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Speaker 1: I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry O'sha. I was a

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Speaker 1: CIA officer stationed around the world in high threat posts

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Speaker 1: in Europe, Russia, and in Asia.

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Speaker 2: And I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East

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Speaker 2: and in war zones. We sometimes created conspiracies to deceive

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Speaker 2: our adversaries.

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Speaker 1: Now we're going to use our expertise to deconstruct conspiracy

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Speaker 1: theories large and small.

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Speaker 3: Could they be true?

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Speaker 2: Or are we being manipulated?

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Speaker 1: This is mission implausible. Today's guest is Steve Hasten. He's

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Speaker 1: an author and an expert on the issue of cults.

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Speaker 1: His latest book is called The Cult of Trump. He's

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Speaker 1: a former member of the Unification Church, associated with the

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Speaker 1: Reverend Moon and escape the church and then created a

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Speaker 1: group to help people leave the church and since then

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Speaker 1: become a real expert on cults and helping people leave cults.

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Speaker 4: Welcome Steve, Thanks John, and I'm an admirer of yours

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Speaker 4: and all you're speaking out of the many years since

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Speaker 4: Trump's first election.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know how much good it does, but

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Speaker 1: it's better than being complicit of.

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Speaker 3: That's what I say.

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Speaker 2: If you're an admirer of John, you've already sown some

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Speaker 2: bad judgment here, Stave s.

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Speaker 1: But let's go back and start from the beginning. Tell

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Speaker 1: us about your experience with the Unification Church in the movies.

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Speaker 4: I'm gonna just correct you and say, I don't think

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Speaker 4: it's fair to call them the Unification Church, because when

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Speaker 4: there was a Congressional subcommittee investigation into CACIA activities in

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Speaker 4: the US, the investigation said, there are so many front

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Speaker 4: groups of this group. Unification Church is one of hundreds.

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Speaker 4: We think it's fairer to call them the moon Organization

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Speaker 4: or the Moonees.

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Speaker 1: And they own one of our newspapers in Washington, d C.

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Speaker 4: Washington Times, which the founding editor was from the Council

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Speaker 4: for National Policy, was put into place. But back to

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Speaker 4: my story. When I got recruited, it was actually the

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Speaker 4: same month Patty Hurst got abducted by the Simonese Liberation Army.

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Speaker 4: It was February of nineteen seventy four. No one had

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Speaker 4: heard of the Moonies. I certainly didn't. I was a

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Speaker 4: student at Queen's College and my situational vulnerability was my

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Speaker 4: girlfriend dumped me abruptly and I was sitting in the

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Speaker 4: cafeteria waiting for classes to start and three women started

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Speaker 4: flirting with me. Later I learned it's called honey potting,

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Speaker 4: but I was just naive. I asked them, are you students, yes,

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Speaker 4: which was a lie.

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Speaker 3: Are you part of a religious group?

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Speaker 4: Oh?

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Speaker 3: No, not at all.

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Speaker 4: But within a few weeks, I was believing the Messiah

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Speaker 4: was on the earth, that I was selected to help

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Speaker 4: save the world from Satan. I was Jewish and I

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Speaker 4: didn't believe in Satan a few weeks earlier, and I

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Speaker 4: went in this rabbit hole of brainwashing. And I should

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Speaker 4: say I came from a very stable, normal upbringing. My parents,

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Speaker 4: ever divorced, didn't have affairs, they didn't drink, they didn't smoke.

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Speaker 4: We lived in the same house. I was an extra

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Speaker 4: honor student, and my vulnerability was I thought I was

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Speaker 4: too smart to ever fall for a scam or for

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Speaker 4: a cult. And for whatever reason, they selected me, Maybe

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Speaker 4: because I'm six feet tall and I was smart, I

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Speaker 4: don't know, but they selected me to be an American leader,

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Speaker 4: which meant I had no power. But I was a

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Speaker 4: front person who could recruit and indoctrinate people and be

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Speaker 4: a good face for the cult. And I was in

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Speaker 4: meetings with Moon personally, with the other leaders as he

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Speaker 4: was saying, we're going to infiltrate the government, and God

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Speaker 4: hates democracy. We're going to put a theocracy into place,

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Speaker 4: and when we take power, we will amend the constitution

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Speaker 4: and make it a capital offense if people don't accept

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Speaker 4: our rules around the mass weddings and the sexual things. Anyway,

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Speaker 4: I was a true believer, and I was sent to

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Speaker 4: Washington to fast for three days for Richard Nixon during Watergate,

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Speaker 4: and I hated Nixon beforehand, but I was like, but

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Speaker 4: God wants him to be president.

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Speaker 2: Dad.

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Speaker 4: But my story is I fell asleep at the wheel

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Speaker 4: of a Moonie van.

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Speaker 3: I was sleeping three.

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Speaker 4: To four hours a night, normally seven days a week,

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Speaker 4: but this occasion I fell asleep and woke up as

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Speaker 4: I drove into the back of a tractor trailer truck

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Speaker 4: at eighty miles an hour. And after getting Pride out

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Speaker 4: of the wreckage, having two weeks away from the cult,

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Speaker 4: sleeping and eating and nursing my wounds, I didn't.

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Speaker 3: Have any continuous indoctrination.

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Speaker 4: This was way before cell phones got created, but led

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Speaker 4: to me calling my sister, which led to her telling

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Speaker 4: my parents, which led to a deprogramming which I was

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Speaker 4: sure I wasn't brainwashed and I wasn't in a cult.

