Dr. Steven Hassan: Are You In a Cult and Don't Even Know It?

Summary

Podcast Summary: What Now? with Trevor Noah
Episode: Dr. Steven Hassan: Are You In a Cult?
Date: February 19, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this probing, candid, and often playful episode, Trevor Noah sits down with Dr. Steven Hassan—renowned cult expert, former Moonie, therapist, and author—to explore the question: "Are you in a cult… or just acting like it?" Drawing on Dr. Hassan’s personal experiences and extensive research, the conversation dives deep into how cults operate, what makes us susceptible, contemporary applications from politics to social media, and practical steps for self-protection and deprogramming.

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Main Topics & Key Insights

1. How Cults Recruit and Hook You

Dr. Hassan’s personal story with the Moonies (Unification Church) is used as a narrative backbone for explaining recruitment methods.

• Love Bombing & Deception:

  • Recruited on college campus through flattery and attention from strangers.
  • Cults rarely present themselves as such; "they don’t say, ‘hi, we have a cult, come and join us.’ They say, ‘do you care about the world?’" (26:06)
  • Initial approach involved being lied to about the group’s identity and purpose.

• Incremental Commitment & Environmental Control:

  • “Stall techniques” are used—promises to "take you home soon” while gradually escalating commitment. (18:12, 26:10)
  • Control over communication, nutrition, sleep deprivation.

• Age Regression & Nostalgia:

  • Induced "campfire" innocence; "one of the techniques is called age regression. They want you to be like a child... playing guitar around the fireplace." (28:13)

• Indoctrination via Truths:

  • Cults leverage partial truths or genuine societal critiques to hook smart, well-intentioned people.
  • "Many of the things a cult might say to you are actually true… we're not in tune with our minds..." —Trevor (34:24),
  • Dr. Hassan: "Ideologies have truthful, important things in them... that’s what hooks people." (34:43)

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2. Understanding Cult Dynamics: The BITE Model

Dr. Hassan’s framework for analyzing destructive influence.

• BITE Model: Behavior, Information, Thought, Emotional Control

  • "If they control your sleep, if they control your clothing, what you eat… that’s authoritarian." (21:42)
  • Key questions: Did you have informed consent? Are you free to question/leave?

• Information Manipulation & Thought-Stopping:

  • Loaded language ("fake news"), reversing blame, “phobia indoctrination” (examples like ‘you’ll die outside the group’), and the cult of confession.
  • “They flip it on you… whatever objection you have, they make it your fault.” (19:06)

• A Continuum:

  • "Cults exist from the ethical to the unethical... I'm in the TEDx cult, I'm in the scuba diving cult—my choice, no one is guilt-tripping me.” (52:46)
  • “Healthy parenting is helping a child find themselves... Unhealthy families are authoritarian, and can function like a cult.” (75:39)

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3. Why Good, Smart People Fall for Cults

• Vulnerability and Timing:

  • Recruitment often happens at times of personal disruption—grief, heartbreak, loneliness, transition.
  • Trevor: "You were heartbroken, alone, horny... people have needs." (64:44)
  • Environmental triggers: "Almost all of them have signals... but they don’t listen." (13:33)

• Social Psychology Experiments:

  • Explained how humans conform to groups even when group is obviously wrong (Asch Conformity, Milgram, Zimbardo). (50:19)
  • “Two thirds start giving the wrong answer just to fit in.” (50:36)

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4. Modern Cults & Online Manipulation

• Digital Cults and Political Manipulation:

  • Cult tactics pervade political and online movements: QAnon analyzed as an "online cult" (68:48).
  • “If you have money or influence, you can be targeted and have no idea you’re being targeted online with AI.” (24:06)
  • Detailed description of Russian disinformation, state actor psy-ops, and how troll farms play both sides for polarization (95:32).
    • "If you’re Russia and you want to do psychological warfare... you’re not just influencing the right, you’re influencing the left." (94:41)

• Overlap of Cultish Tactics in Society:

  • "Everything is then a cult...” (74:49)
    • From reality shows (Big Brother, 79:25), to family systems, to political parties.

• Viral Cults: From Religion to the Cult of Trump (87:28+)

  • Dr. Hassan discusses his work and the backlash after writing The Cult of Trump.
  • Explains subcultures (New Apostolic Reformation, Opus Dei, The Family) feeding the movement; draws parallels to “cult of personality” leaders.
  • Interview of KGB insiders on co-opting American businessmen (91:45).

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5. How to Deprogram and Help Others

• Deprogramming Technique:

  • “The most effective technique is to go back to the moment you were recruited and ask: if you knew then what you know now, what would you do differently?” (01:36, 34:43, 85:25)
  • Using neuroplasticity to rewire responses.

• Key Do’s and Don’ts for Concerned Families:

  • Don’t attack the group, leader, or doctrine directly—triggers defensive programming.
  • Do: Find an “analogous cult” the person considers manipulative, and talk about the techniques and the BITE model in that context (85:19).
  • Celebrate small steps back towards openness, curiosity, connecting with their critical mind.

• Building Immunity:

  • Prioritize psychoeducation about mind control, psychology, neuroscience for all.
  • “Have a trust pod... where you watch each other’s back and take roles... reality testing.” (69:46)

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6. Impact of Environment & Societal Factors

• Cults Thrive in Unstable Times:

  • Economic uncertainty, isolation, and political turmoil increase vulnerability (65:48).
  • “If the status quo had done a better job making sure that Americans weren’t in a place where... food became unaffordable... health care...” (98:37)

• Authoritarians vs. Rule of Law:

  • "We are either going to continue to evolve as a species with the goal of planetary survival, or it’s the authoritarians vs. the rest of us..." (62:21)
  • Focus on strengthening community, arts, culture, and real human connection.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Recruitment Tactics:

  • "They don’t say, ‘hi, we have a cult, come and join us.’ They say, ‘do you care about the world?’” —Dr. Hassan (14:33)
  • “They were just using sexual seduction as a recruiting tool. ... What they didn’t say is, ‘we don’t believe in sex.’” —Dr. Hassan (13:47)
  • "It’s formulaic. Once you know the formula, you can name it." —Dr. Hassan (25:29)

• On Recognizing Authoritarianism:

  • “Healthy parenting recognizes each child is a unique being. Unhealthy families are authoritarian… they want obedience.” —Dr. Hassan (75:39)
  • “If you have informed consent, if you can leave freely, that’s the test.” (22:06)

• On Self-Reflection & Recovery:

  • “I empower my clients to understand… if you knew then what you know now, what would you do and say differently?” —Dr. Hassan (01:36, 34:43, 85:25)
  • Trevor (on reality testing): “Does it let you look at the sculpture from a different angle? If it doesn’t, you might be in a cult.” (112:28)

• On Politics & Mass Movements:

  • “QAnon was a psy-op… I did a BITE model analysis.” —Dr. Hassan (68:48)
  • “Authoritarian manipulation is happening on both extremes to create confusion.” —Dr. Hassan (94:51)
  • “Most cult leaders were in a cult themselves before. ... It’s not just con artists.” —Dr. Hassan (58:27)

• On Personal Anecdotes & Humor:

  • “Horny, 19. We can’t skip that one.” —Eugene (64:44)
  • “Now you hate soccer... is this why Eugene never wants to talk about soccer?” —Trevor (45:06)
  • “Big Brother—the show should pay royalties to cults."—Trevor (79:34)

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Key Timestamps for Major Segments

• [07:41] Dr. Hassan’s recruitment story as a college student
• [13:16] “Love bombing” and early cult recruitment explained
• [20:25] Discussion of “witnessing” vs. ethical group recruitment
• [21:40] Intro to the BITE Model
• [25:35] Arrival at the cult compound, early psychological manipulation
• [28:13] “Age regression” and marshmallow metaphors
• [34:24] Trevor on cults using truths to hook people
• [50:19] The Asch Conformity experiment and social psychology
• [68:48] Online cults and QAnon
• [85:18] Family interventions: what works, what not to do
• [87:28] Backlash to The Cult of Trump + discussion on political cults
• [94:41] Russian disinformation tactics & troll farms
• [112:28] Reality test: “Does your system let you see the sculpture from more than one side?”

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Takeaways: How to Protect Yourself & Others

• Cultic influence is widespread—from family and workplaces to politics and pop culture.
• Manipulation capitalizes on personal vulnerabilities, isolation, and moments of transition.
• Recognize tactics: deception, love-bombing, information control, peer pressure, phobia indoctrination.
• Build “trust pods” and practice reality-testing.
• Approach loved ones with curiosity and warmth—never attack, always ask questions.
• Education about psychological influence is the best societal inoculation.
• Beware of absolute certainty and closed systems—curiosity and perspective are antidotes.
• “Freedom of Mind”—it’s your mind, you own it.

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For more on the BITE model, resources, and Dr. Hassan’s work:
freedomofmind.com

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End of Summary – This episode is a masterclass on understanding, recognizing, and dismantling cult influence—for yourself and your community.

Transcript

[A]

This is something that I'm picking up on already is many of the things that a cult might say to you are actually true. Do you get what I'm saying? I do think mankind is asleep in that way, and we see it in what we eat, how we live, how we. How we work, how we consume. There is a level of, like, asleep sleepwalking.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I go like, yeah, no, this is true. We're not in touch with our bodies anymore. We're not in tune with our minds. We, you know, we act mindlessly. We.

[B]

You.

[A]

I could if someone said that to me.

[B]

I'm walking down the street. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

You know how many times I see people walk into the street on their phone and then a car has to swivel? I'm like, yeah, we are. So they would have me on that line if they said, mankind is asleep.

[B]

I'd be like, but you're building on another universal point that's really demanding, underlining and with a red pencil that. That the ideologies have truthful, important things in it, and they quote famous people who say really important things. So it's not just all bs. And that's also, as a therapist, that's what I try to do in helping my clients deconstruct. How did they get hooked? What were the pieces that hooked them? And the technique. I'm jumping ahead and I'll circle back to your earlier question, but the technique that's most effective. Effective is I empower my clients to understand Chinese Communist brainwashing, my model, et cetera. And the technique is this simple. I ask people to go back to that critical earlier moment when they were getting recruited or they were falling in love with someone who was a malignant narcissist that was going to ruin their lives. If you knew then what you know now, what would you say and do differently?

[A]

Foreign. This is what now with Trevor Noah. This message is a paid partnership with Apple Card. Imagine this. You're at a checkout counter. You're ready to pay when you realize you don't have your wallet. Dun, dun, dun. You could drive all the way back home and you could get it. But you remember that you have your Apple card on your iPhone so you can tap to pay with Apple Pay. Imagine that. No need to carry a wallet. But, you know, one of the things I do like about having my card on my phone is we live in a world where you lose your card and then you don't know where it is. And then you're like, what do I do? Well, if Your phone is connected to your card, and your card is connected to your phone. You know what's going on. The best thing about having the Apple card connected to your phone is you know what every transaction is. You know, like, sometimes you're like, what did I spend this month? The Apple card will show you one month. I had spent an obscene amount of money ordering videos online.

[C]

Just videos.

[A]

They were just videos.

[C]

What kind of videos?

[A]

That's not the point. The point is, I knew that I didn't want to order those videos anymore because I'd spent too much money on was videos on how to not spend money online.

[C]

I felt like I'd been duped.

[A]

Point is, Apple showed me what I was spending my money on, and I was able to change my spending habits. And you can do it, too. I earn up to 3% daily cash back on every purchase with my Apple card. That's unlimited daily cash back no matter where I shop. Apply for Apple card in the Wal app on your iPhone. Subject to credit approval. Apple card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch terms and [e-mail] all right, Eugene, let's play a little game. You know, make something fun. Two truths and a lie. Here we go. One, I've had to tell a world leader that their fly was undone. Two, when getting dressed, I don't do sock, sock, shoe, shoe. I do sock, shoe, sock, shoe. Three, I've been a Verizon customer for 11 years. What do you think?

