Meeting Bandler

Summary

Podcast Summary: Mind Games – Episode 9, “Meeting Bandler”

Host: Kaleidoscope (Alice Hines & Zoë Lescaze)
Date: March 17, 2026

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Episode Overview

This final episode of Mind Games centers on Richard Bandler, the enigmatic and controversial co-founder of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). Journalists Alice Hines and Zoë Lescaze embark on a quest to finally meet and interview Bandler in person after years of failed attempts. Through Alice’s firsthand experience at Bandler’s seminar and an eventual tense interview, the episode wrestles with the paradoxes of both the man and his mind-hacking techniques. The hosts also reckon with NLP’s dual legacy as a tool for self-help and manipulation, and reflect on their personal experiments with its methods.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Elusive Richard Bandler

• Failed Contact Attempts: Alice and Zoë describe two years of unsuccessful attempts to contact Bandler (02:44–03:10).
  • Quote: "We've sent him countless emails through his handlers, who always blew us off." – Alice Hines (02:47)
• Speculation About Evasiveness: The hosts question if Bandler has something to hide, setting up the episode’s investigative tone.

2. Tracking Bandler to London

• Alice Attends Bandler Seminar: Alice flies to London to attend Bandler’s “Power of Hypnosis” event, hoping to observe and possibly speak with him (03:44–05:02).
  • Quote: "I'm hoping to see the man behind the myth." – Alice Hines (04:17)
• Seminar Vibe and Attendees: Attendees range from salespeople to life coaches and anxious parents. Many seek hypnosis and persuasion tools for business, self-improvement, or relationships (07:13–09:32).
  • Notable Attendees: Alex (a dealmaker/hyperbaric chamber seller), Oliver (a life coach), Andrea (a mother working on social anxiety).

3. Bandler on Stage: Persona & Demos

• Stage Presence: Bandler appears as an aging but influential figure, closely guarded, and with elaborate crowd control (09:32–10:23).
• Performance Highlights:
  • Elvis Hypnosis: Bandler hypnotizes a man (Paul) into embodying Elvis, provoking deep physical reactions (10:28–12:20).
    • Quote: “It’s easier when you go into a character… being in trance, I was just absolutely Elvis.” – Paul (11:22)
  • Pain Relief Demo: Alice observes a participant (Kevin) lose chronic pain on stage, an impressive but possibly pressured transformation (12:20–14:15).
• Participants’ Reactions: While Alice found some elements “cheesy” but moving, she was also skeptical of the high-stakes theatrics (14:15–14:56).

4. Bandler’s Controversial Demeanor & Mixed Reception

• Hostile Outburst: Bandler berates a paying VIP for pen-jiggling during his lecture (15:00–15:25).
• Crowd Adoration Despite Antics: Attendees largely adore him, explaining his irritability as a teaching tool or performance quirk (15:35–16:24).
  • Quote: "I think it's a very clever strategy that he has to break down barriers." – Seminar attendee (15:35)
• Alice’s Reaction: She finds Bandler abrasive yet captivating in his delivery and techniques (14:56–16:24).

5. Confronting Bandler: The Interview

• Bandler’s Paradox: The "healer and hurter" tension is emphasized. Bandler is both credited for transformative self-help and accused of aggression and manipulation, both personally and in his teachings (19:31–21:34).
• First Interview Exchange – Bandler on NLP’s Spread (21:46–23:28)
  • Quote: "It's a model of good communication... it's everywhere. It may not be called that, but it is." – Richard Bandler (22:50)
• Deflection and Denial of Controversy: Bandler denies stories of violence, including gun threats, claiming myths and exaggerations (26:15–27:11, 28:34–29:34).
  • Pen Outburst Parallel: Bandler’s hostility in the interview mirrors his on-stage behavior.
  • Quote: "That's absolutely not true... it was a cigarette lighter that looked like a gun." – Richard Bandler (28:47)
• Manipulation Debate:
  • View on Manipulation: Bandler asserts NLP only formalizes age-old persuasive techniques; it’s about intent, not the tool (31:36–32:49).
    • Quote: "People have been manipulating each other for centuries—sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse." – Richard Bandler (31:36)
  • On Pseudoscience Accusations: Dismisses need for scientific validation, calling NLP an “art form” (33:55–34:25).
    • Quote: "I'm not interested in doing double-blind studies by the criterion set up by scientists." – Richard Bandler (33:55)

6. State Control & Personal Accountability

• State Control as Personal Freedom: Bandler frames NLP as a way to choose emotional responses (34:56–37:13).
  • Quote: "Freedom is absolutely everything. And freedom comes from having choice." – Richard Bandler (34:56)
• Repression vs. Control: Dismisses accusations of emotional repression as “psychological,” showing contempt for traditional therapy paradigms (37:13–37:32).

7. Bandler’s Volatile Past—Allegations & Lawsuits

• Domestic Abuse & Aggression Claims: Alice and Zoë confront Bandler with well-documented allegations ranging from violence, lawsuits, and emotional distress inflicted on former associates (39:18–40:23, 44:37–48:57).
  • Courtroom Stories: Anecdotes of Bandler using NLP techniques (mirroring) on judges; mostly unsuccessful (48:01–48:33).
  • Legal Outcomes: Multiple judgments against Bandler for emotional distress, back pay, and failed attempts to control NLP’s branding.

8. Reconciling the Art from the Artist, and NLP’s Real Legacy

• Separation of Technique from Teacher: The hosts and many former associates see value in NLP when separated from Bandler’s influence (49:13–49:40).
• Personal Testimonies: Zoë’s mother uses NLP-inspired visualizations to overcome biking anxiety, highlighting the technique’s personal utility and adaptability (50:04–52:46).
  • Quote: “It was very powerful. It just changed everything. Yeah, it gave me myself back in a way.” – Lynn Lescaze (Zoë’s mom) (52:27)
• DIY Approach: Alice and Zoë both innovate upon and adapt NLP for personal use, reinforcing its flexibility and survival beyond Bandler (52:53–54:08).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Bandler on Manipulation:
  "Manipulate just means to move from one place to another on purpose." – Richard Bandler (31:36)
• On the Spread of NLP:
  "People have been manipulating without knowing NLP for a long, long time. The fact that somebody learns NLP and refines their skills a little bit is not my fault." – Richard Bandler (31:59)
• On Personal Responsibility:
  "If you learn about this stuff, you can defend yourself against it." – Richard Bandler (31:59)
• Founders’ Paradox:
  "A healer can also hurt people. A flawed man can create good in the world." – Alice Hines (21:06)
• On the Attraction of NLP:
  "What if these are skills that truly anyone can use, and that's the spirit out of which NLP was born?" – Alice Hines (14:38)
• Alice’s skeptical but open-minded conclusion:
  "The most powerful parts for me were the self-guided, peer-to-peer portions where you don’t need a guru or a teacher." – Alice Hines (49:40)

