Irish Alzheimers

 What is Irish Alzheimers? 

Irish Alzheimers is a condition some elderly Irish people suffer from when they forget everything except the grudges they hold, which then become more intense.

The only thing he remembers is everyone who's ever crossed him 

The First Bite Is With The Eyes

What does it mean? 

The first bite is with the eyes means the visual appearance of food works as a first impression in shaping the appeal and enjoyment of food before it enters the mouth. 

The eyes take the first bite 

What elements contribute to the appeal of food? 

Flavor depends on parts of the brain that involve taste, odor, touch and vision. The sum total of these signals, plus our emotions and past experiences, result in perception of flavors, and determine whether we like or dislike specific foods

How does the appearance of food work? 

The factors comprising appearance can be divided into three broad classes: the product's optical properties, its physical form and its mode of presentation, all of which combine at different times and in different ways to form the three images of any product as it appears on the shelf, in the pan, and on the plate.

Why is appearance important? 

Food appearance and presentation is just as essential to the success of a dish as its taste and flavour. The way the food looks on the plate is what tempts our eyes and makes us want to taste it. Appearance makes food appetizing. 

Centipede Effect Centipede Syndrome

Centipede's Dilemma

    A centipede was happy – quite!
    Until a toad in fun
    Said, "Pray, which leg moves after which?"
    This raised her doubts to such a pitch,
    She fell exhausted in the ditch
 
1/ The centipede performs an extremely complex action by coordinating all its legs in the action of movement.

2/ The centipede does not know how it coordinates all its legs, it does not think about it while doing it, but performs the task through habit.

3/ When called upon to think about and discuss how it performs the task, the centipede realises it does not know, becomes confused, and can no longer perform the task.

Habit diminishes and then eliminates the attention required for routine tasks, but this is automatically disrupted by attention to a normally unconscious competence.

In other words:

1/ You have learned through habit to perform what might be a somewhat difficult task without thinking about it. 

2/ You are then called upon to consider and think about how you perform the task. 

3/ By thinking about how you perform the task you can no longer perform it out of habit and you are then unable to perform it.

On the conscious competence learning steps model the performance of a task out of habit is one done with unconscious competence. 

The problem is that an explanation or understanding of the skills or mechanism for performing the task has been forgotten so that when someone is called upon to think about or explain how the task is performed they cannot do so and are then unable to perform the task through habit, being thrust into a state of conscious incompetence.

Adolf Busch forgets how to play a complicated phrase when asked

An example of the centipede effect / centipede syndrome is told through the anecdote involving the violinist Adolf Busch who was asked by fellow-violinist Bronislaw Huberman how he played a certain passage of Beethoven's violin concerto. Busch told Huberman that it was quite simple—and then found that he could no longer play the passage, for that moment he could only play it without thinking about it within the concerto as a whole.

Decidophobia Fear of Making Decisions

Decidophobia 

Life is full of options and choices, each changing the way we decide to live our lives. Making these decisions requires an internal thought process that weighs out the positive and negative aspects of each choice. For some, this process can be absolutely terrifying and the fear of making the wrong choice will ultimately cause them to avoid making any choice at all. This fear of decision-making is called Decidophobia and could ultimately lead to an unhealthy dependence on others or unpractical methods of guidance and, subsequently, a total lack of control over the direction that their life will take.

Decidophobia can can be understood as a specific phobia which is actually not as uncommon as might be assumed. 

Learning theory views phobias such as decidophobia as learned responses. A person avoids the phobic object. making a decision, and through this obtains the reward of escaping or avoiding fear. Maybe the person is fearful of the consequences of an incorrect decision or perhaps just being fearful of having the burden of responsibility of making decisions.

"Indecision can have a really negative impact on how you’re feeling, so good decision making skills are really useful when you’re faced with a tough choice. Get tips on how to make good decisions, and find out what to do when you can’t figure out a plan."

http://au.reachout.com/all-about-making-decisions

Assortative Mating

Assortative mating is a nonrandom mating pattern in which individuals with similar genotypes and/or phenotypes mate with one another more frequently than would be expected under a random mating pattern.

