Lower Wisdom

We all know that sin results when the sinner succumbs to temptation. One possible way to attack sin would be to stamp out temptation. This is the approach taken by the Taliban, with their hilariously-named “Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice”, and by the Saudis with their “Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice”.

Such attempts are more likely to produce hypocrisy and Phariseeism than virtue. But more importantly, in a free and secular society, we don’t have the luxury of beheading or torturing people into virtue. We can do our best to reduce and avoid temptation, but there is more to the story than temptation.

When presented with identical temptations, some people succumb, and some don’t. And people are very capable of doing things that they know to be wrong. This presents an interesting opportunity for the person interested in the promotion of virtue. How, exactly, do people convince themselves to do things that they know are wrong? And how can we inoculate people against these self-destructive techniques? Instead of attacking temptation or beheading sinners, can we perhaps attack the mechanism by which sinners justify their sins to themselves?

Immanuel Kant grappled with this question, and concluded that people convince themselves to sin by choosing from a small number of fantasies. As people repeatedly choose sin, their choices become increasingly judgment-resistant. Kant scholar Robert Gressis has written a masterful paper on the subject which is well worth a read.

Once we realize that people employ a number of self-deceiving fantasies, we might dig into the specific mechanics of the process. Charles Williams and C.S. Lewis do a great job of presenting fictional accounts of this process. But for this post, it will be instructive to look at a real-world example involving NLP, hypnosis, and the anxiety of an Emergent.

Anxiety

Recently, notable “Emergent”, Mike Morrell, wrote a tale of his debilitating struggle with anxiety. He suggested that it might be related to theology, then asked for people to give him advice.

His story begins with a fear of riding in cars:

Rather simultaneously with this, I was becoming an increasingly troublesome passenger. First I had difficulty, occasionally, riding in the front seat with drivers; I’d writhe and squirm as though I was strapped to a rocket headed toward the moon – on the outside. It wasn’t that I was afraid of an accident per se – I’ve never been in a serious car accident. It wasn’t fear of sudden impact or death; the motion itself is its own source of dread. For awhile the backseat was my safe haven; no more, not necessarily. When this sense of sheer panic would come or go was unpredictable; I could go cross-country with no problem, or go around the corner with a friend and be crawling out of my skin. I began to avoid riding in the car with others besides my wife (who, ordinarily, does not provoke this response). I get out less nowadays.

As the phobia progressed, the number of trigger conditions increased:

This has been effecting me more and more, of late; I love to travel, and I love spending time with people. But lately, I’ve restricted both, significantly, as a panic attack can occur anywhere – at a restaurant, at church; surely on a cross-country or transatlantic flight.

Mike mentioned that hypnosis made things worse, and someone else suggested NLP. I replied, in part:

NLP can work well in curing phobias; especially the type you describe. Your post about your phobia is a textbook case of meta model violations, which is unsurprising, since your theology seems fraught with the same sorts of meta model violations

In situations like this, a person’s “cry for help” is sometimes merely a “cry for validation”. Many of “Mike’s comforters” concluded the latter, and slathered him with sycophantic praise for his “honesty”, “transparency”, and so on. If he would only “believe in himself”, everything would be better.

If Mr. Morrell were simply exploiting his weakness to pander for extrinsic validation, he succeeded. But if the disease is real (as seems to be the case), and if it is largely caused by an extrinsic locus of control (as his post strongly suggests), it is terribly unethical to reinforce his external locus by rewarding him with praise.

Furthermore, his Emergent theology shows all of the same errors. Fortunately, my comment sparked a private e-mail thread about the relation between hypnosis and theology, and I’m optimistic that Mr. Morrell was not merely pandering for extrinsic validation. I never share details of private e-mail threads, but I would like to talk about NLP, Hypnosis, and the relevance to postmodernist “Emergence”.