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Key Timestamps

• Bandler Elusiveness, Introduction: 02:44–03:37
• Alice at Bandler Seminar: 03:44–09:32
• Stage Demos & Participant Reactions: 10:28–14:56
• Bandler’s Outburst: 15:00–16:24
• Remote Interview with Bandler: 21:46–41:00
• Confronting Abuse Allegations, Lawsuits: 44:37–48:57
• Personal Uses, DIY NLP, and Conclusion: 49:40–54:08

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Tone and Final Thoughts

• Hosts maintain a tone of skeptical curiosity, balancing critical reporting with personal experimentation and genuine openness to the transformative potential of NLP.
• Despite Bandler’s explosive nature and combative interview responses, the episode refrains from painting him as a simple villain. Rather, it presents a complex portrait of a man both ingenious and deeply flawed.
• The show's closing reflections champion the "peer-to-peer," democratized ethos at NLP’s heart—flexible, user-driven, and ultimately separate from Bandler’s control or legacy of controversy.
  • Quote: "That’s why it’s going to outlast him too." – Zoë Lescaze (54:07)

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Summary prepared for listeners who want a comprehensive understanding of the episode’s narrative, revelations, and ethical arguments about Richard Bandler and NLP, without needing to listen to the full show.

Transcript

[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Are you looking for a refresh this spring? Make sure you take some time for self care with savings on all your favorite hair care Essentials. Now through March 31st. Shop in store or online for participating hair care items from Pantene, Head and Shoulders, Aussie and Old Spice and earn four times points. Points can be redeemed later for discounts on groceries or gas. Offer ends March 31. Restrictions apply. Promotions may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details. Shake it up with Vital Proteins, Collagen and Protein Shake. It's a high quality, ready to drink shake with 30 grams of protein and 10 grams of collagen to support healthy hair, skin, nails, bones and joints. With zero grams of added sugar, no artificial sweeteners and absolutely no carrageenan. It's a clean, delicious way to fuel your day so you don't just age gracefully, you age powerfully. Vital Proteins stay vital. Learn [e-mail] support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures [e-mail] disclosures there's a difference

[Alice Hines]

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[Zoe Lascaz]

Richard Bandler is not an easy man to get a hold of.

[Alice Hines]

We've sent him countless emails over the past two years through his handlers who always blew us off.

[Zoe Lascaz]

We obviously wanted his perspective, being the co founder of Neuro Linguistic Programming and all, but he didn't seem to want to talk to us. Meanwhile, we've interviewed Bandler's friends and former collaborators, even his lawyer, hoping he would realize we were serious and doing our

[Alice Hines]

homework, but no response. Nothing. Radio silence. I'm honestly baffled by how evasive he is. Bandler's not as famous as other people who've agreed to talk with us for this podcast, like Tony Robbins or even infamous like Nancy Salzman.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Maybe he just hates the press, but we also began to wonder if he has something to hide, which frankly, is

[Alice Hines]

like Alice Catnip I'm in the airport in London. Gatwick just got off the flight.

[Zoe Lascaz]

So in late May 2025, Alice headed to London to track him down.

[Alice Hines]

I am coming here to see Richard Bandler in the flesh. We've sent multiple letters to this guy trying to get him to talk to us, and so far we have been completely ignored. Does it make me want to come all the way here across the ocean to find this guy and show up at his hypnosis conference?

[Zoe Lascaz]

Yes, it does.

[Alice Hines]

That's what I'm gonna do. I got a ticket to a two day seminar, the Power of Hypnosis, taught by the man himself. Bandler is in his mid-70s and he's been doing NLP for half a century. I'm hoping to see the man behind the myth. I'm actually staying in the hotel where the hypnosis conference will occur. I hope he is too. That way I'll have lots of opportunities to introduce myself. Here we go.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Take a deep breath in.

[Richard Bandler]

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

[Ryan Seacrest]

privately with your unconscious mind.

[Zoe Lascaz]

You can notice that you feel rested, more alert, confident.

[Alice Hines]

From Kaleidoscope and I Heart Podcasts, this is mind Games Episode 9. I'm Alice Hines.

[Zoe Lascaz]

And I'm Zoe Lascaz. In this episode, our final episode, a reckoning for Bandler and for his creation, Neuro Linguistic Programming.

[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.

[Zoe Lascaz]

So far in this series we've looked at NLP as it grew from a groovy alternative psych movement in California to a persuasion technology big with army spies, major corporations, pickup artists, and cults like nxivm.

[Alice Hines]

Also, everyday people around the world like

[Zoe Lascaz]

us, We've been trying it out on ourselves and our friends.

[Alice Hines]

And we've explored how NLP can be used as a genuine tool for self

[Zoe Lascaz]

help, but it can also be used as an aid in manipulation and brainwashing.

[Alice Hines]

We've looked at NLP from basically every angle. Well, every angle but Bandler's own.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Alice, tell us how you finally got to Bandler.

[Alice Hines]

Well, it started in London. I was brushing up on my hypnosis skills ahead of this conference. I'm like steeped in these DVDs, but it's not the same as seeing someone in person.

[Zoe Lascaz]

How often does he teach live seminars these days?

[Alice Hines]

Bandler does around three of these events every year. And this one had him build alongside this celebrity UK hypnotist named Paul McKenna. There were around 300 people in the audience and honestly, the room was packed. People paid at least £500 to attend. I also paid my own way and in doing so signed a waiver as an attendee, promising I would not record any of the actual sessions. So I get it. I mean, it's his intellectual property. He sells these tapes. But I was able to talk to some fellow students outside of the event.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Okay.

[Alice Hines]

What brings you here, Alex?

[Richard Bandler]

Just learning how to hypnotize my clients to be a better deal maker.

[Alice Hines]

Alex looks to be in his mid-30s and is wearing a slick gray suit. He's there with his gorgeous blonde wife and they tell me they want to use NLP's persuasion techniques in order to sell hyperbaric chambers. This is essentially a medical device. You breathe pure oxygen in a pressurized environment. It can be used to revive divers, but it's also big these days among

[Ryan Seacrest]

longevity bros. You can slow down aging. You can decrease biological aging by 10 years.