Changing perspective: instead of "X, but Y", change it to "Y, but X"

Changing perspective: instead of "X, but Y", change it to "Y, but X"

When you say or think "X, but Y," change your perspective by thinking about "Y, but X":
 
    "I love you, but you're hard to live with."
    "I want to quit smoking, but the cravings are hard."
    "I really want to see you, but I'm so busy."
    "I'm proud of you for graduating, but now you need to find a job."

For a different perspective, flip those around:

    "You're hard to live with, but I love you."
    "The cravings are hard, but I want to quit smoking."
    "I'm so busy, but I really want to see you."
    "Now you need to find a job, but I'm proud of you for graduating."

"But" places the emphasis on the second thing, which is often the negative, or the excuse, or the slight. Flipping the statement around puts the emphasis on the positive. Of course, you could also just say/think the positive, but if the negative needs to be considered, at least get it out of the way first and move on to the positive.

(from gcanyon: reddit)

Table turning (table tipping)

Table Turning or "Table Tipping" is a type of seance in which participants sit around a table, place their hands on it, and wait for rotations. The table was purportedly made to serve as a means of communicating with the spirits; the alphabet would be slowly called over and the table would tilt at the appropriate letter, thus spelling out words and sentences.

(Spirituality, New Age, Astrology & Self-help / Alternative Belief Systems) the movement of a table attributed by spiritualists to the power of spirits working through a group of persons placing their hands or fingers on the table top.

The Scottish surgeon James Braid, the English physiologist W. B. Carpenter and others pointed out, however, that the phenomena could depend upon the expectation of the sitters, and could be stopped altogether by appropriate suggestion.

English performer Derren Brown recreated this with four random audience members being asked to place their hands on a table and then using the power of suggestion to have them move the table around and across the stage even though individually they all said they were not moving the table.

This was effected by repeatedly telling those with their hands on the table that if the table started to move (to the back of the stage, for example) then they shouldn't try to stop it. If it starts to move just let it move don't try to stop it.


This reflects the movement being based on unconscious muscular action caused by an expectation of where and how the table would move.

Trolley Problem

The trolley problem is a thought experiment in ethics. It looks to explore the concept of human morality and a philosophical view of consequentialism. It was first introduced by Philippa Foot in 1967, but also extensively analysed by Judith Jarvis Thomson,Peter Unger,and Frances Kamm.

Person A can take an action which would benefit many people, but in doing so, person B would be unfairly harmed. Under what circumstances would it be morally just for Person A to violate Person B's rights in order to benefit the group?

Original problem involved an out of control trolley car which is going to cause the death of five people on the track but this can be averted by switching the trolley to another track in which case it will only kill one person. Is it morally permissible or indeed is there a moral obligation to take an action which will kill one person but will save five? Or do nothing and let five die?

Different formulations are:
- A judge or magistrate is faced with rioters demanding that a culprit be found for a certain crime and threatening otherwise to take their own bloody revenge on a particular section of the community, perhaps kill five people. The real culprit being unknown, the judge sees himself as able to prevent the bloodshed only by framing some innocent person and having him executed.
- A pilot whose aeroplane is about to crash is deciding whether to steer from a more to a less inhabited area.

Related Variations
The Fat Man on the Bridge
This variation does not allow the trolley to be switched to another track but instead the trolley can be stopped by pushing a fat man off a bridge into the path of the trolley. Is there any difference between this action and the switching of the track?

The Fat Villain on the Bridge
A variation on the fat man scenario involves the man on the bridge being the individual who is responsible for sabotaging the trolley which is going to lead to the deaths of the five people. Does this change the morality of pushing him off the bridge to prevent the accident?

Transplant Variation
Five people are in hospital each needing a different organ or they will die. A healthy traveler comes to the hospital for a checkup and the doctor discovers his organs are compatible with the five patients who are going to die. This is the only chance those patients will have of getting a transplant. If the traveler disappeared or died nobody would suspect the doctor. What should the doctor do?

Mother Variation
As before, a trolley is hurtling down a track towards five people. You can flip a switch and divert the train to run one person over instead of five, but that person is your mother. Would you flip the switch?

