Other Owen Fitzpatrick red flags:

On his Q&A page [www.owenfitzpatrick.com] , he mentions interests in "brain washing" and "criminal psychology" among other things. Certainly I and others on this forum also have an interest in brainwashing and criminal psychology, but usually as victims of abuse attempting to prevent further abuse by warning others. It's possible Fitzpatrick has a similar motive, but combined with other "risk factors" I'd be very cautious about associating with this man.

For instance:

Quote

"Owen on his approach:
Basically I use whatever works."

Ruthless pragmatism, extreme charisma, and an interest in brainwashing and criminal psychology is a recipe for becoming a coercive guru. James Arthur Ray also showed an interest in cults, hypnosis, the power of suggestion, etc.:
[forum.culteducation.com]

Add to that shameless self-absorption and cockiness, and a notable lack of any mention of ethics:

Quote

"I also tend to use examples which involve me so many of my stories include me as the protagonist. This is simply because it's easier to teach with true stories that you know first hand than to tell stories second or third hand about somebody else. To a degree, I think most teachers are self absorbed in so far as they use their own lives as examples of successes and mistakes made along the way which is what I tend to do.

...

The humour that I use in working with people is often joking about how wonderful I am. It is designed to give them an example of someone who doesn't take themselves too seriously. By being overly cocky and confident, I put across the idea that says that I am mocking myself which gets people laughing at me in such a way that they feel they can get me better while simultaneously demonstrating a useful confidence and attitude to myself that they can adopt for themselves. Praising themselves in the mirror is a great way to start developing a better attitude towards yourself."

It is no harder to tell a story from the 1st person as from the 3rd person, especially for a charismatic storyteller like Fitzpatrick. But telling stories about other people's successes is not ego-boosting nearly as much as telling stories about yourself. For example, Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist Jack Kornfield has a book and audio program called After the Ecstasy, the Laundry which is all stories of other people. Notably, all the stories (told about other people's lives) are about how after powerful experiences or great insights on the spiritual path you inevitably are still an ordinary, imperfect human being.

Fitzpatrick's teacher Richard Bandler is infamous for greatly exaggerating the stories of his success, so we can assume that it is likely Fitzpatrick has taken on this "success strategy" as well.

Joking about how wonderful they are is what arrogant people do to distract from receiving feedback that they are arrogant. After all, they're "just joking"!

On the flip side, calling yourself an asshole is a great diversionary tactic, for it takes all the force out of someone else calling you that by apparently exaggerating your flaws, which also diminishes negative feedback in comparison. This is a very common way to deflect criticism and continue the behavior--after all, the person in question accepts their flaws and so should you!

Praising yourself in the mirror is a great way to inflate your sense of yourself. It's been shown now that generic self-esteem boosting doesn't actually boost self-esteem but inflates self-image. To build self-esteem, praise for specific behaviors: "you are such a kind boy giving your toy to your sister like that" vs. "you are such a kind boy."

A generation of unworthy praise has almost certainly contributed to this kind of narcissistic guru type. James Ray's father is a manic motivational speaker, and very likely praised Ray in a very general way with great enthusiasm.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/2009 05:44AM by buffman.

Owen Fitzpatrick is doing far more than the public can perceive, except those who are trained in this area. His entire page [www.owenfitzpatrick.com] is loaded with material, top to bottom. With guys like this, there are always at least 2 levels of communication going on at once. The basic text, and then everything else.
Often the basic text is the misdirection, even though it may convey some general information. The real message occurs embedded inside the superficial message.

Take the quotes from him below.
There is the superficial level most people would take them at, but they are seamlessly laced with his real techniques.

His "Stories" are copies of the Erickson Teaching Tales which are hypnotic inductions with embedded suggestions and commands. Byron Katie and many others do the EXACT SAME THING. He uses himself in the stories, as that is self-marketing, and the guy is obviously self-obsessed.
Most importantly, it ANCHORS Owen Fitzpatrick into the minds of his clients, as these hypnotic stories are told over and over with repetition.
Notice be embeds the word "true stories" to make people "believe" him. They are NOT true stories, and he knows they are not true. At best they are a representation. But most of these Stories would be outright fabrications and exaggerations. What normal people call lies.
Privately he would admit they are "lies" as these guys say everything is a lie, that is, a representation.
Never ever take a "Story" of any kind coming from these guys/gals at simple face value.