[Alice Hines]

Alex claimed to have a lot of celebrity clients.

[Richard Bandler]

Kim Kardashian, Brian Johnson, Sports teams like

[Ryan Seacrest]

NFL, NBA teams, Manchester United.

[Alice Hines]

He hoped NLP would be part of both his selling and deal making.

[Ryan Seacrest]

I use empathy when I negotiate.

[Richard Bandler]

That's part of it.

[Alice Hines]

Building rapport.

[Richard Bandler]

Yeah, yeah. I can manipulate clients of leading towards my technology.

[Alice Hines]

Alex was exactly the type of person, person I was expecting to find at a Bandler seminar in 2025. A sales guy of a fringe wellness hardware. But there were also a lot of people like Oliver.

[Richard Bandler]

I just want to understand the power of my mind.

[Ryan Seacrest]

I think it's super important.

[Richard Bandler]

You know what I mean?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Like, imagine we're born and we never understand really how powerful we are.

[Richard Bandler]

Like, that's a tragedy in my eyes.

[Alice Hines]

He's a life coach and personal trainer.

[Richard Bandler]

Like a holistic gym as well. It's not like a normal gym. It's like a gym for helping people evolve their consciousness.

[Alice Hines]

Or Andrea, a nice hippie ish mom who is using NLP to help with her social anxiety and to improve her relationship with her daughter. But also, my daughter's left home, so I don't have the ammo to be so reactive. How old is your daughter?

[Richard Bandler]

She's 20 now. 20.

[Alice Hines]

What does she think about NLP?

[Richard Bandler]

Oh, hates it. Oh. She was seven when I started doing it.

[Ryan Seacrest]

She was my only client.

[Alice Hines]

I was like, come on, I'm going

[Richard Bandler]

to do this with you. She just, she used to say.

[Alice Hines]

I mean, even at that age, she'd

[Richard Bandler]

say, you stupid psychology woman with your stupid psychology ways.

[Alice Hines]

Andrea and I paired up during the seminar's first breakout session and practiced hypnotizing each other. It actually worked pretty well. Maybe it's cheesy, but I related to her as a mom who wanted the best for her daughter. Then there was Bandler. He lectured and did demos on stage when we weren't working in these small groups. Getting to see Bandler live after watching an embarrassing quantity of his DVDs was pretty fascinating. Bandler's in his mid-70s now. He doesn't look like a biker from the movie Easy Rider anymore. He was wearing a suit and had sort of a round, tall body and white hair and was clean shaven. His mobility was kind of limited. He had to be helped on and off stage. People lined up at one point for autographs and there was an entire team devoted to line control, making sure no one cut or came close to him out of turn.

[Zoe Lascaz]

What, there were Bandler bouncers?

[Richard Bandler]

Yeah.

[Zoe Lascaz]

My God, what a celeb.

[Alice Hines]

His lectures were meandering and kind of random at some points, like he ranted about taxes. But his hypnosis demos were pretty impressive. The guy still has it. At one point he had the whole room chanting, bandler, Bandler, Bandler. Tell me about what happened on stage. Okay, okay. Paul Dunley's a tall Irish guy. I chatted with him over lunch after I saw him get hypnotized by Bandler. So he suggested to me, I am Elvis Presley. Paul got up on stage and crooned after Bandler put him in a trance. Is your heart filled with pain?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Shall I come back again?

[Alice Hines]

Tell me, dear Are you lonesome tonight? Do you feel like Elvis now? Do I feel. Do you know It's a strange thing to ask. It's easier when you kind of go into a character and you believe you're in that character, then there's no doubt. So it helped me being in France, I was just absolutely Elvis. But something even weirder happened. When Paul was on stage, his body twitched in this involuntary way, just shaking all over.

[Ryan Seacrest]

It's connecting with this divine energy outside

[Alice Hines]

us, like he was having a seizure or like he was possessed by the Holy Spirit. I mean, it's charging Jesus from your

[Ryan Seacrest]

toenails right up through all the body,

[Alice Hines]

right up into the head, right up in the light. Everything is just alive. So you're shaking uncontrollably. I felt sort of embarrassed watching this, but it was undeniably fascinating. Paul wasn't the only person who had a powerful physical reaction to being hypnotized by Bandler. What happened on stage today?

[Richard Bandler]

I've been struggling with a lot of pain. Now, I mentioned to Richard at lunchtime, was there something I could possibly do, like, in terms of self hypnosis? I was wondering if I could do

[Ryan Seacrest]

something myself because all I'm doing is

[Richard Bandler]

thinking about it constantly.

[Alice Hines]

When Kevin got up on stage that afternoon, he said every step he took hurt his body. But then on stage, the pain completely disappeared.

[Richard Bandler]

On the stage. When I came back out, the body impact. Because I've been locked in this way for weeks and weeks and weeks, I'm aware that it's there, but the way I feel about it is totally different.

[Alice Hines]

On stage, Bandler told Kevin to imagine he was bathing in an unbelievable sense of warmth and comfort. And he did some hands on touching of Kevin's shoulders and knee. I was thinking about all the things

[Richard Bandler]

that's good about my body, not just the thing that's at the moment, not the best. And I kept thinking, this term, this too shall pass. This too shall pass. And it was just. Yeah, it was really strange.

[Alice Hines]

So as I was talking to Kevin, this other lady named Gwen came up to him and she was like, wow, that was an astounding thing to witness. When you walked up on the stage,

[Zoe Lascaz]

your pain or your discomfort was palpable.

[Alice Hines]

You could tell I've had that. And I was like, oh, that guy's hurting. But when you got up, even through

[Zoe Lascaz]

it, you were like going into other places.

[Richard Bandler]

But when you stood up, like, you

[Zoe Lascaz]

just moved completely differently.

[Alice Hines]

It was like, holy shit.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Yeah.

[Alice Hines]

So I know from our research, Zoe, that hypnosis can be a really powerful thing for pain relief, specifically. Like, there's really good data behind this. That said, I was a little skeptical of what was happening on stage because it seemed like there was a lot of pressure on Kevin to have some sort of dramatic transformation.

[Zoe Lascaz]

So it felt kind of phony, like he was partially just meeting the expectations of Bandler and the crowd.

