WEBVTT - Anyone Could Join a Cult w/ Dr. Steven Hassan 0:00:01.600 --> 0:00:04.680 Welcome to Go ask Alli, a production of Shonda Land 0:00:04.720 --> 0:00:08.559 Audio and partnership with iHeartRadio. Rolling on the full. Loafing 0:00:08.720 --> 0:00:10.720 is a thing I can. I've seen We've all seen 0:00:10.720 --> 0:00:13.760 people do it. I've done it. I've kiddies for me. 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:17.440 Now the work is to warrant what I have, even 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:20.840 kind of shinny stuff. You know, that's my work. It's imperfect. 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:23.280 So let me ask you a question about actors because 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:27.680 you are Yeah, me too. We are old, funny duddies. 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:29.880 We go to sleep at ten, we wake up at six, 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:32.840 we go to bed at eight, So there are more 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:36.680 funny duddies than you. You are the funny duddiest. Yes, 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:45.760 welcome to go ask Alli. I'm Alle Wentworth. I've always 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:48.760 been fascinated by cult. I think when I was in 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:54.000 college in Upstate, New York, the whole Moon cult was 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:56.440 living all around us, and I didn't understand what it 0:00:56.560 --> 0:00:58.200 was and I was afraid I was going to be 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:01.480 kidnapped by them and had so many questions. And ever 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:05.400 since then, whenever I see a cult documentary or some 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:09.480 kind of a streamer about cults, I'm always tuning in. 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:13.080 So what is it about cults that were so fascinated 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:17.080 by Are we afraid of becoming engulfed in one, getting 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:24.119 lost in one, being brainwashed by one? There's no better 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:29.280 person to talk to about cults, about brainwashing, mind control, 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:34.119 all of it than doctor Stephen Hassen. He's a PhD. 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:37.640 He's a mental health professional and expert in an educator 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:41.880 in cult and undue influenced tactics. A former member of 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:45.640 the Moon Cult himself, doctor Hassen was d programmed when 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:48.320 he was twenty two. Doctor Hassen has been working in 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:51.040 the field of cults now for over forty years and 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:55.120 has developed models to identify control tactics. He's a founding 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:58.040 director of the Freedom of Mind Resource Center, and he's 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:00.960 the author of four books on cult and mind control, 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:08.520 and also hosts his own podcast, The Influence Continuum. Hello, 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:15.160 doctor Hassen. I there's a wealth of information in your podcasts, 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:17.760 in your ted talk, so I'm going to try to 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:21.640 hit your greatest hits. Thank you. So, doctor Hassen, it 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:27.440 is not every day that somebody wants to study brainwashing, 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:31.760 my manipulation cults. And there's a reason that you sort 0:02:31.800 --> 0:02:34.720 of started delving into this world. So you have to 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:38.720 tell that story because you've walked a few miles in 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:43.040 the shoes of the cult, so tell my listeners about that. Sure, 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:49.840 So go back to February of nineteen seventy four. I 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:53.560 was nineteen. I was an upper junior at Queen's College, 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:59.120 studying creative writing poetry in particular, and my girlfriend dumped 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:03.000 me abruptly, and I was kind of blue, and the 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:06.920 new semester was starting, and three women came up to 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:09.840 me while I was sitting in the cafeteria and flirted 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:12.679 with me and asked if they could join me at 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:18.040 my table. And I was a nineteen year old, healthy 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:22.960 male who thought he got lucky that day. And they 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:25.440 said they were students. They said they weren't part of 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:28.680 a religious group, but it turned out they were recruiters 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:35.640 for the Moon Organization, Korean messiah who wants to take 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:38.960 over the world and thinks that democracy is satanic. But 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:41.760 I didn't know any of this. And I grew up 