Steven Hassan > Quotes

“Mind control is the process by which individual or collective freedom of choice and action is compromised by agents or agencies that modify or distort perception, motivation, affect, cognition and/or behavioral outcomes. It is neither magical nor mystical, but a process that involves a set of basic social psychological principles. Conformity, compliance, persuasion, dissonance, reactance, guilt and fear arousal, modeling and identification are some of the staple social influence ingredients well studied in psychological experiments and field studies. In some combinations, they create a powerful crucible of extreme mental and behavioral manipulation when synthesized with several other real-world factors, such as charismatic, authoritarian leaders, dominant ideologies, social isolation, physical debilitation, induced phobias, and extreme threats or promised rewards that are typically deceptively orchestrated, over an extended time period in settings where they are applied intensively.”
― Steven Hassan, Combating Cult Mind Control: The Guide to Protection, Rescue and Recovery from Destructive Cults

“Certitude is not evidence of truth. Nor does repetition make it true. If anything, repetition should make you suspicious. Truth always stands up to scrutiny on its merits.”
― Steven Hassan PhD, The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control

“A lie once told remains a lie, but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth,” the infamous Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels memorably claimed.”
― Steven Hassan, The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control

“[Cult] members learn a new vocabulary that is designed to constrict their thinking into absolute, black-and-white, thought-stopping clichés that conform to group ideology. (“Lock her up” and “Build the Wall” are Trumpian examples. Even his put-downs and nicknames—Crooked Hillary, Pocahontas for Elizabeth Warren—function to block other thoughts. Terms like “deep state” and “globalist” also act as triggers. They rouse emotion and direct attention.)”
― Steven Hassan, The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control

“Psychotherapy/educational cults, which have enjoyed great popularity, purport to give the participant “insight” and “enlightenment.” Commercial cults play on people’s desires to make money. They typically promise riches but actually enslave people, and compel them to turn money over to the group. None of these destructive cults deliver what they promise and glittering dreams eventually turn out to be paths to psychological enslavement.”
― Steven Hassan, Combating Cult Mind Control: The Guide to Protection, Rescue and Recovery from Destructive Cults

“In my opinion, phobia indoctrination is the single most powerful technique for keeping people dependent and obedient. I have encountered numerous individuals who had long ago stopped believing in the leader and the doctrine, but were unable to walk away. They were psychologically paralyzed with indoctrinated fears which often functioned subconsciously.”
― Steven Hassan, Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults, and Beliefs

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts. —Daniel”
― Steven Hassan, The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control

“Thought Control
* Require members to internalize the group’s doctrine as truth
* Adopt the group’s “map of reality” as reality
* Instill black and white thinking
* Decide between good versus evil
* Organize people into us versus them (insiders versus outsiders)
* Change a person’s name and identity
* Use loaded language and clichés to constrict knowledge, stop critical thoughts, and reduce complexities into platitudinous buzzwords
* Encourage only “good and proper” thoughts
* Use hypnotic techniques to alter mental states, undermine critical thinking, and even to age-regress the member to childhood states
* Manipulate memories to create false ones
* Teach thought stopping techniques that shut down reality testing by stopping negative thoughts and allowing only positive thoughts. These techniques include:
* Denial, rationalization, justification, wishful thinking
* Chanting
* Meditating
* Praying
* Speaking in tongues
* Singing or humming
* Reject rational analysis, critical thinking, constructive criticism
* Forbid critical questions about leader, doctrine, or policy
* Label alternative belief systems as illegitimate, evil, or not useful
* Instill new “map of reality”

