New from Kaleidoscope: Mind Games - Episode 1. The Guru's Guru.

Summary

America's Crime Lab x Mind Games: Episode 1 – "The Guru’s Guru"

Podcast: America's Crime Lab (Special: Mind Games)
Hosts: Alice Hines & Zoe Lascauze
Date: February 25, 2026

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Episode Overview

The premiere episode of Mind Games, a Kaleidoscope production in partnership with iHeartPodcasts, dives deep into the controversial world of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). Through the story of Nancy Salzman, co-founder of NXIVM and NLP devotee, the hosts explore NLP’s appeal, pervasiveness, and the dark shadow cast by its co-founder, Richard Bandler. The episode raises questions about NLP’s efficacy, reputation, and potential for both personal transformation and manipulation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Introducing Nancy Salzman and NLP

• Nancy's Background & Phobia
  Nancy Salzman, a nurse specializing in chronic pain, suffered from a crippling fear of public speaking. A woman performed an "NLP phobia fix" on her, permanently curing the fear and changing her career trajectory (03:17, 04:04).

  "She fixed that problem using an NLP technique and it never was a problem again." — Nancy Salzman (04:04)

The Spread and Appeal of NLP

• NLP’s Blended Origins & Adoption
  NLP blends hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Adopted by self-help movements, corporations, Olympic athletes, and even the military (08:39, 09:10).

  "Any type of manifesting, visualizations, vision boards. If you've done any of that, you've done NLP." — Alice Hines (08:39)

• Notable Followers
  Tony Robbins, Jordan Belfort, corporate trainers and the US Army have used or promoted NLP techniques (09:21).

  "Fans of NLP say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain." — Zoe Lascauze (10:26)

The Shady Reputation and Scientific Questions

• Skepticism & Pseudoscience
  Mainstream psychology often dismisses NLP as pseudoscience, though some alternative therapies (like hypnosis) remain useful (11:00, 11:19).

  "NLP is a model of language patterns to create behavior change." — Nancy Salzman (10:43)
  "If you Google NLP, you'll find a lot of credible sources saying it's a pseudoscience." — Alice Hines (11:00)

NLP in Practice with Nancy Salzman

• Hypnobirthing Session
  Alice, pregnant at the time, meets Nancy for a demonstration of hypnobirthing, showcasing the language patterns and pacing integral to NLP (12:32, 13:07, 16:23).

  "Take a deep breath in and slowly exhale and notice how your body feels…" — Nancy Salzman (16:23)

• Reflection on Effectiveness
  Alice is surprised to find that Nancy's tape genuinely helped her anxiety surrounding childbirth (17:14).

  "I think it kind of did, yeah. I mean, even listening to it now, it makes me feel relaxed." — Alice Hines (17:16)

• Nancy’s Roots and Conversion Story
  Inspired by her mother’s chronic pain, Nancy turns to hypnosis and then NLP, motivated by non-traditional healing methods (18:01–18:40).

NLP as Empowerment and Tool for Survival

• Surviving Prison Through NLP
  Nancy credits NLP, specifically "state control," for helping her survive in a maximum security prison after her conviction in the NXIVM case (20:05).

  "And I kept myself in a good state the whole time I was stuck in prison." — Nancy Salzman (21:36)

• "State Control" Explained
  Key concept learned from Bandler: you can choose and manage your emotional states (22:47, 23:05).

  "I had control over my emotional states. And I had no excuse ever to be in a bad state ever, unless I was allowing it." — Nancy Salzman (23:05)

The Double-Edged Sword of NLP

• Manipulation and Trust Issues
  NLP’s premises can be used for both healing and manipulation, making it difficult to know whom to trust—especially when those in power wield such influence (25:08).

  "Even the most seemingly helpful techniques can be used in sinister ways." — Zoe Lascauze (25:19)

Richard Bandler: NLP's Flawed Founder

• Background and Paradoxes
  Described as both a genius and a deeply problematic figure—accused of substance abuse, violent threats, and even murder, yet also revered by grateful clients (29:07, 29:30).

• The Sledgehammer Approach
  Bandler’s seminars are aggressive and direct, aiming at participation and radical change, sometimes through humiliation or even fear (30:08, 31:52, 43:13, 44:23).

  "They are choosing... you want it to become a magnanimous choice, one that's fairly obvious: which direction they're gonna go? A positive future or a shitty future?" — Richard Bandler (43:13)

• Troubling Tales
  Stories about Bandler persuading people to do reckless things, using voice modulation ("anchoring"), and even threatening violence as a therapeutic intervention (34:38, 36:11, 40:07, 41:20, 42:07, 43:04).

  "I couldn't believe he convinced me to do that." — Nancy Salzman, about Bandler getting her to let him drive drunk (34:48)
  "A knife in the hands of a surgeon is an amazing tool. A knife in the hands of a murderer is a weapon." — Nancy Salzman (39:03)

• Murder Trial
  Bandler was tried and acquitted for murder. The case and his reputation added to his "bad boy" mystique and NLP's notoriety (43:38, 44:01).

NLP’s Ubiquity and "If You Know, You Know"

• Everywhere, Yet Elusive
  Despite being embedded in therapy, coaching, and wellness apps, NLP remains largely under the radar, its techniques branded under many different names (44:52, 46:10).