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Speaker 4: But my father cried and said, how would you feel

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Speaker 4: if it was your son who I met a controversial

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Speaker 4: group and disappeared from your life. Wouldn't you be worried?

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Speaker 4: And I could see he genuinely cared about me. I

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Speaker 4: thought he was brainwashed by the Communist media. That was

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Speaker 4: my mooney mind speaking, But I wanted to prove that

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Speaker 4: I was thinking, so I agreed to talk to the

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Speaker 4: ex members and learn about Chinese communist brainwashing, and it

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Speaker 4: was that that started turning the lights back on in

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Speaker 4: my mind. The following day was my wake up moment,

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Speaker 4: where the ex members handed me one of Moon's speeches

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Speaker 4: to congressmen and senators, and all they did was hand

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Speaker 4: it to me and say, read this and tell us

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Speaker 4: what you think. And that formed the basis for forty

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Speaker 4: nine years of my professional career. That said, the way

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Speaker 4: to get people out of these groups is not trying

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Speaker 4: to persuade them they're wrong, ask them what they think,

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Speaker 4: feed them questions in a respectful way that's strategic, that

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Speaker 4: gets them back to who they were before the group.

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Speaker 4: Everything I believe was based on the presupposition he was

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Speaker 4: the Messiah and he was going to save the planet

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Speaker 4: Earth from all the mess we're in. And once that

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Speaker 4: bubble popped, I was like, what happened to my mind?

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Speaker 4: So now you're meeting me having written four books.

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Speaker 3: And I have a PhD.

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Speaker 4: And how to use trafficking law to update and apply

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Speaker 4: to the legal system because it's not a slippery slope.

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Speaker 4: And my model that I did my dissertation on looks

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Speaker 4: at behavior control, information control, thought control, and emotional control.

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Speaker 4: I call it the Byte model of authoritarian control. I

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Speaker 4: say you can control those four variables. You can control

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Speaker 4: people's identities and make a pseudo identity that's dependent and

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Speaker 4: obedient on any person or ideology.

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Speaker 2: We use words like culton religion, and there's the old

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Speaker 2: saw that the difference between the culton and religion is

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Speaker 2: an IRS ruling. Could you give us a working definition

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Speaker 2: that we can news for what is a cult or

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Speaker 2: a sect?

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Speaker 4: Say there are cults along the continuum from ethical religious groups,

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Speaker 4: political groups, fan groups, whatever, all the way to authoritarian

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Speaker 4: mind control cults. People laugh and say, I'm in a

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Speaker 4: book called the Cult of Mac as a true believer,

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Speaker 4: because I only have used Mac since nineteen eighty two,

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Speaker 4: or I'm in the cult because I've done four teTeX talk,

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Speaker 4: so I joke about that. But there are groups that

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Speaker 4: are healthy and you can question them, you can leave

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Speaker 4: without fear or harassment. They're not remaking your conscience and

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Speaker 4: your identity. My definition is that it's a pyramid structured

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Speaker 4: authoritarian regime that uses deceptive recruitment, so no informed consent.

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Speaker 4: Does it have to be religious correct In my model,

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Speaker 4: it can be a one on one controlling relationship to

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Speaker 4: a bad therapist who's making the person dependent on them,

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Speaker 4: to a large group awareness training program, or a multi

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Speaker 4: level marketing. It applies to trafficking, sex trafficking, and labor trafficking,

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Speaker 4: which I call commercial cults, political cults, as I refer

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Speaker 4: to the cult of Trump, and I believe China is

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Speaker 4: a mind control authoritarian cult, as is Russia.

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Speaker 1: Does it require a charismatic leader.

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Speaker 4: No, some of my colleagues say that it does, and

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Speaker 4: that's not my experience. And there are many cults that

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Speaker 4: are ideological cults. They're mimetic indoctrination things. And then there

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Speaker 4: are cults that start with one person. They die and

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Speaker 4: the group morphs and their beliefs change and their practices change,

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Speaker 4: but you don't need a living leader. What I learned

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Speaker 4: starting in nineteen eighty when I started studying hypnosis, and

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Speaker 4: I should say during the MKO Trump days, I studied

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Speaker 4: NLP and then I learned Eric Sonian hypnosis. And that's

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Speaker 4: what I'm seeing everywhere on the internet, and I talk

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Speaker 4: about it in the book The Cult of Trump that

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Speaker 4: it appears Tony Robbins has taught Donald Trump some NLP.

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Speaker 1: You mentioned mk ultra in the nineteen fifties when there

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Speaker 1: was such concern that somehow the Soviets had mastered mind

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Speaker 1: control because some soldiers were coming back from the Korean

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Speaker 1: War and other places that were saying what we thought

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Speaker 1: were crazy things and thought that they had been given

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Speaker 1: drugs that controlled their minds. So the CIA got involved

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Speaker 1: in experimenting with these things, looking to see if there

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Speaker 1: was some sort of and it's actually a shameful period.

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Speaker 1: You can understand why it happened, but so could involve

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Speaker 1: potentially drugs or some sort of thing like this as well.

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Speaker 4: Absolutely, I'm a human rights guy, I'm a license mental

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Speaker 4: health counselor. So my leane is just I want people

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Speaker 4: to be healthy, I want them to control their own minds.

