‘Isn’t this breaking your “don’t go if it’s an obvious scam” rule?’ Lucy said, repeating one of the rules that I had told her a few minutes earlier.
‘Yes, but, it might not be a scam! Plus, on the improvisation course I was on yesterday, the facilitator said that it’s okay to break the rules as long as you go back to them afterwards’.
‘I think the basketball event would be a lot more fun’.
‘Ah, you see, I don’t have any kit for that, and that isn’t the first in the list’. Lucy shook her head in disbelief. ‘It’s four hours long! And you’ve got to stay there until the end?’ This confirmed to Lucy that I was seriously deranged. ‘Well, I’m going shopping in Argos this evening’.
I felt that Lucy might be right: it might well be a scam, but I couldn’t simply rule something out on the off chance it might be; this would mean any event could theoretically be a scam. I then realised that by this reasoning I had made my ‘do not go to a scam’ rule totally redundant. Either way, I was going.
I arrived at the Holiday Inn in Camden Town exactly on time and soon found the room where the event was to take place. It had a gorgeous view of the Grand Union Canal; a slim footbridge gracefully arced over a docking area that was now used for street food stalls. I saw tourists walking and taking photographs of each other.
The room had five tables that seated around ten each. On each table were pens, sweets, two bottles of water and something that was later referred to as a ‘workbook’; all this had obviously cost quite a bit of money. People were chatting and smiling; it was obvious that some people knew each other. I could see Caitlin saying hello to everyone: greeting old friends and making new ones.
‘So glad you could make it! Let me introduce you to everyone…’ said Caitlin, arriving at our table. There was Jane, Sarah, Jim, Bob and three other people whose names I’ve forgotten. With names shared and immediately forgotten, Caitlin was on her way again, meeting and greeting others.
‘Welcome to the cult of Caitlin Tindle’ said Julie, smiling. Julie was in her late thirties, was immaculately dressed, and worked in a bank. Julie had taken one of Caitlin’s courses a couple of years ago.
‘She’s an amazing woman…’ Julie gushed. ‘I did her course in Tuscany; it was brilliant.’
‘Tuscany?’
‘She doesn’t do them in Tuscany anymore. She now runs them in London. How did you hear about this event?’ I explained that I saw it advertised on Meetup an hour earlier. Julie raised an eyebrow. ‘I saw it on the Caitlin Tindle Facebook group’, Julie explained. ‘I’ve been at a bit of a low, so I’ve come here to pick up some of her energy, and to be reminded about what we were taught, like, a refresher. She’s brilliant!’
In the distance, I saw that Caitlin has written the words ‘Let’s get filthy RICH!!’ on a flip chart.
Caitlin started by telling us a story about how she once had great job, but had managed to get into a huge amount of debt. She spoke of a struggle, of being hungry, of having to eat that tin of beans that we all have hidden in the back of our cupboard. Caitlin was a brilliant public speaker and oozed charisma; when she used a dramatic pause, you could hear a pin drop. I had no idea whether her rags to riches story was true or not, but it sounded compelling and believable. She told us that she no longer worried about money any more, and that we shouldn’t have to worry about money either; we should strive to do something better with our lives.
We were all asked to close our eyes: we were going to do something called ‘timeline visualisation’. One of Caitlin’s assistants started to play some music: it was gentle, lilting piano music. Caitlin started to describe a scene where we were to imagine all of our lives on a timeline, and we were to imagine a future where we didn't have any money worries. We were told that we were all amazing, and had these wonderful gifts, that we had all these fabulous talents, and that we should give gifts of our time and energy to others.
I opened one eye and looked around. Everyone else had their eyes shut. The moment we started this exercise, I suddenly remembered that a part of NLP was all about visualising our goals, to constantly remind ourselves of our objectives.
Caitlin’s visualisation speech came to an end. I opened my eyes and ‘returned’ to the room.
‘Okay, who wants to buy a twenty pound note off me for one pound?’
One guy stood up, walked to Caitlin and started to rummage through his trouser pockets for a spare pound coin.
‘He hasn’t got it!’ Caitlin exclaimed. Someone else jumped up and gave her a pound coin. She handed over the twenty pound note.
‘Now, who has a pound, and who didn’t decide to get up there and get it?’ Another aspect of NLP was trying to figure out what our limiting beliefs were; views that prevent us from doing the stuff that helps us to achieve the stuff that we really want to achieve. Apparently, the only legitimate reason to not to try to get the twenty quid was: ‘I can’t really be bothered’.
Caitlin then gave us a general ‘financial advice’ talk that was robustly sensible: don’t use credit cards unless you pay everything back every month, buy stuff that you can afford, only consider debt if it is going to be an investment, and don’t take loans for stuff that can depreciate. It was good advice, but not the kind of advice that is going to get me immediately rich.
After some further talk about limiting personal beliefs (‘what do you mean you’re not experienced enough to ask for a salary increase?’), there was another visualisation exercise, called ‘the money tree’. We closed our eyes, piano music started, and Caitlin’s relaxing voice resonated around the conference room for a second time. We were told to imagine a tree that would grow leaves that would fall to the ground as fifty pound notes, that the tree would support us, and that we would feel content and secure. There would be seeds from the money tree, which would grow into even more money trees.
At the back of the room, there was another flip chart. Caitlin had written something. Her six day NLP course would cost a thousand pounds, and her hypnosis sessions would cost four hundred.
I later read that NLP has been criticised as a ‘new age therapy’. Other critics have described it is a quasi-religion, and it was telling that Julie joked that it was a ‘cult’. Caitlin clearly had enthusiastic followers, and there were a good number of them at our table. Those who were ‘experienced’ were asked to help others who were ‘new’ to the whole NLP world, so they could learn what it was all about: I was surrounded by people who knew ‘the truth’.
Caitlin told us that she was motivated to teach about NLP because ‘it helps people’. This made me wonder: was Caitlin a part of a world-wide self-help pyramid scheme? She apparently ran these other courses: a practitioners course, and a ‘masters’ course. Did she have to take an expensive super-course to learn how to ‘sell’ the technique to others? I remained profoundly sceptical.
Despite my cynicism, I did get something from the evening: the notion of limiting self-beliefs; that it’s easy to say that we can’t do stuff, that we can easily convince ourselves not to ask that ‘really attractive person who you fancy out for a drink’ because we believe we're just not good enough.
I don’t (personally) buy into the visualisation methods that Caitlin was talking about. As long as you keep in mind what you want to do, and think carefully about how to do it, then surely that is enough? I don’t need any hypnosis, piano music or thousand pound courses.
As I plugged myself into my music player and my tube train travelled towards Euston from Camden Town, I asked myself the question: ‘so, what are my limiting beliefs?’
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