Hello, I have a significant background in both NLP and Scientology.  I have even worked for both a very well know NLP training organization and various Scientology organizations.  Scientology claims to be the only "science of the mind" that works. Scientology has something they call "creative processing"  see the book scientology 8-8008 by L ron hubbard for a complete description.  It resembles submodalities in that in creative processing the scientology practitioner (called auditor) utilizes the visual submodality distinctions of motion, clarity, number of images, location, distance, and size. This process has actually been around since 1952 when it was originally created.  This process involves doing positive hallucinations of various objects and moving objects around.  "Creative Processing"  is used for the purposes of 1)mastery of visualization as a step toward being able to consciously intend desired effects and make them happen in the physical universe. 2) to release "charge" (negative anchors) to various objects  3)  To increase what in scientology is called "havingness" which is a special type of resource state.  Note - in scientoloy they do not do mapping across.  In fact - this process is not even used at all officially in scientology anymore - it is basically a relic in the closet of scientology.  It is not used because taking multiple images of something that is bothering you and moving them all over the place in genreal doesn not make people feel better.. When it does work - i believe it is because it is a shift to a different representational system - visual or because the scientologist accidenally slips the image into a resource coding. Another Scienology process that utilizes the submodality distinctions of color and brightness is called either "Scientology 88" or "Black and White processing".  In this technique the auditor has the client maintain a perfect full panoramic bright white light all around them and even embodying them.  When the client thinks of something else - the scientology practitioner directs the client to turn it white. A good deal of old (1950's) scientology is designed to create "exteriorization" which means having a perceptual position outside of ones body with or without full perception.  Notice the similarity to dissassociation. In scientology management technology - there is a strong emphasis toward communicating precisely - and the questions are about specifying referential index - this was created in the mid 1960's.  So there is one meta-model distinction that could have come from scientology.  Doubtful.  The article that I'm speaking of while not part of the scientology classified materials - is not made widely available, and pretty much the only people familiar with it are dedicated scientologists. Further, in the management technology - there are a series of articles about "Name, want and get your product"  This is to some extent equivalent to having a well formed outcome. A key part of the training in scientology is based on learning "Training Routines" also known as "TR's" This is a series of drills that teach one to maintain a resource-state regardless of what is happening in the external world, to speak clearly, to acknowledge what another person has said, to be persistent in asking a question until you get an answer, to respond appropriately to what another has said, and then be competent in noverbally directing the actions of another  another person in achieving your intention in what is called "upper indoctrination TR's".  Though not explicitly taught - the coaching process builds sensory acuity. In Dianetics - the "timetrack" is a key concept - basically timeline - they even describe that you can see it and deliberately and instantly move to varoius point on the timeline.  It's interesting to note that Tad James - the founder of what he calls" Time Line Therapy" in his book on deep trance phenomena cites Dianetics Today in the bibliiography. Hubbard criticizes Korzybski's Science and Sanity quite harshly in an article entitled "The Anatomy of Thought".  So Hubbard was very familiar with Generative Semantics. Further - Hubbard - like Bandler - was trained in mathematics and physics.  I believe that John and Richard did not steal anything from Hubbard.  I believe that the similarities come from approaching the subject of human behavior from the standpoint of linguistics and physics...which both Hubbard and the Bandler/Grinder team did.  Though only John or Richard can answer this question conclusively - I would be surprised if they had even read any of Hubbards books on Scientology or Dianetics. Hope that helps to shed some light, Robert