Key Themes
- The irrationality of human ethics
- Utilitarianism (the greater good) (also act utilitarianism & rule utilitarianism)
- The incommensurability of human lives
- Moral obligation (e.g. if you are present it is your moral obligation to act and to do nothing would be immoral)
- Ticking time bomb scenario (which demands a choice between two morally questionable acts).

The Gregor Effect - (from Kafka's The Metamorphis)

From Gregor Samsa - protagonist in The Metamorphosis - referring to how people respond to those with serious illness.

Refers to the relationships of patients with those around them, the ''Gregor Effect'' (first postulated by Preston (1979) more recently popularised by Howard Brody (2002)) is a reference to German author Franz Kafka's 1915 short story The Metamorphosis. In the story, the protagonist Gregor Samsa turns into an insect. His family and friends, although at times empathetic and still loving, find ways to avoid him, to distance themselves from his ''illness''. Psychologists ascribe this ''Gregor effect'' to how some view the terminally ill. The ''Gregor effect'' can make people uncomfortable, scared, and at times present a challenge to their own mortality.

The Gregor effect implies that the diagnosis of disease becomes a stigma, a mark that impinges on all other social roles and affects all other relationships and interactions.

Ronald Preston (1979) used Kafka's analogy (he referred to the impact on others of serious illness or bodily deformity as the "Gregor effect") to study the reactions of nurses caring for the chronically ill and aged. He was interested specifically in reactions to people whom he labelled "acutely ambigious" in that they are like us and yet not like us (Preston 1979:37-46).

Preston observed a range of reactions in hospital wards to people in these catagories:

• impulsive reactions (startle, flight)
• prejudiced reactions (based on preconceived social values rather than emotion)
• obscenity reactions (attempt to resolve ambiguity through identification with deformed or disabled)
• ritual separation (banishment or sequestration of the sick as a prelude to the separation of death)
• humanitarian (observor broadens perspective and expands what it is to be human to resolve the ambiguity the condition causes, embracing the patient as fully human - often can become superficial attempt to do good rather than sincere)
• spiritual transcendence (often tied to religion has a firmer basis than humanitarian to resolve ambiguity)
• normalisation (conceptualises the the sick and disabled as just like us thereby deflecting any threat)
• diversionary tactics (such as using black humour)
• induration (may develop gradually and result in diminished perception of the ambiguity (Preston 1979:47-84))

Books
Howard Brody (2002) Stories of Sickness. Oxford University Press.

Ronald Preston (1979). The dilemmas of care: social and nursing adaptations to the deformed, the disabled, and the aged.

Rational Choice Theory

Rational Choice Theory also also known as choice theory or rational action theory is a framework for understanding and often formally modeling social and economic behavior

General Definition: Individuals will make the best possible (optimized) decision from their point of view (the view of the decision maker).

A principle that assumes that individuals always make prudent and logical decisions that provide them with the greatest benefit or satisfaction and that are in their highest self-interest. Most mainstream economic assumptions and theories are based on rational choice theory.

The Individual as Representative

Rational Choice Theory generally begins with consideration of the choice behavior of one or more individual decision-making units – which in basic economics are most often consumers and/or firms. The rational choice theorist often presumes that the individual decision-making unit in question is “typical” or “representative” of some larger group such as buyers or sellers in a particular market. Once individual behavior is established, the analysis generally moves on to examine how individual choices interact to produce outcomes.

Rational Choices of Consumer Behaviour

The rational choice theory of consumer behavior is based on the following axioms regarding consumer preferences:

1. The consumer faces a known set of alternative choices.
2. For any pair of alternatives (A and B, say), the consumer either prefers A to B, prefers B to A, or is indifferent between A and B. This is the axiom of completeness.
3. These preferences are transitive. That is, if a consumer prefers A to B and B to C, then she necessarily prefers A to C. If she is indifferent between A and B, and indifferent between B and C, then she is necessarily indifferent between A and C.
4. The consumer will choose the most preferred alternative. If the consumer is indifferent between two or more alternatives that are preferred to all others, he or she will choose one of those alternatives -- with the specific choice from among them remaining indeterminate.

