Welcome and Introducing Steven Hassan

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Foreign. Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is February 23, 2021, and I am super excited today to have back on Mormon Stories Podcast someone who many of you will be familiar with. This is. We are. I bring to you Dr. Stephen Hassan. Stephen, welcome back to Mormon Stories Podcast.

Steven Hassan [00:00:31] John, you're awesome. Thanks so much for inviting me back.

John Dehlin [00:00:35] No, it's a real honor that a world class expert on cults would be willing to join Mormon Stories not once, but twice. And your credentials have not only increased since we met last, but I think your effectiveness. I've seen you interviewed all over the world in the past several months, which is nothing new, but it seems like it's only increased.

Steven Hassan [00:01:02] Yeah. So, long story short, I'm now 45 years full time in my activism and about five years ago, I got involved with a forensic think tank at Harvard Medical School because I realized with all these years of activism, nothing was changing in any substantial way. People, you know, policies were not changing and I realized the law is about 100 years out of date in terms of understanding the mind and influence.

Steven Hassan [00:01:35] And one of the professors there said, you need to get a doctorate and you need to do a quantitative study on your bite model and make it scientific, if it can be found to be scientific. And go to Fielding and I'll supervise your research. And my wife said, go for it if you want to do it. And Honestly, at age 63, I was like, not sure that I was up for the task, but I did it. And I'm very proud that I. And I learned a lot. But now we have a dissertation that offers the legal system itself a way to evaluate whether a group is exerting undue influence or mind control or brainwashing or thought reform on any particular person or any particular group.

Steven Hassan [00:02:25] So. And I just gotta say I'm a fan of yours, John, from the very first time we talked. And I was like, would you read my book? And you're. You email me two days later, your book's blowing my mind. And then I get a color coded byte model from you, which I had never thought of doing a color coding. And I'm like, what an awesome idea. This is great. And then we met and. And it's, it's. I'm like, I'm your fan, so. Great.

John Dehlin [00:02:54] Well, mutual mutual admiration, so.

Steven Hassan [00:02:57] Indeed. And I love your hat. Because we do want to thrive. Yeah, that's just surviving. We want to thrive.

John Dehlin [00:03:04] There's some MLM out there named thrive. And I Always let my listeners know this has nothing to do with an MLM. We're not gonna. We're not gonna give MLMs control of this word. This is a reminder that you can thrive after being in a culture 100%.

John Dehlin [00:03:21] Okay, so I do want to begin by, by letting people know that you are a well known, nationally internationally known author on Mormon Stories podcast. We have already discussed Combating Cult Mind Control, which is an amazing book, one that we haven't discussed yet, and I believe we're going to be touching on some of the principles in this book today.

John Dehlin [00:03:46] Is your book Freedom of Helping loved ones Leave Controlling people, Cults and Beliefs. I refer everyone to Mormon Stories, Episode 938 for my episode with you, Steven. But also recently, last year, I guess. Very timely. I guess you came out with a book called the Cult of Trump. And I was really torn because, you know, my listeners know how I feel. I believe I'm politically moderate, but at some point things got out of control. And I did speak out about my hate for fascism, but I was torn about the title of the book just because I didn't want to turn people off. But I can't argue with you about, you know, the ways that cult ideology and techniques have kind of infiltrated our political discourse and thinking.

John Dehlin [00:04:43] So I was torn about that. But I'm not going to hide the fact, and I think you wouldn't want me to either, that you did. Author recently a book called the Cult of Trump. A leading cult expert explains how the president uses mind control. And I'll just ask you really quickly because I have listeners who did vote for Trump. They get insulted when you tell them that, you know, people who vote for Trump or in cults or they're just. They don't want to be made to feel like they're dumb or feel insulted. Do you want to explain really quickly how we can be loving and supportive of everyone, regardless of where they vote, what their political affiliation is, even if they voted for Trump, but why you felt like you wanted to write this book?

Steven Hassan [00:05:28] Yes. So I too, had real concerns about writing a book with that title for the very same reasons you had concerns. And when I agreed to do that title, I was working more off of Donald Trump as a cult of personality, of a stereotypical profile, of. Of a malignant narcissist that all cult leaders seem to possess.