  "It was shocking to me that NLP was so unknown and yet so relevant." — Alice Hines (44:52)

• What’s Next in the Series
  The hosts tease upcoming explorations: testing NLP on themselves and examining its impact across various fields (46:17, 47:15).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On NLP’s Power to Change State

  "You have control of your state. Use it." — Nancy Salzman (21:36)

• On Manipulation

  "All communication is some form of manipulation." — Nancy Salzman (10:51)

• On the Risks of NLP

  "You can anchor in fear states in people easily." — Nancy Salzman (39:51)

• Dark Methods

  "He did threaten to punch me in the face." — Nancy Salzman (40:04)
  "At this point... I'm gonna take [a positive view of the future] and put it on a brick and shove it right in their skull so they don't miss it. I sort of... the sledgehammer approach." — Richard Bandler (44:23)
  "A knife in the hands of a surgeon is an amazing tool. A knife in the hands of a murderer is a weapon." — Nancy Salzman (39:03)

• Self-Reflection

  "See, I'm very gullible. Oh, my gosh." — Nancy Salzman (38:32)

• Host's Skepticism

  "We're deeply skeptical of gurus, but we want to separate what's legit from the jargon and empty promises." — Zoe Lascauze (46:17)

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Key Timestamps

• 02:56 – Nancy describes her dissociation and fear of public speaking.
• 04:04 – Nancy credits NLP with curing her phobia.
• 09:21–09:58 – NLP's use by famous figures, companies, and the military.
• 10:16–10:51 – NLP as persuasion, manipulation, and “brain user manual.”
• 12:32–13:07 – Alice’s hypnobirthing session with Nancy.
• 16:23–16:50 – Sample of Nancy’s hypnobirthing tape.
• 20:05–21:36 – Nancy on using NLP to endure her prison sentence.
• 22:47–23:05 – “State control” and taking charge of emotions.
• 34:38–34:48 – Nancy recounts Bandler convincing her to let him drive drunk.
• 36:11–36:54 – Anchoring explained; Bandler's hypnotic commands.
• 39:03 – Nancy on tools being neutral: can be used for healing or harm.
• 40:04–43:31 – Bandler's threats, the “sledgehammer approach," and murder trial.
• 44:23 – Controversial approach to “installing” positive mindsets.
• 46:17–47:15 – Preview of future topics: NLP’s reach, Tony Robbins, pickup artists, and cult leaders.

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Tone & Style

The episode maintains an inquisitive and slightly irreverent tone, with hosts balancing deep skepticism with a willingness to experiment and learn first-hand. They highlight both NLP’s seductive potential and the genuine dangers posed by methods that can be used to manipulate as well as heal.

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Conclusion

Mind Games Episode 1 exposes the contradictory nature of NLP—part self-help breakthrough, part manipulative pseudo-science—with engaging storytelling and firsthand exploration. The hosts prove willing to get personal, skeptical, and sometimes uncomfortable as they interrogate the origins of techniques that have shaped everything from therapy to cults and corporate boardrooms.

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This summary focuses solely on substantive content. All non-content/advertisement sections are omitted.

Transcript

[Nancy Salzman]

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[Matt Rogers]

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[Matt Rogers]

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[Alice Hines]

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So like, if you want just one, you're gonna need to find a friend who loves slow roasted chicken bacon and avocado ranch sauce, or a friend of a friend. Or have an awkward conversation with a complete stranger to see if they're obsessed

[Alice Hines]

with chicken bacon and avocado ranch.

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Or you could just like eat them both because you're obsessed with slow roasted Chicken bacon.

[Nancy Salzman]

Okay, you get the idea.

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[Alice Hines]

is a Taco Bell and participating Taco

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[Nancy Salzman]

Kaleidoscope I completely dissociated from my body. I had so much panic and I was so afraid that that when I opened my mouth and said the five words that I said when I was in front of the room, I thought it was someone else talking and I said, I'm never doing this again.

[Alice Hines]

In the late 1980s, Nancy had a phobia of public speaking and it was getting in the way of her job. She was a nurse who specialized in working with chronic pain patients.

[Nancy Salzman]

There's something about being able to help somebody that just makes me so it's probably the biggest motivator of my entire life.

[Alice Hines]

Nancy wanted to share her skills with more people and to grow her business. But there was one big problem. She was terrified of public speaking. Get her in front of a room of people and Nancy would totally freeze. Then she met someone, a woman who said she could cure Nancy's lifelong fear in a few short minutes using something called Neuro Linguistic Programming or or nlp.

[Nancy Salzman]

She did an NLP phobia fix on me and took away my fear of public speaking. And look at me now. I'm a big ham and I love public speaking and I would do anything to do public speaking. But she fixed. She fixed that problem using an NLP technique and it never was a problem again.

[Alice Hines]

Quickly, NLP became Nancy's whole life. Soon she was working as a consultant for Fortune 500 companies. As a coach. She helped thousands of people conquer their own fears. This was way more people than she had ever dreamed of helping as a nurse. And it was all thanks to nlp. NLP is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics and psychology. Nancy used it to found a self help company for ambitious professionals. The Dalai Lama even checked out one of their events. The company was called nxivm.

[Nancy Salzman]

NXIVM is a methodology that allows people to optimize their behavior, Brainwashing, sex abuse, and even branding.

[Matt Rogers]

Nancy Saltzman, the co founder of the

[Nancy Salzman]

capital region based sex cult nxivm, has

[Alice Hines]

been released from prison. NLP made Nancy's career, but then a version of it destroyed her and destroyed the lives of others. But what even is nlp?

[Nancy Salzman]

Take a deep breath in.

[Richard Bandler]

And breathe out. Your conscious mind is going to go totally away so that I can speak privately with your unconscious mind.

[Alice Hines]

From Kaleidoscope and I Heart Podcasts, this is episode one of Mind Games. I'm Alice Hines.

[Zoe Lascauze]

I'm Zoe Lascauze.

[Richard Bandler]

You don't know how you did it, do you? You go into a little time distortion state and you're out of it.

[Alice Hines]

We're reporters.