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:44.560 in a middle class Jewish family. My dad had a 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:47.640 hardware store, my mom was an art teacher. In eighth grade, 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:53.200 two older sisters extra honor student, and I was not 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:56.640 a joiner, but I was bright, and I want to 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:01.600 improve myself and didn't want to be closed minded, and 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:05.160 so they were flirting. They said, we lived together with 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:07.200 people from all over the world. You have to come 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:11.040 and meet our friends. And two and a half years 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:15.280 later I was waking up on the Baltimore Beltway driving 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:17.839 into the back of a tractor trailer truck at eighty 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:22.599 miles an hour due to sleep deprivation. And in between that, 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:25.240 I was made a leader in the Moon cult and 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:29.760 was recruiting and doing crazy things like fasting for Richard 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:34.160 Nixon during Watergate because God said he should be president. 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:38.400 And I had hated Nixon before I've met the cult 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:43.040 and been indoctrinated in mind control. Anyway, what happened in 0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:47.200 nineteen seventy six was this near fatal van crash in 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:51.960 the hospital away from the group, sleeping a lot, and 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:55.280 I called my sister, who I was always very close with, 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:59.080 and she persuaded me to visit her and my nephew 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:01.719 and she said on him to know his uncle Stevie 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:05.440 come home. So I said, if you don't tell the parents, 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:09.240 and you don't tell Steph, my oldest sister, who had 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:12.680 all said I was in a cult and I was brainwashed, 0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:18.120 and I knew that was evil and satanic. I did go, 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:22.799 and she did tell, and they had hired some ex moonies, 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:25.600 one of whom was a woman I had recruited myself 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:28.960 into the cult and I was very fond of and 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:36.680 I was program to kill rather than betray the Messiah. 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:40.039 And I actually almost snapped my father's neck while he 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:44.279 was driving in the Long Island Expressway, but I didn't 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:48.200 kill him, thank goodness. We get to the point of 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:51.760 the dprogramming place and a big burly guy is going 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:54.680 to come and help me go in there with my 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:58.560 big long cast and I basically said to my father, 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:01.760 who knew I was very very strong. I'm six feet tall. 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:04.960 I said, if you try to make me go in there, 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:08.599 I will be very violent and I will kill everybody 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:11.000 or they will kill me, and my blood will be 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:15.520 on your conscience forever. And my father cried and say, 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:19.360 what would you do if it was your son, your 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:23.320 only son? How would you feel? And it was the 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:27.360 tears that got to the real me, and I switched 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:31.960 into what I imagined was his perspective, thinking how crazy 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:35.200 it must have looked to him that I had dropped 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:38.320 out of college, quit my job, donated my bank account, 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:41.960 and was fasting for Nixon. So anyway, I said, what 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:44.200 do you want me to do? He said, just listen 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:47.120 with an open mind. If you want to go back, 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:49.360 at least your mother and I will be able to 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:52.800 sleep at night knowing we did the responsible thing. So 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:56.400 I wanted to prove I wasn't brainwashed or mind control, 0:06:56.480 --> 0:06:59.400 and I wanted to show that I had free will 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:03.240 by the end, because they were showing me things like 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:11.480 Chinese communist brainwashing studies of Robert Lifton, and basically my 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:15.320 mind opened where I realized Moon was a liar. I 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:19.520 had heard him personally tell us to lie so many times, 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:21.440 and how could he be a man of God if 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:24.120 he's a liar if we're teaching that God is a 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:28.360 god of truth. So the wheels, the creaky wheels, started going, 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:31.960 and then it just felt like a house of cards 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:35.960 was going plap, plap pop, and I and I went. 