Notice paragraph #2 below. It is loaded with embedded suggestions top to bottom. That is all quite carefully done. Owen Fitzpatrick has been doing it a long time, and is talented, so he is able to make it appear quite natural and smooth.
His second sentence is a run-on sentence, meant to literally shape how you are supposed to perceive him. He says his Egomania overconfidence = self-mocking = laughing = rapport with Owen. He then instructs you to "adopt" his "confidence" for yourself.

That is powerful stuff with images and modeling from NLP. He literally leads people to "laugh" with him to make them feel comfortable, then internalize a confident image of Owen Fitzpatrick, then map that across to themselves, which can be very powerful, and happens in an instant.
So there is the Indentity-fusion process again, like Byron Katie and James Ray, but done even more elegantly.

And that is just basic intro stuff. That book he wrote above, is laced with leading material to shape how you deeply perceive Owen Fitzpatrick and Richard Bandler.

Its very sophisticated stuff, and Owen Fitzpatrick is naturally talented and skilled in this area. He also brags about being a top NLP guy while young, but that is actually a strong negative, as he is so enmeshed in the world of manipulation using these perceptual techniques, you get the sense that is how he filters reality.
A constant game of covert and overt perceptual engineering.

Thought about this guy a bit more, and its gone extremely sour. Owen Fitzpatrick is to be completely avoided. For someone who has training in these areas, one would literally not "believe" one story he tells.
He is pumping up the overblown distorted image of Owen Fitzpatrick in his clients minds, then making them feel good/laugh about that image, internalize it, and fuse it with parts of themselves. And that is one sentence.
So far, there have been hundreds of loaded sentences like that from him.

And that is only the start. He does Open Loops and nested loops, where one story interlinks with images from another story, with dozens of them operating at once.
The "content" is not even relevant.
These are the kinds of guys that people like James Ray learn from.
Byron Katie does the same type of techniques, but with completely different content.

The "content" is not the message, its often the distraction.
And "content" is not just new age stuff, its also NLP content. Basic/advanced NLP content is also used to distract peoples conscious minds. Most people think NLP is the content in the books, about Swish patterns or submodalities. But its not.
The advanced persuasion processes copied with NLP occur on a metalevel, as multilevel communcation.

For instance, the Q/A about Owen Fitzpatrick is not about content. He wrote both the Q and A. Its about unconsciously shaping your perceptions of him, without you knowing he is doing it.
And this stuff works on those who are not trained in that area.
But for those who are trained, it backfires, as you see someone trying to play your brain like a piano.

Quote
buffman
Other Owen Fitzpatrick red flags:
[www.owenfitzpatrick.com]

Quote

"I also tend to use examples which involve me so many of my stories include me as the protagonist. This is simply because it's easier to teach with true stories that you know first hand than to tell stories second or third hand about somebody else. To a degree, I think most teachers are self absorbed in so far as they use their own lives as examples of successes and mistakes made along the way which is what I tend to do.
...
The humour that I use in working with people is often joking about how wonderful I am. It is designed to give them an example of someone who doesn't take themselves too seriously. By being overly cocky and confident, I put across the idea that says that I am mocking myself which gets people laughing at me in such a way that they feel they can get me better while simultaneously demonstrating a useful confidence and attitude to myself that they can adopt for themselves. Praising themselves in the mirror is a great way to start developing a better attitude towards yourself."

Excellent catches, especially the "true stories" which are almost certainly not true (although admittedly not yet verified as false).

I hadn't thought about this before, but getting people to laugh (or suggesting that they do in words) can be a tactic for distracting from people feeling uncomfortable in the midst of being manipulated. Being manipulated creates tension, and laughter breaks it.