When economists speak of “rational” behavior, they usually mean only behavior that is in accord with the above axioms.

Criminology and Rational Choice Theory

Law Definition: Concept that criminals consciously weigh the risks and rewards of a crime and proceed accordingly.

In criminology, the rational choice theory adopts a utilitarian belief that man is a reasoning actor who weighs means and ends, costs and benefits, and makes a rational choice.

In general, the criminology theory of rational choice theory is that would-be offenders consider the potential costs and benefits before deciding whether to engage in crime.

The rational choice perspective in criminology has evolved largely from two previous and complementary explanations of human behavior. One of these is the classical school of thought characterized by the Enlightenment scholars Cesare Beccaria (1764) and Jeremy Bentham (1789) . These early philosophers proposed that individuals would refrain from offending out of fear of the potential punishment that would result from such behavior (this is also the conceptual basis for the deterrence perspective in criminology).

Criticisms:

Rational Choice Theory is based on the assumption that individual behaviour is guided by free will.

Individuals do not always seem to make rational, utility-maximizing decisions:

- The field of behavioral economics is based on the idea that individuals often make irrational decisions and explores why they do so.

- Nobel laureate Herbert Simon proposed the theory of bounded rationality, which says that people are not always able to obtain all the information they would need to make the best possible decision.

-Economist Richard Thaler’s idea of mental accounting shows how people behave irrationally by placing greater value on some dollars than others even though all dollars have the same value. They might drive to another store to save $10 on a $20 purchase, but they would not drive to another store to save $10 on a $1,000 purchase.

déjà vu / deja entendu / jamais vu

déjà vu = seen before

déjà entendu = heard before

jamais vu = never seen - is the phenomenon of experiencing a situation that one recognises but that nonetheless seems very unfamiliar

Déjà Vu, the feeling that you have been in the same place experiencing the same thing, is something that has affected all of us at one point or another, or another. Now researchers have uncovered a possible reason for the occurrence, though the explanation comes as little surprise to those experiencing the phenomenon again and again.

“Many parallels between explanations of déjà vu and theories of human recognition memory exist,” said Anne Cleary of Colorado State University. “Theories of familiarity-based recognition and the laboratory methods used to study it may be especially useful for elucidating the processes underlying déjà vu experiences.”

A report published in Current Directions in Psychological Science states that déjà vu occurs when a current situation resembles a situation that has previously occurred in one’s life. When multiple elements of the two situations overlap, the feeling of familiarity is sparked.

“What we found was that people retain fragments of memory and they then subconsciously reconstruct the occurrence,” continued Cleary. “The mind fills in the gaps and it appears as though an event is reoccurring, but it is an entirely new happening.”

A report published in Current Directions in Psychological Science states that déjà vu occurs when a current situation resembles a situation that has previously occurred in one’s life. When multiple elements of the two situations overlap, the feeling of familiarity is sparked.

jamais vu

"There is another experience worth mentioning; jamais vu. Its the opposite of deja vu. Instead of feeling extra familiar, thing seem totally unfamiliar. In this case there is too little connection between long-term memory and perceptions from the present. When a person is in this state, nothing they experience seems to have anything to do with the past. They might be talking to a person they know well and suddenly they person seems totally unfamiliar. Their sense of knowing the person, and knowing how to relate to them simply vanishes. A room in which they spend a lot of time suddenly becomes totally novel; everything seems new. Details they will have seen a thousand times suddenly become engaging."
--from "Deja Vu in Spiritual and Scientific Views,"

Scheherazade Effect

Language Evolution Theory

Part of the theory that language evovled for essentially social purposes is its possible role in pair-bonding through the Scheherazade Effect involving linguistic skills being used as a cue of mate quality and mates using language to keep each other entertained and ensure their continued commitment to the relationship.

Respecting others' mates or even keeping mates entertained is something that many other species of mammals and birds manage to do without the benefit of language. However, once large social groups are in place, the large number of ever-present rivals greatly raises the stakes and social contracts and Scheherazade mechanisms may suddenly come into their own.