Steven Hassan [00:05:58] And I had no idea until I really started doing deep research for the book, which came out October of 2019, that there were actual cults that were influencing Donald Trump and whose base were his core followers. So, and at this point, with Joe Biden being inaugurated as the president with endless, I think it's 61 lawsuits that the Trump people tried to overturn the election or prove that there was some type of fraud. There was no substantial fraud.

Steven Hassan [00:06:37] What I'm saying now is anyone who still believes Trump won the election by a landslide is still trapped in the lie and at this point, almost the delusion that, that he's officially still the president. And likewise, people who still think that Russia had nothing to do with Trump's rise to power, election and policies of the Trump administration is also missing that. But I guess I want to come back and just say I'm not a political person and I've never done a book on a specific person or group, but I also felt like I had an obligation and I would regret it forever if I didn't share my knowledge.

Steven Hassan [00:07:29] And, and I really have been kind of dissed by the mainstream media. I know that many Trump supporters don't like CNN and the New York Times, etc, but they haven't had me on until the insurrection, the failed insurrection attempt in January 6th. And I actually predicted there would be violence if he was not reelected in the book that came out in 2019. So now everybody's asking me for interviews. How did I know?

John Dehlin [00:07:59] Okay, wait, that. I think that qualifies you as a prophet. And Mormons believe in prophets.

Steven Hassan [00:08:05] I have to say, Mary Trump predicted it. Michael Cohen, his personal attorney fixer, predicted it. It was not mystical, I can assure you.

John Dehlin [00:08:16] Well, I don't want our listeners to think that we're insulting you if you voted for Trump, that we're taking political sides.

Steven Hassan [00:08:22] Not at all.

John Dehlin [00:08:23] The whole purpose of this interview is just to learn about QAnon and more generally, how cults influence people. But even more specifically, even if you don't, even if you love Trump and if you, whatever, want to vote for him again, you can still get something from this interview because our focus is on QAnon, but specifically how to help a loved one, maybe awaken themselves from being in a cult. That's the purpose of today's interview.

Steven Hassan [00:08:54] Yeah. And if you're, you are a Trump supporter listening to this, my hat's off to you, even though I'm not wearing one. My, my, my invisible hat. Because if something is true, it will stand up to scrutiny. And one of the points of, of knowing that you're not in a mind control, cult or brainwashed state is, is the ability to step back from your belief system and the organization or group that you're in and look at the models of brainwashing and mind control and look for critics and former members and really listen to what their criticisms are and if there's any basis in truth for those things. Reflect on your own experience in light of models of mind control and then decide if you want to stay in or time to reevaluate and move on.

John Dehlin [00:09:47] I love that regardless of where you are religiously or politically, you know you're not in a cult if you're willing to consider multiple sides of an issue. And I'll just add, you can't rely on Stephen Hassan when he speaks out against a cult you don't like. But then when he speaks about other cults, pick and choose which colts you want to, you know, not like versus like. I mean, if you're going to like Stephen Hasson, you got, you got to respect his word. Even if it's a cult, you, you might appreciate.

Steven Hassan [00:10:19] Yeah, but I'm, I'm human. I can make mistakes. And one of the important things I wanted to cover in this, and I know you have some slides, and forgive me if I'm jumping ahead, but jump ahead. The most useful frames in engaging people is we're both human, we're not perfect. Let's look for the truth together as opposed to I'm right, you're wrong, or I'm, I'm thinking for myself and you're in a cult. No. Where you're intelligent, you're educated, you care passionately, and if you're following something and it's true, then I need to change my position and come to your side.

Steven Hassan [00:10:59] But are you willing to concede that if, if what you're following is not got the evidence that my side has that you would consider it? So it's a frame where it's not about egos and it's not about win or lose, it's about a pursuit for truth and to make the world a better place. And if you're religious and I believe in God, that you want to, you want to be able to look at yourself in the mirror at night knowing your conscience is clean.

John Dehlin [00:11:29] I love it. Well, let's start with just a quick primer for those who don't know. Tell us really quickly what qanon is.