[Alice Hines]

I think so. But not every part of the event felt phony to me. Like, I actually really loved working with my fellow students. There's something that felt radical about letting a random stranger hypnotize you. I resisted it at first, but when I gave in, it was honestly awesome. Like, what if these are skills that truly anyone can use, and that's the

[Zoe Lascaz]

spirit out of which NLP was born? I mean, that's how it got started. People experimenting on each other, genuinely wanting to experiment and change and grow together. And I'm frankly glad to hear that that spirit is still alive and well, it definitely is.

[Alice Hines]

On the other hand, I found Bandler very abrasive. Ooh.

[Zoe Lascaz]

What rubbed you the wrong way?

[Alice Hines]

Well, at one point, he exploded on this guy in the front row. This is a guy who had paid for a VIP ticket. Okay. And the guy, I guess, was taking notes and his pen was jiggling while he was taking. Not. Bandler interrupted his own lecture and exploded on the guy. He told him to stop or move out of the seat because apparently the jiggling distracted him.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Yikes.

[Alice Hines]

Yeah. And the funny thing is, this pen outburst and what I considered pretty abrasive behavior didn't bother most people. So I think it's a very clever

[Richard Bandler]

strategy that he has to break down barriers.

[Alice Hines]

He doesn't over complicate. He's like, no. It's like everyone can. Can grasp it.

[Zoe Lascaz]

It's not over people's heads.

[Alice Hines]

I could actually sit and listen to

[Richard Bandler]

Richard probably for a week.

[Ryan Seacrest]

He just makes me die with laughter.

[Alice Hines]

He's fabulous. Hmm.

[Zoe Lascaz]

So people were eating up this semi hostile vibe.

[Alice Hines]

Yeah. But they didn't just love Bandler as a wise guy from America. They also saw him as a healer. What did it change in your life? Just got me to look at the.

[Richard Bandler]

The damage you can do with your thoughts, but the power you can do with it when you use it the right way.

[Alice Hines]

Hearing from Bandler's fans only made me want to talk to him more. He basically ignored me at the conference after one of his handlers said he wasn't available to talk. But we ended up speaking a few months later. I got to learn what it was like to be the target of a Bandler outburst.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Did you jiggle a pen?

[Alice Hines]

Way worse.

[Zoe Lascaz]

That's after the break.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Are you looking for a refresh this spring? Make sure you take some time for self care with savings on all your favorite hair care Essentials. Now through March 31st. Shop in store or online for participating hair care items from Pantene, Head and Shoulders, Aussie and Old Spice and earn four times points. Points can be redeemed later for discounts on groceries or gas. Offer ends March 31. Restrictions apply. Promotions may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details. Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comDisclosures Shake it up with Vital Proteins, Collagen and Protein Shake. It's a high quality, ready to drink shake with 30 grams of protein and 10 grams of collagen to support healthy hair, skin, nails, bones and joints. With zero grams of added sugar, no artificial sweeteners and absolutely no carrageenan. It's a clean, delicious way to fuel your day so you don't just age gracefully, you age powerfully. Vital proteins stay vital. Learn [e-mail] when you stay in your

[Zoe Lascaz]

home, what you love gets to stay too.

[Alice Hines]

From the gardens that grow wild to

[Zoe Lascaz]

to the grandkids that run wilder. From the Friday night baseball games to the Sunday morning brunches, even the daily crosswords and weekly Book clubs. There's room for it all. With help from home instead. The largest in home senior care network. With over 30 years of trusted experience delivering the peace of mind you deserve, visit home instead online for a better what's next?

[Alice Hines]

Richard Bandler, a man who invented a set of techniques, a human technology, as some call it, is a paradox. The paradox of Richard Bandler is that he is an emotionally explosive man with a troubled past who makes his living teaching people emotional control

[Zoe Lascaz]

and how to literally entrance others through the subtleties of communication.

[Alice Hines]

And yet the pen thing, how he exploded on a random spectator at an event, it suggests what we've known about Bandler for a while is still he's volatile.

[Zoe Lascaz]

He's cultivated this tough guy image since he was a teenager wearing a knife on his hip. More recently, Bandler bragged to a reporter for the Guardian that he deliberately electrocuted his stepfather when he was 10.

[Alice Hines]

Multiple people have said he pulled guns and threatened to punch people to prompt behavioral changes.

[Zoe Lascaz]

His ex wife also accused him of choking her. And according to court documents from his murder trial, he also threatened a former colleague at gunpoint.

[Alice Hines]

All of this we know, all examples of potential harm to others. And yet we also know that Bandler has helped thousands of people achieve transformations that they describe as amazing, like revelatory. How is this possible? More than anything else, we wanted to understand this paradox of Richard Bandler. It's a paradox of human nature. A healer can also hurt people. A flawed man can create good in the world. But another part of the Bandler paradox haunts his creation, nlp. NLP is a human technology built to better us, to harness and control our minds. And yet it is also a form of dominance and manipulation, a way to gain power over others.

[Zoe Lascaz]

No one could help us get to the bottom of that contradiction better than Bandler himself. After a not insignificant amount of back and forth, his people finally agreed to a video call.

[Alice Hines]

So I met him again on a remote call on a recent Tuesday afternoon. He called in from his wood paneled home office outside of Dallas, Texas. Oh, by the way, is that one of your paintings behind you?

[Richard Bandler]

What? I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about. Over my head.

[Alice Hines]

Yeah, Bandler has taken up painting in his later years.

[Richard Bandler]

No, that's Vincent Van Gogh. Oh, it's a reproduction.

[Alice Hines]

It was given to him by his gallerist though, who incidentally also knows President Trump.

[Richard Bandler]

You know that picture that Trump has hanging over himself with his fists up after they tried to shoot him? He had that painted and Gave it to him and showed me a picture of him giving him the painting.

[Alice Hines]

Your gallerist gave a painting to Donald Trump.

[Richard Bandler]

Had it painted.

[Alice Hines]

After two years of reporting, I had a lot of questions for Bandler, but we only had an hour. NLP is everywhere. Like it's, it's, it's. People are doing it all the time and not realizing it, right?

[Richard Bandler]

Well, yeah, I mean, it's a model of good communication. So of course, you know, it's going to turn up all over the place. Plus it's being taught under different names. You know, I started this, you know, some 55 years ago and it spread all over the planet. It's everywhere. You know, we have trainers in almost every country and, you know, I'm translated into dozens of languages. So it's like you said, now it's pretty much everywhere. It may not be called that, but it is.

[Alice Hines]

Why do you think that the name got changed or that people are practicing it, but not disclosing that it's nlp?