Also an interesting point regarding being a young "master trainer of NLP." Notably, Tony Robbins was also a young NLP "master" whom James Ray has modeled and even straight out copied. Robbins and Ray have some of the nastiest, most manipulative sales tactics of anyone.

All of Robbins' stories are also about himself, and for years after going to his seminar and listening to his audio programs I would find myself repeating his stories. He did in fact embed his enormous ego into my mind, indeed into my very meaning-making. Strangely, one thing that helped break the spell was seeing how other Robbins' fans would also repeat Robbins' stories, which snapped me out of it because it looked so strange--especially when I found out many were lies or exaggerations.

Robbins' tells a story of modeling pistol shooters in the Army, which apparently was a gig that Eric Robbie (an NLP trainer and modeler) got, and Robbins was just the assistant. Robbie and others also claim to have ghost written Robbins first book on NLP, Unlimited Power. The name of this book should of course give it away that Robbins is a megalomaniac, but he also defends against this claim by encouraging people to laugh at his "feigned" arrogance.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/2009 12:35PM by buffman.

This is a great distinction.

I should add that the only NLP trainers and authors I respect are the ones for which NLP actually is the content, i.e. there are no confusing stories about the author and how great he is, but just straightforward advice on techniques for healing and therapy.

Fitzpatrick says he "uses NLP to teach NLP," and this is a warning sign that these kinds of multilevel communications are going on.

Quote
The Anticult

The "content" is not the message, its often the distraction.
And "content" is not just new age stuff, its also NLP content. Basic/advanced NLP content is also used to distract peoples conscious minds. Most people think NLP is the content in the books, about Swish patterns or submodalities. But its not.
The advanced persuasion processes copied with NLP occur on a metalevel, as multilevel communcation.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/2009 12:44PM by buffman.

James Arthur Ray lists Beverly Hills house [latimesblogs.latimes.com]


Its looking like James Ray might try to pull a Werner Erhard.

There are very few advanced NLP trainers like that, can't think of any.
What most of them do, is have several levels of communication, and some are more skilled than others.
They have a base level, where they communicate with the public in a superficial way.

Then those who are a little more interested do more very expensive "NLP trainings" to learn more of the metalevel persuasion and advanced influence techniques. (these are really a form of the LGAT seminar with NLP as the content).
SkepDic NLP [www.skepdic.com]

Then they have their "advanced students" who they explicitly teach everything in their so-called NLP certifications. That costs as much as people can pay.
There are many many people who have been literally cleaned out financially by the advanced NLP people, as they take people who might have a few hundreds grand, and they clean them out telling them they can teach them all of the advanced tech.
In reality, many of those people do not have the talent, intelligence or ability to reach those levels, and just get cleaned out financially.
That is a fact, that has been seen many times in the first person.

Most NLPers and NLP wannabes don't realize that a large chunk of the NLP seminars are LGAT seminars. They think its about Swish patterns, and don't even perceive all of the other stuff going on.
SkepDic NLP [www.skepdic.com]

But it would be helpful to find some of the evidence of James Ray's connection to some of the NLP based persuasion techniques. James Ray copied much of Tony Robbins, and Robbins learned his stuff right from the NLP guys many years ago.
Richard Bandler has said many times in person, that Tony Robbins sends him money, due to all of the NLP used in his first book.
So James Ray does do many of the advanced NLP techniques, even from just mimicking Tony Robbins. But lets try to dig up some links where James Ray is claiming NLP knowledge and training, or is listed as such.

Quote
buffman
This is a great distinction.

I should add that the only NLP trainers and authors I respect are the ones for which NLP actually is the content, i.e. there are no confusing stories about the author and how great he is, but just straightforward advice on techniques for healing and therapy.

Fitzpatrick says he "uses NLP to teach NLP," and this is a warning sign that these kinds of multilevel communications are going on.

Quote
The Anticult

The "content" is not the message, its often the distraction.
And "content" is not just new age stuff, its also NLP content. Basic/advanced NLP content is also used to distract peoples conscious minds. Most people think NLP is the content in the books, about Swish patterns or submodalities. But its not.
The advanced persuasion processes copied with NLP occur on a metalevel, as multilevel communcation.