What QAnon Actually Is and How It Spreads

Steven Hassan [00:11:37] Well, I'm hesitating because there's what the media has been saying it is and what I really think it is. So maybe I'll just say that the media has inaccurately portrayed it as a kooky conspiracy theory. And I think it's an authoritarian culture.

Steven Hassan [00:11:59] And some of the ideology is very black and white, all or nothing, good versus evil. And Trump and his high ranking Q person has been dropping these clues before the storm, which was supposed to happen already and it hasn't then all of the traffickers and pedophiles are supposed to be purged from the government, etc. There's a whole conspiracy, big conspiracy ideology in it. But what I've learned, and I've done a lot of research on it now and I have a number of blogs and Even did Ted Tedx talk called Dismantling QAnon. It's on my freedom of mind.com website. But what we now know, and this is from tracking tweets all the way back to 2017 when the first one was, was dropped, that we pretty sure a guy named defango was first involved as a goof on the Trump people.

Steven Hassan [00:13:04] It later morphed to sell merchandise. Then the Russians got involved. Then later people like Watkins got involved, Schoenberger got involved. Michael Flynn, former head of DIA was involved. William Binney, former intelligence NSA intelligence person. So there's a whole bunch of American former intelligence people who are involved with this cult and it's essentially best represented as a psyop psychological operation. In fact, Flynn used to do psyops on other countries, but he's been involved with the Christian right and doing it on Americans, unfortunately. And I think we're going to learn a lot more facts in the months ahead.

John Dehlin [00:13:57] And as I've understood it, you know, it's this idea that liberal politicians and celebrities and media people are all in

Steven Hassan [00:14:07] cahoots, you know, with traffickers and pedophiles

John Dehlin [00:14:12] watching children as pedophiles and sometimes even eating the babies. And then Donald Trump is going to be kind of this virtual savior who's going to come and, and rescue the children. Is that.

Steven Hassan [00:14:24] Yeah. So there's some old propaganda from actually Russia where supposedly the, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was leaked, but it was propaganda, totally made up thing blaming the Jews and, and, and children are being killed and their blood are being used to make matzah, things like that. It's very dark, it's very disturbing.

Steven Hassan [00:14:53] And what I just finished a book, John, by Craig Unger called Kompromat K with a K compromat, it's a Russian term for blackmail. And in this book details about Russia's influence over Donald Trump. Donald Trump's involvement with Jeffrey Epstein who was trafficker of underage girls, the connection with Ghislaine Maxwell. So there's A lot of detailed, factual information.

Steven Hassan [00:15:27] And one thing that I put in my book, John, about the techniques of mind control that Donald Trump has been using is the. The technique of projection. So people think he's fought. He's going to fight traffickers when he's the trafficker.

Steven Hassan [00:15:47] He's blaming the other side for doing a coup when he was trying to do a coup. So it's. If you understand a number of these techniques that I bring out in the Cult of Trump book, it makes so much more sense about why he did what he did.

Steven Hassan [00:16:04] And one concept I do want to share briefly is something I learned in the research of the book. It's called Fourth Trump Generation warfare, which is psyop. Psychological warfare. It was first written about in the 80s by an American military strategist named William Lind, who then paired up with Paul Wyrich of the Christian right. And it's to delegitimize experts, delegitimize institutions, delegitimize science, the media, facts. The media.

John Dehlin [00:16:41] Yeah.

Steven Hassan [00:16:41] So it creates a state of confusion, like, why is this happening? But that's exactly the state that mind controllers want to get people in, where they're confused. And then the confident voice, I know more than the generals. I know more than the economists. And then repeat it over and over and over and over again. Where the mind of the average person goes, it must be true, because he's the president, and he keeps saying it over and over again when in fact, they're lies.

John Dehlin [00:17:15] And you have to create this environment of uncertainty, of confusion, almost of despair, so that then you can put yourself forward as the savior, so to speak.

Steven Hassan [00:17:26] Yep, it's. And. And frankly, enemies of. Of America want to see American power and prestige be diminished. So there have. We have less of a presence in NATO. We have less of a say with global climate change policies. And it's very nefarious. And it. We really were close to losing our democracy. Fortunately, we. We have it still. But we need to clean house. And when I say clean house, it means exit council. All the extremists who think that they're being American by destroying the Constitution and the rule of law.