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Speaker 4: I want them to understand that it doesn't just happen

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Speaker 4: a week stupid, uneducated people, that bright people can have

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Speaker 4: their minds acted, and that we are wired as human

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Speaker 4: beings to follow who we think are legitimate leaders, and

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Speaker 4: we're wired as human beings to conform to people we

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Speaker 4: identify with. And we know this from the Ash Conformity Study,

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Speaker 4: the Milgram obedient Study, the Zimbardo prison study. People are

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Speaker 4: walking around thinking it can never happen to me. I'm

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Speaker 4: too smart, and it happens to them. They're even more vulnerable.

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Speaker 4: But on the other side of it is it's not permanent.

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Speaker 4: And even people born in these authoritarian regimes realize they're

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Speaker 4: being lied to, they're being exploited, and when they're given

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Speaker 4: an opportunity to have access to non members and leave

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Speaker 4: and go somewhere else, they want to come to the US.

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Speaker 4: They want to leave totalitarian regimes are they're born into

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Speaker 4: these extremist, authoritarian religious cults, and they realize, I don't

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Speaker 4: have to believe this. There are phobias that have been

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Speaker 4: put in my mind to make me dependent and obedience.

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Speaker 4: But if you use their critical thinking, you can analyze

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Speaker 4: this is a technique of emotional mind control.

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Speaker 2: We'll be right back in a moment. John and I

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Speaker 2: when we were serving in the Agency, we've served in

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Speaker 2: authoritarian countries with authoritarian governments. So I was in Zimbabwe

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Speaker 2: and you would think when you were there that Mugabi

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Speaker 2: at the time was incredibly popular. They built a cult

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Speaker 2: around him, his family, his picture, his photograph was everywhere,

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Speaker 2: the legends that he was involved in during the war

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Speaker 2: of Independence from Rhodesia. And yet when Mugabi was dethroned

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Speaker 2: and eventually died, he was immediately forgotten about. And I

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Speaker 2: were both in Eastern Europe when the Brillin Wall was

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Speaker 2: starting to come down and people were leaving. So I

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Speaker 2: was in West Berlin and we were looking at the

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Speaker 2: East Germans and we would have sworn a month before

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Speaker 2: the wall came down that the East Germans were loyal,

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Speaker 2: that they believed in their leader. And yet really within

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Speaker 2: days millions of people finally said, yeah, we've just been

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Speaker 2: faking it this whole time. Talking to them afterwards, they

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Speaker 2: were saying no. At the time, we were sort of

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Speaker 2: hit two points of two notions at the same time.

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Speaker 2: We were both loyal and believed, but deep down in

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Speaker 2: our brain we didn't. So what's your sense of Trump beside?

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Speaker 2: But of political cults and when they're genuine and when

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Speaker 2: they're sort of enforced time people.

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Speaker 4: You're describing the phenomenon that I have verified for forty

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Speaker 4: nine years of practice with clients from all types of

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Speaker 4: political and religious cults. And I should say my mentor

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Speaker 4: who's helped me get out of the Moonies.

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Speaker 3: Robert J.

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Speaker 4: Lifton wrote a book called Thought Reform in the Psychology

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Speaker 4: of Totalism in nineteen sixty one about his interviews with

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Speaker 4: people coming out of mao's thought reform programs in the

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Speaker 4: outlined eight criteria. He later wrote a book on the

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Speaker 4: Nazi doctors, and he described what he called doubling. Before

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Speaker 4: that book came out, I had described my subjective sense

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Speaker 4: is that there were two Steves. There was the real Steve,

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Speaker 4: who was born of Flushing Queens, New York, and then

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Speaker 4: the Steve, the Mooney, whose parents were moon and his wife.

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Speaker 3: And when I got out, it.

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Speaker 4: Was like a flip happened, like a switch happens, like

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Speaker 4: I was still indoctrinated, but the real me took executive control,

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Speaker 4: or like malware takes over your computer and then you

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Speaker 4: put software in it and get rid of the malware. Oh,

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Speaker 4: my operating systems back their key points. And for me

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Speaker 4: as a human being doing this where people had to survive.

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Speaker 4: So they had a public face because they didn't want

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Speaker 4: to be turned into the regime, they didn't want to

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Speaker 4: get tortured, thrown into jail or worse. But then they

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Speaker 4: had their private thoughts that was like this is bs

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Speaker 4: or they said the opposite last week that they're saying today.

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Speaker 4: And so there's what Lifton called the psychology of the

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Speaker 4: pawn while you're still in the environment. But once the

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Speaker 4: environment walls go away and you have access to non

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Speaker 4: cult people, you start to realize, WHOA, there's a whole

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Speaker 4: lot of colors. World is not black and white, and

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Speaker 4: follow the regime or don't. It's oh, there were all

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Speaker 4: these other options and choices. And so with political cults,

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Speaker 4: one of my theses in the Cult of Trump is

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Speaker 4: not only does Trump display the stereotypical cult leader and

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Speaker 4: I used Eric Frohm's definition malignant narcissist in chapter three,

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Speaker 4: and I compared Trump with Jim Jones of the People's

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Speaker 4: Temple and Moon, my former cult leader and Hubbard of scientology.

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Speaker 4: It is a cult of personality that he has had

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Speaker 4: his whole life, with his business and people he's work with.

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Speaker 4: And I should add Eric Frum came up with this

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Speaker 4: trying to understand Hitler, so that this was not coming

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Speaker 4: out of thin air. This was post World War two,

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Speaker 4: and like, how could we describe the mindset of somebody

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Speaker 4: like this?

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Speaker 3: But then when I.

