Neuro-Linguistic Programming is related to General Semantics, which was developed by Alfred Korzybski. General Semantics isn't bullshit like NLP is, but it does have some useful insights.
For example, General Semantics says that the map is not the territory, which isn't the most absolutely ground-breaking thing in the world but is helpful to keep in mind, whereas Neuro-Linguistic Programming might as well be "NLP: Language is Magic!" for all of the grandiose claims it makes about controlling people using crafted speech.
> During the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, general semantics entered the idiom of science fiction. Notable examples include the works of A. E. van Vogt, The World of Null-A and its sequels. [48] General semantics appear also in Robert A. Heinlein's work, especially Gulf. [49] Bernard Wolfe drew on general semantics in his 1952 science fiction novel Limbo. [50] Frank Herbert's novels Dune[51] and Whipping Star [52] are also indebted to general semantics. The ideas of general semantics became a sufficiently important part of the shared intellectual toolkit of genre science fiction to merit parody by Damon Knight and others; they have since shown a tendency to reappear in the work of more recent writers such as Samuel R. Delany, Suzette Haden Elgin and Robert Anton Wilson. In 2008, John Wright extended van Vogt's Null-A series with Null-A Continuum. William Burroughs references Korzybski's time binding principle in his essay The Electronic Revolution, and elsewhere.
Early NLP was basically Grinder and Bandler trying to codify hypnosis in grammatical structure. Later NLP was the MLM/PickUp stuff. Too bad the two are conflated. It was an interesting concept until it was commercialized.
Uh.. did you read Science and Sanity?![2] It's absolutely BS. Korzybski thought "is" should be eliminated. When you say "The car is red", there are many things the car 'is' besides red, so this is a lie. (No, really!) Thus a language without 'is' would be better.[1] He saw and wrote of himself as an Aristotle-scale genius. Science and Sanity has a couple of ideas: "map is not the territory"–no wonder this is quoted, it's the one coherent idea in the book–and the structural differential, a very interesting device made of string and bits of metal, for representing levels of abstraction and interrelations of concepts[0].
But the bulk of the thick book is comprised of a chapter on each of many traditional fields–psychology, linguistics, physics, etc, educating about the use of "general semantics" in each field. e.g. there's a maths/calculus/geometry chapter, with a bit purporting to explain the application of "general semantics" to it. These chapters seem meant to show what a polymath and genius Korzybski was - "Gee, how knows so much about so many subjects, there must be something to this". He was evidently staggeringly impressed with himself, well, many people are, but only cranks write about it to such a degree. I think its success lay in its nature as a (very) introductory textbook to a lot of different areas. It's all extremely basic stuff. The less generally educated you are, the more impressive it would seem. It's very weird that it got any kind of reputation though. Not many people are acquainted with Science and Sanity these days, it seems, (understandably) and just assume there must be something to it.
My dad reputedly made references to the "cortico-thalamic pause", and it was probably a joke. I think maybe it was more of a reference to A E Van Vogt's science fiction than General Semantics as such. And possibly there was a (humorous) association with "we now pause for station identification" on the radio.
Looking at Wikipedia, it seems like Van Vogt was significantly involved in Dianetics which later became Scientology, which seems vaguely disturbing (I also learned of Theodore Sturgeon's connections to it relatively recently).
But, I mean, the concept of pausing and reconciling your feelings and analytical mind seems to make sense, kind of.
The line between stuff that appeals to smart people who think laterally and total bullshit gets hazy sometimes. Or between obvious truisms and deep insights. My father was a physicist with an interest in various things including philosophy, and I recall books belonging to him by Chomsky and many others that don't necessarily appeal to me but I can't ask him now exactly what he thought of them and how seriously he took something.
For example, General Semantics says that the map is not the territory, which isn't the most absolutely ground-breaking thing in the world but is helpful to keep in mind, whereas Neuro-Linguistic Programming might as well be "NLP: Language is Magic!" for all of the grandiose claims it makes about controlling people using crafted speech.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_semantics
GS also came into the SF world:
> During the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, general semantics entered the idiom of science fiction. Notable examples include the works of A. E. van Vogt, The World of Null-A and its sequels. [48] General semantics appear also in Robert A. Heinlein's work, especially Gulf. [49] Bernard Wolfe drew on general semantics in his 1952 science fiction novel Limbo. [50] Frank Herbert's novels Dune[51] and Whipping Star [52] are also indebted to general semantics. The ideas of general semantics became a sufficiently important part of the shared intellectual toolkit of genre science fiction to merit parody by Damon Knight and others; they have since shown a tendency to reappear in the work of more recent writers such as Samuel R. Delany, Suzette Haden Elgin and Robert Anton Wilson. In 2008, John Wright extended van Vogt's Null-A series with Null-A Continuum. William Burroughs references Korzybski's time binding principle in his essay The Electronic Revolution, and elsewhere.