[C]

Very confused. First of all, why would a world leader own a fly? Because those things just come uninvited. Secondly, lying to your friends is not cool. There's never been a game.

[A]

No, Eugene, fly is for, like, the zip is what? And then it's not a lie. It's a game where I'm trying. It's like I give you information. Okay, I lied. All three are true, Eugene. And in case you were thinking, you know, Verizon isn't as expensive as you think. In fact, if you bring in your ATT or T mobile bill, they'll give you a better deal. And the reason I've been with them for this long is just because I travel so much, I need a network that's reliable. That's right. A better deal on the best network with the most ways to save on plans, streaming, and phone deals. Take your AT&T or T mobile bill to your local Verizon store today. Get your better deal and start saving for real. Based on root metrics, best overall Mobile Network Performance US Second Half 2025 all rights reserved. You must provide recent consumer mobile bill in the name of the person redeeming the deal. Additional terms, conditions and restrictions apply. So do you understand how two truths. And do you understand it now?

[C]

I understand that you didn't have to lie first before telling me that Verizon is the best.

[A]

No, I wasn't lying, Eugene. It's not a lie. I wouldn't lie to you. It's a game. Okay, I'm sorry I lied. Ah. How do you pronounce your last name?

[B]

Hassan.

[A]

Hassan, okay.

[B]

Like Maggie Hassan, because everyone has a.

[A]

Different pronunciation of H A, S, S A, N. Some say what?

[C]

Hasan.

[A]

So there's Hassan. Hassan. Hassan.

[C]

Like they all Hassan.

[A]

Now you're just adding.

[B]

So Hassan was the cousin of Muhammad in the Muslim religion. Yeah, but my. The derivation of mine is Ellis Island.

[A]

Oh, okay.

[B]

My grandfather was a cousin, a Jewish.

[C]

I was almost there with Chasan.

[A]

Yeah, you were actually, you were close.

[C]

But mine sounded more Schwarzenegger than.

[A]

Yeah, cousin over there. Gazan.

[B]

I met Arnold when I first got out of the Moonies. When I went public and he was promoting Pumping Iron, he was the guest before me and he heard I had gotten out of the Moonies and he said, can I join?

[A]

Join the Moonies?

[B]

No, he joined my segment. Oh. Cause he wanted to talk about the Nazis.

[A]

I thought that you left the cult.

[B]

I left the cult.

[A]

And you told people about leaving the cult. And then Arnold Schwarzenegger heard about this and he's like, I want to join the cult.

[B]

I want to make a call.

[A]

I just heard you talking about, I want to. Can I join?

[B]

No. But he. He stayed and he made. What year?

[A]

Wait, What?

[B]

This is 1970. 1976.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I was on the Barry Farber show in Manhattan. I had never met a bodybuilder. He was there with a gorgeous blonde.

[C]

What is behind was the documentary, right?

[B]

Yeah, it was his thing about becoming a bodybuilder. Yeah.

[A]

Is that the thing that.

[C]

Yeah, that's what. That's what inspired everyone to start pumping iron.

[B]

That's what blew him up. Venice beach, famous way before he became.

[A]

The documentary is great. I don't know if you've watched it.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Which one?

[A]

The Arnold Schwarzenegger documentary, like. And it's self reflection as well. He's in it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Talks about his life.

[C]

How old is it?

[A]

Maybe it's like a few years old now, maybe, like.

[C]

Yeah. Where he talks about his illegitimate son and his relationship and talks about everything. Yeah, I've seen it.

[A]

Yeah. Talks about everything. It's really good.

[C]

But I watched it again. I think I watched it too quickly.

[A]

It's really, really great. So this was, wait, 1976. So wait, how long were you in a cult for?

[B]

I was recruited at Queens College the same month Patty Hearst was abducted by the Symbionese Liberation Army. Women flirted with me, my girlfriend had dumped me. And a few weeks later, I'm a right wing fascist cult. But I didn't know what it was at all for months.

[A]

I feel like that put somebody in the perfect position. You know, I had a conversation with a monk about who can be a monk and how to become a monk and what, you know, monk life is. And it was interesting. So, so we're in Bhutan and they took us to it. Is, is, is it a monastery? Yeah, it is a monastery. Okay, just making sure. So we go to the monastery and there's all the monks there and everything. And there's all these young boys who've come from different childhoods. Some have almost been on a path of monkhood their whole lives. Others have come in because they, they're living troubled lives.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

And so somebody said in the group we were in, they were like, oh, but like, is, isn't that, you know, this guy, this kid's been through like this 20 year old or 19 year old he's been through, he's done all these things and can he be a monk? And the monk said something really amazing. He said, oh, he's the best person to be a monk. Because if you've been perfect your whole life and you're a monk, that's fine. But if you haven't been perfect your whole life, you've lived the furthest life from perfect and then you become a monk. He's like, I feel like you're the best disciple slash teacher because you've actually experienced the things that you're talking about. And I feel like that's, that's you.

[B]

That's a piece of it. But I'd also say you have to have an ego before you can surrender your ego. If you're on a spiritual path.

[C]

Ego, death.

[B]

And a lot of people figured out who they are and to recruit them into something that's totalistic is not informed consent from my mental health professional point of view.

[A]

No, but this is what I mean is like you are now an expert in the world of cults. You're an author who's written about cults. You teach people and you help them understand what a cult is, whether they're in a cult. The difference between cults et Cetera. But your origin story I find particularly fascinating because it gives you a unique insight. You're not just coming at this from academia like you just told us.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

You were in it. So I didn't know much about this before. I like, read your story. But tell us about, like the Moonies. Tell us about the story. How does this journey begin for you?

[B]

So I was not a joiner. I was raised in a conservative Jewish family in Flushing, Queens with two older sisters. And my mom's side was orthodox and my mom was an 8th grade art teacher in Brooklyn. And my dad took over his father's hardware store in Ozone Park, Queens. And I played basketball and was writing poetry at Queens College.

[A]

A well rounded, gentle, and did not.

[B]

I was reading philosophy. I was 19, had a ponytail. I'd skipped 8th grade, extra honors student. So I was in the last draft lottery of the Vietnam War, which I was opposed, but I got a good number. Fortunately. I hated Nixon.

[A]

Wait, what do you mean? Sorry, what does that mean? I got a good number. What is that?

[B]

I was in the last draft lottery, meaning they were picking numbers of your birthday to decide who was going to height in Vietnam.

[A]

Damn, I didn't know.

[B]

I'm aging myself. Yes.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[B]

So if you got 60 or less, you were going to Vietnam? I got like 300 out of 365.

[A]

And that was actually the reason you didn't go?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

But I hated Nixon. And then they get in the Moonies a few months later, fasting for Nixon to be president, despite Watergate, and I think my dad's going to appreciate me. And I'm like, dad, God wants Nixon to be president. I'm fasting for him. He goes, steve, you are right, he's a crook. I'm like, dad, you don't understand. God wants him to be president.

[A]

But how did you understand what you just skipped for me? You just told me about art, basketball, philosophy, and then you go into the gym and then all of a sudden you just jumped into Mooney's. No, I need to understand and I'll elaborate on why later. Okay, I need you to take us through the steps because I like what you said. I'm not a joiner. Sounds like you were a smart kid, came from a good family, you had your own point of view. And then what happens? When does the Moonies.

[B]

So the Moonies is educated about the Holocaust?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Bicycle crossed the US when I was 16.

[A]

Wait for why?

[B]

Because I was like wanting to see the United States. And I was.

[A]

And you hadn't heard of buses.

[B]

I was 16. I didn't have. No, this was an outing to have experiences.

[A]

How did you get back then? What were you. What were you.

[B]

No, we would camp out or stay at hostels. I went with American Youth Hostels.

[C]

What bicycle was it? A Schwinn?

[B]

It actually was a Schwinn. How did you guess?

[A]

Eugene knows. Whenever you try to ride across the country, there's only one bike for you. Schwinn. Schwinn.

[B]

Anyway, no, my story is my girlfriend dumped me abruptly over Christmas, and I'm sitting at Queens College cafeteria ready to start the next semester, and three women came over and started love bombing me, which is a term for cult recruitment.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Oh, Trevor, you're so special. Tell us about you, Trevor. And they were like, with Steve. And I'm like, there are three of them. I'm gonna get lucky with one of them.

[C]

The math was very good, even from.

[B]

I said, are you students here? Yeah, my math.

[C]

You'd have a bright future with online gambling. Yeah, if you're the time machine. Spread my odds here.

[B]

What they didn't say is, we don't believe in sex.

[A]

Wait, so how so.

[C]

So they come to you.

[B]

They were just using sexual seduction as a recruiting tool.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

And I. They lied. They said they were students. They weren't. I said, are you part of some religious group? No, not at all.

[C]

So you asked?

[B]

I asked. I literally asked. But they lied. That's also part of. People need to understand destructive cults deceive.

[A]

But wait, what made you ask that question?

[B]

Cause I. I don't know. That's intuition. I've asked myself that question over and over again. The only major cult story was the mansons back in 74. That I can think of.

[A]

That's a question to ask. It is a group of women who've just approached you and said, wow, you look nice. And you're like, are you guys part of a religious group?

[B]

No, I did ask.

[C]

That's a question to ask.

[B]

I can also tell you because I've helped people for 49 years, and I asked them questions about what were their first contacts? What was the attraction? What was going on for them in their life? And almost all of them have signals like that of, I thought it was crazy, or I thought it was odd, or I had a bad vibe. But they don't listen. They don't listen. They get overwhelmed by the external influences. And it's a step by step thing where they don't say, hi, we have a cult. Come and join us. They say, do you care about the world, Eugene? Yeah. Do you care about starving children? Of course, because there's children starving, and they need you and this kind of emotional stuff. And you're a teenager, and they bring you to an introductory lecture and a free dinner, et cetera. The weirdest part of my story is I was working as a banquet waiter at the Holiday Inn on Hempstead, Long island, every weekend because I was going to college, and I wanted gas money and date money and whatever. And so they were. You know, they met me, they invited me over for dinner, and they said, we're going away for the weekend. It's going to be so great, and we want you, please come. And I'm like, I work every weekend, you know, I'm sorry I can't go, period. And. But they kept asking over and over and over and over, and finally, I don't know why I said it, but I said, if I don't have to work some weekend, then I'll go. And two days later, I called my boss up, as I always did, because it was a bar mitzvah, a wedding, a this or a that. He said, you won't believe it, Steve. But the wedding was called off, so take the weekend off.

[A]

Wait, did they have something to do with that?

[B]

I don't think so. I think it was just bad luck or synchrony. But I was like, hmm, I'm wondering if I meant to go with these folks, these fun people.

[C]

So you call them up, they pull up in their station wagon.

[B]

Well, I went to their house, and I made a mistake. This was way before cell phones. So I made the mistake to not bring my car so I'd have wheels if I didn't like it. That was big mistake. And I didn't have a phone number to tell my family or anybody where I was, so nobody knew where I was. And we're driving up to Tarrytown to this multimillion dollar estate. And as we're passing, it's dark at night, it was snowy. They're in your car, I'm in their van. Or you're in their van, I'm in their van. And one of the people at the front says, this weekend we're gonna have a joint workshop with the Unification Church. And I went, what? What? I'm Jewish. I'm not into church. Nobody said anything about a workshop. I'm out of here. Drive me back to Queens, and I swear to God, that's exactly what happened.