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:39.040 I just cried for three hours, like what was I 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:42.880 been doing for two and a half years? And at 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:46.520 that point I just needed to understand what happened to me. 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:50.080 I bet because I'm you know, just a few minutes 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:52.840 that I'm looking at you and talking to you, You're 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:58.160 incredibly smart man, and I can't imagine you were any 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:02.600 less smart when you were a eighteen nineteen year old man. No, 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:06.920 I was reading postgraduate level when I was eight years old. Right, 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:10.000 You're not an idiot as a teenager. As my point, 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:15.120 you seem to have a caring, loving family. So definitely, 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:19.640 what is it that these women, Okay, aside from hormones, 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:23.680 how how did they infiltrate you in this way? How 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:26.960 could they manipulate your mind? I mean to me, it 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:31.040 reminds me of you know, I have friends whose children 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:34.719 were addicts, and they literally had to have somebody come 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:36.600 in at three in the morning and take them away 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:39.839 and kind of break them all down and rebuild them again. 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:41.800 And it sounds like you kind of have to do 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:45.160 that when somebody has been seeked in a cult. I'm 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:50.199 not a fan of the three AM boot camp interventions. 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:54.560 I'm sure some have saved people's lives, but also a 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:57.240 lot of them are run by people who are not 0:08:57.400 --> 0:09:00.440 mental health professionals. Well, yes, I agree with you. The 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:06.040 bottom line is that I that people are situationally vulnerable. 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:10.720 Breakup of a relationship, death of a loved one, illness movie. 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:15.400 So your breakup is your vulnerability. The girlfriend that broke 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:18.679 up with it was the biggest vulnerability, if I can 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:21.600 be honest, allay was that I thought I was too 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:26.240 smart and only dumb people get into cults. I thought 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:29.480 I was too smart. I had bicycle cross country when 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:33.720 I was sixteen. My father taught me in the hardware store. 0:09:33.760 --> 0:09:37.640 When he brought me in to train me, he said, 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:40.600 you can tell if someone's lying by their eyes. Steve 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:43.720 and I looked at their eyes and they were completely 0:09:43.920 --> 0:09:47.720 convincing that they were sincere. They were students, they weren't 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:51.080 part of a religious group. And I later became a 0:09:51.120 --> 0:09:54.920 top recruiter doing the same techniques to get people in 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:59.480 believing that the world was satanic and I needed to 0:09:59.520 --> 0:10:03.520 save their souls and all their ancestors. Let me ask 0:10:03.520 --> 0:10:07.640 you this very quickly. Sure, so let's define cult. Okay, 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:12.840 So what I'm my work is around authoritarian cults and 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:16.600 a way of thinking about it as a pyramid structured 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:21.760 organization with someone or some group or some ideology that's 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:27.959 controlling and the deceptive recruitment and the behavior, information, thought, 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:31.760 and emotional control to make a new identity where their 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:35.720 dependent and obedient on the group and some people say 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:39.560 you need a living guru or leader to have a cult, 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:43.280 and that's not my knowledge or research, because you can 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:49.640 have ideological cults right right. So, for example, the right 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:55.040 wing sovereign citizens, the racist, the neo Nazis, they were 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:59.320 doing leaderless resistance was the term. In other words, they 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:03.200 put an isis was doing this. Um. They put out 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:07.360 the ideology, they they they they give videos and for 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:10.360 people to indoctrinate, but they leave it up to people 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:13.120 to decide how they're going to act out right. Um. 