(contrast this with the gossip hypothesis which argues that language was a prerequisite for evolving large groups because of its role as a mechanism needed to weld these large groups into coherent, stable communities of individuals)

Scheherazade & 1001 Nights

You are probably familiar with some of the best-known stories of The Arabian Nights, particularly “Aladdin’s Wonderful Lamp”, “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” and “The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor.” Have you ever heard the tale of Scheherazade and her 1,001 nights? If you want to become desirable, you must do more than work on tightening your glutes and upgrading your cup size, you must take a lesson from Scheherazade.

There once was a king that upon discovering his wife’s infidelity, has her executed and declares all women to be unfaithful. He then decides that he will marry a new virgin every day. As soon as he got bored, he would have her beheaded and marry a new virgin. Eventually the country runs out of virgins except for the executor’s daughter Scheherazade.

Against her father’s protestations, Scheherazade volunteered to spend one night with the King. Once in the King’s chambers, Scheherazade does something very different from the last 3,000 virgins, she begins to share her passion for poetry, philosophy, sciences and arts. She kept the king on the edge of his bed—not with mere alluring sexual positions—but with alluring stories to be told, each more exciting than the next.

The King lay awake and listened with awe as Scheherazade told her first story. The night whiled away, and stopped in the middle of the story. The King asked her to finish, but Scheherazade said there was not time, as dawn was breaking. So, the King spared her life for one day to finish the story the next night. So the next night, Scheherazade finished the story, and then began a second, even more exciting tale which she again stopped halfway through, at dawn. So the King again spared her life for one day to finish the second story.

And so the King kept Scheherazade alive day by day, as he eagerly anticipated the finishing of last night’s story. At the end of one thousand and one nights, and one thousand stories, Scheherazade told the King that she had no more tales to tell him. During these one thousand and one nights, the King had fallen in love with Scheherazade, and had had three sons with her. So, having been made a wiser and kinder man by Scheherazade and her tales, he spared her life, and made her his Queen.

The lesson learned? It’s very seductive to a man when you have passions in your life you can share to keep him inspired, titillated, and coming back for more!

Why should such an intangible quality like social skills score highly with heterosexual women? This has been attributed to the Scheherazade effect, a phrase coined by cognitive psychologist Geoffrey Miller.

The Scheherazade effect refers to the possible tactics used by ancestral women to appeal to a man's conversational skills in order to keep them around.

Research conducted by Professor Doug Kenrick at the University of Arizona seems to support this sexual dynamic. Kenrick has found that both sexes regard social skills as important, particularly a sense of humour. But that a good sense of humour has a different meaning for women than it does for men.

"When women look for a sense of humour in a man, they're saying: 'show me what you've got'. But when a man looks for a sense of humour in a woman, they're saying 'she laughs at my jokes, she must think I'm a great guy'."

NLP

NLP explores the relationships between how we think (neuro), how we communicate (linguistic) and our patterns of behaviour and emotion (programs).


Eyes Up and Left: Non-dominant hemisphere visualization - i.e., remembered imagery (Vr).

Eyes Up and Right: Dominant hemisphere visualization - i.e., constructed imagery and visual fantasy (Vc).

Eyes Lateral Left: Non-dominant hemisphere auditory processing - i.e., remembered sounds, words, and "tape loops" (Ar) and tonal discrimination.

Eyes Lateral Right: Dominant hemisphere auditory processing - i.e., constructed sounds and words (Ac).

Eyes Down and Left: Internal dialogue, or inner self-talk (Ad).

Eyes Down and Right: Feelings, both tactile and visceral (K).

Eyes Straight Ahead, but Defocused or Dilated: Quick access of almost any sensory information; but usually visual.

This pattern appears to be constant for right handed people throughout the human race (with the possible exception of the Basques, whose population appears to contain a fair number of 'exceptions to the rule'). Subsequent studies (Loiselle, 1985 and Buckner, Reese and Reese, 1987) have supported the NLP claim that eye movements both reflect and influence key cognitive componants of thought. Many left handed people, however, tend to be reversed from left to right. That is, their eye accessing cues are the mirror image of those of the average right hander. They look down and left for feelings, instead of down and right. Similarly, they look up and to the right to remember visual imagery, instead of up and to the left, and so on. A small number of people (including ambidextrous and a few right handed people) will be reversed in their some of their eye accessing cues (their visual eye movements, for example), but not the others.