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Speaker 4: Started researching it, I realized there were actual authoritarian cults

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Speaker 4: that comprise the cult of Trump. I talk about a

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Speaker 4: cult called the Family that's operated in DC for decades.

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Speaker 4: They do the National Prayer breakfasts, and they like to

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Speaker 4: recruit Democrats and Republicans to do their bidding. And then

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Speaker 4: I talk about Opus Day and William Barr was a

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Speaker 4: member of that. The Russians hacked our counter terrorist Anson

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Speaker 4: I should add with Opus Day, he was an Opus

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Speaker 4: Stay member. But there are bigger groups like what is

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Speaker 4: called the New Apostolic Reformation MEGAS. And these are the

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Speaker 4: people who say they're Christian, but in terms of their practices,

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Speaker 4: they claim to be a prophet or an apostle who

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Speaker 4: can speak directly to God and God told them. Trump

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Speaker 4: won the twenty twenty election and this is thirty to

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Speaker 4: forty million Americans who think, because their leader said so,

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Speaker 4: that Trump is being used by God. He's a king

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Speaker 4: Cyrus figure.

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Speaker 1: I was just in Oklahoma and someone was telling me

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Speaker 1: a story about a family member who saw a picture

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Speaker 1: of Trump pulling someone from a flood, clearly a fake picture,

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Speaker 1: and this person was saying, that's why we need to

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Speaker 1: support him. He's such a good man and all this

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Speaker 1: kind of stuff. So there are real believers of this

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Speaker 1: fake stuff. But clearly these politicians that support him in Washington,

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Speaker 1: they go to Yale and Harvard and JD. Vance and

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Speaker 1: all of these guys, they are now saying, oh, the

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty election was stolen. In January sixth was a

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Speaker 1: day of love. They know that not to be true.

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Speaker 1: Can you be part of a cult when in fact

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Speaker 1: you know you're lying?

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Speaker 4: The answer is, I'd have to study case by case,

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Speaker 4: and most people in a mind control cult, or what

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Speaker 4: I call fringe members, they really have no clue what

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Speaker 4: is actually going on inside the group, much less at

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Speaker 4: the leadership level. And so when people say, do you

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Speaker 4: think everyone who voted for Trump isn't a cult?

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Speaker 3: It's like, how can.

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Speaker 4: I say that a lot of people just vote whatever

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Speaker 4: party their parents voted, what they voted in the past.

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Speaker 3: But you know better than most.

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Speaker 4: You can turn someone ideologically, you can buy somebody off,

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Speaker 4: you can blackmail somebody.

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Speaker 1: It's also in their interest. Ted Cruises and the jdvange

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Speaker 1: even if whether they believe it or not, they benefit

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Speaker 1: from it because they're at the top of that pyramid.

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Speaker 4: I was at the top of the pyramid. I didn't

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Speaker 4: have power, but I was being promised my own mansions

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Speaker 4: and security guards and all the rest. I was twenty

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Speaker 4: years old, twenty one years old. It was crazy, but

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Speaker 4: I really couldn't think negative thoughts. It was deemed evil

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Speaker 4: spirits trying to invade me. So I was taught thought

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Speaker 4: stopping techniques to shut down any negative thought. And is

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Speaker 4: it possible that Elon Musk has been radicalized? I think

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Speaker 4: it is possible. Is it possible JD Vance has been radicalized? Yeah,

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Speaker 4: I think it's possible.

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Speaker 3: I don't know. But my solution is to.

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Speaker 4: Teach everyone about the influence continuum, the bite model, let

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Speaker 4: their family and friends who knew them before learn about it,

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Speaker 4: and let them interact and ask questions in a respectful

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Speaker 4: way to get at what's true and what's real.

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Speaker 2: Whether it's true or not. There's also the punishment model

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Speaker 2: as well, so you know, cults obviously involved shunning or exclusion. Right,

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Speaker 2: So even if you know something's wrong, you still sit

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Speaker 2: there and think, if I say this and this goes

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Speaker 2: for religion, and yeah, I'll actually back this up with Trump,

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Speaker 2: even if you don't believe that the election was stolen

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Speaker 2: or you see no evidence for it. But the very

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Speaker 2: fact of you saying that out loud glued you because

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Speaker 2: it is totally in or totally up, which for a

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Speaker 2: little bit of both sides. Rism isn't like that. On

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Speaker 2: the other side, if you're a Democrat and you say, well,

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Speaker 2: I don't think Biden did that greater job, it's not

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Speaker 2: the end of you. But if you say I don't

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Speaker 2: think Trump did a good job, or this is a failure,

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Speaker 2: then you're out. It's an in or and out sort

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Speaker 2: of thing.

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Speaker 4: It's a spot on and I interviewed David Weisman for

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Speaker 4: the Cult of Trump, who is a self per first magatroll.

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Speaker 4: He was an Army vet who would meet and be

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Speaker 4: sent out to harass libtards and people who were in

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Speaker 4: the Cult of sorrows, and he had an interaction with

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Speaker 4: the comedian Sarah Silverman, who instead of just blocking him

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Speaker 4: or calling him names, she said, I think it was

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Speaker 4: on Twitter. Oh you are a veteran, thank you for

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Speaker 4: your service. And he was like shocked that she even

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Speaker 4: recognized he existed. And he had been harassing her around

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Speaker 4: gun control stuff because of school shootings, and so she

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Speaker 4: asked him. She said, so you're a serviceman, what's your

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Speaker 4: solution to the gun problem where kids are being shot

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Speaker 4: up at school? And he realized he had never thought.