@ buffman,
Good point about getting people to "laugh" to replace the feeling of being "manipulated". That is deliberate. Owen Fitzpatrick actually admits to modeling many professional comedians to hone that skill. The advanced persuaders all model/copy the best entertainers and comedians, they use it as part of their charisma mask.
Its really beyond dangerous what they are able to do.
James Ray clearly did/does the exact same thing.

About Robbins, and the pistol shooters. Many of these NLP guys have all told that exact same story, pretending they were there too.
They also tell Stories of consulting with the "CIA", which is convenient as it can't be proven either way, which is why they tell it.
Maybe James Ray also tells a version of that Story.

Until they publish the document and papers to PROVE they did some type of training with the army or whoever, its all simply bullshit Storytelling time. They take advantage of the average person who does not make up stories/lies like this. They have to prove it, otherwise is simply bullshit made up to make them look good.

All of those stories are "lies". They know it, we know it. That is literally how they talk about them.
Its up to Owen Fitzpatrick to PROVE his stories with objective facts. Its not up to the reader to falsify them. If he claims to have a pink unicorn in his basement, then he has to PROVE it. If he claims to have healed people, then he has to PROVE it with peer-reviewed studies in proper journals.

But lets cut to the chase using common sense.
Owen Fitzpatrick's "stories" are fabrications, that is how they operate. They make up stories, with embedded meanings, based on the Milton Erickson Teaching Tales. That is the first thing you learn in this area.
He embeds the words "true stories" to make people "believe" him more.

So all of his stories are actually verified as being false, as he hasn't proven any of them.
Owen Fitzpatrick claims to have healed some lady by cussing her out and insulting her to "motivate" her, and then she wrote him a letter to say thanks.
Lets get real, that is a conscious fabrication by Owen Fitzpatrick. It sounds like a version of the Richard Bandler outrageous Storytime fantasyland.

So people need to wake up quickly, and realize when these guys tell a Story, its never true. It might have a tiny grain of truth in it, but its not even needed.
Its a carefully written Story.
Its up to them to prove their claims, with objective facts. Until then, its just a string of lies, of stories.

James Ray does the exact same thing, in that he has his "case studies" [jamesray.com] which are just a bunch of concocted stories, mixed with infomercial testimonials and demographic advertising.

The simple point is that every single time one of these guys starts to tell a "story", even one that sounds "true", its not. Its a carefully written induction, which can be very sophisticated, even though its told in a very simple manner. They spend years developing that skill-set.

If they are bold enough to try and make a real claim, it is 100% up to them to prove it.
With facts, not stories.
Owen Fitzpatrick, James Ray, and the others have to prove their claims with objective facts.
But they have no interest in that, what they do is tell these simple Stories, which are laced with every advanced method of persuasion that exists, even though it might sound like a simple personal anecdote.

Quote
buffman
Excellent catches, especially the "true stories" which are almost certainly not true (although admittedly not yet verified as false).

I hadn't thought about this before, but getting people to laugh (or suggesting that they do in words) can be a tactic for distracting from people feeling uncomfortable in the midst of being manipulated. Being manipulated creates tension, and laughter breaks it.

Also an interesting point regarding being a young "master trainer of NLP." Notably, Tony Robbins was also a young NLP "master" whom James Ray has modeled and even straight out copied. Robbins and Ray have some of the nastiest, most manipulative sales tactics of anyone.

All of Robbins' stories are also about himself, and for years after going to his seminar and listening to his audio programs I would find myself repeating his stories. He did in fact embed his enormous ego into my mind, indeed into my very meaning-making. Strangely, one thing that helped break the spell was seeing how other Robbins' fans would also repeat Robbins' stories, which snapped me out of it because it looked so strange--especially when I found out many were lies or exaggerations.

Robbins' tells a story of modeling pistol shooters in the Army, which apparently was a gig that Eric Robbie (an NLP trainer and modeler) got, and Robbins was just the assistant. Robbie and others also claim to have ghost written Robbins first book on NLP, Unlimited Power. The name of this book should of course give it away that Robbins is a megalomaniac, but he also defends against this claim by encouraging people to laugh at his "feigned" arrogance.