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:18.000 And I went on to develop my own model based 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:23.480 on an influence continuum from ethical to unethical and what 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:28.880 I call the BITE model of authoritaring control. Yeah, behavior, 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:34.720 behavior control, information controls, and emotions emotional. Yeah. So if 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:38.760 you can control those four variables including where the persons 0:11:38.760 --> 0:11:42.880 sleeping and eating, and their clothing and their language, and 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:46.800 give them rigid rules and regulations and put them through 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:52.439 a process where they're confused, disoriented, and hypnosis is a 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:57.520 major factor, but not the the watch kind of hypnosis. 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:02.080 It's a much more DVOS this kind of process level 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:04.679 of hypnosis. It's something that I've spent a lot of 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:07.959 times learning about because it helps me and my work 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:10.920 to coach families how to help love ones and to 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:15.520 help people recover from these types of cases. And it's 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:18.720 been a journey. I was persuaded to get my doctorate 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:21.679 a few years ago because I got involved with a 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:26.160 forensic think tank at Harvard Medical School, because I realized 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:28.720 the law is about a hundred years out of date 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:35.760 with understanding neuroscience and social psychology. And if you're young, 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:39.920 you can be unduly influenced automatically by your age. If 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:44.520 you're older and have dementia, that but the middle ground 0:12:44.920 --> 0:12:48.400 is called a slippery slope, and for me, it's not 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:52.440 a slippery slope if you have these four components in 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:57.640 the context of a lack of informed consent and installing phobias, 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:02.520 for example, to make people rationally afraid to question the 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:06.400 leader or the group, or irrationally afraid to exit the 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:10.840 group because terrible things will happen to you. I was 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:15.160 literally taken to the Exorcist movie alley in nineteen seventy 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:19.800 four and Moon said, personally, God made the Exorcist movie, 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:23.439 this is what will happen if anyone leaves the Unification Church. 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:26.480 And at that point I had no critical thing you'll 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:30.120 start throwing up and spinning around. Wow, it was scary, yes, 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:34.720 of course, And so obviously I think about Patty Hurst. 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:39.520 She was made into Tania and she robbed banks and yeah, 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:42.679 and a lot of people didn't believe she was brainwashed. 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:45.400 They thought she was a wealthy little kid acting out. 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:50.520 And in my opinion, she was absolutely a victim of brainwashing. 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:53.439 She was put in a closet, she was sexually abused. 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:58.760 So for me, it was just bad legal defense and 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:04.280 lack of the public's awareness and understanding that it doesn't 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:09.800 just happen to stupid people, weak people, people from bad families, etc. Right, 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:14.760 the right conditions, almost everybody can be hurt this way, 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:18.480 and so and can you create those conditions, Meaning with 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:21.040 Patty Hurst, they locked her in a closet, they sexually 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:23.720 abused her. I'm sure they starved her. I mean, so 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:28.160 you can also as a cult leader, you can create 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:32.640 all those conditions with which to get people embedded in 