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Speaker 4: He doesn't have his own ideas about what would solve it,

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Speaker 4: but it changed his life because he started questioning it.

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Speaker 4: And the reason I'm sharing this is to confirm your point, Jerry.

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Speaker 4: As soon as he started questioning it publicly, everybody turned

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Speaker 4: on him in the Trump call, he was a pariah,

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Speaker 4: he was evil, and that confirmed for him there was

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Speaker 4: something wrong. Very recently, the humanist chaplain at MIT and Harvard,

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Speaker 4: greb Epstein, just published a book called tech Agnostic, saying

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Speaker 4: that big tech is now the new world religion and

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Speaker 4: outing these billionaires' ideologies of transhumanism and long termism and

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Speaker 4: accelerationism and crypto saying like they want to remake the world,

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Speaker 4: and I'm an agnostic. I don't believe that's like real,

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Speaker 4: That's what we should live our lives to go to

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Speaker 4: Mars and sacrifice humans for future ai androids that will

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Speaker 4: populate all the galaxies. And I'm with him on.

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Speaker 1: That them on that job. So, based on your experience,

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Speaker 1: what is the best way to help people who want

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Speaker 1: to leave cults.

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Speaker 4: I'm going to first say what you shouldn't do, and

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Speaker 4: almost everybody does. They try to argue with the person

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Speaker 4: with fact and persuade them, and they attack the leader

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Speaker 4: the doctrine or the policy which is guaranteed to reinforce

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Speaker 4: the cult identity and make them feel like you're persecuting them.

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Speaker 4: So that's what you'd never want to do.

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Speaker 1: Which is what we do on that Pope.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it is, but this we can certainly tell you

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Speaker 2: it is ineffective.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's effective for your base who want to listen

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Speaker 4: to you, but it's not going to help the people

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Speaker 4: that we're trying to rescue. And what we and what

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Speaker 4: most people have done with their family and friends who've

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Speaker 4: gotten into Mega world is block them. Er say, I

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Speaker 4: never want to talk to you about politics, like we

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Speaker 4: can meet for Thanksgiving, but we'll talk about sports or whatever.

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Speaker 4: And for me, that's the biggest thing we could be

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Speaker 4: doing is training people how to talk with people in

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Speaker 4: mind control cult respectfully, with curiosity, with active listening. But

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Speaker 4: the most powerful technique is what was done with me,

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Speaker 4: is to ask their a question that makes the think

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Speaker 4: and then follow up with another question, but not from

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Speaker 4: a I'm right, you're wrong, but I'm just curious how

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Speaker 4: you make sense of this. Then you can ask them

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Speaker 4: to go back in time to their first memory of

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Speaker 4: Donald Trump and they'll say, Oh, I saw him on

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Speaker 4: the Apprentice. What do you think I thought he was

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Speaker 4: an asshole. Oh that's interesting, you thought he was an asshole.

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Speaker 4: So tell me walk me through slowly how you came

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Speaker 4: to believe he should be president. Help identify in your journey,

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Speaker 4: because I'd like to step into your shoes and understand it.

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Speaker 4: But by asking it in a non threatening, non judgmental way,

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Speaker 4: people feel like you care about them. And I felt

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Speaker 4: like my father genuinely cared about me as much as

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Speaker 4: I didn't think he knew anything. That's what helped me

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Speaker 4: reality tests my own experience because I can tell you

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Speaker 4: Nobody wants to be in a cult. Nobody wants to

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Speaker 4: be lied to, exploited, made to do things that are

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Speaker 4: going to regret for the rest of their lives. And

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Speaker 4: here's the other technique, talking about other groups, not the group,

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Speaker 4: you're talking to the person. And what works best for

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Speaker 4: MAGA is Chinese communist brainwashing and pimps and traffickers. They'll

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Speaker 4: listen to that.

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Speaker 2: And a lot of times when we're dealing with people

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Speaker 2: from authoritarian governments, the people who eventually end up working

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Speaker 2: with us as agents. These are people who want to

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Speaker 2: deprogram themselves from the societies that they're in. Is an

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Speaker 2: example in North Korean who doesn't buy what everyone else is.

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Speaker 2: You know, he's desperate for somebody to talk to who

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Speaker 2: doesn't do that. Quit the opposite, we're often looking for

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Speaker 2: people who in austhoritarian governments who secretly don't buy into

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Speaker 2: this and are desperate to get out.

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Speaker 1: They want to get out of their cult that they're

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Speaker 1: already in.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, I'm more like recognizing their proxy groups.

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Speaker 4: The one that comes to mind, and I wrote about

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Speaker 4: it in Combat and Cult Mind Control was an Iranian

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Speaker 4: terrorist group called m e K that was based in

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Speaker 4: Iraq and they were anti Iran, and.

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Speaker 1: We don't work with them. In fact, I think the

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Speaker 1: Israelis do.

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Speaker 4: Though, you know, we get into this world of where

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Speaker 4: the Rand Corporation said, yep, they're a mind control called

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Speaker 4: but now we're not going to declassify them as a

436
00:25:41,840 --> 00:25:44,320
Speaker 4: terrorist group because they're working helps a lot.

437
00:25:44,200 --> 00:25:47,600
Speaker 1: Of actually right wing Republicans like Rudy Giuliani and others

438
00:25:48,600 --> 00:25:50,920
Speaker 1: paid by these guys to speak and things like that.