Emotional Control
* Manipulate and narrow the range of feelings—some emotions and/or needs are deemed as evil, wrong, or selfish
* Teach emotion stopping techniques to block feelings of hopelessness, anger, or doubt
* Make the person feel that problems are always their own fault, never the leader’s or the group’s fault
* Promote feelings of guilt or unworthiness, such as:
* Identity guilt
* You are not living up to your potential
* Your family is deficient
* Your past is suspect
* Your affiliations are unwise
* Your thoughts, feelings, actions are irrelevant or selfish
* Social guilt
* Historical guilt
* Instill fear, such as fear of:
* Thinking independently
* The outside world
* Enemies
* Losing one’s salvation
* Leaving
* Orchestrate emotional highs and lows through love bombing and by offering praise one moment, and then declaring a person is a horrible sinner
* Ritualistic and sometimes public confession of sins
* Phobia indoctrination: inculcate irrational fears about leaving the group or questioning the leader’s authority
* No happiness or fulfillment possible outside the group
* Terrible consequences if you leave: hell, demon possession, incurable diseases, accidents, suicide, insanity, 10,000 reincarnations, etc.
* Shun those who leave and inspire fear of being rejected by friends and family
* Never a legitimate reason to leave; those who leave are weak, undisciplined, unspiritual, worldly, brainwashed by family or counselor, or seduced by money, sex, or rock and roll
* Threaten harm to ex-member and family (threats of cutting off friends/family)”
― Steven Hassan

“The Republican party is almost like a religious cult surrounding an organized crime family.”
― Steven Hassan, The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control

“We also looked at confirmation bias—how our minds filter and select information that confirms our own point of view, and dismiss information that does not fit in or negates it. And confirmation bias is certainly not limited to cults. We basically see and hear what we want to, whether we realize it or not, and rationalize away what does not fit our preconceptions and predictions. We find it hard to accept or agree with even well-argued or supported views when they are expressed by a member of the other side. We speak to—and find affirmation from—those of our own political persuasion, but the level of passion is so high that often we do not, or cannot, talk to those across the divide.”
― Steven Hassan, The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts. —Daniel Patrick Moynihan”
― Steven Hassan, The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control

“Stories and metaphors are compelling ways to communicate information and change attitudes and behavior.”
― Steven Hassan PhD, Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults, and Beliefs

“In the Moonies, I was taught to suppress negative thoughts by using a technique called thought stopping. I repeated the phrase “Crush Satan” or “True Parents” (the term used to describe Moon and his wife, Hak Ja Han) whenever any doubt arose in my mind. Another way to control thoughts is through the use of loaded language, which, as Lifton pointed out, is purposely designed to invoke an emotional response. When I look at the list of thought-controlling techniques—reducing complex thoughts into clichés and platitudinous buzz words; forbidding critical questions about the leader, doctrine, or policy; labeling alternative belief systems as illegitimate or evil—it is astounding how many Trump exploits. As I have mentioned, one of the most effective techniques in the thought control arsenal is hypnosis. Scott Adams, the creator of the cartoon Dilbert, described Trump, with his oversimplifications, repetitions, insinuating tone of voice, and use of vivid imagery, as a Master Wizard in the art of hypnosis and persuasion.”
― Steven Hassan, The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control

“In my practice, I’ve helped to creatively engineer all kinds of physical separations—bringing a cult member home for a holiday, family celebration, or even a funeral. It might seem manipulative, but it is a critical first step to helping a person free themselves from the clutches of a cult—one that has become increasingly difficult with 24/7 access to the internet through smartphones. In the case of Trump, there are also the continual tweets and right-wing and Christian right programming through radio and television. The relentless programming streaming from both ends of the political spectrum is pushing supporters ever deeper into Trump country.
This brings me to an important point and a key aspect of my approach. By attacking or belittling Trump’s followers, political opponents and traditional media may be helping Trump to maintain his influence over his base. In my experience, telling a person that they are brainwashed, that they are in a cult, or that they are following a false god, is doomed to fail. It puts them immediately on the defensive, confirms you are a threat, possibly an enemy, and reinforces their indoctrination. It closes their mind to other perspectives. I’ve seen this happen over and over again. It happened to me when I was in the Moon group. It immediately triggers a person’s mind control programming—including thought stopping and us-versus-them thinking, with you being the “them.”
― Steven Hassan PhD, The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control

“Members are indoctrinated to believe that the Training Routines will help them be more effective in their lives—earn more money, be better communicators, get better jobs. Later they are told that by performing these routines they will help clear the planet of poverty, crime, disease—indeed, of all of humanity’s problems. At the highest level, members are told that they can control matter, energy, space, and time. The truth is, they are the ones being controlled.”
― Steven Hassan

