manifestation.com [ resources newsletter books ]

htb issue 00011 .. 1007.97 .. distribution: 96+
previous: Infoflow .. next: Brevity

Hacking Dr. Mr. Baffa

HTB Lab Notes

My seventh grade writing teacher started the year with a question. What does "writing" mean to you? I responded with a simple formula: get inspired, then write.

The more I learn about NLP, the more I recognize nominalizations, process words that people turn into nouns. Like "inspiration". Last issue, I tried to break that process down. I haven't yet succeeded.

Last issue was a bloated whale of an essay. I rambled without a plan, and my writing was weak and flabby. "Writing" is a process, too. Words give the brain a program to follow, and sloppy writing is as worthless as buggy software. Dark clothes and coffee haven't cleaned up my writing, so I intend to focus on words and sentences instead.

Among other things, HTB is a laboratory. Each issue contains an experiment in both the technical and creative sides of writing. I've found these work together like a living cell. A cell can thrive indefinitely, given the proper nutrients. The only problem is that it makes a mess, and without help, can drown in its own wastes. Good writing keeps the creative spirit healthy by changing its diapers.

Like anyone who pays attention, I am flooded by ideas. I have tried to cram as many as possible into past issues of HTB, even when the ideas had to stretch to cooperate. This issue marks a new trend in buddha land. I've begun with a plan, and I've set aside some ideas for future issues. I've aimed for a tighter style. I hope you like it ...

Carmine Baffa's Holographic Mind

Carmine Baffa likes to tell the story of a reluctant client. The client was a businessman found guilty of molesting his two young daughters. The judge knew the man, and sent him to therapy instead of jail. He was passed from therapist to therapist with no change in his behavior. Then he went to Carmine.

In the first session, the man said he only came because the court required it. His daughters were his property, and he could do whatever he wanted with them. Carmine gave the man the keys to his office, told him to lock up when the court-appointed time was up. He'd see the man again next week.

The week passed, and when the man returned, Carmine's office had sheets of plastic over the floor. He told the client not to worry about them, and invited him to sit down. When the man sat, Carmine doused him with gasoline and took out a lighter. The man never touched his daughters again.

"Change is easy," Carmine likes to say, and the amount of energy he puts out makes it even easier for the students that have visited his trainings over the years. He claims to regularly gain 10 pounds before each weekend training, and burn it off before the weekend's over.

Carmine's latest training, "The Holographic Mind", was advertised as a personal change workshop. Throughout the weekend he told stories, assigned exercises, and applied every bit of his knowledge of hypnosis and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) to helping his students change. Each of the forty or so people who came changed their life in some way over the weekend, and no lighters were necessary.

The training was holistic in nature. Carmine wanted people to change the way they dealt with themselves, and with other people. Rather than hand out maxims, he led people into useful states that would function automatically in different situations. "If you can remember how to drive your car when you get in it, you can remember how to use this stuff," Carmine often tells students, when he introduces aspects of NLP.

Friday evening and much of Saturday were spent focusing on nonverbal communication. People transmit several thousand bits of information nonverbally all the time. Carmine gave the example of pulling up to a red light and asking for directions. "You go to roll the window down and the person's already looking at you," He said. "If we can communicate this way, why not learn to use the skill deliberately?"

When Carmine noticed a student in the front row that seemed to disbelieve the notion of nonverbal communication, Carmine began asking the student questions. As they talked, the student stood up and walked towards the stage. "What are you coming up here for?" Carmine asked. The man responded that Carmine had asked him to stand up. It took a show of hands from the entire room to convince the man that Carmine had said nothing of the sort. The invitation had been entirely nonverbal.

At one point, Carmine brought me on stage, and sat for several minutes in silence, shifting his body and facial expressions. I remarked that I had no idea what was going on, but that among other things, it did wonders for my posture. Somehow, he compelled me to sit up straight.

"Do you know how people choose where to sit?" Carmine asked. He toured the room, sizing up each member of the audience. No one gave him the answer he wanted.

"Think of something you understand," He said to a man on his left, "And hold your hand out to touch the picture you imagine." He repeated the task to a man on his right. Carmine drew an imaginary line from each man's eyes, through their imagined pictures. The lines converged on Carmine's chair. "People sit where their understanding is," he explained. He had the two men switch places so that what he taught could be unfamilliar and therefore new.

Carmine assigned several exercises in nonverbal communication. In one, students lead each other into states nonverbally, while standing side by side or back to back. In another exercise, students paired up, and associated intense positive states to specific nonverbal actions, called anchors in NLP.

Carmine explained very little of what he assigned. Rather than offer conscious understandings of NLP, he relies heavily on metaphors, parable, and nonverbal communication. He intentionally skips from one subject or state to another in mid thought. The technique, he explained, keeps people open to new ideas. Because of this style, students tend to walk away from trainings with mild amnesia for the weekend.

Several moments stand out. Carmine brought a young woman onstage and seated her in his chair. He asked the audience what we could help her change. Silence. Finally, a lady said politely that the woman could learn to take better care of her health. The woman onstage, who was slightly overweight, thanked her advisor for getting it out in the open, and then burst into tears.

Carmine then lead the woman into states of happiness, confidence, competence, health, and surprise, and anchored each state. As he fired off various anchors, the woman broke into tears or started laughing. He lead her back and forth five or six times in the space of a minute. At the end of the demonstration, the woman's reaction to her weight had turned completely around.

Later in the training, Carmine used the same woman as a role model for an exercise. As she laughed hysterically on stage, Carmine challenged students to use all their learnings to pump each other up until every student could feel that good.

As the weekend neared its end, Carmine took the time to check his work. He toured the room several times. He explained that he was trying in vain to make everyone feel bad. When one student asked him how he knew that anything had changed in the students, when all Carmine seemed to do was tell stories, Carmine replied with typical certainty. "If I painted that wall red, I'd know it was red," he explained. People did not have to study the technicalities of NLP to benefit from Carmine's skill in the field.

He backed his confidence with a survey of the repeat students. The skeptic had asked what would change when he left the seminar. Some dozen return students echoed versions of the same response: "Everything changes."

Carmine (and it is Carmine, never "Dr. Baffa") likes to put himself on the same level as his students. He pitches himself as first among equals, and shuns the role of guru. He is quick to point out that while he has a great deal of skill, the real power lies in the technologies of NLP. When one student asked Carmine to install a new belief, Carmine snapped at him. "It's your brain," he said, "You install it."

Carmine Baffa has several trainings throughout the year. For schedule and pricing information, check out http://carmine.net

HTB © 1998-2006 manifestation.com. all rights reserved.