439
00:25:50,960 --> 00:25:54,320
Speaker 1: The US government always said they were nuts and mind

440
00:25:54,359 --> 00:25:59,479
Speaker 1: control and dangerous. However, some people with political ties, mostly Republicans, frankly,

441
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:02,080
Speaker 1: wish the government to take them off the list. Now

442
00:26:02,280 --> 00:26:05,520
Speaker 1: they probably did, but the national security part of the

443
00:26:05,560 --> 00:26:07,040
Speaker 1: government are the ones dead.

444
00:26:08,200 --> 00:26:22,359
Speaker 4: More of this after a quick break. What we want

445
00:26:22,640 --> 00:26:26,240
Speaker 4: is for people to be invested in a system of

446
00:26:26,359 --> 00:26:29,560
Speaker 4: government where they show up the vote and they learn

447
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:33,600
Speaker 4: what the issues are and they aren't just responding to

448
00:26:34,040 --> 00:26:38,640
Speaker 4: a social media channel or Sinclair Media because they bought

449
00:26:38,720 --> 00:26:42,879
Speaker 4: up the local free presses and such. Anyone who says

450
00:26:43,200 --> 00:26:46,440
Speaker 4: you create your own reality, or if it's true for you,

451
00:26:46,560 --> 00:26:50,280
Speaker 4: then it's true, it's like no, that's called the delusion

452
00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:55,399
Speaker 4: in mental health worlds. If you think you're Jesus. That

453
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:56,600
Speaker 4: doesn't make you Jesus.

454
00:26:57,160 --> 00:27:01,280
Speaker 1: What organizations that we don't normally consider cults nonetheless exhibit

455
00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:03,240
Speaker 1: cult like practices. I know you got a list of

456
00:27:03,760 --> 00:27:07,080
Speaker 1: what are things that are like, but perhaps maybe not

457
00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:07,960
Speaker 1: all the way.

458
00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:11,720
Speaker 2: But let's not mention the Buffalo Bills fan clubs though

459
00:27:11,760 --> 00:27:13,000
Speaker 2: those are Oh it.

460
00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:18,120
Speaker 5: Hurts today to the things sports fans are fanatical, but

461
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:21,639
Speaker 5: they are not being lied to, and they're not being

462
00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:24,640
Speaker 5: forced to buy tickets or watch games.

463
00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:25,560
Speaker 3: And as they.

464
00:27:25,480 --> 00:27:27,640
Speaker 2: Are being lied to, I mean, we're the best team.

465
00:27:27,680 --> 00:27:29,840
Speaker 3: We're going to win the super Bowl. That's so funny.

466
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:34,280
Speaker 4: Anyway, A lot of people are in Jehovah's Witnesses and

467
00:27:34,320 --> 00:27:37,800
Speaker 4: they don't think of it as an authoritarian mind control cult.

468
00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:42,880
Speaker 4: But my books have helped countless people exit and gratefully

469
00:27:42,920 --> 00:27:46,199
Speaker 4: from that where they're told that they can't salute the

470
00:27:46,320 --> 00:27:50,159
Speaker 4: flag and they can't go into another church because it's evil,

471
00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:53,080
Speaker 4: or they can't get a blood transfusion, or they're told

472
00:27:53,119 --> 00:27:57,159
Speaker 4: that they can't talk to their own children or family members.

473
00:27:57,160 --> 00:28:01,359
Speaker 4: You were saying before, Jerry about shunning, it's more extreme.

474
00:28:02,080 --> 00:28:04,840
Speaker 4: I've done a lot of work with the Mormons and

475
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:09,239
Speaker 4: the Latter day Saints with John Delynn, who is excommunicated

476
00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:12,240
Speaker 4: for speaking up for gay rights. He's a former sixth

477
00:28:12,359 --> 00:28:17,440
Speaker 4: generation Mormon, and I understand that the Mormons are overrepresented

478
00:28:17,520 --> 00:28:22,040
Speaker 4: in our intelligence agency, yes, very much, which is concerning

479
00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:26,600
Speaker 4: for me because I would like everyone to learn about

480
00:28:26,600 --> 00:28:30,280
Speaker 4: brainwashing and cults, and when you have a living profit,

481
00:28:30,840 --> 00:28:34,680
Speaker 4: you may have a dual commitment of loyalty to your

482
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:38,800
Speaker 4: profit and not necessarily to the Constitution. I would like

483
00:28:38,880 --> 00:28:43,600
Speaker 4: people to learn more about Chinese communists, brainwashing and pimps

484
00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:48,120
Speaker 4: and traffickers, sex trafficking and labor trafficking, because it's so

485
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:52,800
Speaker 4: present and people understand that it's wrong and that it's slavery,

486
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:57,080
Speaker 4: because the whole concept of brainwashing is you're creating slaves.

487
00:28:57,840 --> 00:29:00,280
Speaker 4: But they say they're happy and they did it on

488
00:29:00,360 --> 00:29:03,240
Speaker 4: their own when they didn't. Stevie is the next Mooney.

489
00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:07,000
Speaker 4: I found it really interesting how this church is split,

490
00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:11,120
Speaker 4: and especially this one element of the church now the

491
00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:12,560
Speaker 4: Rod of Iron Church.

492
00:29:12,840 --> 00:29:17,440
Speaker 2: These are guys with gold ear and crowns of bullets

493
00:29:17,520 --> 00:29:21,600
Speaker 2: and violence, and yet they're also very much involved in politics.

