Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host,

John DeLin. It is February 23rd, 2021. And I am super excited today to have back on

Mormon Stories podcast. Someone who many of you will be familiar with. I bring to you,

Dr. Stephen Hassan. Stephen, welcome back to Mormon Stories podcast.

John, you're awesome. Thanks so much for inviting me back.

Now, it's a real honor that a world-class expert on cults would be willing to join Mormon Stories not once,

but twice. And your credentials have not only increased since we met last, but I think your effectiveness,

I've seen you interviewed all over the world in the past several months, which is nothing new,

but it seems like it's only increased.

Yeah, so long story short, I'm now 45 years full-time in my activism, and about five years ago,

I got involved with a forensic think tank at Harvard Medical School, because I realized,

with all these years of activism, nothing was changing in any substantial way.

You know, policies were not changing. And I realized the law is about 100 years out of date,

in terms of understanding the mind and influence. And one of the professors there said,

you need to get a doctorate, and you need to do a quantitative study on your bite model,

and make it scientific if it can be found to be scientific, and go to fielding,

and I'll supervise your research, and my wife said, go for it if you want to do it.

And honestly, at age 63, I was like, not sure that I was up for the task, but I did it,

and I'm very proud that I learned a lot, but now we have a dissertation that offers the legal system itself,

a way to evaluate whether a group is exerting undue influence, or mind control, or brainwashing,

or thought reform, on any particular person, or any particular group.

And I just got to say, I'm a fan of yours, John, from the very first time we talked.

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