[Richard Bandler]

Money, primarily money. Or ignorance, one or the other. Because corporations do that a lot because they don't want to get sued. Not that I'm running around suing people.

[Alice Hines]

I wanted to understand how some of the miraculous seeming moments that we've heard about actually worked. So I asked Bandler about one of the more intriguing tales from the early days of nlp, where he and John Grinder supposedly used NLP to fix a man's legs. We talked about this in episode two, and somehow he was able to walk normally, like you retaught him how to walk. Correcting a physical disability. That story is incredible to me. How did you do that?

[Richard Bandler]

Well, I'm not sure exactly which case you're talking about. I've had a lot of those over the years. It's just one of those byproducts of deep trance that sometimes the brain and the plasticity of the brain is greater than anything I, I know how to do. And that's why if you believe in people, you let their unconscious take over, their natural healing take over. So, you know, miracles have abounded in my 50 year career. So whereas you hear a story like that, you're very impressed. I've seen it so many times that I expect that sort of thing.

[Alice Hines]

I was hoping to build rapport by first asking Bandler about some positive stories. And it was kind of working. Even though he said he never cured himself of a stutter by watching John Wayne.

[Richard Bandler]

I don't have any recollection of imitating John Wayne. I don't know where you're getting this stuff from.

[Alice Hines]

We got that from a book called NLP Untold Stories by Michael hall, an NLP trainer who worked with Bandler. Bandler did admit to doing a lot of accents.

[Richard Bandler]

You want talk like a texture, and you keep your teeth close together.

[Alice Hines]

I'm a try right now.

[Richard Bandler]

I go to Texas, and then I go to New York, and I'll teach the New Yorkers to talk like a Texan so that they can start to realize that these things are not genetic. Taking control over the tone of your voice means you can take control over the meaning of your words. You can say no and mean yes. You can go, oh, sure, I'll go out with you. You know, it doesn't mean you will. It means the opposite. About 80% of the meaning of words is the tonality. So especially as a hypnotist, especially as an educator, you want your tonality to match what you're saying so that you can become convincing. It's part of being persuasive.

[Alice Hines]

It turns out Bandler did have a stutter, but not as a child.

[Richard Bandler]

I got hit in the head and started stuttering when I was in my 20s. Somebody opened a van and the whole door came off, hit me in the head. And I, for some reason, started stuttering. And I trained myself not to do it, but, wow, I did not have a stutter as a child. That's just. That's just another one of the myriads of lies that people tell about me.

[Alice Hines]

Some of the lies and crazy stories about your life come from you yourself, though, right?

[Richard Bandler]

I don't know that. Well, which lies and crazy stories are you talking about?

[Alice Hines]

Well, I've heard so many. I mean, there's the idea that you're. You have a PhD in mathematics, that you were a computer scientist. I don't think that's true.

[Richard Bandler]

What, in mathematics?

[Alice Hines]

Ph.D. in mathematics.

[Richard Bandler]

I didn't start that. I've never said I had a PhD in mathematics.

[Alice Hines]

So other people created these. These stories.

[Richard Bandler]

Well, I don't have a PhD in mathematics. I've never claimed to. I was a mathematician, but I didn't have a PhD in mathematics. I have two doctorates of letters. I have a doctorate in psychology. I have a master's in psychology.

[Alice Hines]

That makes sense. Yeah. I think. I think there's just so much storytelling. And I think I noticed in One of the DVDs I watched that it even said many things that Dr. Bandler will say in this DVD may not be true. This is for the purposes of teaching. So there were lots of stories that went around, right? And you became really famous, so people started to say things about you.

[Richard Bandler]

Well, that happens, but that doesn't mean I have to agree with him.

[Zoe Lascaz]

But Bandler makes stuff up about himself all the time. According to one source, Bandler has said he can hear radar. And according to the publication Mother Jones, Bandler has claimed that the CIA tested his methods for pain control by impaling an agent's hand with an ice pick. Then there was also that disclaimer in one of his DVDs, the art and Science of Nested Loops. It begins with some texts saying, quote, richard is well known for his many irrelevant stories. They may or may not be factually accurate. As Richard is demonstrating state elicitation and using these states to impart other specific information to the participants.

[Alice Hines]

Our interview started getting a little tense. It's a story that I've heard multiple times about you kind of pulling a gun on people in training to get them to change.

[Richard Bandler]

That's absolutely not true.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Really?

[Richard Bandler]

What? Absolutely not true. What happened was, is I had a cigarette lighter that looked like a gun. It looked like a little derringer. And somebody said to me in a seminar, they said. I said, you know, what would it take to get you to change this? Because he had, you know, some horrible belief that stopped him from being even decent to other people. And he said, the only thing that would change me is if somebody pointed a gun towards my head. So I pulled out the cigarette lighter and pointed it at him. I lit a cigarette with it. And it's been blown out of proportion over the years. It shocked him so much, I put him in a trance and got him to start changing his beliefs by putting new pictures in his head. It wasn't the gun that did it, and it wasn't even a gun.

[Zoe Lascaz]

That's wild. Because our sources for that story include major publications and a former Bandler associate.

[Alice Hines]

What about, like, provocation or shocking people as therapy?

[Richard Bandler]

In general, though, I don't think about it as therapy. I think about it as education that, you know, you're not there to fix something. You're there to make people smarter. The reason people get stuck is they're doing something stupid. You know, if you keep making pictures of a bad memory and feeling bad over and over and over again, and, you know, the more you do it, the worse it'll be. You know, therapy tries to get you to relive trauma. I try to get people to stop thinking about it so much, and that's not going to occur psychologically. That's going to occur neurologically. So my techniques focus on getting people to make neurological changes so that they can take control of their mind. If you change the way you think, it changes how you feel and therefore changes what you're capable of doing and capable of not doing.

[Alice Hines]

That's super interesting. Yeah, I think when I said therapy, maybe that's the wrong word. You don't consider what you do therapy.

[Richard Bandler]

Not at all. Every single school of therapy has the same Freudian flaw that started with Freud, which is that if you understand how you got screwed up, that somehow or other, magically, that insight will make it so you won't be. And people do not get smarter without new learning. And so my focus is to get people to stop this and start that. You create a void and fill it with something that's more functional. Think smarter, feel smarter, do smarter.

[Alice Hines]

When I asked Bandler about NLP's being the basis of NXIVM, he claimed to have never heard of Nancy Salzman or nxivm.

