Customer Reviews

Turtles All the Way Down: Prerequisites to Personal Genius

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Had I known beforehand this was a transcription of a 5 day seminar, I probably would not have purchased the book. With that said, I'm glad its now part of my library. The 3 1/2 stars is only due to fact that this type of book is the kind that is best suited for a detailed Table of Contents and/or index. There is no index here, and the contents page is limited to what day of the seminar they were in.

The content is excellent however. To quote the back of the book: "Rich with humor and metaphors from other cultures and disciplines, 'Turtles All the Way Down' develops the characteristics common to the geniuses whose patterning formed the initial body of NLP techniques. ... You will learn how the skills of genius are readily available for cultivating your own personal excellence in a way that is respectful of the power of the unconscious."

One thing I especially liked was the liberal use of ideas and quotes from (most notably) Carlos Castenada, and Gregory Bateson among others, to add to the understanding of the material. In one section when discussing the Incompleteness Theorem for Representation; Grinder goes from Gregory Bateson, to Kurt Godel, to Ken Kesey, Neal Cassady and finally Monty Python's Flying Circus to discuss the concept. Lets just say its not been a boring read.

Turtles is a book for people already exposed in some degree to the basic tenets of NLP. It is not "about" NLP, but how to create logical structures and frameworks within yourself to employ these (and other) tools in a most effective and ecological manner. A great deal of emphasis is placed on applying the right energy to the right "logical level". Often, people are making the right move in a situation, but applying that move to the wrong logical level. This book is about identifying logical levels and having an internal structure that allows you to interface at the right time at the right logical level with the right change- the minimum effort that makes the maximum difference. Grinder is a master storyteller given his exceptional background, and he winds the teachings around interesting and compelling stories from his and other fascinating folks' experiences. Worth the read even if you never learned anything about NLP. Grinder's a cool dude! :)

My name is Christian Hart and I was one of the original participants in the seminar 'Prerequisites to Personal Genius' over 20 years ago, of which this book is primarily a transcript. I offer this review for what it might provide, but I must acknowledge that I cannot review the book objectively because I was there--I remember the actual experience. Thus, my review may or may not be useful to someone who does not have that background. That said.... The experience was profound for me and profoundly affected my life. To be more specific, I returned to college after having left it several years before as a C or B average student. When I returned, I was a straight-A student. I graduated and went to grad school at UCLA where I obtained my Ph.D. in psychology. During the seminar itself, while doing one of the consciousness exercises, I experienced the classic "mystical experience." That is, during the few moments it lasted, I felt that I understood the nature of the universe, including the classic epiphany "All is One." (A funny outcome of the latter: you can never litter anywhere as it would be like throwing garbage on your living room floor.) These examples are just a few I can describe briefly. I don't pretend to understand everything that John and Judith were doing in the seminar--I was quite young at the time--but I do believe that it altered my life for the better. I think that if from reading this book you could get a fraction of what I got, the price would be repaid many, many times over.

I have read dozens of self-help, and nlp books. The purity of the information presented in Turtles is unprecedented. John and Judy drill down to the lowest common denominator, distilling all the concepts they present into simple, yet profound concepts. This is a must-read for anyone who is truly searching for deeper meaning.

The only thing I can say that may have a negative tone is that the world lost something powerful when Grinder and Bandler got too important individually to continue to impact the world jointly. E-mail me at dnaflow@tca.net

The term "new code" refers to 1987, when this book came out. At that time, the ideas in this book departed quite strongly from the orginal "mechanistic" NLP framework. Today, some of the messages from this book still aren't "integrated" in mainstream NLP (which is a "buy" reason). Focus of this book lies on perceptual positions; trusting your unconcious (+ focussing your attention), and working with patterns (+ how to interrupt them). These are 3 messages that Grinder still stresses today (in 2001) and thet influenced my own thinking when I wrote "7 steps to Emotional Intelligence". Grinder still trains the material of this book on a regular basis in France (see www.....com) - reading this book is the "next best thing" if you can't make it to Paris. That said, to mine this book's content, you'd better have studied some NLP first: given that it is a transscript of a typical Grinder/Delozier workshop, structure isn't one of its strongest points...

