Common Purpose. A secret society?

[Kate Story]

This get more and more interesting.
Common Purpose talk about a 'Post-Democratic' society. Use of NLP in their 'training'. Secrecy is everywhere. Almost cult like.

Common Purpose has it's roots in the UK since it's inception in 1988 but has since become Common Purpose International. I remember reading about it a couple of years ago but it faded in the wake of martial law fears and other sundry concerns at that time for me. In the US reports I seem to recall it was being hailed as the renewer of 'community awareness' or something along those lines. It looks good on paper but reading between the lines tells another story. Here is a very good link about the history and agenda of this program.

http://aftermathnews.wordpress.com/2007/...n-consent/

[Jan Klimkowski]

This get more and more interesting.
Common Purpose talk about a 'Post-Democratic' society. Use of NLP in their 'training'. Secrecy is everywhere. Almost cult like.

Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) is a very spooky science. A former British military (RAF) hypnotist once told me about how he had used it in his work, and then clammed up. Certain major British politicians seem to use NLP techniques routinely in their speeches.

The origins of NLP as an attempt to mine the deep "archetypal" language structures are crucial. It is an attempt to take over and control parts of the subconscious mind through the use of language, and therefore mould behaviour.

This is why there are such strong links between military NLP practioners and manipulative hypnosis.

Here's the wiki starter for 10:

NLP originated when Richard Bandler, a student at University of California, Santa Cruz, was transcribing taped therapy sessions of the Gestalt therapist Fritz Perls as a project for the psychiatrist Robert Spitzer.[14] Bandler believed he recognized particular word and sentence structures which facilitated the acceptance of Perls’ positive suggestions. Bandler took this idea to one of his university lecturers, John Grinder, a linguist, and together they produced what they termed the Meta Model, a model of what they believed to be influential word structures and how they work. They also 'modeled' the therapeutic sessions of the family therapist Virginia Satir.[15]

They published an account of their work in The Structure of Magic in 1975, when Bandler was 25. The main theme of the book was that it was possible to analyse and codify the therapeutic methods of Satir and Perls. Exceptional therapy, even when it appears 'magical', has a discernible structure which anyone could learn. Some of the book was based on previous work by Grinder on transformational grammar, the Chomskyan generative syntax that was current at the time.[16] Some considered the importation of transformational grammar to psychotherapy to be Bandler and Grinder's main contribution to the field of psychotherapy.[17] Bandler and Grinder also made use of ideas of Gregory Bateson, who was influenced by Alfred Korzybski, particularly his ideas about human modeling and that 'the map is not the territory'.[18][19]

Impressed by Bandler and Grinder's work with Fritz Perls and Virgina Satir, the British anthropologist Gregory Bateson agreed to write the preface to Bandler and Grinder's Structure of Magic series. Bateson also introduced them to Milton Erickson who was selected as the third model for NLP. Erickson, an American psychiatrist and founding member of the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis, was well known for his unconventional approach to therapy; for his ability to "utilize" anything about a patient to help him or her change, including his or her beliefs, favorite words, cultural background, personal history, or even neurotic habits, and for treating the unconscious mind as creative, solution-generating, and often positive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro_Lingu...rogramming

[Myra Bronstein]

Chatham House rules
And while there is no evidence that Common Purpose has anything to hide, it is not the most open organisation.

Its meetings are held under Chatham House rules, which means everything that is said in them is unattributable.

One footnote.

Chatham House rules are as follows:

The Chatham House Rule of Confidentiality was established by the Council of the Royal Institute for International Affairs (RIIA) in June 1927. In order to bring the Rule into line with current practice at the RIIA, where many meetings are now held "on the record", in a resolution of the Council adopted in October 1992 the application of the Rule was clarified and its wording strengthened as follows:

Meetings of the Institute may be held "on the record" or under the Chatham House Rule. In the latter case, in accordance with the Chatham House tradition, it may be agreed with the speaker(s) that it would be conducive to free discussion that a given meeting, or part thereof, should be strictly private and thus held under the Chatham House Rule.

"When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed".

The influence of the rule has been so considerable that it has become common parlance in other institutes where confidentiality is required for the Chairman to use an expression such as "We are holding this meeting under Chatham House Rules".

http://www.gcsp.ch/e/about/CHRule.htm

In my journalistic judgement, Chatham House rules are as much a disgrace as Westminster lobby rules.

The fact that this code originated with the Royal Institute for International Affairs, and is now used by numerous government and big business-aligned thinktanks is no surprize, as the primary purpose of Chatham House rules is to muzzle journalists....

Thanks Jan. Interesting. I knew nothing about it 'til now.