Hello, my name is Dr. Stephen Hassan, and this is the inaugural episode of the Influence Continuum.

Now, I know that there are a million really great podcasts out there, and especially ones about cults and by former cult members, of which I am one.

I was in the Moonies.

And why in the world would I want to start a podcast when there are so many great podcasts out

there?

Well, basically because I think I have a very unique combination of

knowledge, experience, training, and that I have an angle that is uniquely important to everyone

around the world. Now, we all know, or at least a lot of us know, that

global climate crisis is real and it is going to change the world. And we need to do things to

change our poor habits with fossil fuels.

But I believe that the issue of influence, specifically undue influence, where it's predatory,

where people are manipulating other people's minds for an agenda, I think this is the number two issue

in the world. And the media is not covering it properly, responsibly. Politicians are ignorant.

The law is about 100 years behind the times of what we know about the human mind, what we know about social psychology, what we know about hypnosis and manipulation.

And I've been encouraged by many, many people really for years. You should do a podcast. You should do a podcast.

Now, I've been writing blogs and doing amazing interviews with incredible people on very important topics, but I'm hoping with this podcast

that a lot of you are going to become acquainted with my work of now 45 years of activism.

And I want to share a little bit about myself, my background, and what I hope to accomplish

with this podcast, which is essentially to contribute to a planetary education about how the mind works, the difference

between ethical influence and unethical influence, how to protect yourself and loved ones,

how to identify very sophisticated manipulations, especially online, things like fourth generation

warfare or fifth generation warfare, which I actually wrote about in my last book, The Cult of

...