[Zoe Lascauze]

We're also friends.

[Alice Hines]

We're into some pretty weird shit.

[Zoe Lascauze]

True story. We met at a shamanic sound meditation.

[Alice Hines]

Yeah, that was a few years ago, and there were some changes that occurred, Alice.

[Zoe Lascauze]

Understatement of the century. You astrally traveled, as I recall.

[Alice Hines]

I mean, yeah, you, like, basically do like a long meditation at this thing. And I realized some shit about my life. Number one, Zoe was my new best friend. And number two, I actually broke up with someone who I've been dating for five years after this event.

[Zoe Lascauze]

Whoopsie daisies.

[Alice Hines]

It was for the best.

[Zoe Lascauze]

Yeah, everything worked out just fine, especially the friendship. Here we are. But, yeah, I think it was that weekend sometime before all the gongs and rainsticks and chimes got going, that we realized we have a ton in common.

[Alice Hines]

Yeah, we do. We're both reporters and kind of professional skeptics. Zoe being a science journalist and me being a journalist who has exposed lots of wellness scams and cults. We sort of have to smell the bullshit, but at the same time, keep an open mind.

[Zoe Lascauze]

And we've also, between the two of us, logged something like 5 million hours on the couches of our respective therapists. And I think that's partly why we're interested in alternative therapies. Like, what if you didn't have to spend hours and hours and hours of your life and hundreds of dollars on mainstream psychiatry?

[Alice Hines]

I hope my therapist isn't listening to this.

[Zoe Lascauze]

Yeah, sorry, Annie.

[Alice Hines]

They probably are.

[Zoe Lascauze]

So in this series, we're gonna go spelunking into the murky depths of neuro linguistic programming, or nlp, and we're gonna try to find out if it deserves its sort of shady reputation.

[Alice Hines]

So I first heard about NLP because an alleged cult that I was investigating said they used it. So this wasn't nexivm, it was a different group called Twin Flames.

[Zoe Lascauze]

And what did they use NLP for?

[Alice Hines]

Okay, here's a quote from some of the documentation around this group that they put out. Your practitioner will expertly access your trauma like a world class computer programmer rooting out a bug in the system.

[Zoe Lascauze]

Um, not scary at all. No. That sounds totally normal.

[Alice Hines]

Yeah. So that's how they use nlp. But we were curious whether these techniques could be used in other contexts. And when we started looking into it, we realized NLP is literally everywhere.

[Zoe Lascauze]

And we do mean everywhere. You've probably used an NLP technique without knowing it, or someone's used one on you.

[Alice Hines]

Yeah, it's the basis of a ton of self help movements. Any type of manifesting, visualizations, vision boards. If you've done any of that, you've done nlp.

[Zoe Lascauze]

It has a ton of bold faced name followers. There are Olympic divers who have used NLP to perfect their form. The Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort used it for closing deals. Fortune 500 companies like Apple, IBM, Coca Cola have spent tons of money on NLP sales trainings over the past 50 years.

[Alice Hines]

And so did army intelligence. They sought out NLP to improve soldier marksmanship and spycraft. They called it a technology for enhancing performance.

[Zoe Lascauze]

And NLP spawned the self help behemoth that is Tony Robbins.

[Tony Robbins]

Anybody can be in a good state when things are going your way. But if you can stay in a beautiful state when things don't go your

[Alice Hines]

way,

[Tony Robbins]

then you're going to have a beautiful life.

[Zoe Lascauze]

That's Tony from one of his many ads for Unleash the Power Within, a four day event that regularly draws thousands of people. He's coached Serena Williams, advised Bill Clinton, and even taught Oprah to walk on hot coals. Tony's built an empire telling people they can radically improve themselves using nlp.

[Tony Robbins]

You want to change your life? You want to get out of suffering? Trade your expectations for appreciation and your whole life will change in that moment.

[Alice Hines]

But NLP promises more than personal growth. It also promises to teach you how to persuade others.

[Tony Robbins]

If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Some people get scared when I say the word control people's behaviors. It's already happening.

[Zoe Lascauze]

Fans of NLP say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It makes reprogramming the way you Think quick and easy. You can simply delete bad habits, banish crippling phobias, and install new patterns like software.

[Alice Hines]

Sounds a little too good to be true.

[Nancy Salzman]

NLP is a model of language patterns to create behavior change.

[Tony Robbins]

Every human problem is a behavioral problem.

[Nancy Salzman]

All communication is some form of manipulation.

[Tony Robbins]

By changing our behaviors, we could change the entire world.

[Alice Hines]

If you Google nlp, you'll find a lot of credible sources saying it's a pseudoscience.

[Zoe Lascauze]

Yet not everything that doesn't go through peer reviewed journals and double blind studies is necessarily useless. Think of alternative therapies people get a lot out of anyway.

[Alice Hines]

Or hypnosis.

[Zoe Lascauze]

Right, like hypnosis, which is used by legit doctors to help people with very concrete problems.

[Alice Hines]

Smoking cessation, pain management, phobias.

[Zoe Lascauze]

But then it also exists in the collective imagination as this sort of magical, brainwashy, Svengali mind control tactic.

[Alice Hines]

By the way, a lot of NLP is hypnosis. There's huge crossover. Hypnosis is actually how Nancy Salzman got into nlp.

[Nancy Salzman]

I'll do a session with you. Whatever you want. Okay.

[Richard Bandler]

So

[Nancy Salzman]

how do you feel about giving birth?