494
00:29:21,720 --> 00:29:23,720
Speaker 2: So I was wondering, can you bring us in and

495
00:29:23,840 --> 00:29:27,040
Speaker 2: give us a sense of the Ander relationship or the

496
00:29:27,080 --> 00:29:30,160
Speaker 2: overlap of the ven diagram between and then let's just

497
00:29:30,280 --> 00:29:32,960
Speaker 2: run with the Rod of Iron group, which of course

498
00:29:33,160 --> 00:29:36,880
Speaker 2: Mike Flynn is associated with, not in it, but he's.

499
00:29:38,080 --> 00:29:41,840
Speaker 4: They did this Rod of Iron Freedom Festival that Mike

500
00:29:41,880 --> 00:29:46,000
Speaker 4: Flynn was a featured speaker at and some of his people.

501
00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:49,160
Speaker 2: Moon and tell us what the Rod of Iron Church is,

502
00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:51,680
Speaker 2: and then how it interacts with Trump World.

503
00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:54,760
Speaker 4: Yeah. I kind of choke when you use the word church.

504
00:29:54,920 --> 00:29:59,240
Speaker 4: But so the Moon organization has hundreds of different entities.

505
00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 4: When Onia mun died, the two sons who now live

506
00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:08,040
Speaker 4: in Pennsylvania, Sean and Justin Moon, co opted I think

507
00:30:08,080 --> 00:30:12,080
Speaker 4: a billion or two billion dollars from their mother who

508
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:15,400
Speaker 4: had the main organization, and she was the figure had

509
00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:18,760
Speaker 4: taking it over. They battled it out in court and

510
00:30:18,880 --> 00:30:19,960
Speaker 4: I guess they lost.

511
00:30:20,760 --> 00:30:23,000
Speaker 3: But there are these two brothers.

512
00:30:23,120 --> 00:30:29,480
Speaker 4: One as a gun factory making ear fifteens and car arms, pistols,

513
00:30:29,560 --> 00:30:33,240
Speaker 4: et cetera. That's their company. And the other one, Sean Moon,

514
00:30:33,360 --> 00:30:37,800
Speaker 4: has the Rod of Ironministries dot Org. He's called the

515
00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:42,800
Speaker 4: King and he has on his website the new Constitution

516
00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:46,680
Speaker 4: when they take over the United State, as if the

517
00:30:46,760 --> 00:30:50,680
Speaker 4: Christian nationalists are going to let them. And they have

518
00:30:50,760 --> 00:30:55,160
Speaker 4: two training compounds, one in Tennessee one near Waco, Texas,

519
00:30:55,760 --> 00:30:59,360
Speaker 4: using veterans to train people how to use assault rifles

520
00:30:59,400 --> 00:31:03,560
Speaker 4: because they were expecting civil warn.

521
00:31:02,920 --> 00:31:05,480
Speaker 1: What's the connection with right wing political groups. Is it

522
00:31:05,600 --> 00:31:07,680
Speaker 1: just this former anti communism thing right?

523
00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:11,040
Speaker 4: Oh, though the Moonies have been right wing anti communist

524
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:15,960
Speaker 4: major players for decades. They were involved with Irancontra and

525
00:31:16,040 --> 00:31:19,520
Speaker 4: Colonel North. I should also say The Washington Times has

526
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:23,720
Speaker 4: been outed as the biggest purveyor of climate science denial.

527
00:31:24,680 --> 00:31:28,840
Speaker 4: But the movies are very much involved with politics and

528
00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 4: wanting to make a theocracy, a one world, hierarchical authoritarian

529
00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:40,920
Speaker 4: regime where people are either part of it or they're killed, basically.

530
00:31:41,320 --> 00:31:43,680
Speaker 4: And what was so crazy is in the room with

531
00:31:43,840 --> 00:31:47,240
Speaker 4: moon when he talked about amending the Constitution and making

532
00:31:47,280 --> 00:31:50,160
Speaker 4: it a capital offense, and I thought it made all

533
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:53,040
Speaker 4: the sense in the world because we would be taking

534
00:31:53,080 --> 00:31:56,320
Speaker 4: people's physical bodies away from them, sending them to the

535
00:31:56,400 --> 00:32:00,160
Speaker 4: spirit world, and we would save them later. Was the

536
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:01,240
Speaker 4: moony mindset.

537
00:32:01,320 --> 00:32:03,520
Speaker 1: My body's not is falling apart from me, So that

538
00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:05,080
Speaker 1: might be appealing.

539
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:09,080
Speaker 4: But it's I don't want your listeners to be just afraid.

540
00:32:09,320 --> 00:32:13,280
Speaker 4: I want them to understand. I believe as actually actions

541
00:32:13,320 --> 00:32:18,080
Speaker 4: we could be taking today to organize a resistance. But

542
00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:22,280
Speaker 4: as soun Su said, know yourself and know your enemy

543
00:32:22,840 --> 00:32:26,760
Speaker 4: and understand who's doing what. And we need to create

544
00:32:27,240 --> 00:32:30,720
Speaker 4: a strategy that's going to be more than one election

545
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:34,400
Speaker 4: cycle or two or three one that's going to take

546
00:32:34,480 --> 00:32:40,120
Speaker 4: decades to rebuild what we want to rebuild and hopefully

547
00:32:40,120 --> 00:32:44,520
Speaker 4: make a system where power is has checks and balances

548
00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:47,280
Speaker 4: and where human rights and rule of law and the

549
00:32:47,360 --> 00:32:48,760
Speaker 4: constitution matters.