[A]

You know, can I tell you what you remind me of? You remind me of how Eugene reacts sometimes when he'll be in my car and I'll just be like, we're just going to hang out. And then at the last second, I'll be like, so we're going to be moving furniture around in my house. And then you in the car like, let me out.

[B]

Let me out of here. Let me out of here.

[A]

She's like, who's moving furniture?

[C]

It happens all the time.

[B]

Bait and switch and all of that. And then I was like, it's snowing outside. It's completely dark. I don't have any means. I could get on the road and hitchhike and ask somebody to take me to the police station. But I said, bring me back. We're going in the morning. So just come in and you'll leave in the morning. But they had no intention of bringing me back in the morning.

[C]

So you.

[B]

Because the van left.

[C]

Wait, wait.

[B]

And the phone wasn't working, the payphone. It was all. Later, as I was a leader, I understood this was all heavenly deception. Yes. My man Eugene, before you become a leader. Yes.

[C]

The van pulls up, right?

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Then what happens?

[B]

The van pulls into this estate formerly owned by the Seagram's family. And I hear this rap about workshop and the Unification Church. I have my thing and they did a very typical mind control technique. They turned it around on me.

[A]

Can you explain more?

[B]

Yeah. So I said, what do you mean, church? I'm Jewish. And what do you mean, Workshop? I thought we were just going to have fun. And they're like, are you close minded about Christianity, Steve? So whatever objection you have, they make it your fault versus those motherfuckers. If it's okay to curse. Oh, yeah. I mean, those motherfuckers said if they weren't religious, it wasn't a group. I was lied to. I want out of here. But anyway, it was not. I just. Nobody explained to me how cults operate. And I was one of as most people today walking around going, I'm too smart to ever fall for a cult.

[A]

So let's break this.

[B]

I'm educated. I come from a good family.

[A]

Yeah. But let's break this part down now, please. So now, knowing the things that you know, let's go through these two major steps to help somebody else understand, like what is actually happening. So let's go back to the university campus. Help me understand what that initial. Do you have a name for that? Is there a term for what happened there? What is significant about the way that they approached you and brought you in?

[B]

So the Moonies call it Witnessing. But that's a term Christians often use for proselytizing. Okay, so, but the key thing is ethical. Religious groups tell people up front who they are, what they believe and what they want from them.

[A]

Okay, that's ethical.

[B]

Before they pressure you or guilt trip you or indoctrinate you into things.

[C]

So they identify themselves and say agendas.

[B]

Exactly. So I have an influence continuum. It's on my website, freedomofmind.com, you can download it for free of ethical influence. Looks like this respects your conscience, free will, creativity, love based ethical leadership, checks and balances, and destructive authoritarian cults. And my definition is really critical of authoritarian cults. And that can be a one on one authoritarian relationship. It can be a commercial culture, it can be a political cult, it can be a therapy cult or religious cult, whatever. But I have four overlapping criteria and that's what I did my doctoral dissertation on behavior control, information control, thought control, and emotional control.

[A]

Okay. B I T E Bite model.

[B]

I call it the bite model. You can download the whole list. And so if they control your sleep, if they control your clothing, what you eat, you can start ticking off how authoritarian it is, the scale. But critically, did you have informed consent going in? And how free are you to question it or leave if you're not happy.

[A]

Or you find something better? So that's the second part then. So when you, when they're saying to you, are you not open? What is that? What is that technique? Like why, why is that so bad? And I'm literally just trying to understand this and play devil's advocate at the same time. Someone goes like, oh, are you close minded, Steve? What are they actually doing there to you?

[B]

So things have become far more sophisticated than we were in the 70s and the moonies, and much is going on online. So what I'd like to try to do in this conversation is explain what I now understand what's happening today in a way that's going to help the widest audience. So what I want to say is that our attention is very narrow. We can't focus. I think the number is between five and nine bits of information at any second. But we're taking in tens of thousands of bits of information just visually a second. So we have a conscious mind, kind of like a tuner on a radio that has AM and fm, but it's just listening to this one band. But all the rest is happening at the same time. So understand that a lot of what happens today is misdirection, reversal to distract people from what? To really pay Attention to. So, you know, I'm asking this question and now they're flipping it or they're doing a reversal or people are doing a projection onto somebody else and you forget I just asked about this. But now you're talking about that.

[A]

You said, hey guys, you said, why is there a workshop and I'm Jewish and tell me about religion and they.

[B]

Flip it, they lie to me. They didn't say, yup, we did. Or we had to. We just said, do you have an issue, obviously you have an issue, Eugene, with trust, apparently that you're even asking.

[C]

Does that go back? Yeah. Is that. Yeah.

[B]

But the technique of mind controllers, the more data they can gather on a person ahead of time, usually by asking the recruiter who's already. And back then you couldn't buy somebody's profile. Today you can. So it's way more problematic now because if you're a person of influence, if you have money, for example, you can be targeted and have no idea you're being targeted online with AI. And that's why it's so important. My solution to what's happening in the world right now is psychoeducation about how the mind works, how social psychology works, how neuroscience works, and how we gonna be ethical. So we have planetary survival. Because most people are good. Most people know this climate warming due to fossil fuels and don't wanna buy into the constant brainwashing and propaganda saying there's no scientific proof. It's like the Big Tib. There's no proof it's cancer causing. They knew it was cancer causing. And the big cults have hired sociologists of religion to say there's no such proof of brainwashing at all.

[A]

So they use many of the same techniques. Same to turn the lens to shift your view.

[B]

Exactly. But it's formulaic. Once you know the formula, you can see it, you can name it.

[A]

I think it's also easier when you hear it in a story. Because now I'm with you when we go step by step. So you're you. You've just come into this compound in Tarrytown, right? And now they've said to you, oh wow, Steve, you're clearly the asshole because you have a problem with Christianity. So now you go, no, I don't.

[B]

And then I want to go home. Take me home and sorry, we're not going. So like let's just go in and we'll sit by the fireside and have roast marshmallows and sing some songs and we'll take you back in the morning.

[A]

But at what point does your brain stop going, I want to go home.

[C]

When you're having marshmallows by the fireside of the hotel.

[B]

At the point that I didn't opt for. This is dangerous. This is a mind control cult. Get me the hell out of here. I was like, I'll wait till the morning and they'll take me back. So this is a stall maneuver. This is another important feature. A mind controller wants to get you over there at the corner of the room. They don't say, walk to that corner of the room. They say, would you mind picking up that pencil over there? Oh, and do you see that interesting picture on the wall over there? Trevor, go over and you know, see the detail on that picture? So they come up with ways to misdirect your attention till you're behaving the way they want you to behave. And in the end they want to program a new identity. And it's, it's, it's a dissociative disorder. So I was the real Stephen. And they wanted me to believe that sun myung moon was 10 times greater than Jesus Christ or any religious figure in history, that he was sinless and he was going to save the world, he was going to bring peace, he was going to feed all the starving children in the world. And I needed to be like him. So they built a moon identity that took over my identity. And this identity said, he's satanic, don't listen to him. He wants to write poetry and have sex with girls and play basketball. Sex is a big no, no. Except for the leaders. The leaders apparently got to have a lot of sex.

[A]

They can always have sex.

[B]

Well, they're a lot, you know, are we leaders? Power not with each other. Power, money and sex is the universal for bad groups.

[A]

So you're in this place and you're having these conversations.

[C]

He's having marshmallows, you're having marshmallows by the fireplace.

[A]

Nothing says non threatening like marshmallows and three hot chicks. I mean all the same.

[B]

So that's another point. So one of the techniques that cults like to do is in hypnosis. It's called age regression. They want you to become like a child.

[A]

They bring you back to camp.

[B]

So they bring you back to camp where you're playing guitar around the fireplace and it's bringing up familiar good feelings. Yeah.

[A]

Oh, remember how it was?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Because it's easier to direct children than an adult.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

It'S very formulaic now. It's very. And that's why I've written books about it, why I'm teaching clinicians. There's no graduate program in the United States or the world that I'm aware of that teaches mental health professional how to do therapy with former cult members. So I did.

[A]

Yeah, I'm already learning so much now. I know next time to give Eugene marshmallows in the car before we go move the couches just to like soothe his spirit. Cause I just throw couches. I'm like, couches. And Eugene's like, yeah, my back hurts. I should just be like, eugene, would you like some marshmallows? The wheels on the bus go round.

[C]

And round in a banjo. You know, the more you talk, the more I realize that this is more pervasive than we think it is. It's a global commercials as well.

[B]

It's an epidemic. It's an epidemic.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And I tried to explain to politicians that we should be declaring a public health emergency. We should treat this like a virus, a real virus, but a mind control virus. We should be doing inoculation programs to educate people what the techniques are, how to tell, how to reality test. We should be training clinicians, educators, politicians, media people. And we should be making it safe for people to exit authoritarian cults and not stigmatizing them by saying, you're a.

[A]

Moron once you're in your cult forever.

[B]

We told you it was a cult, Steve. How come you didn't listen? People would say that to me when I got out and it made me feel worse. It didn't make me help me recover once I got out and realized it was a mind control cult.

[A]

How did you get to leader, though? I mean, you go from not wanting to come along to slowly being soothed into this world and then how many days are you there? How long is this process? How do you go from skeptic to leader of the organization?

[B]

Good question. So there's another weirdo event, because I told you, a weirdo event with my boss at the Holiday Inn. So at the. I thought it was weekend come Sunday night. No, it's a three day workshop. You have to stay for the most important day. I'm like, I'm a student. I have classes. Take me back now. And they worked on me, worked on me, worked on me. So they got me to stay for the third day and I felt like my brain had been in a washing machine. I remember that. But I knew I needed to get the hell out of there. And I just got angry and kept saying, I want to go home. I want to go home. They started pressuring me to stay for a seven day workshop after the three day workshop. And nothing worked until I like threatened violence, that I don't want to be here. So they did let me go home. And my mother and my father were like, where were you? We were worried. Your eyes are all glassy. Were you drugged? And I said, I don't think they drugged me. I haven't slept much. And that's a major technique of mind control. My mother said, let's go talk to the rabbi. That was her go to. And I went, sure, I'll talk to the rabbi. And he was completely clueless of what to say or even what to ask. And he thought I wanted to convert to Christianity, which was the furthest thing.

[C]

On my mind, furthest thing from his mind.

[B]

But they had put in three days, they had put the idea in my head that we were living at a moment in history where the world was going to be transformed to be this Garden of Eden paradise because the Messiah was coming. They didn't say moon was the Messiah yet, just that we're in that moment. And so I asked the rabbi that what he should have said is, Steve, I've never heard of this group, but let me tell you, if a group is legitimate, it will stand up to scrutiny. Promise me you won't be in touch with them for the next few weeks and we'll research it together. That's what he should have said to.

[A]

Me, but he didn't know to say that.

[B]

He didn't know to say that. So I'm back at home, three days of hypnotic programming in my head, and I'm going, these people think the Messiah's coming. I want to write poetry.

[C]

You're back in your normal life?

[B]

Yeah, I want save the world, write poetry, save the world, do God's will, or write poetry. And I had this moment where I just was in my room. I had books all over the floor. I was reading two to three books a week because I'm a reader like you.

[A]

Not two to three books a week reading.

[B]

Back then I was reading two to three books a week. I'm still reading a lot. In any case, I pick up a book about another cult leader named Gurdjieff. You ever heard of Gurdjieff? Turned out my next door neighbor's father was into Gurdjieff. So he had introduced me to this. So I was already primed a bit into. Mankind is asleep and we have to wake up and there are these esoteric.

[A]

Forces that which by the way. Can I just interject here and say, which I often find a lot of these things are true, though. So this is something that I'm picking up on already is many of the things that occult might say to you are actually true. Do you get what I'm saying? I do think mankind is asleep in that way, and we see it in what we eat, how we live, how we consume, how we work, how we consume. There is a level of like, asleep, sleepwalking.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I go like, yeah, no, this is true. We're not in touch with our bodies anymore. We're not in tune with our minds. We, you know, we act mindlessly. If someone said that to me, I'm.