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:37.200 your sort of philosophies and your agenda. Basically, Yeah, so 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:44.200 traffickers and pimps do this, And trafficking is illegal in 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:48.200 the US and most civilized countries of the world. It's 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:54.720 defined as fraud, force, or coercion, and most every mind 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:58.200 control cult has the fraud, the lack of informed consent, 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:03.720 and the coercion, which is granularly explained by the control 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:08.320 of behavior, information, thoughts, and emotions. And in fact, labor 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:13.280 trafficking experts are using my model, and sex trafficking experts 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:16.080 who are helping people get out of that type of 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:19.680 mind control are using it because it makes sense. So 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:24.440 with the sex trafficking and labor trafficking, it's very fear based, right, 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:27.800 It's much more about if you try to leave, you 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:33.040 will be killed or will kill your family or right, yes, 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:37.080 so that's where the force comes in. If somebody holds 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:41.360 a knife up, like Larry Ray of the Sarah Lawrence cult, 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:44.960 he was just convicted of trafficking, if he holds a 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:48.680 big knife up and starts to coerce you to make 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:54.040 a false confession, you repeated enough times, you start believing it, 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:57.120 because that's the way the mind works and memory works, 0:15:57.280 --> 0:16:01.800 is you can reprogram people's memories and people can have 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:06.360 false memories of experiences that never happened. And so Charles 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:10.600 Manson was kind of the genius of this too. Correct. Well, 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:12.160 we don't want to give him that much credit. I 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:14.080 don't think genius is a right word. I don't think 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:18.320 it was a genius, but he was. He was definitely 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:24.280 involved with scientology and he also used psychedelics. So psychedelics 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:28.440 is another method that can be used to subvert people's 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:34.320 critical thinking and reality testing. If you're tripping on acid 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:37.560 and somebody is telling you we were married in the 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:42.360 past life, don't you remember, you know, we were walking 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:46.480 down the river of the Nile and we were fishing. 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:50.200 Don't you remember, and you're tripping, you know, it's going 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:54.960 to go in your head somewhere. Yeah, there's a lot 0:16:55.000 --> 0:17:05.680 more to come after the short break and we're back. 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:12.520 It's interesting you think you equate sex trafficking with a cult, 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:16.520 because most people think sex trafficking is they go after 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:19.920 vulnerable children or women, They kidnap them, and then they 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:26.160 use threats and fear to keep them there, same with pimps. 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:29.919 But you're saying that it's it's more than that, No, 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:36.760 it's it really is a systematic social influence process where 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:42.520 people's behavior, information, thoughts, and emotions are manipulated to create 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:46.400 a new identity that's the pendant and obedient on the 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:50.639 pimp or the trafficker. So they frequently will change the name, 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:55.439 change the clothing, change the language system, and people have 0:17:55.720 --> 0:18:02.520 an alternate life and belief about themselves. And so I 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:05.840 do want to clarify something. So I have something called 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:11.120 the influence continuum ethical to unethical, and this is all 0:18:11.119 --> 0:18:14.080 on my Freedom of mind dot com website under learn 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:17.720 about undue influence. So I say there are cults along 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:22.400 the entire continuum, but the difference between healthy cults as 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:27.160 you choose. You can think you have your own critical faculties. 