To explore the relationship between eye movements and thinking for yourself, find a partner, ask the following questions, and observe his or her eye movements. For each question keep track of your partner's eye movements in one of the boxes (following the questions below) by using marks, lines or numbers that represent the sequence of positions you observe.

1. Visual Remembered: Think of the color of your car. What kind of pattern is on your bedspread? Think of the last time you saw someone running. Who were the first five people you saw this morning?
2. Visual Construction: Imagine an outline of yourself as you might look from six feet above us and see it turning into a city skyline. Can you imagine the top half of a toy dog on the bottom half of a green hippopotamus?
3. Auditory Remembered: Can you think of one of your favorite songs? Think of the sound of clapping. How does your car's engine sound?
4. Auditory Constructed: Imagine the sound of a train's whistle changing into the sound of pages turning. Can you hear the sound of a saxophone and the sound of your mother's voice at the same time?
5. Auditory Digital (Internal Self Talk): Take a moment and listen to the sound of your own inner voice. How do you know it is your voice? In what types of situations do you talk to yourself the most? Think of the kinds of things that you say to yourself most often.
6. Kinesthetic Remembered: (Tactile) When was the last time you felt really wet? Imagine the feelings of snow in your hands. What does a pine cone feel like? When was the last time you touched a hot cooking utensil? (Visceral/Emotional) Can you think of a time you felt satisfied about something you completed? Think of what it feels like to be exhausted. When was the last time you felt impatient?
7. Kinesthetic Construction: (Tactile) Imagine the feelings of stickiness turning into the feelings of sand shifting between your fingers. Imagine the feelings of dog's fur turning into the feelings of soft butter. (Visceral/Emotional) Imagine the feelings of frustration turning into the feeling of being really motivated to do something. Imagine the feeling of being bored turning into feeling silly about feeling bored.

Visual	Auditory	Kinesthetic	Gustatory	Olfactory
see look show clear view read dark appear picture eye obvious shape sight imagine bright screen mirror reflect brilliant blind shadow perspective reveal glance dawn focused blank insight flash outlook vivid dim sparkling transparent scan overlook opaque periphery drab hazy illuminate lucid twinkle snap-shot foggy myopic prescient farsighted envision nearsighted	tell sound hear speak silence listen volume tone pitch deaf alarm knock bass dialogue verbal quote accent bang static announce scream noisy roar melody articulate tenor tempo hush outspoken hiss overtones squeak earshot screech discord crescendo nag babble amplify dissonance baritone cacophony purr cackle harmonize resonate orchestrate verbose mellifluous attune	feel hard cold balance pain warm touch soft catch motion impression wet solid suffer throw tough concrete thrust excited dull relax tender grasp tense stir breathe momentum texture weigh moist clutch slap bump penetrating soak scrape inertia adhere choke dazed abrasive caress lukewarm nudge tickle tactile throb tingle vibes unfeeling	hot stomach kiss bitter hungry honey burnt delicious garlicky sour nutty stale vinegar tasty alkaline seasoned smoky spicy acidic salty pungent gag fruity tasteful sugary meaty buttery rancid savory yummy yummy hickory saccharine aftertaste minty carbonated	honey burnt foul pine scent garlic dusty onion sour fumes vapors floral rotting aroma fragrance sniff aromatic bouquet smoky stink whiff incense pungent citrus snuff dank acrid fishy flowery stank deodorant putrid waft hickory malodorous halitosis yeasty

• Rapport and Pacing
• Sensory Awareness and Manipulation
• Modeling
• Outcome Thinking
• Hypnosis

Rapport and Pacing

In NLP rapport is a strategy to connect with another person by matching or mirroring that person. Many people establish rapport naturally as they relate with others. They identify with them and even reflect their vocabulary and mannerisms. NLP has systematically coded these things so that people can gain this rapport, not through natural compassion and caring or through truly identifying with them, but rather through learned techniques. The rapport is reduced to a set of skills so that whether or not there is true empathy, empathy is communicated. This is done through carefully observing the other person and then pacing, that is, doing the same thing or something similar, such as matching the rhythm of the person’s breathing and/or using the same kinds of words, expressions, looks, posture, and actions.