[Alice Hines]

I am excited to give birth, but I'm also definitely afraid of the physical ordeal. I'm here in a suburban townhouse outside of Albany, New York with Nancy. We're sitting on a comfy couch in her upstairs office, surrounded by books about Buddhism and neuroscience. I was expecting the Nancy Salzman I'd seen on hbo. Pantsuits, corporate charisma. But today she's dressed casually and feels more like a mom hosting a soccer team. She's prepared an entire lunch spread for us and seems really happy to have company. Her hairless cat keeps jumping on my lap.

[Nancy Salzman]

What is that physical ordeal of birth in your understanding? Let's see.

[Alice Hines]

The physical ordeal is like, I guess I'm afraid of, like, permanent change that is irreversible to my body. I'm afraid of injury. As you've probably guessed, I'm pregnant, like, due in a couple months. When I went to visit Nancy, I'd already been trying hypnosis for relaxation. Turns out hypnobirthing is one of Nancy's specialties, so we're giving it a whirl.

[Zoe Lascauze]

Alice, please don't get brainwashed by Nancy Salzman.

[Alice Hines]

Okay? I know everyone's probably thinking right now that I'm a little nuts, but I came here to learn about Nancy's methods. And sometimes the only way to understand something is to try it.

[Nancy Salzman]

How are you with risk? In other things, I'm okay.

[Alice Hines]

With some risk.

[Nancy Salzman]

What do you mean?

[Alice Hines]

Like, I feel like I don't think I could be a journalist without taking on some risk.

[Nancy Salzman]

That's what I was thinking. So probably, like today, for instance, you don't know me, and here you are coming into my house. I mean, you have a little team with you, but who knows what I could have done here in my house to create irreversible, permanent change that could never be.

[Zoe Lascauze]

You never know.

[Nancy Salzman]

Right. But this feels okay to you?

[Alice Hines]

Yeah, that's right. I wasn't sure how much to trust Nancy. And the fact that this whole thing was being recorded and my producers were in the room was also kind of awkward. This was also the very first interview she was giving since she got out of prison. Nancy pled guilty to some charges related to her work in nxivm, but she's consistently maintained that she was also a victim of the group. And she says she was unaware of its most infamous crimes, like branding and sex trafficking.

[Nancy Salzman]

I thought doing this interview would be good because the media that happened when my company fell apart was so inaccurate. And I've always wanted people to know who I was, what I was involved in, why I did the work that I did, because it was overshadowed all by the media craziness.

[Alice Hines]

I wasn't here to rehash the NXIVM story. I wanted to learn more about her work with nlp, and I had to give it to Nancy. She was very perceptive. Anytime I used a word, she dug into the unconscious reasons I had, maybe picked it.

[Nancy Salzman]

What NLP taught me to do is listen very carefully to what the person says. And I'm trying it on, going, did I worry about that? Did any of the women I've ever. I've ever done this with ever say that I'm worried about injury? Nobody's ever said that I'm worried about injury.

[Zoe Lascauze]

Okay, just want to jump in here for a second. It's very odd to me, Alice, that she said no woman has ever told her they're worried about injury during childbirth. For most women I know, that is a major concern. Why do you think Nancy was going out of her way to make you feel like a freak?

[Alice Hines]

Okay, I guess you're right. I mean, so here's what I think she was doing. By making me think my problem is in my head, it becomes weirdly fixable. So it's a strategy.

[Nancy Salzman]

Are you afraid of pain? Have you had much pain in your life?

[Alice Hines]

Some. I got in a skiing accident once that was pretty painful.

[Nancy Salzman]

What happened?

[Alice Hines]

I actually don't really know I had mixed feelings about this whole session. But later, Nancy used our conversation to make me a hypnobirthing tape. And I was surprised by how into it I was.

[Nancy Salzman]

Take a deep breath in and slowly exhale and notice how your body feels, that you have a body, and that your body has taken care of you all through your life and will continue to take care of you now and in the future.

[Alice Hines]

I listened to this tape regularly as I prepared to give birth. Although I will admit I transcribed it first to make sure there wasn't anything creepy or subliminal messages.

[Nancy Salzman]

You can allow yourself to become more and more self assured.

[Zoe Lascauze]

So did it work?

[Alice Hines]

I think it kind of did, yeah. I mean, even listening to it now, it makes me feel relaxed. You too or.

[Zoe Lascauze]

Yeah, no, it's a vibe. It honestly reminds me of something you'd find on a meditation app.

[Alice Hines]

Yeah. And it's not just Nancy's words, but her tone and the way she's pacing it. It gave me confidence as I listened. It. Yeah, it totally took the edge off.

[Nancy Salzman]

And you can relax into each contraction and allow your body to do what it already knows how to do.

[Alice Hines]

Nancy learned these hypnotic language patterns from nlp. It's her secret sauce. When Nancy was a kid, her mother suffered from debilitating back pain.

[Nancy Salzman]

I grew up in New Jersey in a middle class family. My mother had a chronic pain problem that started when I was about 6. And I think I was one of those kids who was really empathic.

[Alice Hines]

So she became a nurse specifically interested in treating chronic pain patients through alternative medicine. That's how she found hypnosis.

[Nancy Salzman]

I didn't want to use drugs. I wanted to do something non traditional. And my ex husband was a physician and he introduced me to the whole idea, whole idea of hypnosis for chronic pain and biofeedback. And one thing led me to another, to another, to another.

[Alice Hines]

And hypnosis is how Nancy found nlp.

[Nancy Salzman]

I thought the language patterns in NLP were brilliant. And NLP said that you could break down any behavior and teach it to somebody else. So I started learning to break down behaviors and look for different things that I had ever looked for before.

[Alice Hines]

But she was wary at first.

[Nancy Salzman]

Well, they made a lot of claims that the skills of NLP could fix phobias, could do a whole number of things that were amazing to me. And if it was possible, I wanted to learn. But I was kind of skeptical if it was possible.

