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Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum with Dr. Steve Hassan

Make it Meaningful: How to Find Purpose in Life and Work: Leaving the Kabbalah Centre Cult and Becoming a Scholar in the World of Corporate Social Responsibility With Debbie Haski-Leventhal, PhD

Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum with Dr. Steve Hassan

Dr. Steven Hassan

Self-improvement, Society & Culture, Education

4.8684 Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2025

⏱️ 59 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Power can be rapidly stripped away from individuals, or it can be taken away layer by layer. Not everyone makes it out of a cult, but life can become particularly meaningful when they do. A new purpose can arise for the person, more substantial than the grasp of mind control. Leaving an authoritarian cult is the experience that Dr. Debbie Haski-Leventhal, PhD, shared with us on this episode of Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum. She found this meaning after a period of healing and self-exploration when she left the Kabbalah Centre. Her parents brought her into it when she was only five years old. She devoted her life to it as a chevre (hand-picked servants of Philip and Karen Berg, its leaders). She was able to escape by age nineteen. Debbie currently describes her role as “a professor of purpose and impact”, working with individuals and companies to make lives more meaningful. She crafted her book after decades of exploring what pro-social and satisfying behaviors bring to life. Her book is both inspirational and practical, laying out pointers from the model she developed. She believes strongly in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and works with business leaders to better utilize their human resources into meaning on both an individual and group basis. I must say, I loved this book, listened to it as an audiobook, and then bought it as a paperback and read it. It is a must-read book, in my opinion, for all survivors of mind control cults. It is an inspiration! 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 my new podcast, Cult Conversations,

0:10.8

The Influence Continuum with Steve Hassan. And I have with me an extraordinary woman, scholar,

0:18.6

professor, former member who I've been wanting to interview for a really long time,

0:24.6

and we finally made it happen.

0:28.2

And I just, I want to start by holding up a book that I think, if you're an ex-member,

0:34.4

you need to read this book.

0:36.4

It's called Make It Meaningful, How to Find Purpose in

0:40.4

Life and Work, by my guest, Dr. Debbie Hesky-Leventhal. And I listened to it on

0:49.2

Audible, and I'm like, I need to read this in print. So there's very few books that I do a twofer,

0:57.9

and yours was one of it.

0:59.3

I was that moved.

1:01.3

And I remember when I got the programmed in 1976,

1:05.4

I didn't know who I was, what to believe.

1:08.3

I was angry at God for doing this to me, and just so confused, and I had to believe. I was angry at God for doing this to me and just so confused.

1:14.5

And I had to reinvent myself.

1:17.1

But I had 19 years to go back to with family and friends to remind me what my life was.

1:25.7

And you were raised in the Kabbalah center of the Burgs, most famously

1:33.7

Madonna's cult, and it really is a mind control cult. I've been helping people exit it for

1:41.9

decades now, and typically they read combating cult mind control, and then they just

1:47.1

want to talk with me and tell me their story about how their marriage was broken up because

1:52.5

their partner didn't like it. And the Kabbalah Center said, oh, we'll find you your real soulmate,

1:58.7

or how they were ripped off to pay money for Torah or Zohars that

...

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