I thought that the information presented in this book was good, it just needed a much better presentation, and unfortunately, the book falls short in helping us understand just exactly what's going on.

This seminar would have been much more understandable on video. About a third of the time that the readers spend with Grinder and DeLozier is completely unaccounted for, when they go off to learn african dancing. Unfortunately, because we can't see anything that is going on during these activities (critical to the understanding of the book, mind you), some of the discussion and lecture is difficult to follow, and it's impossible to actually try the activities at home and be a part of the experience.

In fact, it seems like the authors went out of their way to make it impossible for us to see into this activity. Each day's sessions break off right before they begin the dance lessons, and each day seems to start after all of the dancing discussion has already taken place. When the audience goes to talk to the African dance instructor at the end of the novel to share some of their experiences and ask him questions, the book comes to an end. Thus, this experience which the authors felt was so key to understanding the lecture in person is completely left out of the book version of the seminar, and that's a real shame.

Then there is the lecture itself, which is primarily comprised of Grinder and DeLozier reading biology books and Carlos Castaneda to the audience at large. It makes for a very unusual presentation that is very often difficult to follow, and there is no way that you can set this book down unless you're at a clearly defined stopping point (which are very few and far between, especially at the beginning).

The dialogue between the authors and the audience is often poorly handled, as it doesn't account for interruptions, so an author will speak a complete thought answering a question or interjecting a response to something that hasn't happened yet, followed by the question or comment that was just answered. If you think that "Persuasion Engineering" is poorly written, wait until you see this!

What this book showed me is exactly why Bandler is still famous and why Grinder has fallen off the face of the planet. He's not entertaining, and he's not particularly good at explaining himself in his own words! Half of the questions he is asked are answered with a quote from one of the source books, while the others were done with rambling stories that required four pages full of backstory so that we can understand what happened. There is one segment of Grinder giving out homework that literally spans 22 pages thanks to three easy-to-answer questions.

For the information included in this book, it's worth the price, but make sure to set aside full reading sessions if you're going to read this because it's very hard to follow and very disorganized. And don't think you're going to get to experience this book at any level other than a theoretical one, because it's just not possible. A possibly great guide gone bad.

John Grinder and Judith Delozier provide the reader with a journey through one of their seminars. It wakes you up to your life. Or, more accurately, it can. I have read almost every NLP in print and pretty much all of the ones out of print. I hold certifications in NLP and Ericksonian Hypnosis as well a my Unversity education as an anthropologist. I found this book a bit of a stretch for my vocabulary, and a wonderful journey through a series of highly transformative experiences. Read it with your mind open and do the drills and you will find your life changing.

If you are looking for real skills and techniques then this is not the book for you. This is essentially the transcripts from a 5 day training that was put on by John Grinder and Judith Delozier back in the mid/late eighties. If you have the time to really delve into the book then it is worth the read but you really got to get in there. This book is not for the faint of heart. The is a great use of metaphors made throughout the work and it really takes some time to see what the authors are getting at.

This book is really about the systematic nature of NLP and draws heavily on the work of Gregory Bateson. If you understand Bateson's work then you will have a great grasp from the outset of what both John and Judy are hoping to teach. I don't know if I would ever read this book again simply because of how much heavy reading it was but at the end of the day it was worth it. You just have to be willing to really work for it.

Much as I hate an argument, I must point out that the previous reviewer is seriously misinformed if he thinks that the material in this book was in some way new or different from the original NLP.

Terrence McCLendon, writing in "The Wild Days : NLP 1972-1981" explains in detail how Bandler and Grinder discovered Castaneda's work (the basis of "New Code" NLP) in 1974, and quickly incorporated various ideas - especially "stopping the world" - into their teaching at that time.

Personally I found this book badly written and tedious in the extreme. So nothing new, and definitely not recommended.

Came quickly, even faster than expected, and in mint condition as advertised. The book is a great NLP read.