[B]

Walking down the street. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

You know how many times I see people walk into the street on their phone and then a car has to swivel? I'm like, yeah, we are. So they would have me on that line if they said, mankind is asleep.

[B]

I'd be like, you're building on another universal point that's really important, demanding, underlining, and with a red pencil that the ideologies have truthful, important things in it. And they quote famous people who say really important things. So it's not just all bs. And that's also, as a therapist, that's what I try to do in helping my clients deconstruct. How did they get hooked? What were the pieces that hooked them? And the technique. I'm jumping ahead and I'll circle back to your earlier question, but the technique that's most effective is I empower my clients to understand Chinese Communist brainwashing, my model, et cetera. And the technique is this simple. I ask people to go back to that critical earlier moment when they were getting recruited or they were falling in love with someone who was a malignant narcissist that was going to ruin their lives. If you knew then what you know now, what would you say and do differently? And I have them reprocess because they didn't know what they didn't know. But if I knew it was the Moonies, that this fat Korean billionaire was a pervert and involved with the Korean CIA and the Washington Times, et cetera, I would have said, you're not students. Get the hell out of here. I'm calling security. But the point is, it's a dissociative disorder. I was using my hands before. So the key is, once you're out is deconstructing the programmed identity by going back to critical moments and rewiring using neuroplasticity and neurogenesis, saying, if I knew then what I know now, here's how I would have handled it, or could have handled it, or should have handled it. Because then it empowers you going forward into the future to not get taken again with those techniques, Letting your brain.

[C]

Train your body on how to react next time instead of freezing.

[B]

And the key is the locus of control has to be in you, not looking outside to some authority figure or ideology to to tell you what reality is or what the beliefs are.

[A]

We'll be right back after this. This episode is brought to you by our friends at SurveyMonkey. You know, there's a very specific kind of bravery in business. And by bravery, I mean terrifying uncertainty. Think about it. Right now, there are people making massive, life altering decisions based entirely on a vibe, just a feeling in their gut. But what if you actually knew the truth? What if you knew your direct reports weren't just nodding along, but actually had thoughts they were too polite to say? Or that your best customers were already halfway out the door to a competitor? Because, let's face it, we'd like to say follow your heart. But in business, you, ignorance is just a very expensive hobby. Surveymonkey takes the fear out of asking and the doubt out of deciding. It's the difference between walking into a meeting with a hunch and walking in with 500 validated opinions, which mathematically is much better for your blood pressure. The truth might hurt for a second, but it's a lot cheaper than being wrong. So let's get you a survey and some actual answers. Sign up for an annual [e-mail] what now? And use code what now? For two months free. That's two months free with code what now? At surveymonkey.com what now? You know, Eugene, I don't know about you, man, but sometimes planning a romantic evening is one of the most stressful things because there's that specific type of performance art that comes with the romantic night out. You know, it's like you're sitting in a restaurant and you realize you've just paid a premium to have a room of strangers watch you eat bread while you try and have a private conversation. It's exhausting. You know what I mean?

[C]

It is.

[A]

But I realized recently, if you want to skip the theater and the crowds, Whole Foods market is the place to plan the perfect, indulgent and romantic evening at home. Picture this. You see you skip the extra trip to the flower shop and instead you explore the whole foods market floral department full of gorgeous Quality flowers with large blooms, vibrant colors, and strong stems. Bunches, bouquets, and even vase arrangements are available. Ooh, why stop there? We can also skip the dinner reservation. Start our sizzling hot evening in the kitchen. Just us. We could serve a surf and turf made with quality, no antibiotic ever. Steaks plus seafood that must be sustainable, wild, caught, or responsibly farmed. We'll then pair that dinner with a bottle of wine from the incredibly in depth Whole Foods Market selection. Say cheers with a sparkling or choose ready to drink cocktails. Yeah, must be 21 or older. Please drink responsibly. Taste the love all month at Whole Foods Market. By the way, that wasn't our date. I just got carried away. And then your hand was there, and.

[C]

Then I. I totally understand. But, you know, like they say, there's no free dinners. Clearly.

[A]

No, you don't owe me anything. We didn't even have the dinner.

[C]

I'm 41.

[D]

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[C]

You know, the story of recruitment sounds so familiar to me. When I. When I was 14, we moved from the township to town. So we lived in this block of flats. My mom, my two other siblings. So we used to play soccer downstairs. So these friends of mine that I just made in the apartment block did not show up for soccer that day. Then there were two teenagers, like maybe in university age who were outside our gate in the apartment because we played in the parking lot and then kicked the ball. Ball came over to them. They were on the other side of it, and they just said, hey, how are you doing? And I said, I'm fine. They said, what are you doing? And I said, I'm playing soccer, but my friends are not here. They were like, ah, if the gate would open, we would play with you. And I was like, yeah, the gate won't open. It's fine. We can just talk from here. They kept showing up until they were familiar to me. Yeah, a week later, they said they spotted me coming back from school because I had to take the train.

[B]

Yeah, they were targeting you.

[C]

They said, you look like you've come from far. Because I was like, I was still going to a township school, living in town, so I took the train. So they said, you know what we could do? We. We're in university now. We could help you with homework if you want. Then I Said, yeah, I'm fine with homework. They were like, trust me, we're good at math. And I hated math. We do all sorts of things, but if you want, we could help you. But now we're outside the gate. Just before I entered the apartment block, and I said, no, thank you. Two weeks went by. I saw them again, but now with my friends. So now this is important to mention. These were white kids. I'm black. Our apartment building was predominantly white. They're two friends of mine, Fanny and Gerald. Now I'm seeing them, interacting with them, thinking it's all normal, but the target here was me. So ultimately they said to me, we know what you do. We could meet at the mall. The mall was not two blocks away from my house. It had restaurants. They said, we can meet at the mall. All of us. Fanny and Gerald did not go. I ended up going. We got to a restaurant. There were two other people.

[B]

Three on three to one ratio.

[C]

There were two other people. Recruitment, you're not wrong. There were two other people. And there was a girl in there. So it felt safer. Started talking. They said, you could have anything you want in the restaurant. Anything you want. I didn't know what I wanted. Then they ordered this drink I would never forget. It's ingrained in my mind. I've never had it ever since. Is called Horlicks. So it's almost like.

[A]

Almost like.

[C]

But I think it's a Dutch drink. It's like a hot chocolatey slash warm, milky thing they had that came in a tall, glassy mug with a long teaspoon. And I was staring at this thing for long because I didn't know what was going on here. And they were talking, talking, talking, talking, talking. That weekend, I ended up in a bus without telling my mom to a stadium. And it was a church event.

[B]

Yeah. They were trying to recruit you.

[C]

I was there. They had red T shirts. The church was called Hope. It was like a red T shirt with white writing on it, on the chest. It was packed. I was in a stadium. Got back home that night. My mom was worried sick. I had to explain to her what really happened. She said, you're never seeing these people again. This will never happen again. And they kept on coming, and I never went out the gate again.

[B]

So you listened to your mom?

[C]

Yes. I was 15.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

So obviously I'd seen a lot of these kind of things at the hospital, the ER people who attempted suicide and all of that jazz. But it was a church cult.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. And cults will tell.

[C]

Young people.

[B]

Don't tell your parents.

[C]

I was in the car with these people. I didn't know who they were.

[B]

I get it. It happened to me.

[C]

I went to a stadium.

[B]

No, it happens a lot. And I was listening to you read your book about your childhood. Yeah. And it sounded like one of those churches that you went to was like.

[A]

You said, there's different ones. Because, remember, we use the word church for everything.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But it's like anyone can say church. Do you get what I'm saying? It's like the church of anything can say church. And then everyone has a specific idea. What sticks out to me in this story is I go, you were playing soccer.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

My friend, I was quite good at soccer.

[B]

Wow. Good for him, you know?

[A]

Now he hates it. Is this why, Eugene, have we found the source of why you hate. Why you hate football so much? I was like, is this. Have we gotten to the root of the trauma? I was like, this is why my friend never wants to talk about soccer.

[B]

He's laughing very loud. That's interesting. I'm a mental health professional. I want to say something really important to today. So there are a lot of people who claim to be doing Christianity and evangelical Christianity. I really want to be clear. The people who talk about following Jesus, love, my kingdom is not of this world. No one will know the time. You know, render unto Caesar. What Caesar? That's not what's happening. To tens of millions of Americans and hundreds of millions around the world. What's happening is a form of authoritarian cultism called New Apostolic Reformation is the title.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And what's different is these people who run these groups and megachurches, they say, I'm an apostle or I'm a prophet and I see God and God told me so. And so won the 2020 election. And don't listen to Satan, because if you're feeling or believing that, it's because Satan is in you. But I can help cast out the demons.

[C]

Yeah. Leave it up to me.

[B]

So look at the bite model.

[A]

So they basically become the intermed mediary between you and God. They go, you don't speak to God. I speak to God.

[B]

And they have you cut off from family and friends.

[A]

That's another thing.

[B]

Go to the church. They actually follow the Bible instead of following a person who's doing these mind control techniques on them.

[A]

So that's how they also don't stand up to scrutiny, is they remove you from your environment so that you have fewer people or fewer places that can make you doubt them Absolutely.

[B]

So another critical point I want to cover that. I think you'll really find important is the notion of phobia indoctrination.

[A]

Phobia indoctrination.

[B]

So let's take an elevator phobia. Someone is afraid to get in an elevator because they think they'll plummet to their death or they'll be trapped for eternity.

[A]

Very reasonable phobia.

[B]

I would say. Anyone who has that, they create movies in their mind where this is not safe. It's dangerous. But the thing is, we have fear to keep us safe from real danger. So if there's emergency brakes so it can't fall to your death, if there's a phone, the worst that happens is you pee on yourself. But you'll get out and everything will be fine. But if you have this phobia of being in an elevator, you'll walk 40 flights of stairs even though you're schizing like crazy because you're that afraid of it. Understand, people in mind control cults are like that. They can't imagine leaving the group and being happy and fulfilled or with God. And here's another part of my story. Since you were interested in how this happened to Steve, I was taken with a hundred other Moonies to see the Exorcist movie in Greenwich Village. They rented a whole theater. We went up to hear Moon speak, and Moon said, God made the Exorcist. This movie is a prophecy of what will happen if you leave the Unification Church.

[A]

Damn.

[B]

And from that moment, I thought any doubt was a demon trying to possess my mind. So I was taught, thought stopping. I was chanting in order to keep. And I didn't believe in demons. I was Jewish. I didn't believe in Satan either.

[A]

Does it make it harder for you to trust your own doubt and instincts when you're surrounded by many seemingly reasonable people who agree with what you're being taught?

[B]

That's another very important point we teach in social psychology, is that we're social beings and part of our brain calibrates off of who we identify with.

[C]

Yeah, we want to belong.

[B]

And our brains even entrain. There's a neuropsychological phenomenon that they're tracking now where you're playing music, you're singing together, your brains start to sink.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[B]

I mean, this is a known phenomenon. You have a whole bunch of people singing in church or whatever. It feels great. That was when people say, what was the best part of the moon is? I said, I love singing in a group.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

I really.

[A]

It's the reason armies can march further Together than they can remember when. When. When the first large military, like the way we think of militaries, started marching in unison on a beat.

[C]

Roman military.

[A]

Yeah, marching together on a beat with a drum and with like a vibe.

[B]

Totally.

[A]

They went, they went further and they got less time. Yeah, that. Cause that thing, it does something to us that we don't fully understand as humans.