550
00:32:49,160 --> 00:32:53,560
Speaker 2: Well. It's almost like biological organisms want to survive and

551
00:32:53,640 --> 00:32:56,600
Speaker 2: continue right, they don't want to die out. And one

552
00:32:56,640 --> 00:32:59,560
Speaker 2: way that they do that is they take over almost

553
00:32:59,600 --> 00:33:04,040
Speaker 2: like pers sites, they take over political organizations. So in

554
00:33:04,080 --> 00:33:07,520
Speaker 2: the eighties when I first came into the agency, there

555
00:33:07,600 --> 00:33:10,440
Speaker 2: was this organization called the LaRouche Organization.

556
00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:14,920
Speaker 4: Lynday was behind the Cult of Suro saw the disinformation

557
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:19,960
Speaker 4: about it, and Roger Stone was involved with LaRue.

558
00:33:20,240 --> 00:33:23,120
Speaker 2: I didn't know that. And Laruche at the time was

559
00:33:23,560 --> 00:33:25,600
Speaker 2: I think he raised over two hundred million dollars, which

560
00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:27,040
Speaker 2: is a lot of money, and he was involved in

561
00:33:27,160 --> 00:33:31,040
Speaker 2: four thousand political races mostly as a Democrat, but also

562
00:33:31,080 --> 00:33:34,200
Speaker 2: as Republicans trying to take it over from the inside.

563
00:33:34,600 --> 00:33:38,080
Speaker 2: But another thing they were doing was they were trying

564
00:33:38,120 --> 00:33:42,680
Speaker 2: to get their followers into CIA so that they could

565
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:47,080
Speaker 2: generally but that their followers would then acquire information to

566
00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:50,360
Speaker 2: give to Lyndon LaRouche to build him up. I'm really

567
00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:55,040
Speaker 2: concerned about trump Ism taking over, like the leadership of

568
00:33:55,080 --> 00:33:59,240
Speaker 2: the US military, the cultish elements of it, and inside

569
00:33:59,280 --> 00:34:03,120
Speaker 2: of CIA and FBI and Justice Department and some of

570
00:34:03,120 --> 00:34:04,960
Speaker 2: those things. You say, well, you're not allowed to say

571
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:05,560
Speaker 2: what you think.

572
00:34:05,760 --> 00:34:07,960
Speaker 4: I was literally in the room and Moon said, we

573
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:10,800
Speaker 4: have to infiltrate the US government. We're going to send

574
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:14,200
Speaker 4: people to volunteer for congressmen and senators.

575
00:34:14,280 --> 00:34:15,320
Speaker 3: We're going to run our.

576
00:34:15,200 --> 00:34:19,480
Speaker 4: Own people for me. This is a fifty year playbook

577
00:34:19,640 --> 00:34:21,760
Speaker 4: that I'm seeing implemented.

578
00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:24,000
Speaker 2: And we certainly have Tulsea Gibbert who's been involved.

579
00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:25,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I was going to bring up. Can

580
00:34:25,480 --> 00:34:28,120
Speaker 1: you talk about her Science of Identity foundation this, Hari

581
00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:29,040
Speaker 1: krishna O, Yes.

582
00:34:29,120 --> 00:34:32,880
Speaker 4: So my understanding is that her family grew up with

583
00:34:33,160 --> 00:34:38,120
Speaker 4: Chris Butler, who had a cult, who then became subservient

584
00:34:38,160 --> 00:34:41,960
Speaker 4: to Propo pod who started Ari Krishnas and then they left.

585
00:34:42,440 --> 00:34:44,359
Speaker 2: So you're saying the most important thing is people need

586
00:34:44,400 --> 00:34:47,080
Speaker 2: to listen to this podcast and read your book and

587
00:34:47,320 --> 00:34:50,280
Speaker 2: understand that there are tens of millions of ex cult

588
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:52,880
Speaker 2: members who are not sharing.

589
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:55,520
Speaker 4: Their story because there's a stigma that people think you're

590
00:34:55,600 --> 00:34:58,160
Speaker 4: stupid if you are in a cult. But I'm saying,

591
00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:01,680
Speaker 4: share your story. I know there's a lot of very

592
00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:07,760
Speaker 4: highly educated, successful people running businesses who have PhDs. Share

593
00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:11,960
Speaker 4: your story. Let's normalize this and let's teach people how

594
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:15,040
Speaker 4: to tell the difference, how to ask questions, how to

595
00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:20,160
Speaker 4: reality tests. It's not disinformation or critical thinking, it's teaching

596
00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:21,920
Speaker 4: people how to reality test.

597
00:35:22,520 --> 00:35:24,640
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Stephen for spending time with us

598
00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:28,720
Speaker 1: fascinating stuff and obviously not just fascinating but critically important

599
00:35:28,800 --> 00:35:30,600
Speaker 1: right now in our LISO show. Yeah, great to have

600
00:35:30,719 --> 00:35:30,920
Speaker 1: you on.

601
00:35:31,320 --> 00:35:32,439
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.

602
00:35:33,360 --> 00:35:38,400
Speaker 6: Mission Implausible is produced by Adam Davidson, Jerry O'Shea, John Seipher,

603
00:35:38,719 --> 00:35:43,120
Speaker 6: and Jonathan Sterner. The associate producer is Rachel Harner. Mission

604
00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:47,160
Speaker 6: Implausible It's a production of honorable mention and abominable pictures

605
00:35:47,239 --> 00:35:48,600
Speaker 6: for iHeart podcasts

606
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:00,480
Speaker 5: OO