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:31.439 You can leave without threats or fear or harassment. You 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:35.159 can be fanatically into something, but it's your own choice 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:38.520 versus having a new identity. I mean, one could say 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:44.200 that there are abusive and horrific relationships that are that 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:47.440 model this cult thing. I mean, I have some friends 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:52.880 whose son has gotten involved with a woman and he 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:56.240 doesn't speak to his parents and he's moved far away, 0:18:56.280 --> 0:18:58.880 and I keep saying to them, God, it's like he's 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:01.639 in a cult, But no one looks at it that 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:03.960 way because it's a relationship one cult to one. No, 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:08.680 you're right, yeah, you're one hundred percent correct. And men 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:12.760 controlling women and in fact, in the UK they have 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:16.400 a new law called course of control where a man 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:19.840 is controlling a woman and isolating her from her family 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:25.080 and controlling her finances. It's not yet recognizing women controlling men. 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:28.439 But in the United States I do a lot of 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:34.200 cases one on one controlling and they're typically malignant narcissists, 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:37.080 by the way, so it's another way of saying it 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:41.879 is a narcissist who's a psychopath who are isolating a 0:19:41.920 --> 0:19:46.760 person and taking their money and wanting to exert power 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:51.560 over them and sex. So we can talk about political cults, 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:59.040 therapy cults, multi level marketing cults, psychotherapeutic cults, boot camp cults, 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:04.040 which you mentioned something about friends who brought their kids 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:07.600 who are addicts to a closed environment to break them 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:11.440 down and create a new identity presumably, but a lot 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:15.640 of those groups make the person dependent on the cult well, 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:20.040 especially because they get kickbacks, and that whole system in 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:24.240 Utah so corrupt, but yes, exactly, Utah is one of 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:28.480 the worst states for these systems, and Paris Hilton is 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:32.040 probably the most famous person who survived that. And so 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:36.239 when you talk about like communist China, brainwashing and some 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:40.800 of these techniques whether they're used on an educated adult. 0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:45.879 When it comes to let's say, sex trafficking, isn't it 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:51.719 all fear based? Well, people don't understand. Most young people, 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:57.720 mostly women or girls rather or boys, are recruited around 0:20:57.720 --> 0:21:02.000 twelve to fourteen years of age, and so it starts 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:05.160 with what's called grooming, and the right wing is now 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:08.760 using that term and flipping it on its head. But 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:14.280 the real grooming of perverts and pedophiles and traffickers is 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:21.439 giving food, buying a gift, walking with them, paying attention 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:25.400 to them, maybe playing video games with them online where 0:21:25.400 --> 0:21:29.480 the person thinks they're their own age. And by the way, 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:33.800 neuroscience has now told us that when someone is playing 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:37.400 a video game online, the brain starts acting like it's 0:21:37.440 --> 0:21:41.280 a friend, even though you have no idea who's on 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:45.200 the other side, and it could be a Chinese agent 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:49.600 or a Russian agent, or the porn industry. It's exactly. 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:53.840 It's typically a love thing where the young people think 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:58.440 that that's a boyfriend, and they step by step get 0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:01.399 them involved with sex and do a favor for me. 0:22:01.600 --> 0:22:04.639 My best friend is coming over. He's really lonely, he 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:08.000 needs attention. Give him a back rub, you know now 0:22:08.080 --> 0:22:11.320 pull down his shirt and rub his back that way. 