[B]

So one of the social psychology experiments I teach my clients and the public, there are three. Asch Conformity Study, Milgram Obedience study, and Zimbardo Prison Study. Okay, any of those sound familiar?

[C]

No, no.

[B]

Asch was a social psychologist in the 50s. Very briefly, he did an experiment, he called it a social perception experiment. He had the person at the front of the room, people in a ring, they'd show a sample size line, let's say 3 inches long, 3 inch line. They have three sample lines, 3, 4 and 5 inches. They had everybody in the room say which of the three was the same size as the sample line. Okay, okay. They did it correctly twice. And then all of the people who were in on the experiments started confidently giving the wrong answer. But the person in seat six was then like a two inch line is equal to a three inch line. No, no, no. And they disagreed. But two thirds start giving the wrong answer just to fit in to the social conformity. And no one gets up to measure. That's what I teach. It's like, if you really wanna know, look for an objective way to measure what's going on.

[A]

But you see, now that for me, taps into one of the greatest conundrums in society, and that is for most of society to function, we have to agree on things that aren't real, or rather realities that are imagined so that we can function together. Right. We have to trust, like a traffic light is a society agreeing on something that is not real. We go. The red light stops us. It doesn't stop us. But we all agree that we will stop.

[B]

It's the rule that we've agreed to.

[A]

Yeah, but we, we all have to sort of imagine that the thing has happened or hasn't happened or, you know, the way people go quiet in certain spaces. We all agree to be quiet in the space or we all. So it's like, it's a weird thing because it feels like we need to be able to do this as humans so that we can form societies. But now you're saying we also have to be careful of when we do it, because then the society we form is a cult.

[B]

So I believe cults exist from the Ethical to the unethical. So I make a distinction. Cause there are cult classic. I joke, I'm in the TEDx cult. Cause I've done four TEDx talks, okay? And I love to watch them. I love to learn. I love to. To have fascinating input in my brain. Or scuba diving. I'm passionate about scuba diving. And it's great. It's expensive, I have to buy equipment, et cetera, et cetera. But it's my choice. And nobody's forcing me or guilt tripping me that I'm a biker.

[A]

But how do you know that nobody's forcing you or guilt tripping you?

[B]

Because I haven't my experience. And that's where it comes down to trusting your quality.

[A]

But I genuinely don't mean this facetiously. I mean, like many people who are in cults go, no, I'm not forced to be there. Their families will say, I didn't think.

[B]

I was forced to be there.

[A]

So that's what I mean. So that's what I'm saying is like, now it becomes this weird world where you're saying, I love scuba diving. Now, I don't think scuba diving is a cult. But I'm saying we don't think we're in a cult when we're in a cult. And we don't think we're not in a cult when we're not in a cult. So then when are we in a cult and when are we not in a cult?

[B]

So now you're tapping into another very important point. I knew you were going to ask some good questions. So how did Steve get out of being a fanatical.

[A]

No, first I want to know how Steve became leader. I'm not forgetting that. I need to know how I go from I don't want to be here to welcome to my haram.

[C]

I'm still stuck at wanting to meet the real lead, the first leader.

[B]

Yeah. So there's so many stories. How much time do we have?

[A]

We've got time for this. We got time.

[C]

Okay, so after this, we're watching the exoskeleton.

[B]

That was the first movie with subliminal images, by the way.

[A]

Like a flesh.

[B]

Just like a flashes of the devil were put in by the filmmaker. Yeah. Just like a. Yeah, because it actually can bypass our consciousness and we can be affected emotionally.

[A]

When did they introduce that law? And I don't know if this is a myth.

[B]

Nobody's enforced the law.

[A]

Okay. Cause I remember reading once and again. I should go and double check it now. Now that we have better search Tools that they changed the rules about, like ads, specifically where you an ad has to be longer than a certain period of time on screen, otherwise people don't know that they've seen the ad. It's like you could just flash something and then people are like, I'm craving something.

[B]

Now we can talk for a week about what's happening online with techniques that are being used by state actors to hypnotically program the craziest of beliefs. But back to my story. So what happened in my case? Interestingly, I think I got to the point in the story where my mom had asked me to talk to the rabbi. I'm sitting in my room with books and I pick up a book. It was a book about Gurdjieff. And my eyes go on one sentence and my brain interpreted that sentence as a message that I needed to go to the group because Gurdjieff was dead and following a living spiritual master was the way to go. And so I still, in my mind I wasn't joining for my life, but I had this quandary, is the Messiah maybe coming or isn't it? So I wanted to know more. And that's part of the appeal at the beginning isn't to commit your life, but it's learn more, curiosity, open your mind, don't be closed minded. Consider that there's a bigger path for you. And where I got hooked was I was selected by a top Japanese leader that Moon had brought over to the United States. Moon was very unhappy with the American movement because they weren't militant enough. So they brought this top Japanese guy over. And the Japanese guy, he checked me out and he made me one of his disciples. So through this guy, I got to be in the room with Moon as we had discussions about infiltrating the US government and how God wants a theocracy and thinks democracy is satanic. I got to hear all of these things in 1974, but I was a true believer because I learned to shut down any doubts. And I believed that if I just followed what Moon was saying because he was plugged into God, then the world would be saved. Ten generations of my ancestors on my mother's and father's side would get out of a terrible situation in the spirit world, which I didn't believe in before.

[A]

But this is something that's always confused me. Like you're talking about the leaders are now in a room. I've always wondered, do cult leaders themselves believe in the cult?

[B]

Yeah, it's a great question.

[A]

But do they though it's A great question. But do they, though?

[B]

It's a great question. I can't say definitively. I'm a forensic expert. But I can tell you that when you're surrounded only by yes. People, you tend to believe what you want to believe.

[C]

That becomes your cult, so it becomes.

[B]

Your reality, but it doesn't mean you don't have doubts.

[A]

Okay, but now. Now this introduces. Now.

[B]

So I'll say one more thing that's.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[B]

So a lot of people think cult leaders are just con artists and criminals.

[A]

Yes, that's why I'm asking the question.

[B]

Did I. I'm sorry.

[A]

No, no, no.

[B]

That's your question.

[A]

You didn't at all. You answered.

[B]

No. Most cult leaders were in a culture themselves before. That's where they were trained. That's where they learned a lot of these techniques. So it's not. I'm a criminal. Because most con artists and criminals, they want to get in, make the money, and get out. They don't want to create something for 20 years structure and.

[C]

And followers.

[B]

And. Yeah, it's a lot of responsibility, uniform. But it turns out what I learned, because I was a whistleblower for a Congressional subcommittee investigation in 1970, when I got it in 76, they were looking into Korean CIA activities in the United States. And the Moonies were a major part of the Korean CIA. And what I later came to understand. We're getting into politics. Is this okay?

[A]

Yeah, definitely.

[B]

What I understood was that because North Korea brainwashes. This is the height of the Cold War. North Korea and South Korea are separated. There were two unsuccessful coups in South Korea. The CIA thought, we have to stabilize the regime, so we're gonna help them set up a Korean CIA, and we're gonna pick a proxy group to brainwash political dissonance. And they selected the Moonies. So the Moonies were used as a tool to brainwash South Koreans. And they used the Moonies to make arms to give to dictatorships around the world by passing congressional approval. Insane. No, but I'm not making this up, writing books on this.

[A]

No, no. What I'm saying about insane is like. I go. It's just crazy. Like the CIA. That's what my brain was thinking, was just like, wait, what? Wait, what's happening here?

[B]

Well, but remember MK Ultra? Yeah. Okay. So the CIA was experimenting with lsd, hypnosis, mind control. And after Jonestown, there was a special. I think ABC did a special. And the head. Former head psychologist of the CIA said, yeah, we researched brainwashing, but we didn't find anything that worked, and we burned our records.

[C]

Lies.

[B]

Total lies. And to this day, no government has been honest with its citizens of, we know how to hack people's brains. We know how to recruit and indoctrinate people. But that's where we're at now is we have to educate everybody because America is being hacked. We're in a coup. It's really horrendous what's happening. And people need to understand this is a Cold War extension. We thought the Soviet Union collapsed. We won. And Putin and the other oligarchs who were KGB are like, we're taking down the U.S. you see, but this is.

[A]

What I mean about where we draw the distinctions. Because in my head, I'm going, I hear when there are specific cults, and then I understand what you're saying about the bite.

[B]

Right.

[C]

But.

[A]

But then I go, it feels like. And maybe I'm wrong, but it feels like to me, there are some overlaps between things that are cultish but not necessarily a cult.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And then there are things that are definitely cultural but don't seem like a cult. And so it leaves us in the space where you go, is this a tool that cults use, or is this a tool of cults that non cults use? Oh, it goes both ways.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

So you're not necessarily saying that, like, everyone is in a culture, or are you saying that they're in a cult? I can't figure it out.

[B]

Well, we have culture. I mean, I grew up in the fear of the nuclear holocaust and, you know, fearing Russia and getting under my wooden desk, a PS173 in Queens because Russia may nuke us. And then I had my disillusionment with American Vietnam when I thought it was a just war. And I realized that they were lying from the whole time and they were just killing innocent people who wanted their country, et cetera, but it was to fight communism. In any case, what I want to say is that we. We are either going to continue to evolve as a species with the goal of planetary survival, which means cooperation with other countries, or it's the authoritarians versus the rest of us who want rule of law and human rights and gay rights and women's rights and indigenous rights and minority religious rights. So I think that there's more of us than them, and we just need to understand correctly to diagnose the situation and approach it.

[A]

Now, actually, to that question, though, this is something I've always struggled and grappled with, but I've gone, should we try to IMMUNIZE everybody from cult or cultish ideas. And is that realistic, or should we focus more on the environmental circumstances that make it easier for somebody to be in that situation? So going back, going back to what you were saying, you know, you playing football, you know, in your, in your little. One of the things that stuck out to me was your friends weren't there that day.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Do you get what I'm saying? So that becomes the first. I think you're less likely to go talk to these people and to be taken away when my friends. If your friends were there. Yeah. So I just identify one point by myself as Trevor. I go like, oh, okay, so if you have a robust community, maybe it's less likely.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

And then. And then I think of, like, economic situations or circumstance. So, yeah, if you're in an environment where, you know, you're not hungry and you're. You're not desperate and you're heartbroken. You're not heartbroken. Yeah, you were heartbroken. You were alone in the cafeteria. I'm just picking up some of these traits. Horny as well.

[C]

Horny, 1999. We can't skip that one.

[A]

We can't skip horny. Not steal, but we can't skip hornies.

[B]

So you go, no, but people have needs.

[A]

Yes, yes, this is my point.

[B]

But destructive groups are trying to say, that's an evil impulse and you should suppress it.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And it's, you know, and that's where we get into an overlap with groups that are giving informed consent and groups that aren't and aren't.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so, you know, the ones that say it's unnatural to have sexual thoughts, it's like, you don't understand human psychology.

[A]

But now. But this is what I'm. So this is what I come back to, like, let's say when we talk about it now, if we shift the lens into politics, you know, and people go, oh, what politics is doing, what authoritarian regimes are doing, et cetera. I've found very few instances. I'm not a historian, but when I read or when I watch a documentary or. I found very few instances of authoritarian regimes that were able to start in good times. Do you get what I'm saying?

[C]

Absolutely.

[B]

So that's another really important point that you're making. And when I did my doctoral dissertation, I included a law professor's model called the social influence model, which he created for expert witnesses to explain to judges and juries how to evaluate social influence. And he said, you have to look at the influencee and their vulnerabilities whether they were young, they were a minor, 15 years old, or they had been assaulted as a child or whatever. The influencer or the predator or the predatory organization, was it a priest, or was it a teacher, or was it someone twice their age, et cetera. And this whole set of criteria around malignant narcissism, pimps and traffickers are also. And how they groom and recruit and indoctrinate people, and what are the consequences? So it's a formula. When there's economic uncertainty, political turmoil, people are more confused than ever, and they want hope and desperate. And so, trust me, I know more than the generals. I know more than the economists. You do a better Trump than me anyway.

