NLP: APPLIED MAGIC
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NLP: APPLIED MAGIC
by Brandy Williams
TWO- Inside/Outside
Remember representational systems? The idea that humans
think in images, sounds, and feelings?
While we're calling up images (a process called accessing),
we're not able to look at what's going on in front of us. While
we're listening to music, we're not able to remember our favorite
song. While we're feeling our shoulders for tension, we're not
aware of the touch of cloth against our skin. Seeing with the
mind's eye and the physical eye are mutually exclusive processes.
In Neuro Linguistic Programming, accessing -- thinking -- is
called downtime, and obersving with the senses is labelled
uptime.
I run uptime as a meditation. Try this: for three minutes,
look at the colors in front of you, the textures of surfaces,
shapes... listen to the volume and pitch of all sounds in your
vicinity... feel the surface you're sitting on, your hand
touching something in front of you...
The next time you generate an internal image, talk to
yourself, feel your stomach tightening -- notice the difference.
It's the difference between accessing and observing, downtime and
uptime, external and internal reality.
One thing that I notice about uptime is that it links to the
concept 'sacred'. When I take a walk by the river, I watch the
water rippling over rocks, listen to the white noise of the
current, feel the moist air touching my skin. I bring myself out
of my own internal creations and allow myself to live in the
world.
Another thing I notice about uptime is that some people
don't do it very much. Most of us drop into internal reality
when our environment is unpleasant, and that's a very useful
thing to be able to do. But then a lot of people forget to come
back out-- come to their senses, literally -- and experience the
world again.
Such people are very difficult to talk to. When I have a
conversation, I like my partner to be listening to what I say,
and watching my body language. More often, my partner is acces
sing some internal meaning for, or response to, what I'm saying.
That internal meaning may or may not have anything to do with
what I'm communicating.
It isn't possible to observe someone (with all senses) when
we're accessing. It isn't possible to achieve rapport with a
person we're not observing. One of the bases of magical group
workings is rapport between the participants.
Try this: the next time you have a conversation about magic,
observe your partner. Watch for: body position and gestures.
Often people I talk to demonstrate what they feel when they do
magic. [A woman describing her circle method moved her hand from
her forehead down toward her feet, from shoulder to shoulder, and
from her heart straight in front of her -- gesturing the three
energy poles a circle creates.]
Listen for: sensory descriptions --"I saw, I heard, I felt."
Learning to go into uptime at will, and differentiate our
representations of reality from our observations, is perhaps the
most useful magical skill we can posess. It provides the basis
for a reality check; it helps us communicate our experiences more
effectively to others, and to help them duplicate what we do; and
it is one of the most profound alterations of conasciousness.
- Brandy Williams
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Works by Richard Bandler & John Grinder:
The Structure of Magic I.
The Structure of Magic II.
Frogs to Princes
Reframing
Trance-formations
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