[Zoe Lascauze]

If you're beginning to wonder what exactly NLP is, that's normal. It can mean a Lot of different things and be used a lot of different ways. Don't worry, we're going to explain it over the course of the series and we'll get into how some people see it as the ultimate life hack, while others have laundered it into extreme methods of controlling others.

[Alice Hines]

For now, what you need to know is that NLP formed the basis of Nancy's self help programs.

[Nancy Salzman]

In nxivm, I saw many, many, many, many people benefit and.

[Alice Hines]

And you are still proud of the program you created?

[Nancy Salzman]

Yes, I'm absolutely proud of it. I'm not proud of how everything ended up.

[Alice Hines]

Nancy still believes in NLP deeply and uses it all the time. It got her through prison, I will tell you that.

[Nancy Salzman]

The judge sentenced me to go to a camp like Martha Stewart and that's what I thought was going to happen. And they sent me to a maximum security female prison and it was a nightmare.

[Alice Hines]

Nancy pled guilty to racketeering conspiracy charges for her role in nxivm. She was sent to federal prison in West Virginia in February of 2022.

[Nancy Salzman]

I was terrified because they were really mean. They were very mean. I had no rights like you have no rights when you're there. And whatever they want to do with you, they're going to do with you.

[Alice Hines]

She says this dark chapter of her life still haunts her. When she's feeling down, she turns to nlp.

[Nancy Salzman]

And when I tell you the worst moments, moments when I believed I had been dealt a really unfair hand and I had been stuck in a horrible situation where I was given no control and I allowed myself to start really suffering about it and feeling really victimized and miserable, about a month in, I said to myself, what is wrong with you? You have all of these tools. Use them. And I put myself in a good state and I said, see, you know how to do this. It is inexcusable for you to stay in this state because you are making yourself miserable. You don't know when you're leaving. You don't know how long you have to be here.

[Zoe Lascauze]

You.

[Nancy Salzman]

You don't know what's gonna happen. But you have control of your state. Use it. And I did. And I kept myself in a good state the whole time I was stuck in prison.

[Zoe Lascauze]

Ooh, yikes. That was intense.

[Alice Hines]

Yeah. And I know maybe some listeners are thinking, can we trust Nancy here? Is it possible she's hyping NLP because she's looking for a comeback or a way to talk about anything other than nxivm? Maybe, maybe not.

[Zoe Lascauze]

I actually find Nancy credible here. She didn't have to talk about using NLP on herself in prison. And what I find really striking is that NLP clearly isn't just some scammy hustle she used on other people. She used it on herself. This is what saved her.

[Alice Hines]

Yeah, she's saying she used NLP in the most high stakes situation of her whole life.

[Zoe Lascauze]

Did she explain, though, how that actually worked? Like, which NLP methods was she using?

[Alice Hines]

Yeah, so there's this concept in nlp. It has kind of a cyborgy name. It's called state control.

[Nancy Salzman]

And what's so great about state control is that once you learn that you can bring up an excited state, it naturally follows that you can bring up any state you want.

[Alice Hines]

Nancy learned these techniques from a man who was incredibly influential in her life, NLP co founder Richard Bandler.

[Nancy Salzman]

And what Richard Bandler taught me in that weekend, which was the most amazing thing of all, was that I had control over my emotional states. And I had no excuse ever to be in a bad state ever, unless I was allowing it. And I will forever be grateful to him for that.

[Alice Hines]

You are using these techniques decades later, when you went to prison, I'm still using them.

[Nancy Salzman]

My mother just died. I could just sit here and cry with you. I'm so sad. But that's not what we're here to do, so I'm not going to. And you don't have to see that.

[Alice Hines]

So just to give you some context, Nancy's mom died three weeks before our interview. We were going to cancel, but then she said she didn't want to. And when we got to her house, she had cooked us this whole lunch, like black bean soup. So naturally, when she started crying in this moment, I felt really bad and just wanted to give her a hug.

[Zoe Lascauze]

Okay, apologies. This is going to sound incredibly harsh, but I have to ask, are we sure she was actually losing control of her emotions? Didn't she just tell us she can be wildly happy in prison? Could she also make herself cry on cue?

[Alice Hines]

Part of me did feel like I was watching a talented actor. It was kind of whiplash, her swing from anguish to then calmly referencing her mother's death. And these emotions were also visible in her face and voice, so it would just instantly shift. My take is that these are Nancy's real emotions, but she has an insane level of control about when to dial in to a specific emotion and immediately shift to another. She says, anyone can do this. It's the power of nlp.

[Zoe Lascauze]

As someone who does occasionally fall to pieces, this ability sounds incredibly seductive. I would honestly love to have more emotional control on command.

[Alice Hines]

Yeah, totally. But what's scarier is the idea that the person teaching you these emotional control techniques could also use them against you.

[Zoe Lascauze]

This is one of the truly disconcerting things about nlp. Even the most seemingly helpful techniques can be used in sinister ways. And because NLP masters pride themselves on controlling their every little word and emotion, it's really hard to know who to

[Alice Hines]

trust, including the guy who started it all, Richard Bandler, a man with a

[Zoe Lascauze]

checkered past and a crazy, spooky laugh.

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[Matt Rogers]

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[Alice Hines]

iflag.org to understand neuro linguistic programming, you have to understand its contradictory founder, Richard Bandler. Sources have told us Bandler is a liar and a drunk and he has

[Zoe Lascauze]

a history of making violent threats.

[Alice Hines]

Although just so you know, he disagrees with and denies all of these characterizations.

[Zoe Lascauze]

And yet, here's the Bandler paradox. He spent his career trying to help others and he's succeeded. Tons of clients swear by him.