[C]

Don't get him started.

[B]

I know more than any, trust me. But the thing is falling apart now. The illusion of the Epstein files.

[A]

Yeah, no, that's created whole.

[B]

Yes, but QAnon was a psyop. It was using alternate game technology to recruit people into believing that there was this conspiracy of traffickers.

[A]

But wait, was it, though? Because it's interesting, I don't know what the origins or not of QAnon are like, you know, definitively, because I remember seeing that some people said that QAnon was the same, like, deep conspiracy or organization that was trying to control. And then Another group said QAnon was literally started by, like, trolls from 4chan and those pages.

[B]

Well, it was started on 4chan.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I thought it was started as, like, a joke. They were like, I'm gonna go out.

[B]

There as a joke. It was a real joke initially.

[A]

Okay, okay.

[B]

Goof on the Trumpers. There were three people. I found this out from a source who knows. Cause he was there, and he said then they realized they could make money selling merch. And then the Russians got involved. We know Michael Flynn got involved. And we know this because a PhD who has a company that's able to analyze Twitter, we can track back to the first mentions of QAnon and where we go, when we go, all the hashtags. And you can literally find who are the trolls, who's recruiting who, etc. So we have forensic evidence. And I actually did a bite model analysis of QAnon on.

[A]

So how. How do people get indoctrinated into a cult that they're not physically a part of? Because. Because that would. That would defy what people believe a cult is. Then someone goes, I'm not an occult. I'm at home minding my own business. I don't wear a uniform.

[B]

This is how I don't.

[A]

Yeah. But I. I can. I can turn it off.

[B]

Like, unlike you, who stuck in Tarzan, I did turn.

[A]

Unlike Tarrytown, where you're, like, trapped. You can't go home. I can't be in a culture on my phone. I can just turn the thing off.

[B]

Well, so ask people to turn off their phones for 24 hours and.

[A]

Are you crazy? You want me to miss out on my life? Sorry, guys. Sorry.

[B]

Sorry. So here's where reality testing is so important, and you hit on a lot of key points. And I want to emphasize, I believe you should have a trust. You were talking about Eugene should. If he had friends, that they would have protected him.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

If they would have a trust pod where you watch each other's back and even take roles, who's going to be the contrarian? You know, if Trevor says, I want to go to this workshop in Maui with, you know, this or that, and Eugene goes, babe, dude, I check this out, and this guy's a leech. Or he's Maui, Maui. I'll go. But in any case, reality testing. So coming back to my story. What helped Steven get out of this cult? He was willing to die on command. Kill on command. What happened? Steve fell asleep at the wheel of a van, drove into the back of a tractor trailer truck on the Baltimore Beltway at 80 miles an hour. Was trapped for a half an hour before I was rescued. Needed surgery, but I was away from the cult for two weeks.

[A]

Separated you from there?

[B]

Eating well? My brain.

[C]

Or you call it divine intervention?

[B]

My brain came back online because it wasn't const. I was sleeping three to four hours a night.

[A]

You had switched off your phone for two weeks.

[B]

I had no phone. This was 76.

[C]

No proverbial phone.

[A]

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

[B]

No, I literally. So that opened the door to me calling my sister, who was the only one in my family that didn't say I was brainwashed in a cult. She convinced me to visit and meet my nephew who had been born. I made her promise not to tell my parents because I was afraid of being deprogrammed. And she told my parents, and they took my crutches away. And I had a situation where I was going to be deprogrammed and I was going to snap my father's neck while he was driving a car on the Long Island Expressway. And I thought, but I know God and I know Father, and they can't get me out of doing God's will. So why don't I prove to them I'm not in a Cult. And I'm not brainwashed. So that's what my thought process was. And what helped me get out was learning what Chinese communist brainwashing methods were.

[A]

What were they?

[B]

So they used a book that was published in 1961, the Little Red Book Reform. No.

[A]

Oh, another one.

[B]

There's some red on the front cover. Believe it or not. It's called Thought Reform. The Psychology of Totalism. A study of brainwashing in China by psychiatrist Robert J. Lifton, former Air Force psychiatrist. And he outlined eight criteria in chapter 22. How to evaluate whether environment does brainwashing. And every single one the Moonies did.

[A]

Do you remember them offhand?

[B]

Of course. This is my work. Yes. But I was like, we're God, they're Satan. Communism is Satan, but we're doing the same brainwashing. This is where the dissonance when my brain started kicking into gear. So milieu control is control of the environment and communication. Okay. Sacred science where you claim to have the ultimate, ultimate science and moral vision for the thing. Loaded language, which are basically thought terminating cliches because words are the tools we use to think. Okay. So if you can have buzzwords, fake news. Don't think about what the content was, just label it fake news. What else? Demand for purity, which is a perfectionism where they always keep raising the bar so you always are feeling shameful or insufficient, so you always are trying harder and harder. The cult of confession and that talks about information control, finding everything about your background. And if you were feeling guilty over something you did, they use it against you. They have people turning in each other if they break the rules. This is all outlined in my bite model because I'd taken his model and made it more codified. One of the most important ones is called dispensing of existence. And that says if you're in the cult, you have a right to exist. And if you leave, then you're nothing, You're a non person, you can be killed, you can be lied to or whatever. And it's Lifton's description of cancel culture.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Cancel people. The right does it, the left does it. But I say, you know, people should have the right to leave an environment if they're not happy or they find something better.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

If it's healthy, you let people go. Nope, you left us and you're the enemy now.

[A]

Yeah. And so you're no longer human, you're no longer you. You disagree on this.

[B]

So you're a traitor.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

Right. So, but you know, but no, you.

[A]

See now, okay, now, my brain then goes, everything is then a cult. That's what my brain says. Because I. Okay, so let me tell you why.

[B]

Remember, as you mentioned, cult comes from culture. So we have culture. We need culture.

[A]

No, no, I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm saying both on my behalf and someone who's listening to this Y.

[B]

Right?

[A]

I start with like, let's say a family. A family can say, we are the Johnsons. You are a Johnson, I am a Johnson. And in the Johnson family, we always have dinner at 7pm and at the Johnson household, we go for walks on Saturdays. And you know what I mean? And if you don't like it, you can leave. But if you leave this house, we will cut you off from the Johnsons and you are no longer a Johnson and you will never walk into this house.

[B]

Not a healthy family.

[A]

Okay? But that's.

[B]

So if you have the influence continuum chart, folks, please go download it so you have it in front of you and you can understand this. Healthy parenting recognizes that each child is a unique being. And healthy parenting is to help that unique being grow up to adulthood to become their best self. It's developmentally appropriate. It's not too micromanaging. It's not being too permissive. It's giving challenges. It's not constant praise. It's rewarding effort.

[C]

And also not setting them up for failure.

[B]

And not setting them up. Correct.

[C]

That's an addiction of some parents.

[B]

So we know models of excellence for healthy attachment, like you need to get keep babies off of screens for the first three years. This is well established. Neuroscientifically, not even TV screens, no iPads, no phones. Because the baby's brain is malleable. Yes. And it's pruning neurons. And it needs to smell mommy and daddy and needs to feel our heart, can hear our voice. Reading books to the child, et cetera. This helps, helps the child to feel loved and to feel safe and secure. Healthy attachment is the key to avoiding all personality disorders. Unhealthy families are authoritarian. They want the kids to be obedient. They often do corporal punishment, which is illegal in most civilized countries except here. But beating children is traumatic to the brain. It does not encourage children to think differently and act differently, et cetera. And often kids who are gay, if they're in a homophobic church or something, are kicked out. And then they're picked up by pimps or traffickers or somebody else on the street and more trauma happens. So when you say Steve, some families are authoritarian cults. I'm like, yes, that's what, that's what.

[A]

I mean by everything is a. Do you get what I'm saying?

[B]

So I'm saying I wasn't beaten as a child. I was, I, I honestly, I had very.

[A]

That's why you went off on a weekend doing nonsense things. Steve. You see, when I. Steve, if you were in my house, you would have. Hey, when I. Steve, where you going? Schwinn uti. We can't. Hey, Steve. Yeah, Cult. You'll see your cult.

[B]

But when you grow up with an authoritarian, you're going to be attracted to an authoritarian cult. It's exactly because it's familiar.

[A]

That's the thing. The familiarity of control.

[C]

Sorry. As you speak, I'm thinking about how a lot of commercials, how a lot of TV shows. There's a TV show where people who are frustrated with their own lives enter into a house, meet up with strangers.

[B]

A reality TV TV show.

[C]

They're trapped into this house with cameras everywhere. There's a confessional booth where they go in and say their desires to a faceless person that speaks to only them at that time and can find a way to manipulate so that they can get what they want. And the ultimate objective is to co opt everyone outside the house, which is the viewer, to vote for them. But there's temptation in the middle of it cuz you can't have sex inside the house. But if you do, make sure that you're not seen, but the camera can see you cuz it's got night vision camera. So that causes disorder inside the house. But ultimately the most deceitful, the one who plays the game the best, will ultimately become the leader of the house once a week and will ultimately win the show. The show is called Big Brother.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Wait, are you, you. I mean, so I. It's crazy that they're like just taking. So they should have to pay royalties to the cults.

[C]

Big Brother.

[B]

Well, so the. What we need is to celebrate people who have virtue and who are good people and not. Let's go first in the house and not malignant narcissists. We should shame malignant narcissists who have hundreds of billions of dollars and they could be feeding the poor and they're pushing for legislation so people don't have health care and they can't feed children. Shame on them. And seriously, we need to start getting out of the Hollywood and all of the social influence that this is okay to harm people and trick people and abuse people for entertainment. I was talking with one of your Production people. Trevor, before. And I was just saying that there's so many cult documentaries, and they're not educational. They're trauma porn. Because they're not explaining what are the techniques that are being used in a way that the listener can understand. Yeah. And protect themselves and see how it could have happened to them. It's like trauma porn. Oh, look how screwed up. They allowed it to be branded with, you know, their crotch with no anesthesia. That's not the message I want people to. Because I'm a survivor of a cult. I mean, that's. This is why I've devoted my life to this. It's. Cause it's like it never. I've entered into a world where people need to know this on a global scale or we're gonna lose our world. Like, it's getting really crazier and crazier, and it's not healthy.

[A]

Don't press anything. We've got more. What now? After this?

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[A]

It's interesting when you say, when you talk about how people speak about themselves post occult, a lot of it sounds similar to how people speak about themselves post an authoritarian regime.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, because, like, when they, when they interviewed people, when they interviewed people post Hitler and the Nazis, they asked many Germans. And then, like, I, I, I didn't, you know, I just found myself being part of this, and I, I, I didn't know, and I, I, I really just found myself. And when they would talk to people in, in America who were part of, you know, Whether it was the Ku Klux Klan or whether they go like, I. I just felt myself being swept up in a wave and looking back, I can't believe that that's me. That's what a lot of people say. I. I can't believe South Africans who. You know what I mean? Apartheid. Why South Africans who, like, I. I can't believe I ever thought that. I just can't. It's this. It's this interesting world where they do not see themselves.

[C]

You separate themselves. From the person.

[A]

Yeah, from the person. And it feels like the same thing. It's like in the moment, someone can do anything and then in hindsight go, I can't believe that that would have been me. I can't believe that.

