Mind Games

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What if you could hypnotize yourself into a better you? Or…. secretly hypnotize others into giving you anything you want?

That’s the promise of NLP, which emerged in 1970s California and then took over self-help… in spite of its connection to a gruesome unsolved murder in the late 1980s . 

NLP is the secret sauce connecting life coach Tony Robbins, Wolf of Wall Street Jordan Belfort, pick-up artist Ross Jeffries, as well as NXIVM, the most infamous sex cult of the 21st century.

Journalists and best friends Zoë Lescaze and Alice Hines investigate the controversies behind NLP, put the techniques to the test on themselves, and ask the ultimate question: is mind control real?

Mind Games tells the story of NLP and its crazy cast of disciples, including the fake doctor who invented it at a New Age commune, took it to Fortune 500 boardrooms, and whose gruesome murder trial did little to stop its rise. The biggest mind game of all? NLP may actually work.

• No. of episodes: 2
• Latest episode: 2026-01-20
• Society & Culture Documentary

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