[Neurons] 2012 Meta Reflections #57

[L. Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

Meta Reflections 2012  #57

November 26, 2012

Empowerment Series #37

 

 

 

MYSTERIOUS FUZZY ENERGY

 

 

Since I've been writing about power and energy in this series on
Empowerment, when he said that he has combined "energy work and healing"
with NLP, I was intrigued.  So I perked up my ears.  We were at an NLP
Conference where one of the speakers talked about "NLP and Energy" and we
were at a pub after the Conference had ended for that day.  Now as he
talked, he gave the impression that he had modeled the processes regarding
how the "energy work" which he did worked to generate legitimate healing
experiences in people.  Being the natural skeptic, I didn't buy it, but I
was interested and very willing to find out more.  So as the conversation
ensued, I asked:

"Okay, so you have modeled energy work and healing using the models of NLP?"

 

Well, no.  He didn't do that.   

"Oh, you didn't?  You didn't find out what this 'energy' is and how it
works?"

 

He again said no.

"So you don't know how it works?"

 

To my surprise, he immediately acknowledged that that was right, he didn't
know.  He said, "I know it works, I have had thousands of experiences of it
working, but no, I don't know how it works."  He went on to describe in
great detail how he had been blessed by certain healers, even doubly-blessed
by some healer in Brazil, and that it was "no question that it worked and
was real; I know that."

"And how do you know it is real and that it works?" I continued to ask.  "As
with any system that has many, many interconnected variables, how do you
know what was the key variable or variables?  How do you know that something
other than what you think was the healing factor?  If you did not eliminate
all of the other possible variables and you think it worked because someone
got better, how do you know that would not have happened anyway?  How do you
know that anything you did was the healing variable?" 

 

That's where the conversation ended (!).  I say "the conversation" ended,
but of course, the talk went on!  He had claimed that what he did was
scientific, that he had lots of scientific proof, that there were thousands
of studied that proved it.  When I asked about that, I discovered that the
conversation had ended and that none of that was "on the table" or
discussable!  He was not able (or would not) even entertain the idea that he
even could be wrong or that the "healings" were not created by his
interventions.  And because he could not identify any mechanisms by which
the so-called "healing" occurred, he went fluffy and said:

"Well there are so many kinds of energies that we don't know about."

Okay, so because we cannot eliminate that there may be some kind of energy
that's doing this, we have to accept your interpretations, theories, and
beliefs about it?   What you believe and "know" is the only true
information?  To that he said:

"Well, we once thought that there was no connection between mind and body,
mind and emotion, but now we do."

 

Really!  That's very interesting!  Because he had earlier quoted a story
about Wayne Dyer also not believing and then being influenced by people
sending certain thoughts at him from thousands of miles away (he was in
California and the thought-senders were in Georgia), I asked:

"Well, it is an obvious fact that mind-and-emotion is connected within a
person's body but is that really equivalent to saying that someone a
thousand miles away can send 'healing thoughts' through the ether and so
there has to be some kind of connection between the two, we just don't know
how they are connected?  Somehow that doesn't seem like sound reasoning!"

 

Afterwards I reflected on the fact that believing that people can heal from
the distance, that there are unknown energies that some people are able to
tap into and use for healing or influencing or whatever is just that- a
belief.  And when believers believe, the belief inevitably operates as a
self-fulfilling prophecy, as a self-organizing attractor.  And that means
that what the believer believes will be seen and evidenced by the believer.
The challenge for such a believer is to acknowledge that it is a belief (and
not a fact) and then to search for evidence that would convince a person who
is not a believer.  If a person can do that, then there may be something to
it.

            What sensory based facts provide that evidence?

What mechanisms and processes are at work?

What channels of transfer are available?

What theories formulate an understanding of the variables and processes?


>From that theory (or theories) what hypotheses can we propose which would be

testable?

What would have to happen that would disprove the theory, that would
dis-validate the theory?

Is the theory falsiable or is it a belief that a person accepts or
not-accepts?

 

My biggest problem with "NLP and Energy," "Energetic NLP," etc. is how this
has the effect of re-defining NLP and by doing so, it changes NLP.  NLP is a
communication model by which we can model subjective human experience.  But
when someone attempts to combine something with NLP without modeling it-they
end up creating a distorted version of NLP.  By jamming together a
disciplines (NLP) with a belief system (in this case, "energy work" or
"energy healing") they change NLP.   Let them use NLP to understand the
belief system, but don't call that belief system NLP.  Don't call it
"Christian NLP," "Jewish NLP," "Isalm NLP," "Energetic NLP," etc.

 

Mastery is in distinctions- and so here is an important distinction, a
distinction that keeps different things separated.  Model the structures and
subjective experiences in a belief system, but don't jam it together with
NLP.  Let it be an application of using the NLP Communication model for
modeling.  To do that only creates confusion and non-sense.  Conversely, if
we distinguish NLP (and Neuro-Semantics also) as models from the
applications that we make using them, then at least we don't create such
confusion.

 

Who knows?  Perhaps there are these "unknown energies" that we can tap into
and use for healing.  But refusing to entertain tough questions about them,
refusing to be open that one could be wrong is a form of rigid dogmatism,
one that indicates a "true believer" (to use Eric Hoeffer's phrase) not an
open searcher.

 

 

 

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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