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:17.200 And it's just step by step. And and it's unfortunate 0:22:17.480 --> 0:22:23.320 that everybody who walks around thinking it's only someone else's kid, 0:22:24.400 --> 0:22:29.560 it's only weak people or stupid people. They're the most vulnerable. Really, 0:22:29.960 --> 0:22:33.400 it's way better to be humble and go. It could 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:36.600 happen to me. And that's why you always want to 0:22:36.600 --> 0:22:40.800 stay in touch with your intuition, your gut, and you 0:22:40.880 --> 0:22:43.639 want to always have a red flag go off in 0:22:43.720 --> 0:22:46.680 your mind. If someone is saying don't tell your parents 0:22:46.880 --> 0:22:50.240 or don't don't share this with your husband or your wife. 0:22:50.320 --> 0:22:55.159 That should be like an immediate information control, right, danger, danger, 0:22:55.800 --> 0:22:59.800 you know what I've The bottom line is there's some 0:22:59.800 --> 0:23:03.919 people who are exceptionally vulnerable. And it turns out that 0:23:04.119 --> 0:23:08.560 people on the spectrum, very smart, high functioning folks on 0:23:08.600 --> 0:23:14.800 the spectrum, are exceptionally vulnerable to recruitment by mind control cults. 0:23:14.800 --> 0:23:20.720 Why because they're love bombed. They have an instant community 0:23:20.760 --> 0:23:25.160 where they have meaning and everyone's saying, oh, oh, Allie, 0:23:25.240 --> 0:23:28.600 you're so special, you're so smart, we're so glad to 0:23:28.600 --> 0:23:31.200 have you. So I did a chapter for an Oxford 0:23:31.320 --> 0:23:36.159 University Press textbook on loan actor terrorism, and mine was 0:23:36.200 --> 0:23:40.520 the only chapter on online indoctrination. And I used the 0:23:40.560 --> 0:23:45.520 case example of someone on the spectrum who was moved 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:50.160 to violence because they were manipulated to feel like they 0:23:50.240 --> 0:23:53.840 have to act out either against women because women are evil, 0:23:53.880 --> 0:23:57.760 because they could never get a girlfriend, or they want 0:23:57.760 --> 0:24:01.960 to tear down America because America is evil, so they 0:24:02.080 --> 0:24:07.040 want to create anarchy. So the thing that I want 0:24:07.200 --> 0:24:10.359 so desperately, and why I'm so grateful that you asked 0:24:10.359 --> 0:24:12.639 me to be on your show, is I want people 0:24:12.720 --> 0:24:16.879 to step back and understand we're living in the age 0:24:16.960 --> 0:24:21.879 of influence, and in particular digital influence. Yes, yes, I 0:24:21.960 --> 0:24:23.800 want to talk to you about all of that because 0:24:23.840 --> 0:24:27.800 it's very scary and COVID has sped everything up and 0:24:27.920 --> 0:24:33.719 people are believing stupid, crazy conspiracy theories because they've been programmed. 0:24:33.800 --> 0:24:36.400 Let's just throw qan on out there, let's take them. 0:24:36.560 --> 0:24:41.000 That is, to me an authoritarian cult in itself exactly. 0:24:41.040 --> 0:24:45.400 I did a bite model analysis actually of QAnon on 0:24:45.400 --> 0:24:49.680 my website. I was invited by Dave Troy, who does 0:24:49.760 --> 0:24:54.800 ted X mid Atlantic, to do a program called Dismantling QAnon, 0:24:55.560 --> 0:24:58.000 and it was there that I learned for the first 0:24:58.080 --> 0:25:03.360 time that QAnon was based on alternate reality gaming technology, 0:25:03.920 --> 0:25:07.040 and I was I'm old, right, So I did pack 0:25:07.160 --> 0:25:10.719 Man oh too? Yeah, yeah, I never did. I never did, 0:25:10.760 --> 0:25:14.959 you know, video games like so many people do. But 0:25:15.119 --> 0:25:17.800 this is based on the idea that you can go 0:25:17.880 --> 0:25:21.400 on treasure hunts and figure things out and clues with 0:25:21.480 --> 0:25:25.760 these bread drops and this and that, and it engages people. 0:25:26.119 --> 0:25:28.119 And the other side of this that I want to 0:25:28.160 --> 0:25:31.520 state for your listeners is this is a PSI up. 0:25:31.840 --> 0:25:37.000 This is a psychological warfare operation. And we know for 0:25:37.119 --> 0:25:42.120 a fact Michael Flynn, General Flynn did this for our 0:25:42.240 --> 0:25:46.800 country against people in other countries for a long time. 0:25:47.520 --> 0:25:52.840 And he's already proclaimed the digital Soldier oath and he's 0:25:52.960 --> 0:25:58.600 definitely not a person who loves the rule of law. Okay, 0:25:58.640 --> 0:26:01.640 And now I have to throw Trump out too, because 0:26:01.920 --> 0:26:06.080 he's clearly was given a few handbooks and models for this. 0:26:07.560 --> 0:26:10.960 So I wrote the book called The Cult of Trump 0:26:11.119 --> 0:26:17.080 Simon and Schuster, and my thesis essentially is that they're 0:26:17.119 --> 0:26:23.040 authoritarian cults whose leaders were directing people to believe in Trump. 0:26:23.760 --> 0:26:27.320 And so chapter seven is all about the puppeteers as 0:26:27.480 --> 0:26:31.320 I research them, including Putin. I put him first in 0:26:31.359 --> 0:26:36.400 the list. The Family, which is a cult that used 0:26:36.400 --> 0:26:40.199 to do the National Prayer breakfasts and everything, and Michael 0:26:40.280 --> 0:26:44.360 Pence is in that group. So that's another cult. Jeffrey 0:26:44.440 --> 0:26:47.040 Charlotte has written two good books and there's a Netflix 0:26:47.080 --> 0:26:51.959 series about the Family, and that cult recruits Democrats and Republicans. 0:26:52.080 --> 0:26:55.320 By the way. Then we have Opus Day, which is 0:26:55.359 --> 0:26:59.040 a right wing cult in my professional opinion of the 0:26:59.080 --> 0:27:03.920 Catholic Church that thinks the Pope is Satanic and they 0:27:03.960 --> 0:27:07.399 want to break down the separation of church and state. 0:27:07.920 --> 0:27:11.200 The biggest threat, and the media has missed this in 0:27:11.240 --> 0:27:18.119 my opinion, is what's called new Apostolic Reformation churches and 0:27:18.280 --> 0:27:23.240 what these are. The media said, these are white Christian evangelicals. Well, 0:27:24.200 --> 0:27:27.960 I know white Christian evangelicals, and they're like, this is 0:27:28.040 --> 0:27:32.119 not Jesus's teachings, this is not biblical. The leaders of 0:27:32.160 --> 0:27:35.560 these groups, they say, I'm an apostle or I'm a 0:27:35.600 --> 0:27:38.480 prophet of God. I talk directly to God and get 0:27:38.520 --> 0:27:42.480 direct revelations, and I speak in tongues and cast out 0:27:42.520 --> 0:27:46.240