Eyes Up and Left: Non-dominant hemisphere visualization - i.e., remembered imagery (Vr).
Eyes Up and Right: Dominant hemisphere visualization - i.e., constructed imagery and visual fantasy (Vc).
Eyes Lateral Left: Non-dominant hemisphere auditory processing - i.e., remembered sounds, words, and "tape loops" (Ar) and tonal discrimination.
Eyes Lateral Right: Dominant hemisphere auditory processing - i.e., constructed sounds and words (Ac).
Eyes Down and Left: Internal dialogue, or inner self-talk (Ad).
Eyes Down and Right: Feelings, both tactile and visceral (K).
Eyes Straight Ahead, but Defocused or Dilated: Quick access of almost any sensory information; but usually visual.
This pattern appears to be constant for right handed people throughout the human race (with the possible exception of the Basques, whose population appears to contain a fair number of 'exceptions to the rule'). Subsequent studies (Loiselle, 1985 and Buckner, Reese and Reese, 1987) have supported the NLP claim that eye movements both reflect and influence key cognitive componants of thought. Many left handed people, however, tend to be reversed from left to right. That is, their eye accessing cues are the mirror image of those of the average right hander. They look down and left for feelings, instead of down and right. Similarly, they look up and to the right to remember visual imagery, instead of up and to the left, and so on. A small number of people (including ambidextrous and a few right handed people) will be reversed in their some of their eye accessing cues (their visual eye movements, for example), but not the others.
To explore the relationship between eye movements and thinking for yourself, find a partner, ask the following questions, and observe his or her eye movements. For each question keep track of your partner's eye movements in one of the boxes (following the questions below) by using marks, lines or numbers that represent the sequence of positions you observe.
- Visual Remembered: Think of the color of your car. What kind of pattern is on your bedspread? Think of the last time you saw someone running. Who were the first five people you saw this morning?
- Visual Construction: Imagine an outline of yourself as you might look from six feet above us and see it turning into a city skyline. Can you imagine the top half of a toy dog on the bottom half of a green hippopotamus?
- Auditory Remembered: Can you think of one of your favorite songs? Think of the sound of clapping. How does your car's engine sound?
- Auditory Constructed: Imagine the sound of a train's whistle changing into the sound of pages turning. Can you hear the sound of a saxophone and the sound of your mother's voice at the same time?
- Auditory Digital (Internal Self Talk): Take a moment and listen to the sound of your own inner voice. How do you know it is your voice? In what types of situations do you talk to yourself the most? Think of the kinds of things that you say to yourself most often.
- Kinesthetic Remembered: (Tactile) When was the last time you felt really wet? Imagine the feelings of snow in your hands. What does a pine cone feel like? When was the last time you touched a hot cooking utensil? (Visceral/Emotional) Can you think of a time you felt satisfied about something you completed? Think of what it feels like to be exhausted. When was the last time you felt impatient?
- Kinesthetic Construction: (Tactile) Imagine the feelings of stickiness turning into the feelings of sand shifting between your fingers. Imagine the feelings of dog's fur turning into the feelings of soft butter. (Visceral/Emotional) Imagine the feelings of frustration turning into the feeling of being really motivated to do something. Imagine the feeling of being bored turning into feeling silly about feeling bored.
- Rapport and Pacing
- Sensory Awareness and Manipulation
- Outcome Thinking
Rapport and Pacing
In NLP rapport is a strategy to connect with another person by matching or mirroring that person. Many people establish rapport naturally as they relate with others. They identify with them and even reflect their vocabulary and mannerisms. NLP has systematically coded these things so that people can gain this rapport, not through natural compassion and caring or through truly identifying with them, but rather through learned techniques. The rapport is reduced to a set of skills so that whether or not there is true empathy, empathy is communicated. This is done through carefully observing the other person and then pacing, that is, doing the same thing or something similar, such as matching the rhythm of the person’s breathing and/or using the same kinds of words, expressions, looks, posture, and actions.
There is an NLP story told about a woman who had been pacing another person so intently that she entered into a type of mystical trance, so that when the other person leaned forward and fell off her chair, so did the one who was doing the pacing. Bodenhamer and Hall say, "We experience rapport as that mystical state wherein we listen so exclusively to the other—that we lose awareness of ourselves." (Bold added.) Then they say that "Jesus listened in that way."23 But, Jesus never lost himself in a "mystical state"!
Sensory Awareness and Manipulation
At first glance the idea of sensory awareness sounds okay, but an example from Bodenhamer and Hall reveal what it really is. They ask the reader to enter into an experiment. They instruct, "Recall a pleasant experience from your past." Then they proceed to have the person visualize it, remember the sounds, the feelings, etc. Then they instruct the person to make the image larger and larger and say, "When you made the picture bigger, what happens to your feelings of that experience? Do they intensify?" Then they have the person make the image smaller, then to a comfortable size, then closer, then farther away to show how we can "distance ourselves from experiences."24 They also have the person change the colors and visual clarity, etc. While these activities may be harmless exercises for some, they can put others into an altered state of consciousness. Such visualization activities may appear safe, but they can open the mind to demonic intrusion.
The tool called modeling is used to emulate aspects of other people that we admire. Thus, those who want to make NLP palatable for Christians say it is a way to become like Jesus by "breaking down Jesus’ character into little steps that we can emulate in our own lives."25 Aside from the fact that we do not become like Christ by "breaking down Jesus" to emulate Him, this technique is an activity of the flesh, which may make the flesh appear Christ-like and thereby prevent true spiritual growth. By following NLP modeling, a person could indeed develop "a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof" (2 Tim. 3:5).
In NLP, outcome thinking is not just thinking about the future. It is making sensory images to create the future. Therefore it uses visualization. Bodenhamer reports:
I (BB) heard Rev. Charles Stanley utilize the NLP model as he instructed his congregation to take on the mind of Christ. He used the above model in teaching how to create an image of where God wants them to go with their life. Dr. Stanley then mentioned that "it is not wrong to visualize." How about that?26 (Italics his.)
Indeed, not all visualizing is sin, but this kind of visualizing can lead to occult visualization. Trying to make something happen in the future through visualization is an occult practice promoted in the popular occult book The Secret.
Hypnosis has been a large part of NLP from its inception. Bodenhamer and Hall attempt to make hypnosis sound like a natural response to certain forms of conversation that make a person feel relaxed, comfortable, accepted, and trusting. They believe that hypnosis helps reach into the unconscious mind. They say:
Given that our unconscious mind contains vast reservoirs of knowledge and experiences, we need to learn how to tap this reservoir. Regrettably, many people let this reservoir go largely untapped. Though most of our behavior functions unconsciously, we just let it run—thinking (erroneously) we can’t effect it.27
They contend that a "facet of ‘trance’ and ‘hypnosis’ … wonderfully correlates to ‘the gospel of the grace of God.’"28 They say:
So in order to deal with our deep, unconscious programs the good-news of Jesus begins by sending us, not orders and commands, but assurances so that we can relax, feel safe, rest assured in the redemptive work of one who did for us what we could not do for ourselves, and who promises us inner strength, the witness of the spirit in our depths, etc. What a tremendously positive and resourceful inner state to access!29 (Italics theirs.)
But then, how does one access this "positive and resourceful inner state"? Through entering into a trance state. They say:
How specifically does NLP time-line processes provide tools for uncovering these unconscious parts? By utilizing trance as an altered state as a state of mind-and-emotions (relaxed, safe, open, comfortable, receptive, expectant, etc.) that enables us to function effectively and directly at the unconscious level. It gives us access to that part of our mind made for storing and coding our habitual patterns.