John Dehlin [00:18:10] Well, let me jump and ask you to just quickly describe your influence continuum. And I guess I had the two questions. You know, does Qanon count as a cult? Because it's different than Scientology or Jehovah's Witnesses, for example. And then also, how does it hurt people? Because I think, I guess a benign cult is not as big of a deal as a harmful one. Is that right.

Steven Hassan [00:18:32] 100%. So thank you for putting up this graphic. And I think this is an easy way for the public to discern ethical influence, healthy influence, because we're all being influenced all the time by one another, right? And unhealthy, unethical influence or authoritarian influence.

Steven Hassan [00:18:56] And one critical construct, for example for ethical influence is the idea of informed consent, where a person knows up front what they're getting involved with, what are the beliefs, what's going to happen to them. Whereas authoritarian destructive cults will lie by withholding information, distorting information to make it seem more palatable or outright lying.

Steven Hassan [00:19:24] And on this continuum, therefore, the way I look at it, there are benign cults or productive cults, and then they're the destructive cults, but by the behaviors. And I have the bite model, which you know about so well. Behavior control, information control, thought and emotional control. It's at the top of the slide. One can then really discern how far on the continuum is a group bad or how healthy it is. And so the power is given to people to discern for themselves looking at these specific criteria.

John Dehlin [00:20:06] Right. And so where does QAnon fall in all this?

Steven Hassan [00:20:11] Unethical, authoritarian, cult, black and white, all or nothing, good versus evil, loaded, language, phobia, programming, hatred, spending huge amounts of time online, being constantly influenced through their smartphones, through notifications, through YouTubes, through chats. And one other thing that I want to comment on that was new for me when I started researching QAnon because I'm an old fogey, is the idea of alternate reality gaming. Like for me that was like, what's that?

Steven Hassan [00:20:50] And Jim Stewartson, who was one of the original developers of alternate reality gaming, was the person who explained it to me. It's where you're re role playing, where you think you're a knight, you know, in another century and you're doing a whole game, whatever the quest is, or something like this, but. But this becomes a live alternate reality gaming where people are sent out on the streets to protest or to raise money or this or that. But the idea is to make people addicted to the game without them realizing it's a game.

Steven Hassan [00:21:28] So one needs to step back and go, why would a high level intelligence person do drops with these obscure things that everyone has to figure out? Like if it's an intelligence person, why wouldn't they just say what's what, what's happening and what needs to happen? And why would they be on 8chan also if it's a high level intelligence person? So there's like, so Many reasons to understand that QAnon was a device to infiltrate the public. They, they infiltrated the yoga community and the new age community, people who are against trafficking soccer moms. And they used a lot of different cult groups to recruit within their ranks into this ideology.

Steven Hassan [00:22:17] And unfortunately, it's caused a lot of estrangement in families where people have stopped talking to each other because someone has gotten in the QAnon rabbit hole. John?

John Dehlin [00:22:32] Yeah, there's a whole, there's a whole Reddit channel called QAnon Casualties that you did an amazing Q A on. I'm going to share that. I'm going to share the link to your website, freedomofmind.com if you go to freedomofmind.com or you just Google for how to help people involved in QAnon or Reddit AMA ask me anything. Stephen, you were so generous to give so many comprehensive answers to people. How much time did you spend on that?

Steven Hassan [00:23:03] I was about five hours of typing and my fingers got tired. I'm much better talking than typing, so it's not my favorite thing to do. But my understanding is it went from 65,000 to like triple that within a few days of that.

Steven Hassan [00:23:22] And, but I, I, and, and later we're going to talk about I got out as a hashtag movement. But what I really want everybody to understand is that there's a myth of invulnerability going on in the average person's mind. I would never believe something that crazy.

Steven Hassan [00:23:42] You know, I'm, I'm a Jew, so I believe Moses saw a burning bush. Okay, okay. But that's a story. We get that. In any case. Yeah, there's a lot of hurting people. And what I want is for former members of authoritarian groups to be like, yeah, it happened to me too. No worries. I got out. Everything's cool. To create an off ramp for the millions. We estimate 30 million people are in the QAnon rabbit hole right now. And to, to start encouraging people to reach out to their family members and friends and say, I miss you and how are you? Because a bunch of them are doubting since Biden's inauguration.