There is an NLP story told about a woman who had been pacing another person so intently that she entered into a type of mystical trance, so that when the other person leaned forward and fell off her chair, so did the one who was doing the pacing. Bodenhamer and Hall say, "We experience rapport as that mystical state wherein we listen so exclusively to the other—that we lose awareness of ourselves." (Bold added.) Then they say that "Jesus listened in that way."23 But, Jesus never lost himself in a "mystical state"!

Sensory Awareness and Manipulation

At first glance the idea of sensory awareness sounds okay, but an example from Bodenhamer and Hall reveal what it really is. They ask the reader to enter into an experiment. They instruct, "Recall a pleasant experience from your past." Then they proceed to have the person visualize it, remember the sounds, the feelings, etc. Then they instruct the person to make the image larger and larger and say, "When you made the picture bigger, what happens to your feelings of that experience? Do they intensify?" Then they have the person make the image smaller, then to a comfortable size, then closer, then farther away to show how we can "distance ourselves from experiences."24 They also have the person change the colors and visual clarity, etc. While these activities may be harmless exercises for some, they can put others into an altered state of consciousness. Such visualization activities may appear safe, but they can open the mind to demonic intrusion.

Modeling

The tool called modeling is used to emulate aspects of other people that we admire. Thus, those who want to make NLP palatable for Christians say it is a way to become like Jesus by "breaking down Jesus’ character into little steps that we can emulate in our own lives."25 Aside from the fact that we do not become like Christ by "breaking down Jesus" to emulate Him, this technique is an activity of the flesh, which may make the flesh appear Christ-like and thereby prevent true spiritual growth. By following NLP modeling, a person could indeed develop "a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof" (2 Tim. 3:5).

Outcome Thinking

In NLP, outcome thinking is not just thinking about the future. It is making sensory images to create the future. Therefore it uses visualization. Bodenhamer reports:

I (BB) heard Rev. Charles Stanley utilize the NLP model as he instructed his congregation to take on the mind of Christ. He used the above model in teaching how to create an image of where God wants them to go with their life. Dr. Stanley then mentioned that "it is not wrong to visualize." How about that?26 (Italics his.)

Indeed, not all visualizing is sin, but this kind of visualizing can lead to occult visualization. Trying to make something happen in the future through visualization is an occult practice promoted in the popular occult book The Secret.

Hypnosis

Hypnosis has been a large part of NLP from its inception. Bodenhamer and Hall attempt to make hypnosis sound like a natural response to certain forms of conversation that make a person feel relaxed, comfortable, accepted, and trusting. They believe that hypnosis helps reach into the unconscious mind. They say:

Given that our unconscious mind contains vast reservoirs of knowledge and experiences, we need to learn how to tap this reservoir. Regrettably, many people let this reservoir go largely untapped. Though most of our behavior functions unconsciously, we just let it run—thinking (erroneously) we can’t effect it.27

They contend that a "facet of ‘trance’ and ‘hypnosis’ … wonderfully correlates to ‘the gospel of the grace of God.’"28 They say:

So in order to deal with our deep, unconscious programs the good-news of Jesus begins by sending us, not orders and commands, but assurances so that we can relax, feel safe, rest assured in the redemptive work of one who did for us what we could not do for ourselves, and who promises us inner strength, the witness of the spirit in our depths, etc. What a tremendously positive and resourceful inner state to access!29 (Italics theirs.)

But then, how does one access this "positive and resourceful inner state"? Through entering into a trance state. They say:

How specifically does NLP time-line processes provide tools for uncovering these unconscious parts? By utilizing trance as an altered state as a state of mind-and-emotions (relaxed, safe, open, comfortable, receptive, expectant, etc.) that enables us to function effectively and directly at the unconscious level. It gives us access to that part of our mind made for storing and coding our habitual patterns.