though a person demonstrates a preference for one of the
representational systems, it does not mean that he does not use the other
systems too.  On the contrary, we all use all of the systems all of the
time." (p. 49)

 

If you are interested, go to  <http://www.crownhouse.co.uk/>
www.crownhouse.co.uk and you will find this new book. 

 

 

 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

                Neuro-Semantics Executive Director 

                Neuro-Semantics International

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO. 81520 USA                             

                1 970-523-7877 

                Dr. Hall's email:
<mailto:meta at acsol.net\hich\af31506\dbch\af31505\loch\f31506> meta at acsol.net


     

     

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