Large Group Awareness Trainings (LGATs) Weaponize Dopamine to Manipulate People with John Hunter, PhD

Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum with Dr. Steve Hassan

Dr. Steven Hassan

Self-improvement, Society & Culture, Education

4.8 • 684 Ratings

🗓️ 9 October 2023

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Large Group Awareness Trainings (LGATs) bill themselves as transformational multi-day workshops. You often feel pressured to attend, perhaps by your corporation or a family member or friend, and you are deliberately not told what will happen there. These workshops often utilize eight to twelve-hour marathon sessions to wear down a person's identity. According to research by South African Dr. John Hunter, they artificially create bipolar states in participants. Hunter offers a fresh and unique analytical framework to explain the highs people experience at the end of a "training." He is a researcher and lecturer based in Johannesburg. His interest in large group awareness trainings – and their impact on mood and psychosis – is grounded in his personal experience of bipolar disorder and his participation in an LGAT in 2010. Dr. Hunter put forward the Dopaminergic-Defense Hypothesis, which offers insights into both (i) the "transformational" experiences associated with LGAT participation and (ii) the common claims of psychological harm and problematic behavior associated with LGAT participation. In 2022, he published an article summarizing the mechanism behind the dopaminergic defense in the Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion (Hunter, 2022). Hunter and I believe the stress and hyperarousal methods occur in many different environments including authoritarian cults and religious groups. This interview is fascinating. Learn more about Steven Hassan and Freedom of Mind Resource Center. Visit freedomofmind.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Dr. Stephen Hassan with another episode of the influence continuum.
0:10.2	I'm very excited about my guest today who is communicating with me from South Africa on this recording platform.
0:24.4	Dr. John Hunter is a South African researcher and lecturer based in Johannesburg. And John, I wanted to tell our listeners that I first
0:31.4	became aware of your important work at a cult conference, the International Caltic Studies Association conference, that was in Louisville, Kentucky
0:42.6	this year. And my friend Yuvalda Orr, who has a very fascinating model on awe and emotion that connects the dots
0:53.5	with undue influence.
0:55.3	He said, you got to check out John Hunter's presentation, which I avidly attended.
1:02.0	And I'm going to continue a little bit more flattery, if you don't mind.
1:07.6	Not at all.
1:08.6	Take it time.
1:09.5	Yeah, absolutely.
1:11.0	So your interest in large group awareness trainings, what we in the biz call LGATs, and their impact
1:19.5	on mood and psychosis is grounded in your personal experience of bipolar disorder and your participation in an Elgat in 2010.
1:32.3	I should also say that in 2017, you completed your PhD in psychology at the University of
1:40.7	Kwasulu Natal, proposing a neurobiological explanation for the relationship between
1:47.9	Elgat conditions and results. More specifically, Dr. Hunter, you put forward a dopaminergic defense
1:57.7	hypothesis, which offers fascinating insights into both the one, the transformational
2:06.0	experiences associated with large group awareness training participation, L. Gats, and two, the common
2:13.4	claims of psychological harm and problematic behavior associated with large group awareness training
2:20.1	participation. And in 1920, excuse me, in 2022, you published an article summarizing the mechanism
2:28.9	behind the dopaminergic defense in the journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion, Hunter, 2022.
2:37.7	And welcome to the influence continuum.
	...

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