[Richard Bandler]

For example, I've had a lot of people that have, you know, that didn't believe that people could change quickly, that went to a workshop and walked out and changed their whole world about that.

[Zoe Lascauze]

As he explains in this seminar from the 1980s, Bandler's whole thing was making people feel like they had the power to fix their own problems. We collected as many of the DVD box sets of his seminars as we could find, watching and studying hours of tape. Here he is in another series, Creating Therapeutic Change.

[Richard Bandler]

See, once you give people the resources, then you also got to tell them it doesn't happen to them. Too many people think that they come in and they go hypnotize me and Change me. And I just go, no, that's too easy. You don't deserve that. I said, you have to earn that from me. You have to go out and kick the shit out of your own problem first. I'll give you the basis to do it, but you've got to actively participate in your own life.

[Zoe Lascauze]

NLP has spread throughout the world since it emerged in Santa Cruz, California in the 1970s. Do a quick search for therapists on psychology today and you'll find tons of people with PhDs who include NLP in their list of methods.

[Alice Hines]

And some therapy professionals even use NLP without disclosing it, maybe without even realizing it. The inventor of one of the most widely used therapies for trauma, emdr, was very influenced by nlp.

[Zoe Lascauze]

NLP changed over the decades, but the central promise remains the same. These techniques will give you more power. This, Bandler explains, is his goal for all his students.

[Richard Bandler]

Even though I do do it to them, I won't tell them I did. I won't give them the satisfaction of knowing, because I still want them above and beyond whatever change they make to get actively involved in their own life, actively involved in running their own brain.

[Alice Hines]

NLP is all about getting out of your patterns, out of your head, and creating more choice.

[Richard Bandler]

The reason they want you to come in and just hypnotize me and make the problem go away is because the reason the problem is there is because it mysteriously has been controlling their life. And the missing piece is their active participation.

[Zoe Lascauze]

Bandler's idea was that with NLP you can achieve anything you desire. Really, anything you must take as a

[Richard Bandler]

presupposition that what they have been doing in their life is absurd. If it is not bringing them wealth, ecstasy and happiness all at the same time, it's gotta be pretty absurd.

[Alice Hines]

In the early 1990s, Nancy attended a five day seminar with Bandler in Pennsylvania. So you trained with Richard Bandler. What was he like as a person?

[Nancy Salzman]

I want to say he was impressive in every way, positive and negative. And his skills were amazing. And at the same time, he would devalue them by calling it that shit.

[Alice Hines]

Nancy was paying $1,000 to learn that shit. And while she was impressed with the techniques, she found Bandler himself pretty off putting.

[Nancy Salzman]

Yes, I was a little horrified by him at first. I was. I mean, if I'm gonna be honest, you know that I have deep respect for him. I just told you, he helped me tremendously. I think he's a genius. But I was a little shocked at how unprofessional he was. He would just show up in, like, his clothes often looked like he had been sleeping in them for three or four nights before he showed up in them.

[Alice Hines]

This is one of the many things that intrigued me about Bandler. At NLP's height, he was teaching corporate success techniques to executives. But the guy's own life was kind of a mess. I mean, he was kind of an unrepentant recreational drug user. Right?

[Nancy Salzman]

I wasn't aware of his drug use. I was aware of his alcohol use because he did that quite openly. I didn't see anything like that. I heard about it, but I didn't see it.

[Alice Hines]

Nancy told me this one crazy story about Bandler where it seemed like he could kind of control her mind and manipulate her into doing something she would never normally do.

[Nancy Salzman]

After training, he would go to the bar and drink a lot with everybody. Didn't seem to get drunk, but he could consume an awful lot of alcohol. It was impressive.

[Alice Hines]

One night, Nancy and some people were having drinks after their NLP seminar and

[Zoe Lascauze]

Bandler was there and we were sitting

[Nancy Salzman]

together and he wanted to go somewhere. And I had watched him drink several. Several is a thought for me. It's not three or four or five or six, even 10. Several is more than 10 martinis. And he wanted to go someplace. And I had just gotten a brand new car and he asked me if we could go in my car. And I said yes. And he convinced me to let him drive. I don't know how he did that.

[Alice Hines]

You let me, Richard Vanler, drive your brand new Volvo, 10 martinis in.

[Nancy Salzman]

He didn't seem drunk.

[Alice Hines]

This guy had something.

[Nancy Salzman]

He did.

[Zoe Lascauze]

What did he have?

[Nancy Salzman]

I don't know. Well, also, he was Richard Bandler, and I. And I was an NLP master practitioner. I wanted to be around him after it was all over. I couldn't believe he convinced me to do that.

[Zoe Lascauze]

Damn. Nancy goes hard.

[Alice Hines]

It should be noted Bandler denies the story.

[Zoe Lascauze]

But seriously, this is a common Bandler motif. He somehow persuades people to stand by him as he does extremely reckless, scary, dangerous things. How'd this work on Nancy?

[Alice Hines]

Well, she thinks it's nlp.

[Nancy Salzman]

Well, do you know anything about nlp? Anchoring? So an anchor is a stimulus and a response. They happen normally in life. Like, let's say you can be anchored to your father's angry voice or your mother's angry voice. So if they use that tone, you just stop as a child, and that's an anchor.

[Alice Hines]

Okay, so Bandler often modulates his voice. That's one part of it.

[Nancy Salzman]

Yeah, he played with his voice a lot. Now that I'm thinking back about him,

[Alice Hines]

he did different accents.

[Nancy Salzman]

He did different accents. He did different intonation patterns. He was very good at that.

[Richard Bandler]

How much more fun could I be having? How much better can it get? And as you keep that voice and lock in your head, your unconscious mind can and will confirm that you will make this a way of life that you can and will enjoy.

