
New from Kaleidoscope: Mind Games - Episode 1. The Guru's Guru.
From ON CRISPR: The Story of Jennifer Doudna with Walter Isaacson by iHeartPodcasts and Kaleidoscope
February 25, 2026 · 43 min
About this episode
The episode explores Neuro-Linguistic Programming and its controversial applications through the story of Nancy Salzman and Richard Bandler.
What if someone told you that you could skip years of therapy with a few mental tricks? It sounded impossible… until we found Neuro-Linguistic Programming. NLP is a form of hypnosis beloved by everyone from sex cults to the U.S. military to fortune 500 companies–yet almost no one knows it exists. Long before she co-founded NXIVM, hypnotist Nancy Salzman encountered NLP as a radical method for reprogramming the mind. Her story leads us to its inventor, Richard Bandler, a volatile, self-made guru. As we dig into how it took hold in so many places, we face an unsettling possibility: NLP might actually work. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Topics covered
- Neuro-Linguistic Programming
- hypnosis
- therapy
- mind reprogramming
- self-help
- cult influence
Keywords
- NLP
- hypnosis
- therapy
- self-help
- mind tricks
- cult
- NXIVM
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: NXIVM
More episodes of ON CRISPR: The Story of Jennifer Doudna with Walter Isaacson
- ON CRISPR Episode 5: The Conversation · October 8, 2025 · 59 min
- ON CRISPR Episode 4: Franken Monsters · October 1, 2025 · 37 min
- ON CRISPR Episode 3: Patent Wars · September 24, 2025 · 27 min
- ON CRISPR Episode 2: The Discovery · September 17, 2025 · 31 min
- ON CRISPR Episode 1: Beginnings · September 10, 2025 · 26 min
- ON CRISPR: The Story of Jennifer Doudna with Walter Isaacson · September 4, 2025 · 3 min
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