[Richard Bandler]

The fact that somebody sat in a room where I talked does not make me responsible for their stupidity.

[Alice Hines]

But he had an interesting answer as to whether NLP is inherently manipulative.

[Richard Bandler]

All of the verbal techniques and the things that I teach have existed all along. People have been manipulating each other for centuries, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. Manipulate just means to move from one place to another on purpose.

[Alice Hines]

It's the idea that all communication is manipulation. You might as well get the upper hand with nlp.

[Richard Bandler]

You know, if you learn about this stuff, you can defend yourself against it. And, you know, cults have been around since the beginning of time, and they're probably going to be around till the end of time. Our ability to be smarter requires that we get educated. And the more I educate people, the more they can defend themselves against manipulation. People have been manipulating without knowing NLP for a long, long time. The fact that somebody learns NLP and refines their skills a little bit is not my fault. Right. There are people that misuse guns and shovels and everything else. And, you know, people are constantly bringing it up, like, that's the important part. The important part is I've created a body of knowledge by which people can get smarter and have better lives.

[Alice Hines]

This point has been made by people we've interviewed on this podcast before. Any tool, any technology, can become a weapon. So why single out nlp? It's a fair defense to a point. Bandler certainly isn't responsible for nxivm, but I also think the fact that NLP is Beloved by shady characters isn't a random coincidence. Bandler marketed his tools to people focused much more on power than on ethics. And he never wanted to play by the rules of science. If you Google nlp, you mostly find academics and people calling it a, quote, pseudoscience. So I'm curious how you feel about that.

[Richard Bandler]

Well, name calling doesn't seem to me to be very scientific.

[Alice Hines]

Bandler went on to tell me something pretty interesting. He said that hypnosis is a word that encompasses thousands of different altered states. Trans is different for different people, and it's tough to study. He said that he straight up told the National Academy of Sciences who were critical of NLP to get lost.

[Richard Bandler]

They told me if I didn't develop anything new for the next five years, they could do studies and prove that NLP was a science. And I looked at them and I said, it's not. It's an art form. And I think of it that way. And to me, it's an art form. I'm not interested in doing double blind studies by the criterion set up by scientists because most of the science I read, to tell you the truth, is not science as I would determine it.

[Alice Hines]

I asked the artist about one of my favorite techniques of his state control, which I found really helpful leading up to the birth of my child. So the idea that you can anchor a different emotional state in order to sort of choose your reaction to your reality instead of having a automatic reaction of anxiety. Right. And so I was wondering about your own experience using state control. Is this something that you've used in your life?

[Richard Bandler]

To me, freedom is absolutely everything. And freedom comes from having choice. And if you don't have a choice, then you're not a free person. And when my first wife died, you know, I felt very, very bad. But I still had to go teach seminars and do things. You know, I, you know, I was under contract. I had literally no choice about that. And so I could have either gone in and been an asshole or I could go into the best state that I can go into. There are some things in this world you can control and some things in the world that you just can't. And, you know, the question is, how are you going to respond in the moment? And you're either looking forward or you're bathing yourself in the past. And if things are good in the past, a good thing to bathe yourself in. But the future requires planning. You have to think your way into a new future. And if you don't plan a new future, you won't have One, and that's a daily event, not a yearly event.

[Alice Hines]

Is there a burden to have to always be so carefully controlling your emotions?

[Richard Bandler]

Well, it just becomes second nature. You know that if there's a variety of choices, you know, you move in the direction that propels you forward, you know, it's not that bad. Shit isn't going to happen to you. Take it from me, you know, I've been alive a long time and you know that's not the only bad thing. Bad stuff happens, you know, all the same things that frustrate everybody are going to come and frustrate me. Question is, how long are you going to stay there? And if you develop in yourself programs to make better decisions, then you don't have to suffer as much. And that's simply a time efficient thing. And it's not a burden to be free. It's just the opposite. It doesn't mean that you don't remember what happens. It means that you don't dwell on it and, and blow it out of proportion, as people say. You don't take little bad pictures and make them big. You shrink bad pictures down. And if it happens at the speed of light, you barely notice you're doing it.

[Alice Hines]

I think some people would wonder if they're repressing these bad feelings by immediately moving past them.

[Richard Bandler]

Really, it sounds very psychological.

[Alice Hines]

You're saying that sounds like what the psychotherapist would say.

[Richard Bandler]

Yeah, that's how they stay in business.

[Alice Hines]

I got you.

[Zoe Lascaz]

I got you, man. Guy sure hate shrinks.

[Alice Hines]

It's pretty much the most consistent thing about him. But as he was telling this story about his first wife dying, which is obviously tragic, I couldn't help but wonder what exactly he was talking about, because his first wife, or ex wife is alive. Her name is Leslie Cameron. She didn't want to give an interview for our podcast, perhaps because of how her marriage with Bandler ended.

[Richard Bandler]

Well, I was married for a short period of time to somebody who just didn't work out at all.

[Alice Hines]

Later in our interview, Leslie came up again. You mentioned your marriage to Leslie Cameron. That was very short.

[Richard Bandler]

I didn't mention it. You did.

[Alice Hines]

That's right. We've discussed it.

[Richard Bandler]

Right. But you mentioned it and I said, I don't count it.

[Alice Hines]

We've heard allegations that you perpetrated domestic violence against Leslie as well as that's

[Richard Bandler]

also a lie that she perpetrated so that she could get a lot of money out of a divorce. She married me and got me, you know, and she asked me to marry her specifically to help her get custody of her kids, and then proceeded to engage in all kinds of behaviors that made it so we. I just didn't want to be with her anymore. And she turned that divorce into a gold mine. She was part of the business and she tried to get the house, which I had owned before we married and all kinds of stuff. Eventually took a bunch of money and went off with some other guy in the Marin. But why we're talking about this now is absolutely beyond my comprehension.

[Alice Hines]

Well, we heard that you housed her.

[Richard Bandler]

I'm telling you what happened. I have. I haven't. I'd never had any domestic violence against her. She accused me of strangling her and forcing her to sign a divorce settlement. And basically what I did was keep her out of jail because she beat up Robert Diltz's secretary.

[Alice Hines]

Thank you for explaining that. And I'm so sorry that I know this is a topic that isn't so fun to discuss, but it is important for us to discuss it.

[Richard Bandler]

It's also it's not an interview about nlp. This is what we refer to as a hit job. And I find this very fucking offensive. Very fucking offensive. You asked to interview me about NLP and then you start accusing me of domestic violence and threatening people with guns. All this rumor bullshit, you know. Are you just trying to get your ratings up? What the hell is wrong with you?