The Meta Model

Alfred Korzybski famoulsy remarked, “The map is not the territory“. In the Abrahamic religions, idolatry is the gravest sin. When you make a model or “map” of something, you must not confuse your map/model with the thing. Confusing the map with the territory is the surest route to madness. Fritz Perls and Virgina Satir achieved considerable fame as therapists by helping patients to distinguish between map and territory.

Richard Bandler and linguist John Grinder spent years observing Perls and Satir, and attempted to distill their therapeutic insights into “The Meta-Model“.

Here are the key points for therapists:

• As a therapist, you can place a person’s mental model on a gradient from “resourceful” (which means the person has many options for coping) to “impoverished” (which means the person is trapped in self-destructive behaviors and has few options for coping).
• People entrap themselves in impoverished mental models through imprecise use of language. When a patient who is presenting symptoms begins to describe his situation, you’ll invariably see many “meta-model” violations used to justify the maladaptive behavior. These are similar to the Kantian fantasies, but more granular.
• You can treat patients by exposing these meta-model violations and forcing the patient to be more precise. As the patient erradicates his meta-model violations, his mental model is enriched and he attains more options for coping

In short, Meta-Model violations are cases where a person uses language ambiguously to justify some self-destructive or maladaptive behavior. I won’t argue that the Meta-Model is Christian, but it ought to be very persuasive for atheists and Emergents. And it’s very easy to empirically observe, by listening to people talk about their problems.

Mr. Morrell’s post is a textbook case of Meta-Model violations. You can easily find examples of nominalization, cause-effect, deletion, presupposition, and unspecified comparative. His preferred modality is kinesthetic. I’m not a therapist, but it is easy to observe the symptoms, plainly present in the language.

Of course, meta-model violations are common, and not necessarily harmful. But when you see people creating demons for themselves, it’s often accomplished with especially flagrant abuse of the language.

Bandler and Grinder’s first major successes were in curing phobias, since phobias are often clear-cut cases of meta-model violation. A therapist doesn’t cure the patient by nit-picking about language, of course. The therapist generally interviews the patient to discover the exact process/strategy that the patient is using to trigger the phobia, and then uses subconscious techniques to replace the trigger patterns.

Hypnosis

In addition to their work with Perls and Satir, Bandler and Grinder attempted to model Milton Erickson, the godfather of modern hypnosis. Using hypnosis, Erickson accomplished many apparently miraculous cures. He was the first hypnotist to “hypnotize” people while they were wide awake; something that many modern hypnotists now do. Bandler and Grinder were eager to understand what he was doing.

Hypnosis is almost the mirror-image of Perls and Satir therapy. To hypnotize someone, you must deliberately violate the meta-model, create intentional ambiguities, and give their subconscious the opportunity to fill in the details. Erickson wrote several papers describing this process, which is essentially symmetrical to Satir’s model. Bandler and Grinder contrasted the Gestalt-like “Meta-Model” with hypnotism’s “Milton-Model“.

The Meta- and Milton-models are not magic, nor are they science. They are simply detailed models of gestalt therapy and hypnosis that are useful for understanding both. Needless to say, the techniques can be used for good or for evil. Milton and Satir both lived modest lives of service, carefully bending and unbending words to cure people of sickness. Bandler, on the other hand, began promoting the use of these techniques for selfish personal gain, and veered dangerously close to madness himself:

Despite his success, Bandler never trusted the truth to provide the sense of importance he so deeply desired. Parallel to his real life grew a legend, one he cultivated assiduously; his life story became a blur of fact and fiction, obscured by cocaine and gin, distorted by an ideology that provided intellectual justification for reimagining the past. “If you got a bad [personal history] the first time around,” he and Grinder wrote, “go back and make yourself a better one. Everybody really ought to have several histories.”

Deconstructionism

Bandler’s line above about “several histories” should bring to mind the father of deconstructionism, Jaques Derrida. Derrida argued that “deconstructive” readings of literature and history challenge the idea that texts have unchanging, unified meanings. When deconstructionists “re-invent” histories, it’s never for therapeutic purposes. Derrida was fond of pointing out that deconstruction is not a “system”, “theory”, or anything comprehensive like that. It’s basically a grab-bag of word-twisting techniques that can be used to dismantle clear speech.

