319. Steven Hassan — Combatting Cult Mind Control, Freedom of Mind, and The Cult of Trump

The Michael Shermer Show

Michael Shermer

Dialogue, Science, Reason, Michaelshermer, Natural Sciences, Skeptic

4.4 • 921 Ratings

🗓️ 28 January 2023

⏱️ 117 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this conversation, based on a leading cult expert Steven Hassan’s books (Combatting Cult Mind Control, Freedom of Mind, and The Cult of Trump) you will acquire the tools you need to develop, use, and trust your critical thinking skills; your intuition; your bodily and emotional awareness; your ability to ask the right questions; and your skill at doing quick, useful research. You will also learn to create a healthy balance of openness and skepticism.

Shermer and Hassan discuss: types of cults, their characteristics • cult leader profiles • the influence continuum • mind control • brainwashing • Project MK-ULTRA • Scientology • NXIVM • strip search hoax • social media mind control • neuroscience of mind control • authoritarian mindset • Trump’s mind-control techniques • breaking free of cults.

Steven Hassan is a mental health professional who specializes in helping people to recover from mind control as well as helping loved ones to exit without coercion. He has been helping people leave destructive relationships and organizations since 1976 after he was rescued from the infamous cult, the Moonies. Hassan directs the Freedom of Mind Resource Center, a counseling and publishing organization outside of Boston, and has taught at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He is the author of Combating Cult Mind Control; Releasing the Bonds; Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults, and Beliefs; and The Cult of Trump.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the Michael Sherman Show
0:18.5	Check us out at Skeptic.com and if you want to support the show that way you can go to Skeptic.com slash donate and find us there. Okay, my guest today is Dr. Stephen Hassan, a mental health
0:26.5	professional who specializes in helping people to recover from mind control
0:31.1	as well as helping loved ones to exit without coercion.
0:35.0	He's been helping people leave destructive relationships and organizations since
0:39.4	1976 after he was rescued from the infamous cult the Moonies.
0:46.0	Pass and directs the Freedom of Mind Resource Center, a counseling and publishing organization outside of Boston,
0:51.0	and has taught at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital.
0:56.0	He's the author of combating cult mind control. I have his books here. Let's show those here is combating mine control and the
1:06.0	combating my cult mind control and releasing the bonds. Freedom of mind
1:10.4	helping loved ones leave controlling people cults and beliefs and
1:15.2	his latest book is the cult of Trump oh boy oh boy we're gonna get a lot of
1:20.2	interesting feedback on this that doesn't need promotion but I just
1:24.4	interviewed you Michael great book. Yeah I have a stack of them right behind me. I
1:29.2	noticed that you win I only have one. All right, Stephen, I've known you a long day.
1:35.0	We've known each other since like the early 90s, I think.
1:38.0	Decades, yeah, James Randy era.
1:41.0	Yes, exactly.
1:42.0	Well, cults have always been on the the radar and in the
1:45.8	wheelhouse of skeptical movement, the rationality movement, humanist movement,
1:50.4	and so on for obvious reasons.
1:53.2	And so, but let's just start with your own personal journey
	...

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