John Dehlin [00:24:28] So that's hashtag I got out. Use it on Twitter, use it on Instagram. And is that only for QAnon or is that for cults of all?

Steven Hassan [00:24:37] No, no. I'm constantly saying, I got out of the Moonies. How about you? So it's for ex Jehovah's Witnesses, ex Scientologists, and there's an actual website now. I got out.org that a number of ex members are putting up to try to help steer people to books and good resources for them to start getting their head together.

John Dehlin [00:24:59] And do we have a sense really quickly and then we'll jump into the practical issues. I would have thought that, you know, it was like Jehovah's Witnesses or even early LDS church all over again because there was going to be the inauguration and the inauguration was supposed to be, you know, the, the time when, you know, when Trump took over and seized power and, and did all the things he was supposed to do and the, and the date came and went.

Steven Hassan [00:25:28] Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:25:29] That's just like Jehovah's Witnesses and early Mormons and do. But do we have a sense that that has decreased the number of believers overall?

Steven Hassan [00:25:38] In Cuban there's been a drop off for sure. Some of the hardcore people have been told March 4th is the, the real date when he's going to take martial law and take the country back again. And that's based on the past history in the United States that the inauguration used to be March 4th. It was moved up after we stopped using ponies to commute from one place to another, I guess.

John Dehlin [00:26:07] Well, one of the weird things that I've learned and psychologically is sometimes when the date comes and goes, people end up believing more strongly versus less strongly, especially if they're blamed for being part of the reason why the prophecy wasn't fulfilled. But I guess we can cover that another time.

Steven Hassan [00:26:24] Leon Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory. And it's an important thing for everybody to know, and I should say the BITE model is based on the cognitive dissonance theory of thoughts, feelings and behaviors. And basically, if we can get people to do an extreme behavior, they're going to rationalize and justify it and feel, to feel good about it. And so, you know, why not sell everything, go to a mountaintop, wait for the UFO spaceship to take you off the planet. The day comes and goes, no spaceship. And then the leader says, because of your faith, the world was saved.

John Dehlin [00:27:06] Right.

Steven Hassan [00:27:07] Great story. And a lot of people would buy it because they had sold their house, went up to a mountain and it didn't come. What do you want to believe? That you were snowed or you were lied to or you're in a cult or you saved the planet.

John Dehlin [00:27:24] Right. Well, that takes us to kind of a question that I have generally about cults. Can you share with us what factors make someone vulnerable to joining a cult? And I'm going to ask a second part to that question too. I'm always Dismayed when someone who leaves one cult joins another. So a second part of that question is, what would make someone who's left a cult also vulnerable to joining a new culture?

Who Is Vulnerable and Why People Join Cults

Steven Hassan [00:27:50] Right. A lot to unpack. I'll do my best to do it quickly. So there are situational variables that always make people more susceptible. Right now, everyone is situationally vulnerable because of the pandemic and the economic crisis and the social isolation that we have. But usually before the pandemic, death of a loved one, illness, divorce, losing a job, graduating, moving to a new state, city, state or country, are the life cycle kinds of vulnerabilities where someone may be more receptive to a stranger or even to someone that they know saying, check this out, check out this group, or make a million dollars or some type of appeal?

Steven Hassan [00:28:42] When you ask the second part of the question, it really comes back to your family of origin and what kind of upbringing did you have? Were you corporately punished? You know, were you raised in an environment that was very black and white, all or nothing, good versus evil, follow the prophet, strict rules and regulations and punishments and shunning and homophobia, whatever. If you're raised in that environment and you go, you know what? I can't believe this anymore. There's too much facts that been, you know, shared. I want to leave this. But you don't do your homework to really understand the influence continuum, the bite model and, and, and what's normal.

Steven Hassan [00:29:32] This is part of my work as a therapist. With folks born into groups, they don't know what's normal. Like they had their experience, but they don't understand. For example, with parenting, healthy parenting is developmentally appropriate. It never involves corporal punishment. It allows children to be play and explore and make mistakes and is not about perfection. It's about enjoying how to learn and how to grow and to be their true self.