[Alice Hines]

As you can hear in his seminar, Creating Therapeutic Change, Bandler changes his voice on Commander.

[Richard Bandler]

And as you do so, take a deep breath and begin to feel a good feeling start to spread throughout your body. That's right.

[Nancy Salzman]

Starting.

[Richard Bandler]

Start to tingle all around.

[Alice Hines]

Start to these shifts in tones and accent. He's trying to embed hypnotic commands with

[Richard Bandler]

his voice so that slowly, as you return back to the waking state, that commitment becomes locked firm and solid.

[Alice Hines]

In NLP terms, that's called anchoring.

[Richard Bandler]

And the more your body will feel wonderful.

[Alice Hines]

And as we were talking, Nancy was like, wait a second. That's exactly what happened in the bar.

[Nancy Salzman]

Oh, he just wanted me. He anchored you to his voice. That's what he was doing. When he was doing that, he would get you in a certain state, and then when he would use that voice again, you would go back into that state.

[Richard Bandler]

Now, that's just a suggestion you will carry out and follow utterly incompletely.

[Alice Hines]

The idea of anchoring is that you trigger an emotional response or behavior in someone with a physical sensation. Squeezing their wrist or using a sound like a bell or a word said in a certain tone. First, you build a heightened emotional state in your client or target.

[Nancy Salzman]

In nlp, what they learned is that when you're having an emotional state, it looks like a bell curve, you know, up and around. And when the state is building, you're going up, up, up, up, up, up, up. With an emotional state, at a certain point, the state peaks out, meaning that's the full state.

[Alice Hines]

Once they reach full state, that's when you anchor. Subscribe now to Mind Games.

[Zoe Lascauze]

Subscribe now to Mind Games.

[Alice Hines]

Subscribe now to Mind Games. It's kind of like training a dog, but you're doing it with a person.

[Zoe Lascauze]

And that's allegedly how Bandler convinced Nancy to drive her new car drunk. Isn't she an NLP wizard, too, though? How'd she not notice that? Do you think Nancy is particularly susceptible to manipulation?

[Alice Hines]

Well, that's exactly what she says. She told me she has a gullible streak.

[Nancy Salzman]

See, I'm very gullible. Oh, my gosh.

[Alice Hines]

But she does really Believe she was anchored.

[Nancy Salzman]

Now I know what he did. I never could figure out what he did. I was anchored to his voice, if that exists.

[Zoe Lascauze]

That's an amazing power and amazingly dangerous.

[Alice Hines]

I asked Nancy about that. Can NLP be used for good or evil? Is it a neutral tool?

[Nancy Salzman]

You know, when people ask me about that, one of the things that I say is a knife in the hands of a surgeon is an amazing tool. A knife in the hands of a murderer is a weapon. I believe, because I've worked with behavior change so much, and even when people want to change, sometimes it's hard. I believe that for the most part, you have to have very bad intent to try to figure out ways of using these things negatively. But is it possible? I'm not going to say it's impossible because, you know, you can anchor in fear states in people easily

[Zoe Lascauze]

fear anchors. This is sounding not so neutral. When people are afraid, they're more compliant.

[Alice Hines]

Yeah. And fear was an explicit part of Richard Bandler's therapy. He scared people into fixing themselves.

[Nancy Salzman]

You know, he did threaten, punch me in the face.

[Tony Robbins]

That was actually turned out to be

[Zoe Lascauze]

a very good intervention.

[Tony Robbins]

You know, it helped me to have

[Nancy Salzman]

one of the most profound experiences of my Life.

[Zoe Lascauze]

That's Don McCormack, a retired psych professor who knew Bandler and Santa Cruz during the early days of nlp. He was trying to learn a new technique, but kept getting stuck. It was only when Bandler threatened to punch him that suddenly Don got it.

[Alice Hines]

There are even more stories like this one that Bandler told repeatedly was about a schizophrenic patient who thought he was Jesus Christ. Bandler got the patient to build a cross. He brought in the heavy wood beams and giant sized nails. Then he had the guy stretch out on the cross to measure him to make sure it was right. We read about this in a book and honestly don't really know what to make of it or what the patient's reaction was.

[Zoe Lascauze]

We do know many of Bandler's most dramatic therapies featured threats of violence. He denies this, but it's been widely reported that at this one seminar in 1984, a client was trying to work on some problematic aspect of his life. And he made the mistake of joking to Bandler that the only thing that could possibly get him to change would be a loaded gun. So Bandler whipped one out.

[Alice Hines]

Because in some versions of the story, Bandler has a loaded gun with him.

[Zoe Lascauze]

Naturally. And the guy's into it. At first he knows Bandler and his aggressive antics and he even Says, well, I'd have to believe you'd actually use it on me for it to help. So Bandler's like, challenge accepted. He tells the therapist, you have no idea how nuts I am. I don't have to kill you. I just have to wound you. Apparently, that did the trick. The guy tells Bandler, haha, okay, mission accomplished. I can change that part of my life. And Bandler's like, yep, I know. Cause I would have shot you by now. It should be clarified that Bandler says he used a cigarette lighter shaped like a gun, not a gun itself.

[Alice Hines]

I have no idea what to make of this story. Like, what the fuck? I mean, I honestly also am like, did it really happen? But also, okay, let's say it did and it supposedly worked.

[Zoe Lascauze]

That's the thing. Even years later, the guy continued to tell reporters that Bandler had helped him. In fact, most of the people I've spoken to have said that when Bandler pulls these kind of hardcore changer, I'll kill you sort of cures, he's just getting in there and doing what needs to be done.

[Richard Bandler]

He would sometimes use threats to get people to do something or to.