[Alice Hines]

Well, Richard, for someone who.

[Richard Bandler]

Wow,

[Alice Hines]

Richard.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Are you looking for a refresh this spring? Make sure you take some time for self care with savings on all your favorite hair care essentials. Now through March 31, shop in store or online for participating hair care items from Pantene, Head and Shoulders, Aussie and Old Spice and earn four times points. Points can be redeemed later for discounts on groceries or gas. Offer ends March 31. Restrictions apply. Promotions may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details. Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It also starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comDisclosures Shake it up with Vital Proteins, Collagen and Protein Shake. It's a high quality, ready to drink shake with 30 grams of protein protein and 10 grams of collagen to support healthy hair, skin, nails, bones and joints. With zero grams of added sugar, no artificial sweeteners, and absolutely no carrageenan. It's a clean, delicious way to fuel your day so you don't just age gracefully, you age powerfully. Vital proteins stay vital. Learn [e-mail] when you stay in your

[Zoe Lascaz]

home, what you love gets to stay too. From the gardens that grow wild to

[Alice Hines]

the grandkids that run wilder, from the Friday night baseball games to the Sunday

[Zoe Lascaz]

morning brunches, even the daily crosswords and weekly book clubs, there's room for it all.

[Alice Hines]

With help from Home instead.

[Zoe Lascaz]

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[Alice Hines]

I was going to say that for someone who says they're so good at emotional control, you would think that he would be able to calmly respond to questions from a journalist, right?

[Zoe Lascaz]

This, to be clear, is standard journalistic protocol. You kind of need to give people the opportunity to respond to the allegations that have been made against them. You were just doing your job.

[Alice Hines]

Yeah, I think, like he probably is not surrounded by anyone who's critical of him and hasn't been for many decades. And anyone who questioned probably left the inner circle. And the way he responds. I mean, frankly, I had a lot of other questions for him and we didn't even get to them before he

[Zoe Lascaz]

abruptly hung up on you.

[Alice Hines]

Yeah, exactly. Like this was the start of my fact check, not the end.

[Zoe Lascaz]

So much for state control.

[Alice Hines]

Part of me had a hunch Bandler would have an outburst. It's the paradox of Richard Bandler.

[Zoe Lascaz]

For the record, I asked Robert Diltz whether he remembers Leslie physically assaulting his secretary. He said he didn't have a secretary and was, quote, mystified by these comments. And Leslie's claims that she was a victim of domestic violence were reported by journalists from Mother Jones and San Jose Mercury News, who cited court and police records. While some will claim that Bandler's private affairs with an ex wife are not relevant to his public work, aggression has been a theme of both Bandler's public and private lives. You may recall this tape we played earlier in the series in which Bandler speaks freely about domestic violence in one of his seminars. The DVD set is from 1987 and called Creating Therapeutic Change.

[Richard Bandler]

I did a thing for a shelter for abused women, and, you know, I was in there five minutes, and I felt like slapping the shit out of them. You know, I was like, change your tone of voice, man. You want me to help you? Shout, shut up or I'll smack you one. And, I mean, they had the horrid tonality. I mean, it was like, you know, five dental drills coming at you at one time, you know, and I really had to teach them, look, if this

[Alice Hines]

is the way you want men to

[Richard Bandler]

treat you, keep talking this way.

[Alice Hines]

Bandler didn't respond to a request for comment about this tape.

[Zoe Lascaz]

I spoke with lawyer Phil Burkhart, who represented Bandler's former secretary, Beverly Duda, in a case she filed against her old boss. Beverly began working for Bandler in 1986. She helped him organize and promote his NLP seminars and claimed he had promised her a financial cut of those events. But he never paid up. Beverly took Bandler to court in 1993 to get those back payments. But she also made a more serious claim.

[Richard Bandler]

The last claim there is what's called intentional affliction of emotional distress, which includes threats, including threats on her life.

[Zoe Lascaz]

What were those threats?

[Richard Bandler]

That he would kill her, and to use her words, he would put his hand down her throat and rip her heart out. He's intending to inflict emotional distress on her. Whether he intended to carry out the threats or not is not the question.

[Zoe Lascaz]

The jury was convinced. The judge ordered Bandler to pay Beverly nearly $500,000 in combined damages and back payments. But Bandler didn't pay. Phil foreclosed on Bandler's property in San Francisco, but it didn't cover the debt, which eventually exceeded $1 million as interest piled up year after year. They eventually settled. Decades later, a few years after Phil first met Beverly, another Bandler associate, Christina hall, came to him for help.

[Alice Hines]

You heard about Christina hall in Episode six. She's the Bandler colleague who he admitted to threatening with a gun in his trial testimony.

[Zoe Lascaz]

And in 1997, Bandler filed a lawsuit against her, as well as several other prominent NLP trainers and 200 John and Jane does, claiming unfair trade practices and misappropriation of intellectual property. Bandler was demanding tens of millions in damages. The whole case boiled down to a single who owns nlp?

[Richard Bandler]

Bandler's position was all rights in NLP flowed through Bandler and that if you wanted to use the term nlp, Neuro Linguistic Programming, if you wanted to say you were a member of the Society, if you wanted to certify people to say they could be practitioners, you wanted to teach this, you wanted to do anything, you know, pay him as the lord of the manor. You need to get to cut of your work.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Christina and various other NLP trainers had bought the rights to the Society of nlp, part of Bandler's old company, during a liquidation sale in 1983. Bandler had filed for bankruptcy and was selling off assets. So naturally, Christina thought Bandler's suit was BS and countersued. Bandler reportedly tried to use NLP in

[Richard Bandler]

court, at least according to these NLP folks, was trying to use NLP on the judge by doing a thing that they would call modeling.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Modeling or maybe mirroring an NLP tactic designed to build rapport by mimicking people you want to persuade.

[Richard Bandler]

In other words, he had picked up on certain gestures that the judge had, whether it was like putting his hand to his head or to his chin. I don't remember what the gestures were, but he was thinking, look, Bandler is doing what the judge is doing.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Whatever he was doing, it didn't work. The court ruled overwhelmingly in Christina Hall's favor. She won a judgment of $600,000. We couldn't reach Christina for an interview, but Phil, her lawyer, called her a, quote, true believer in nlp. He said she never cared about the money. Hokey as that might sound, she just wanted to be able to practice NLP in peace.