[mindpowermasters.blogspot.com]
"James Ray is trained in a large body of therapies, such as NLP"

_____________QUOTE__________________
[blog.jamesray.com]
Sunday, April 15, 2007
...
Let's face it... One of the biggest challenges to creating success in any area of life is changing the habitual programming that's buried in your unconscious mind. I'm talking about the programming that's embedded after years upon years of exposure to limiting beliefs of what we can and can't do. These are the kind of beliefs that can sometimes take years to reprogram and replace.

Isn't it time you released these beliefs that have held you back from the kind of soaring success, wealth and joy that you deserve?
Well, now you can with the help of these powerful Paraliminals CDs. They're created by my friend, Paul Scheele, a true master in the field of whole-brain thinking. And I know you're going to love his Paraliminals program to achieve lasting results in your own life. The break-through technologies of neuro-linguistic programming and whole brain learning coupled with over two decades of research and field work by Paul have made this program possible.

....Your collection includes titles such as Prosperity, New Behavior Generator, Deep Relaxation, Get Around To It, Instantaneous Personal Magnetism and Ideal Weight... All great topics that get to the core of some deep issues that, while common, you don't need to hold onto!

You've simply got to check them out.
Get any of the individual Paraliminals for $29.95 or get The Ultimate You Library of 22 Paraliminals today at a special price: Just $359.80. Payment plans available!
You can get Paraliminals online or call toll-free 1-866-### any time (in order to get the discount while ordering, use customer number ####).

To your continued wealth and happiness,

James Arthur Ray
President/CEO
James Ray International
__________________UNQUOTE_______________________

You can see the text above by James Ray and how it is full with the same type of language patterns being described.
The "New Behavior Generator" is a classic NLP pattern.

James Ray conceals most of his main sources, so it will take a little work to find the links. For example, he doesn't mention Tony Robbins in his book, but to anyone who knows Robbins stuff, James Ray is obviously directly copying a large amount of it.
Its the same with some of the NLP hypnosis tech, and other key components.

Jame Ray's associate Paul Scheele, has experience with Ericksonian hypnosis, and even dual-inductions, there are a lot of links out there to be brought forward.
God only knows what Paul Scheele is REALLY doing in these recordings.

[www.mindalive.com]
Paraliminal CDs by Paul Scheele
QUOTE: "The Paraliminal CDs are based on dual induction Ericksonian hypnosis. Ericksonian hypnosis has been proven to be one of the most effective hypnotic techniques available to date."

A new cluster of interesting newslinks has been posted on November 5th and 6th, next door, providing commentary from the NDN community who rightfully dislike seeing its ceremonies stolen & commericalized by non NDN entrepreneurs/uese:

[www.newagefraud.org]

This commericalization extends even to folks in the Netherlands.

To the Netherlands--Plea From an American

You have already inherited a splendid heritage--infantry who defeated an army of mounted knights at Coutrai. A merchant community that even Dukes of Flanders and Burgundy had to negotiate with. A humanist scholar, Erasmus of Rotterdam whose books and critical editions of Greek and Latin texts made him schoolmaster of all Europe. A 16th century independence movement that humbled the Spanish Habsburgs. A community that supported artists, an environment that sheltered refugees, supported scientists and creative philosophers and refugee Jews who had to flee from Spain and Portugal.

Fighting off Philip II and Louis XIV and liberating England from a monarch (James 11) who was destroying its laws and constitution and bringing in a Dutch consort who with his English wife preserved elements of English law and constitution that are the bedrock of American law and government--and which after 8 shameful years we are trying to reclaim.

You fought off Louis XIV by flooding your farms so his army could not advance.

Your fight against the Nazis during the dark occupation years will never be forgotten.

After the war, you withstood Communist attempts at takeover and stayed free.

So now, in the 21st century, hold fast to your heritage and do not let yourselves be conquered by New Age fluff.