[Nancy Salzman]

Or sometimes just even losing his temper.

[Richard Bandler]

So I had him threaten me before, but with what? Well, Richard, out of the goodness of

[Nancy Salzman]

his heart, would have the ultimate compassion

[Richard Bandler]

to hold a gun to the side

[Nancy Salzman]

of a student's head to provide the motivating factor that would allow them to make a change.

[Zoe Lascauze]

Bandler didn't just intimidate students. According to court documents, he also threatened his employees with violence.

[Richard Bandler]

Hey, push it to the limits, man. Go for the throat at this point. Because this is exactly what's going on in their life. They are choosing, and you want it to become a magnanimous choice, one that's fairly obvious which direction they're gonna go in a positive future or a shitty future, what's it gonna be?

[Zoe Lascauze]

And Bandler pushed it to the limits in his own life.

[Alice Hines]

Were you around when he got accused of murder?

[Nancy Salzman]

No, I think it was before. They used to talk about it. They used to say three people went in the room, two came out alive.

[Alice Hines]

Yeah, you heard that right? Richard Bandler stood trial for murder in 1987 and was acquitted. Oh, interesting. You joined up afterwards. Did you know about that?

[Nancy Salzman]

Mm.

[Alice Hines]

During his murder trial, including in his own court testimony, the whole world learned that Bandler was a heavy cocaine user and involved with shady characters like Santa Cruz drug dealers. Even after Bandler was found not guilty, the trial became part of his bad boy, loose cannon, mystique now this is

[Richard Bandler]

the kind of subtle stuff that I'm trying to get you guys to do, right? It's none of this sitting around and going, and how do you feel about that? You know, or going into a meeting and going, well, do you see any good prospects for the future? Fuck that. Jam them in their head. You know, if I want people work for me to have a positive view of the future, I'm gonna take it and put it on a brick and shove it right in their skull so they don't miss it. I sort of. The sledgehammer approach to things.

[Alice Hines]

Listening to Richard Bandler, his sledgehammer approach to healing. It's what's so provocative about nlp. The grand claims and the seemingly absurdly simple yet weirdly effective techniques. And then there's the whole if you know, you know, aspect of the thing. It was shocking to me that NLP was so unknown and yet so relevant. It's literally in every meditation app I've seen. Especially as wellness pervades so many aspects of our lives and we have this collective obstacle obsession with self optimization and treating our brains as computers to be reprogrammed. NLP seems more relevant than ever.

[Zoe Lascauze]

It's that pervasiveness that sent us down this road of trying to figure out where it comes from. In part through the story of one of its central figures. Richard Bandler, brilliant outside the box healer.

[Richard Bandler]

They wouldn't give me a license to do therapy because I'm not qualified. I think that's wonderful. Therapy tries to get you to relive trauma. I try to get people to stop thinking about it so much. My techniques focus on getting people to take control of their mind.

[Zoe Lascauze]

Or slick hustler who sold pseudoscientific life hacks to the US Military and inspired hundreds of imitators.

[Richard Bandler]

It spread all over the planet. It's everywhere. I'm translated into dozens of languages.

[Zoe Lascauze]

We're deeply skeptical of gurus, but we want to separate what's legit from the jargon and empty promises.

[Alice Hines]

So we're going to interview sales whizzes.

[Richard Bandler]

I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused.

[Alice Hines]

Pickup artists.

[Taco Bell Advertiser]

She looked at me and she said.

[Richard Bandler]

And I said, that's because you have a message for me.

[Taco Bell Advertiser]

What's your message?

[Richard Bandler]

And then she leaned over and tongue

[Taco Bell Advertiser]

said something about wanting to pleasure me.

[Alice Hines]

And NLP's most famous practitioner, Tony Robbins.

[Tony Robbins]

Tony Robbins is doing all this. He said he's the best NLP guy in the world. Which I did. And when people said I wasn't, I challenged him. I said, let's have an elpoff. You give me your worst patient and we'll see who can handle them quicker. I said, I'm happy to do it. And I won every time I did it.

[Alice Hines]

All of whom credit NLP as the basis of their success. So do some accused cult leaders or are they innocent victims? Well, I knew that it was cultish

[Nancy Salzman]

and weird, but I liked it for all of those reasons.

[Zoe Lascauze]

We'll even test NLP on ourselves. I don't know what I expected to get exactly, but what I got were some pretty specific images from my childhood.

[Nancy Salzman]

This is wild

[Zoe Lascauze]

and on you, the listener, with your consent.

[Alice Hines]

A whole lot of NLP is pretty shady, but some of it is real. We're gonna dig into those parts and the science of hypnosis behind them. And don't worry, we will get to the murder.

[Zoe Lascauze]

Oh, and we'll even hear from the man himself, Richard Bandler.

[Richard Bandler]

This is what we refer to as a hit job. And I find this very fucking offensive.

[Alice Hines]

Wow, Richard. Mind Games is a Kaleidoscope production in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The series is created and hosted by me, Alice Hines and Zoe Lascaz. It's produced by Ryder Alsop and Dara Look Potts. Edited by Kate Osborne Editorial consulting from Adeza Egan Original composition and mixing by Steve Boat Fact checking by Eamonn Whalen from Kaleidoscope.

[Zoe Lascauze]

Our executive producers are Oz Wolosian, Mangesh Hatikador and Kate Osborne from iHeart. Our executive producers are Katrina Norville and Nikki Itor.

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[Matt Rogers]

This is Matt Rogers from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

[Bowen Yang]

This is Bowen Yang from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang hey,

[Matt Rogers]

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Bottom line, Xfinity is smart and reliable. You deserve the peace of mind of having WI fi that's got your back.

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[Nancy Salzman]

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