“As New York Times columnist Charles Blow observed, “Trump’s magical mixture is to make being afraid feel like fun. His rallies are a hybrid of concert revelry and combat prep. Trump tells his followers about all the things of which they should be afraid, or shouldn’t trust or should hate, and then positions himself as the greatest defense against those things. His supporters roar their approval at their white knight.”
― Steven Hassan, The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control

“A person’s right to believe, however, does not grant them an automatic license to act indiscriminately on those beliefs.”
― Steven Hassan, Combating Cult Mind Control: The Guide to Protection, Rescue and Recovery from Destructive Cults

“Truth is stronger than lies, and love is stronger than fear.”
― Steven Hassan, Combating Cult Mind Control: The Guide to Protection, Rescue and Recovery from Destructive Cults

“At a 1937 conference of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union, Stalin’s people applauded him for eleven consecutive minutes, fearing that the first to stop would be killed or sent to prison. Finally, one man stopped, the director of a paper factory. “To a man, everyone else stopped dead and sat down,” writes Nobel Prize winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago. That same night the director of the paper factory was arrested and sent to prison for ten years.”
― Steven Hassan, The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control

“all human beings have the right to protection from undue influence, a concept the law has recognized for at least five centuries.”
― Steven Hassan, Combating Cult Mind Control: The Guide to Protection, Rescue and Recovery from Destructive Cults

“At the time, casting Trump as host was seen as a huge gamble. He had been labeled a “D-lister”—someone who lost all his money, a clownlike figure who couldn’t be taken seriously. Supervising editor of The Apprentice Jonathon Braun told the New Yorker, “We knew Trump was a fake… but we made him out to be the most important person in the world, making the court jester the king.”
― Steven Hassan, The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control

“News items are excellent for eliciting fear and inculcating phobias. Cult leaders like to tell members about floods, earthquakes, fires, famines, plagues, and wars–as proof that the last days have arrived.”
― Steven Hassan, Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults, and Beliefs

“Faith can be a wonderful thing if it is balanced by critical thinking.”
― Steven Hassan, Combating Cult Mind Control: The Guide to Protection, Rescue and Recovery from Destructive Cults

“Being able to slowly and objectively size up a situation is crucial. We observe. We take a curious, yet concerned, attitude. We gather information in a relaxed, thoughtful manner, but we do not rush in to fix the problem. Using the information we’ve gathered, we determine what action to take.”
― Steven Hassan, Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults, and Beliefs

“learn the clichés, doublespeak and coded jargon that the group uses to shut down critical thinking. Each group has its own buzzwords and platitudes.”
― Steven Hassan, Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults, and Beliefs

“13.  The more distorted our sense of reality, the more certain we will be that what we believe is accurate. 14.  The more insistent a person is about the accuracy of his or her observations, the more likely it is that his or her sense of reality is distorted.”
― Steven Hassan, Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults, and Beliefs

“Nobody will be tougher on ISIS than me. Nobody,” he said during his campaign announcement speech on June 16, 2015. “There’s nobody bigger or better at the military than I am,” he stated a few days later. The following month came this memorably hypnotic line, one that echoes Moon’s language: “I know more about offense and defense than [the generals] will ever understand, believe me. Believe me. Than they will ever understand. Than they will ever understand.” It’s a classic example of Trump’s tried-and-true habit of lulling his audience through repetition. A few months later came another infamous claim: “I know more about ISIS [the Islamic State militant group] than the generals do. Believe me.”
― Steven Hassan, The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control

“If the member’s cult identity seems healthy, it could be co-opting the talents and skills of the authentic self. The result is that, to the untrained eye, cult members can appear completely normal. Asking questions that test a person’s thoughts and free will is the only way to evaluate the extent of destructive influence.”
― Steven Hassan, Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults, and Beliefs

“Information provides the tools with which we think and understand reality. Without accurate, up-to-date information, we can easily be manipulated and controlled.”
― Steven Hassan, Combating Cult Mind Control: The Guide to Protection, Rescue and Recovery from Destructive Cults

“the purpose “is to harass and discourage rather than win. The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly.”
― Steven Hassan, The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control