[B]

Right. But instead of walking away, I realized because I have such a unique perspective, having been in the room where they talked about taking over the United States and destroying the rule of law and separation of church and state. And I feel an obligation to say hello. Here's how they're doing it. These are the techniques we have to teach everyone how to protect themselves, how to talk to people, family and friends who've been radicalized.

[A]

What do you mean?

[B]

A lot of people have blocked their family and friends because they can't talk.

[A]

About what's a mistake that families make when doing that, you know, because like you said, something interesting. You said, I spoke to my sister because she was the only one who didn't say to me that I was crazy and I was in a culture.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

But I didn't speak to the rest of my family. So what can someone do, right? To have a conversation with someone in their family who they feel is an occult.

[B]

Perfect question. So I explained the real Steve and the Moony Steve. The Moony Steve was trained that if any attack happens against Moon or the doctor or the policy, defend, label it as evil, chant, pray, or whatever. So what do we learn from this? What we say, Never attack with logic and facts, the leader, the doctrine or the policy of the group that the person is in, because it will make them deeper. It will take you as the enemy. Okay. That's rule number one. What works is finding out from the person another group that they think is a cult or is brainwashed.

[A]

That is hilarious.

[B]

And with maga, it's Chinese communist brainwashing or pimps and traffickers.

[A]

That is hilarious.

[B]

And explaining the bite model and how people get taken in and how they are programmed and these behaviors. And the critical technique that works is being warm, being respectful, being an active listener, and asking good Questions just like you do. You ask good questions that make people think that's the goal. Not to persuade them to leave to reality test for themselves. But if you understand the techniques that were used on them, like I was saying before I ask people, go back, what was your first feeling and thought when that person invited you to the thing? I remember it was odd or I had a feeling in my pit of my stomach there was something wrong. And now that you know more, how would you have liked to respond? I would have liked to have questioned it or I would have liked to say no way, Jose, or whatever. But the point is people want to be free. People don't like to be abused and lied to, but they need a face saving way to exit. So if they understand how pimps recruit women to be sex slaves or labor trafficking victims, if they understand the methods and you ask them, so what's your understanding of how intelligent people can be controlled that way and give them the tools and ask them to go back and reflect. Because a lot of people hated Trump and then they got converted. Who converted them? They watched a movie, they went to a rally, they had a friend at work, like get them to remember what they thought they were hearing and learning those.

[A]

I think, you know, I've seen a lot of people, I mean, I've obviously read about your book and you know what people have said and you were welcomed into many spaces when you were writing just about cults.

[B]

Right. Then you, every TV show in America, Nightline date, everything.

[A]

Yeah. You were everywhere basically. And then, and then you wrote a book entitled the Cult of Trump for Simon and Schuster. Yeah. And then all of a sudden you were sort of crickets. Yeah. Now we all know, doesn't matter who you are, you don't even, this is not like a political thing. You just know many news organizations, many TV station, they've just been very afraid to be on the wrong side of Trump. Companies as well. This is not like, forget the politics side, they've even said, look, we're not trying to get on the wrong side of Trump, but I wanna know what the pushback was that you got on Trump and I also wanna know why you so confidently could say that it is the cult of Trump when someone who supports Trump would go like, no, hey, I'm voting for my country, I'm voting for the border. This is politics. Yeah, but also this is politics. Why are you making this about a cult? This has nothing to do with a cult.

[B]

So I invite you to read the Cult of Trump, cuz it still is Valid. Everything's been validated. When I was asked by my book agent and Simon and Schuster, when did.

[A]

You write it, by the way? This was 20.

[B]

It came out in 2019. I wrote it in 2019. The Mueller investigation was going on. I started, because I grew up in New York knowing that Donald Trump was a malignant narcissist, because I knew Erich Fromm's work about Hitler. I knew about cults. So I knew he had a cult of personality for sure, and the people who worked for him were in that cult. But what I understood when I started researching was there are actual authoritarian cults that comprise the cult of Trump that bring millions of their followers to follow Trump.

[A]

And I said sub organizations, essentially.

[B]

For example, I mentioned new Apostolic Reformation churches and megachurches. And there is 30 to 40 million Americans in the those that are saying that Trump won the 2020 election and.

[A]

Trump is the vessel of God, I've seen some of them say, yeah, he's.

[B]

A King Cyrus figure, et cetera. So I made a distinction between people who just always voted Republican, just voting Republican the first time. But the second time things have gotten connected with the billionaire techies hacking Facebook and algorithms and state level manipulation of people's perceptions and minds. It's not just disinformation. So I talk about a cult called the Family that recruited Democrats and Republicans into it. They were doing the National Prayer Breakfasts. Jeffrey Charlotte wrote two New York Times bestselling books and did a Netflix series on the this political cult. I wrote about Opus dei, which was a Catholic cult that was saying the Pope was satanic. They're the ones who put in the Federalist Society, Supreme Court justices. They're the ones behind the Heritage Foundation Project 2025, Opus Dei. And I've helped many people get out of that group. So I talk about different cults. That's the Falun Gong, does the Epoch Times, Scientology, the Mormons. Nobody wants to talk about the Mormons as an authoritarian group, but talk to former leaders of the Mormons and they'll tell you what it's like. Pyramid structure, B, I, T, E. And you can go on my substack and go through some of the criteria fit. Some of them don't, depending on where you are in the pyramid or if you're a fringe member. But so the point is also that I named Russia as one of the puppet masters because I came to understand that when Trump was first in Moscow in 1987 and came back, he took out a full page ad in the New York Times saying NATO should be disbanded.

[A]

He did it back then.

[B]

87.

[A]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[B]

Yeah. And he had no political thing before that. And who paid for that? And I interviewed Craig Unger, who has written numerous books. He's a very respected author. I interviewed him and a former KGB official for his book American Kompromat. And the former KGB official. No kidding. I had a two part podcast. He said I was much higher up in the KGB than Vladimir was. It was standard operating procedure to take western businessmen and co opt them for our purposes. And then he named the place in New York City. And the Russians have been getting revenge on the United States ever since. And that's people Russia hoax. Russia hoax. It's like read the Mueller report. There were Russians named.

[A]

Yeah, but you see, this is where I now my brain.

[B]

Come on, let's go, buddy.

[A]

No, but it's.

[B]

Bring it on.

[A]

I spent seven years just in a world inundated by this stuff. And the thing I started realizing was the fingers that could be pointed in terms of how people saw the world in the Trump world, man. I also saw people who were anti Trump. There's like an anti Trump cult as well. Then if that's the case, there is where some people go every, every anti. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I go, but okay, this, this has nothing. No, no, no, you see, he, he, he did this. And this is. I'm like, okay, but what are you basing this on? Genuinely, what are you basing this on? You're basing this on one person who showed you one video who made you think. And I know you hate him.

[C]

Him.

[A]

But you should also not now just become a default. Correct. Anti anything.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

Because you might now be indoctrinated. You see what you just said?

[B]

No, you're absolutely. And that's what I say when I talk to any person in any group is like, change my mind. I'm really. I'll listen to whatever proof you have. I'll show you my proof. You show me your proof. And let's. If, if it's legitimate, it will stand up to scrutiny.

[A]

Someone might ask this question. They might ask and I'd love to hear your response on this. Someone might say, okay, but if Trump is a cult, then how come his people are angry with him about the Epstein files and Marjorie Taylor Greene is turned against him? And why is that happening? Then what would your response be?

[B]

I'll tell you in one minute. But I first wanna just say two points. Yeah. Forgive me. No, you're the one so if you're Russia and you wanna do psychological warfare on the United States, you want Polari and you want division. So you're not just influencing the right, you're influencing the left.

[A]

Oh, completely, yes.

[B]

So authoritarian manipulation is happening on both extremes to create confusion. So that's one point.

[A]

Let me interrupt you on that point. To add to it, by the way, same team here in and around care about humanity. Yeah, yeah, but in and around, not just the start of the war in Ukraine, etc. Etc. Microsoft did this whole thing where they analyzed a lot of where the information was coming from, from like the farms and everything. And that is something that I wish more people understood to your point. Fight if you want to fight, disagree if you want to disagree, but also know what is prompting your disagreement. And they did find genuinely that a lot of the posts that were coming out online, both pro Trump, anti Trump, pro Democrat.

[C]

Coming from the same people.

[A]

No, we're coming from the same Russian farms. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Full on troll farms.

[A]

Yeah, full on troll farms. And, and then I mean, I'll always say with a little Asterix I go. I always find it funny though that like America says, well, the rush, then I'm like. But also you guys, I mean, you're the professionals of the. It's just a funny, you know, a world of every country doing the.

[B]

I developed all these tools that are being used on us. Yeah, no big. And this is where we have to understand complex systems.

[A]

Yes, yes.

[B]

We invented roadside bombs for the Afghans to use on the Russians. And then we went into Afghanistan, they were used on Americans like we were developing all of these technologies, et cetera, and it's being used on us. But it's a complex system.

[A]

It genuinely.

[B]

So it's moving. So the other point I want to make is something called fourth and fifth generation psychological warfare. I wrote about this in the cult of Trump. Fourth generation warfare was first written down as a thing in the 80s by a guy, a military strategist, American military strategist named William Lind. And it's about attacking experts, science and democratic institutions to demoralize a society so you can influence and put in a dictatorship or whatever. Yeah.

[C]

Replace one authority figure with another.

[B]

Right. But so because human beings, we can't know everything, we depend on experts who spend.

[A]

We depend on institutions.

[B]

Most importantly, we want to trust the experts. But that's. We've seen a systematic assault on experts and on science. There's good science and there's bullshit science. Good science doesn't say we have the Truth. It says we have an hypothesis and we test. And we have a community of people who test the test to make sure that it really is what it says. If we have a better hypothesis, we get rid of the old one and we go with the new one. That's progress. That's what we should be having. So fourth generation cycle. William Lynn met with Trump in the White House, connected with Michael Flynn, who would do it on the enemies of the United States before he got turned. And he's gotten involved with the Christian right that thinks that we should have a white Christian country and that everyone else is inferior, et cetera. That's a real thing. The guy who did the Apprentice, Mark Burnett, is head of Seven Mountain Dominionism. The media. Media part. Who made Trump's image as a successful businessman on that show.

[A]

Yeah. When he was completely failing.

[B]

But he's a Christian Dominionist. So we need to understand there are specific actors and positions of influence and this has been going on for decades. This is not something that happened overnight night.

[A]

But all of this wouldn't have been easy to achieve if the status quo had done a better job of making sure that Americans weren't in a place where their rents and mortgages were out of control, where food became unaffordable, where schooling and health care was un. Do you get what I'm saying? So I'm not disagreeing with you, but I'm just saying we, we also, we. I think we should be careful to just like sort of blame cults, but in this system not understand that people are a lot less amenable to these ideas if the people in power actually address their needs and concerns. Do you know what I mean?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

We want to be angry with people for becoming a certain way, but we don't want to be angry with why the situation existed for them to be even open, to be becoming that way.

[C]

Yeah, Desperation and isolation, right?

[B]

One of the two. Absolutely. We wanna be solution focused. You know, we can analyze what went wrong and how they did it, because otherwise.

[A]

Otherwise we go Trump bad or we go that thing bad or. Yeah, but then you don't like go, no, no, no, no, no, no. What's bad is people feeling like they just have to vote to break a system because the system is not caring for them. When we had, you know, mayor of New York now, Zoran Mamdani, when we had him on the show, I saw that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Where he goes, the people don't. They don't. Even him is a response in that way to that. People are going, look, we don't care about all these old school Democrats. There's no one else in this race. We're gonna vote for this guy. And then people are like, he's gonna break New York. And they're like, it's better he breaks it because the fixed New York was not working for most people in New York. Do you get what I'm saying? So it's this world where you're trying to find a balance between, as you're saying, analyzing the. The thing that's doing something wrong and then. Cause it's interesting seeing, by the way, Marjorie Taylor Greene, I find.

