jarandhel

If you've heard of Orion Sandstorm, you probably already know that he's created several major resources for the otherkin community. He's the author of the Otherkin and Therianthrope Book-List, for starters. More recently, he's authored the Otherkin Timeline, chronicling the history of our community. But his newest work may well be his most ambitious, and his greatest contribution to the community: A Directory of Otherkin Writings and Other Works, Organized by Topic.

I cannot recommend any of these works too highly. Orion: once again, kudos! :)

I don't always network as well as I should. I have an annoying tendency to go to people I think may be most likely to be able to help with a particular issue based on what I already know about these people, and don't regularly poll my friends to see if there is anyone else who might be knowledgeable in a given subject who I don't already know about. At the moment, I'm feeling somewhat pulled to go against that tendency. I've already put out a couple feelers on this subject privately, but here is the question I would like to pose to my friends:

Does anyone know of a NLP trainer (preferably in the DC metro area, but that is not necessarily a deal breaker) who offers NLP training at a reasonable price? I've been looking into NLP more and more, and I'd be rather interested in getting formal training in it, but frankly the prices I have seen so far are outrageous. The average NLP training seems to run around 98 to 112 hours for practitioner certification, and appears to cost somewhere around $2,300 US as far as I can tell. As contrast, massage therapy training (which is arguably more complex as it requires a functional knowledge of anatomy in order to avoid doing harm to patients) generally requires around 500 hours of training for practitioner certification and typically run around 5,000 USD on average. That means that NLP courses cost, on average, around $10.50 per hour more than massage training does. I don't see anything that justifies those sorts of fees for NLP. A massage course of similar length, in states which only require 100 hours of training for certification, could be acquired for one thousand or less. Frankly, the only reason I can see for NLP's inflated pricetag is its popularity in the world of business and politics where companies and organizations are likely to pay for their employees to receive the training. Which hedges out private individuals of lesser means from receiving the same training.

So, while I'm preparing for the first major post I want to make on the subject of orgone, I thought I'd share an evil little thought that came to me. This one is for you, Ri, on the continuing subject of sustainably designed Orgonomic devices: can't we just build one out of cob? As far as I know, the only requirements are layers of metal alternating with layers of an organic carbon-bearing insulator... doesn't cob, with its straw content, fit the bill?