The Structure of Magic I: A Book About Language and Therapy v. 1 (Structure of Magic): A Book About Language and Therapy

Not the best read I've ever purchased but does include some useful information. Having been on one of John Grinder's NLP courses I am surprised just how badly written this book is, considering the man is extreemly clever. Unless you are really into NLP / Hypnosis I would look elsewhere for a read.

A bit more readable compared to "Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson" but still not terribly well-written.

I'd give it 3.5 stars.

I think if you are to approach this book from the angle of it being a 'journey to nlp', maybe you wont ever get there. It can be kinda tricky like that. But having done some proper homework, i found that this book was indeed written after Bandler and Grinder had successfully modeled Erickson's approach. A quick Google and we find "In 1974, Bandler and Grinder began to make a model of the language patterns used by Perls, Satir and Hypnotherapist Milton H. Erickson, which they published in their books 'The Structure of Magic Volumes 1 & 2 (1975, 1976)...". But sometimes it's easier to just believe something without doing homework! As for whether you will become a 'Derren Brown' (whatever 'that'/he is!), well, NLP is all about modelling, so who can say what's possible given some good tools, right? Some review rs may posses a talent for clairvoyancey. lol but whatever. This is a great book, and one written by some of the true geniuses of our time.

The journey to NLP? Nah, just enjoy the NLP journey!

This is one of the standard indispensable NLP texts. It mostly deals with the relationship between linguistics and perceptions and explains the Meta Model in detail. Some useful transcripts of therapy sessions are also included.
The Appendices set out Deep Structure, Surface Structure and the Meta Model in linguistics notation. This all looks like gobbledegook to me but those of a scientific background or with a particularly visual preference may find it useful.

This book demands a lot of understanding, but will be very rewarding when you study it and put it in context with all the rest of the stuff you really understand about NLP... In summary, not a good first book to read on the topic - but a cracker to get down to the bedrock, when you get fed up with some of the glitzier lightweight stuff on this topic