[B]

Yeah. You asked me about her, and I.

[A]

Can tell you, because of what you're saying, some of it speaks to exactly what you're talking about. Marjorie Taylor Greene has fully been with Trump from the beginning. Fully, Fully. Fully. Then she basically said, hey, man, this guy's deviating off the path. We said, america first. We said, no, Epstein. We said, what is happening here? And then now she's been cast as the traitor. The traitor. And we will never talk to her. And she's out on her own. It's interesting how that ties into what you're saying.

[B]

Yeah, well, that's part of what you realize when you're in an authoritarian group, that you think the other members are your friends. But you see what happens if somebody questions it or doesn't go along and how badly they're treated. People get that message and they're like, they'll only be my friend if I obey and if I conform and do exactly what I'm told. Look, I don't trust Marjorie Taylor Greene until she says. Because she's saying, I'm not an occult. I'm not an occult. I'm a cult expert. QAnon was a cult. I wrote a whole bite model analysis. I called it a psyop. I analyzed why it's an online cult, but it was a mind control cult. Until she gets what I'm talking about. Until she says, Trump did win. Excuse me. Biden did win the 2020 election, and anyone who says that Trump won it is in the culture. Until she says that. I don't trust anything she says.

[A]

You think that she's just sort of making a splinter cult?

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Is that common in cults, by the way?

[B]

Yes. Oh, yeah, because she doesn't understand brainwashing and mind control. And there are those colleagues of mine who thinks that she's co opted by Russia.

[A]

Damn the Russians. I would like to go get co opted by Russia. It sounds like a fun vibe.

[B]

Criminal. Criminal. You know, you guys are haters, man.

[A]

You guys are haters, man.

[B]

You're too nice.

[A]

You guys are just haters out in these streets.

[C]

You choose.

[B]

I saw. I have another quick story. Do we have time for another story?

[A]

Okay, go for it. We got time for one more story. Let's go.

[B]

1993, I'm invited to Moscow. Soviet Union fell. And they said, every cult from the United States is coming into mother Russia. And we want psychiatrists and psychologists. We want to understand what are cults and what is this all about.

[A]

Like they were experiencing cults coming in.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay, okay.

[B]

So they came in, Soviet Union collapsed.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

Gates were opened, the wall was gone.

[B]

And the mental health people are like, what's going on here with all of these Western groups that are showing up? So they brought me over, they didn't pay me. I paid my way and went to Moscow and I took, taught my work. So I'm teaching about Chinese Communist brainwashing and my model. And they're like, Dr. Hussin, don't you understand? You're describing the whole system of pedagogy of the Soviet Union. And I said, uh huh. And they said, don't you understand we would put dissidents into psychiatric facilities because they were criticizing the regime. And I'm like, uh huh huh. And they're like, oh, so you are counseling us?

[A]

That is so insane.

[B]

And I said, if, if the shoe fits. And then beyond those psychiatrists.

[A]

Wait, but how did they respond to that? Were they, were they like.

[B]

No, they were, they were understanding the model because the model is, it does, it doesn't have any flaws.

[A]

So the model is agnostic. The model, you can, you're basically saying to everybody, everyone, hey, I'm not saying anything about your world. Here's a model. I'm just going to put it in front of you. And then you just need to find yourself there.

[B]

And here's the influence, here's healthy and here's unhealthy. You decide for yourself. That's my approach is you determine, you do reality, but just don't use it.

[A]

Just now you're not helping with couches anymore. I know how this goes. I have a disciple here in my midst.

[C]

You know, all of this is interesting to me, especially when you think of where our country comes from.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And how you find that people who grew up in the generation during apartheid sometimes long for those days when things don't work out the way they should according to them. They'll always say things were better during that time. And I'm not talking about the oppressed. I'm talking about the oppressed.

[B]

No, I, and, and slavery in the United States.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

That was psychological brainwashing done to not only the slaves, but everyone else. Yeah, it's apply the bite model and it's like, duh, of course.

[C]

And you think of how many people still long for those days when they talk about efficiency of anything. Public transport, the roads, housing, education. And this is my biggest pet peeve and I've spoken to you about it with many of our other guests and I've said I hate how arts and culture have been slowly been eroded out of the schooling system. When you grew up, you had a mother that was doing this and you were so important. You were writing poetry, you were reading three books. Books. You are riding a bicycle. All of that is being eradicated. And I see these young adults that have tried so hard to get an education and a job. Well, before you would know this, you. It would have to be an interrogation or an, a, a communist country or an authoritarian country that has video footage of people saying how they feel good or bad.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Right now it's volunteered to everyone with these people, with people on social media. So now they're co opting themselves, they're recruiting themselves for their next employer and showing their desperation and the dead end that some systems that they've taken have.

[B]

Taken them and they're going to AI to do creativity instead of themselves going.

[C]

Inside just like we're living in this weird dystopia. I think if someone was in a cryogenic coffin and wakes up now 40 years later, they'd be shocked to see what's happening now. It's. People are literally doing their own depositions in the comfort of their own homes with their own devices and sending them out for the world to see.

[B]

And the brain adapts to whatever environment's happening. And if you spend 10 to 12 hours on digital devices, it's gonna rewire your brain. Attention spans are shrinking. Creativity is shrinking.

[C]

It is exactly the same debate that when I was growing up, our parents would say, we're spending too much time watching television this time. This generation is spending too much time making television.

[B]

Damn. No, you're right and I'm guilty. I watch tv, but I also read.

[A]

A lot of books.

[C]

Yeah, I was the same. I was a bit of a mix of both, you know.

[B]

No, technology is both a positive that's fantastic and can be used negatively. And we have to be wise. We have to be wise. We have to really realize how precious it is to have freedom for ex members. We know what it's like to live in an authoritarian state. Even though I didn't grow up in China or Russia, but China wants to make us like them. All the surveillance crap with Palantir and cameras everywhere.

[A]

Yeah. But ironically, now you can't really separate a lot of how China works with how the US Is trying to work.

[B]

That's what I'm saying. This is. This is not. It's. We. We need to keep the vision of what. What humanity and what human life's about. When people are on their deathbed, they're not going, damn, I wish I had another million dollars. They're like, I should have spent more time with my kids. Or I always wanted to go kayaking or I always wanted to learn scuba diving or whatever. And it's like, we need to come back to. This is a very unique, precious opportunity to be alive. And we have an amazing. I'm so grateful to meet you because I've been listening to you for years and I'm like, damn, Trevor wants me to be on. I'm coming.

[A]

Oh, you're very kind.

[B]

Thank you. No, I mean it. Because this has been a really interesting conversation because you're getting at key things. And we'll do a part two at some point because there's so much more that we can say.

[A]

This is my kind of guy.

[C]

You know, we speak about this part of two.

[B]

We need more people who agree to coming back. To coming back.

[C]

Part two is the way to go.

[B]

No, there's a lot.

[C]

You know what this.

[A]

This was. This was amazing. Yeah.

[C]

Actually, what's interesting, what you've just mentioned, and you've made me realize it, I'm very. People who know me, they know that I'm. I'm very much against technology. I think there's a word that you use to describe a Luddite.

[B]

I know that term.

[C]

I try not to know as much about technology because I still like the human experience. Experience. I like. I'd like us to throw information to each other. Not Google if it's true or not.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And we can discuss. I'd like some other things to be done physically. I try to spend as much time as I can in the outdoors and go on site and find new adventures and things to learn. And that's what I wish for, for many people is to just try things out. Try as much as you can to create your own memories instead of viewing other people's memories.

[A]

Hey, bro.

[C]

You know. And build social relationships.

[A]

No, that's a big one. Create your own Memories and not explore.

[B]

Everyone else's and just appreciate the human experience. Every time we meet someone new, it's like opening another book and going, wow, tell me your story, you know, like, tell me your journey. That's what you started with me. But it's fascinating. I'm a therapist, so I get to hear incredible stories and help people in their way, but I'm helping them to help themselves. I'm not making myself. You follow me and I'll tell you how to get fixed. I'm teaching them the techniques and strategies that worked for me and that has worked with other clients. And there's reason to be hopeful and grateful. But we need to have strategy. We need to correctly diagnose the problem and we need to understand who's the bad actors. And we need to have a plan where we can bring out the best in each other to stay sustain this earth. We're on one planet, you know.

[A]

I'll tell you now, Dr. Hassan, I, like, didn't know you before I met you. Now I've met you, you've pulled me in, man. I'm in your cult. I'm in. Sign me up. So let's go Tarrytown for the weekend.

[B]

Call me Steve.

[A]

Bring that van and let's roll.

[B]

And so I say Freedom of Mind is what I decided to name my company, not Stephen Hasson Foundation. Freedom of Mind, I say it's your mind and only you should control it. It's like own it. You don't make mistakes, but learn. Don't make the same mistake twice. But don't be paralyzed and not try new things. Be open to other perspectives. That's another key. Blind faith. The cure is perspective. To look at it from other points of view. That's why looking at Chinese Communist brainwashing or pimps and traffickers is a new.

[A]

Lens on it gives you an opportunity to take a step back and say, oh, maybe I'm looking at this in a limited way and if I just move myself around it, maybe I'll see a different side. That's what Rodin always wanted. The.

[B]

The sculptor.

[A]

The sculptor. The French sculptor. What made him so special, they said, was when you would look at his, his art, his sculptures, depending on where you looked at it from, you had a very different feeling of what was happening. So the same, the same sculpture could look like a pained person, a strong person, a pensive person. And he did that on purpose because he wanted you to feel. He always said, from every angle, I've made a different sculpture.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so that's true. Thinking of it. Yeah, thinking of it through that lens. That's all you have to ask yourself in your world, basically, is the system you're in, does it allow you to look at the sculpture from a different angle? If it doesn't, you should probably go and look at this website, download byte and then see what happens.

[B]

And the influence continuum. One last thing. I know we're going over, but no, no, no. Beware certainty. Beware Anyone who says 100% this, because if you have a lens thinking your beliefs are certain, the world is flat. Whatever information, you're only doing confirmation bias to confirm your worldview. If you start with, it's like you're wearing Eskimo glasses, I have beliefs, but they could be wrong. And there may be better perspectives. Then the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know. And it makes you more curious, makes you more engaged to learn and get other people's perspectives. So you want to be this. You don't want to be this.

[C]

So less Eskimo classes, more Apple Vision pros.

[B]

Not Apple Vision Pros. Dude, you're the Luddite. You. You just.

[C]

Oh, sorry.

[A]

You clearly have never used an Apple Vision Pro. I was like, eugene, do you know what an Apple Vision Pro is like? Hey, man, I think it's the one that lets you see out.

[B]

Virtual reality.

[A]

Really, really appreciate you. Thank you so much.

[B]

Steve, thank you for joining us for having me on.

[A]

Oh, no. What do you mean? You have chutzpah for joining us. Thank you so much. We had a great time. With pleasure. Really great.

[B]

Take care.

[A]

This is fun. Thank you.

[C]

You're amazing.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

Mame what now with Trevor Noah is produced by Day Zero Productions in partnership with Sirius X. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin and Jess Hackle. Rebecca Chain is our producer. Our development researcher is Marcia Robiou. Music mixing and mastering by Hannis Brown. Random other stuff by Ryan Harduf. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of what now. USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day like superheroes and sidekicks or auto and home insurance. With usaa, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and get a'@usaa.com bundle restrictions apply.

[D]

Hi, I'm Kalen Coleman, winner of Target's HBCU design challenge. This challenge moved me closer to my dream of becoming a fashion designer through mentorship and support.

[C]

Support.

[D]

You can find my design along with creations from other black founders. In Target's Black History Month collection.