The Structure of Magic. A Book About Language and Therapy Structure of Magic

Customer Reviews

ACADEMIC TEXT

2008-01-27
I would always recommend reading any BANDLER and GRINDER book AFTER you have been taught NLP.

This is a highly intelligent text about language and therapy. It examines different aspects microscopically and if you are not a natural reader, you might find this heavy going and there are other books which talk about these aspects more simply - however both Part I and Part II are comprehensive and ESSENTIAL for the serious NLP practitioner.

I love both this and the second one but their writing is academic so be aware that a little NLP knowledge is useful before tackling these .
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Use as a text book

2007-12-26
This book is the book that when wanting to learn about NLP this is the text book to learn. If you have never done anything in NLP I suggest that you take some litter material about the topic before you pick up this book. This book is in depth and the heart of NLP. Get the second volume too, as this one covers meta data with language, where the second book expands on it and helps you understand it better.

Classic NLP resource

2007-05-12
Great wealth of material on the Meta Model, presented in a well organized format. Unlike so many NLP books that are seminar transcriptions, this book was written and organized and edited.

The Structure of Magic: A Book About Language and ...

2007-01-03
This series is for the serious in depth learner and student of NLP. These are not self help books for the casual reader they are the kind of book most of us read a chapter of and then have to digest, read again, as these are text books..real text books.

That said, if you want to really understand communication then you want to read them, these boys are the big guns. You want to sell more real estate, read Tony Robbins, you want to be a great therapist, start here.

The Structure of Magic

2006-04-28
A great book for therapists. The origins of the PNL. For those who are not professional therapists could be a little bit too dense.

or How to Get Away With Murder

2005-01-11
http://www.voxfux.com/features/cia_murder.html

Interesting individual writing this book... accused of murder, cocaine dealing, CIA training... Google 'Richard Bandler criminal past.'
Aside from that, these books are great at teaching mind manipulation - of yourself and others. Proceed.. with caution.

intense skepticism required

2004-08-31
I took a psych course from Bandler when he was a grad student at CMU in 68. He was quite shallow then believing in overly simplistic models of human behavior. I've read a number of his books and while they promise qite a bit they don't work all that well. Recall the old saying, "seek simplicity and distrust it". Be careful, this is likely to be just another dead end on your road to enlightenment

A Complete and Total Fraud

2004-07-14
Hideous mishmash of linguistics, hypnosis and pseudo-psychology written by two college students in the 1960s who had no experience or degreed work in any of the mental health sciences, and both of whom engaged in conduct that is very possibly unethical, both at the time of the book's publication in the 1960's and subsequently. Bandler, in particular, has had a checkered career that the reader should research before investing in this book, or in any of the "ideas" that comprise NLP.

The book consists of a series of self-invented formulas that use bits and pieces of linguistics and psychology to present "concepts" that were already laid out clearly by other authors years before. The book uses these pseudo-scientific diagrams and many unnecessarily complex, wordy explanations in order to (a) confuse the reader and (b) impress the easily impressionable as to how intelligent they are.

This book belongs in the same category as L. Ron Hubbard's books on Scientology or Werner Erhard's "EST." Bandler and Grinder based this book on their observations (which were apparently not very good) of Milton Erickson's psychotherapeutic techniques, which are outlined in much more comprehensible detail in other books. This book, however, is hogwash.

no other like it 2004-05-09
What a great book- a seminal work in the structure of consciousness, of communication, myth and meaning and the structure of magic. Words are power and they are hypnotic. Knowing how are programs are running is important. Ignorance on this subject is senseless and will eventually have to be accounted for. So the time is now to return back to sensory based descriptions in how we decide to live and map our territory.

No other book describes it so well. Well i can't say that, this is the only "meta-model" book i've read, but i highly recommend it, because it's by the originators of NLP, and because Bandler is a pretty kick-ass dude. Because it's not a derivative- it's original, and people may think this subject- words and language and grammer is boring. Not so. Not so. It can get to be long and tedious, but all the more reason for SOM. If you buy one book only on linguistics and thinking this must be it. You'll notice the times you delete, the times you distort, and all the times you generalize. I'm continually getting better. Even some generalizations are good, even if they can't be backed up. Example: every day in every way i'm getting stronger and cooler. Well, read my review and study it's language. Can you notice the process of modelling my brain works through. If you can't, you might want to consider this book. If you can... well, let's say, i probably will always want to have this book in my collection.

Great book on how to break barriers of thinking 2004-04-17
Bandler and Grinder are absolutely the best minds in linguistics and theraphy and self-change. The meta-models and questions in this book can be used daily to break away limiting beliefs and limitations in thinking and possiblity. One secret is that the chapter called "Incantation for Growth and Potential" is the most powerful chapter in this book, as Bandler reveals just a few years ago.

Memorise the meta-models, and the questions to break away the Distortion, Deletion and Generalization, and you will be glad you did. One of the most powerful question I learned from this book is, "What IF I could?" whenever I think of a goal, or whenever someone said something is 'impossible' to achieve. READ THIS BOOK!