[Alice Hines]

Bandler didn't respond when we asked about this. It's so interesting to me that Christina was so invested in NLP even after Bandler treated her so poorly over the years, from threatening her with a gun to trying to sue her out of business.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Exactly. Even though Bandler had done all those things, she said she thought NLP had advanced human consciousness. She used that phrase in a love letter to nlp. It was the conclusion of a summary of the whole legal ordeal she wrote for the wider NLP community, asking them to stick together.

[Alice Hines]

It sounds like she was able to separate the art from the artist.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Maybe we're not so different. You didn't exactly hate the conference in London, Alice.

[Alice Hines]

Yeah, true. I mean, the most powerful parts for me were the self guided, peer to peer portions where you don't need a guru or a teacher.

[Zoe Lascaz]

That's kind of the conclusion my mom came to as well.

[Alice Hines]

Hi, Mom.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Thank you for doing this again.

[Alice Hines]

You remember Zoe's mom, Lynn, right? I tried to use NLP techniques to help get her back on a bicycle.

[Zoe Lascaz]

I've been thinking a lot about the whole experience and what it has and has not done for me. And I'm profoundly grateful to both of you for including me in this, because it's been a journey, so to speak. She took the visualization techniques Alice taught her and began coming up with her own images. She began to imagine her fear of biking as this kind of barnacled encrustation covering her back. I think one of the major strengths of NLP is that it helps you separate yourself from whatever it is you want to work with. My mom said she realized the bike had become a metaphor for aging, for diminishing. Alice helped her tease them apart. And this barnacled carapace began to crumble away. After listening to Alice's tape, I started being able to detach myself from the fear. It gave me a path.

[Richard Bandler]

It gave me options.

[Zoe Lascaz]

I could sort of choose something personal. That worked for me. I saw it working. My mom and I went on a 21 mile bike ride last summer.

[Alice Hines]

What? Yeah. You did not tell me it was 21 miles.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Oh, my God. It was gorgeous. We biked along the seashore and through these scrubby New England woods and saltwater marshes. It was a real trip. It wasn't just around the block.

[Alice Hines]

I had no idea.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Well, what's crazy is that we had tried the exact same path before Alice, and my mom was terrified the whole time. But this time was different, which was striking to me, because my mom had originally been really turned off by nlp. When the supposedly quick fix didn't work so quickly for her, she felt like a failure and like NLP was a scam. I'm curious if you could tell us what happened. What was that shift? In the beginning, it made me angry. Bandler's little swishy technique or switching images made me feel like it was blame the victim and that it was also too formulaic. But what I saw after that, as I got deeper, was that it was very powerful in making you realize you

[Richard Bandler]

had options, that you weren't.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Your fear, that it didn't trivialize what you were feeling.

[Richard Bandler]

It was very powerful. It just changed everything.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Yeah, it gave me myself back in a way.

[Alice Hines]

When I was working with your mom, I honestly had no idea that this would work. I'm kind of amazed that she got so much out of it.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Me too. And honestly, thank you, Alice. I love that I get to bike with her now and it's not a big deal.

[Alice Hines]

I do want to note that I didn't follow NLP books by the letter. I did read them. My favorite by Bandler was this one called Using youg Brain for a Change. So I sort of took what it said as an inspiration and made my own version that was tailored to your mom. And then I used a lot of stuff from this other book.

[Zoe Lascaz]

What other book? Okay.

[Alice Hines]

It's sort of a fringe NLP text that I found for a free download on this anarchist PDF.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Share I don't even want to know what corner of the Internet you were plunging into when you stumbled upon this. Alice Anarchist PDF shape yes.

[Alice Hines]

Okay, so Google this book. It's called Visual Magic with a C and a K. And it's sick. It's NLP through the lens of magic, which is a practice I don't have a stake or experience in, but it basically presents magic as a metaphor for the power of your imagination and unconscious. So there's a lot of cool exercises in it.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Check it out. I think that's ultimately what we've come to love about nlp, and it's endlessly flexible. That's why it's outlasted a lot of other New Age therapies. And despite Richard Bandler's efforts to control nlp, it's why it's going to outlast him too.

[Alice Hines]

I'm going to keep using it.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Yeah, me too.

[Alice Hines]

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 Lookpotz, edited by Kate Osborne. Editorial consulting from Adeza Egan, original composition

[Zoe Lascaz]

and mixing by Steve Bone Fact checking by Eamonn Whalen from Kaleidoscope. Our executive producers are Oswalochian Mangesh Hatikador and Kate Oswald for from iheart. Our executive producers are Katrina Norville and Nikki Etor.

[Ryan Seacrest]

This is Julian Edelman from Games With Names. I want to take a second to talk about something that's personal to me. I've had the privilege of working closely with Robert Kraft for a long time, and one thing I've always respected is how seriously he takes up standing up to hate. As a Jewish athlete, my identity is something I am proud of, but I also know what it feels like to be singled out for it. That's why this new commercial for the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate that aired during the big game really hit home. It's about showing up for someone when they're targeted, even if you don't have the perfect words. And sometimes standing next to someone is enough. And you can show support by sharing the Blue Square hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Are you looking for a refresh this spring? Make sure you take some time for self care with savings on all your favorite hair care Essentials now through March 31st. Shop in store or online for participating hair care items from Pantene, Head and Shoulders, Aussie and Old Spice and earn four times points. Points can be redeemed later for discounts on groceries or gas. Offer ends March 31. Restrictions apply. Promotions may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details. Shake it up with Vital Proteins, Collagen and Protein Shake. It's a high quality, ready to drink shake with 30 grams of protein and 10 grams of collagen to support healthy hair, skin, nails, bones and joints. With zero grams of added sugar, no artificial sweeteners and absolutely no carrageenan, it's a clean, clean, delicious way to fuel your day so you don't just age gracefully, you age powerfully. Vital proteins stay vital. Learn [e-mail] friends like these the Murder of Skylar Nese is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney +911 do

[Alice Hines]

you have an emergency? I have a 16 year old daughter. Can't get a hold of her.

[Richard Bandler]

I am scared to death.

[Alice Hines]

We wanted to talk to Skyler's friends.

[Richard Bandler]

They're not telling the full story. The truth is gruesomely horrific.

[Alice Hines]

How could you do this to your best friend?

[Ryan Seacrest]

There's a darker secret that's not been said. Watch the new Hulu original series Friends like these the Murder of Skyler Nese on Hulu and Hulu on Disney plus for bundle subscribers terms apply.