Deconstructionism and NLP arose from the same analytical approach to language, during the same timeframe, and share some similarities. Many portions of the meta-model overlap with the things that deconstructionist focus on when bullying people about language. Referents, signifiers, nominalization, and so on.

While the therapist treats a sick patient indirectly and enriches the patient’s mental model, the deconstructionist goes directly to the language and attempts to dismantle the opponent. Postmoderns will vaguely specify their own terms, while demanding that their opponents apply infinite distinctions in terms, until all meaning is obliterated.

It’s not my purpose here to argue with postmoderns about their motivations or techniques; their actions speak for themselves. I will just observe that even famously incomprehensible linguist Noam Chomsky has called Derrida an “obscurantist” and “charlatan”.

Pick-Up Artists

Then things really went downhill.

About 15 years ago, Ross Jeffries decided to apply NLP “waking hypnosis” techniques towards the goal of seducing women. He achieved some success with his techniques and started a business “coaching” horny frat boys to do the same. Others picked up the mantle, and the “Pick Up Artist” industry was born.

The techniques that Satir and Erickson used to heal the sick are now being packaged up and marketed to young men as a way to get laid.

The Curse of Babel

Aside from the moral reprehensibility of deconstruction and pick-up artistry, the widespread popularity of these techniques among postmoderns exposes them to danger. Professional therapists, and maybe even professional philosophers, understand the techniques deeply and are capable of maintaining self-control. But lay people who get in the habit of twisting words can find the word-twisting taking on a life of it’s own. The problems are compounded by the fact that word-twisting is now sold and evangelized as a mechanism of personal gain. Perverted incentives paired with poor mastery of the tools is a recipe for trouble.

We’ve already seen how phobics use ambiguous language to enslave themselves to demons, and we’ve seen how close an expert like Richard Bandler came to self-destruction. Anyone who is even thinking about using these techniques should be fearful and very cautious. Personally, I believe that such techniques should only be used by trained therapists, and preferably by therapists who have an unshakable foundation of Biblical truth.

Many people, admittedly, use these techniques instinctively. Seductresses and shysters have been doing this for thousands of years. These techniques were modeled after the techniques of real people, after all. Mike Morrell seems to have an instinctive talent for using the Milton-model to persuade people of things. But having a latent talent for language-bending is not proof of your competence to do so, especially in areas where self-interest is at stake. If anything, people who instinctively use these techniques should be doubly cautious, since they are more likely to get themselves into trouble.

Theology

This is why I find the embrace of postmodernism within the “Emergent” church to be disastrous. A firm anchor to ultimate truth is essential for anyone who wants to bend language with any hope of ever coming home. Christianity is ultimate truth — it’s the thread out of the labyrinth. But instead of anchoring themselves to an unshakable Christianity, the postmoderns deconstruct their anchor and reinvent Christ to suit their personal interests.

No longer is Christ the “rock of ages”. The emergents deliberately distort the meta-model to create a countless number of imaginary Christs, like Wentworth’s succubus Adela. They’ve anchored to their own imaginations, and when the storms come, they go to their constructed succubi for comfort. It’s the ultimate form of madness.

How does a postmodern escape from this madness? I don’t know, but perhaps one route out could be the following:

1. First, become consciously aware of all meta model violations. Resolve to never employ these techniques automatically again. Deconstruct your own process of mental modeling to find all of the places you do it.
2. As you deconstruct your own process of mental modeling, you’ll realize that a huge portion of your reality is fabricated. It will be increasingly difficult to hypnotize yourself into believing anything, because you’ll be too familiar with your own tricks. At this point, you are ready to accept the fact that ultimate truth is not something you get to invent, and you’ll realize that this is a good thing.
3. Start dialing back your (now-conscious) meta model violations, especially in the area of anything related to ultimate truth.
4. Now, start looking for ultimate truth.