Steven Hassan [00:30:08] If you had that growing up and then you were educated about how to tell if somebody was lying to you and deceptively recruiting, then the likelihood of you getting into a cult a first time or a second time is very low.

Steven Hassan [00:30:25] But what I'm now learning from these 45 years of activism is that really, John, we're living in a New Age 21st century mind control where our brains are now being subjected to hours of online influence and a lot of sophisticated influence is happening that we're not even aware of. For example, we learned about the Cambridge Analytica hack where 80 million Americans profiles were stolen and their friends of their likes, their dislikes, their interests, etc. Where they were micro targeted by ads and especially in terms of voting and where there are companies that are literally marketing the data about people on the dark web, selling them to third parties to recruit them into cults.

Steven Hassan [00:31:28] So we're at a new level where we have to teach media literacy and protection on the Internet and we really need to turn off our devices periodically and like walk in the woods and remember what it's like to be a human being where you're interacting not with a screen.

John Dehlin [00:31:50] Yeah. Things are real. And there's some, there's some documentaries we're going to talk about at the very end that you recommend that are really helpful.

Steven Hassan [00:31:58] Cool.

Practical Tips for Helping a Loved One in QAnon

John Dehlin [00:31:59] Okay, so I'm going to list just a bunch of tips that I've read from your Q A and I'm just going to have you. We're going to go through like 10 of these tips and I'm just going to have you speak. So I'm going to. So we're, we're specifically talking to any of our listeners who have a loved one who's in QAnon or who's a believer in QAnon or in some other destructive, harmful cult. We're going to kind of be talking about the do's and don'ts a little bit. And I'm just going to throw out to you tip after tip after tip that comes from you and just have you explain each one a little bit. It's going to be very practical. Is that okay?

Steven Hassan [00:32:36] I'll do my best, John.

John Dehlin [00:32:37] Okay, so, so tip number one is educate yourself about the influence continuum and the byte model. So tell us about that and how they can do it.

Steven Hassan [00:32:51] Yeah. So essentially go to freedomofmind.com the. The both things are in my, on my website, in my books. Right. And it really is like a checklist, the bite model. Do they tell you how, what to wear, what to eat, talk to? Do they tell you about sleep? You're hypnotizing me with the book thing. That's a joke.

Steven Hassan [00:33:16] So you can go through a checklist and go, yup, that, that, that fits my experience or it doesn't. I have a, a quick thing. I'll hold up. Most people are in cults down here at the fringes and if you try to evaluate a group from out here, it doesn't look like it's a bad thing. But if you talk to people who are in here, then it looks very different. And my criteria of a destructive cult is really that, that, that upper echelon of total control and demands from people. I think with the LDS Church the missions, the two year missions are one of the most clear descriptions of the byte model in action.

John Dehlin [00:34:03] Right, okay, so, so grab your books. You also have a, a Udemy, right, Online training that we're going to talk about at the end, but you actually have a course where you can learn more about cults, is that right?

Steven Hassan [00:34:18] Yeah, the, the, the, the challenge is I'm a single person and there are millions and tens of millions of people who need to understand this material. So really what I'm trying to do is educate the former members and empowering them to educate and share their stories and go further. And I was encouraged to take a whole bunch of my PowerPoints and teach an online course. It's about three and a half hours. I think Udemy is selling it for $12 or something really reasonable. And so yes, if you're interested, please, you know, check out my course and if you like it, read it and share it and I'll just agree you

John Dehlin [00:35:03] can't help somebody if you don't understand the bite model and how cults work. So I'm just going to totally validate that. Okay, the next tip is learn about other destructive cults. Now I think that's good advice, both for you who want to help someone, but also if you can get other people to learn about cults that aren't their own, sometimes that has a spillover effect back to them. Is that true?

Steven Hassan [00:35:28] 100%. So the generalization is when you're in a cult, you don't think you are, you don't feel brainwashed. That's what I said to my father when he asked me to speak with the ex members in a deprogramming context. I said I, I can promise you I'm not an occult and I'm not brainwashed. I know exactly what I'm doing. And my father was like, well, prove it. Just give us a few days and, and listen and ask questions and such. So the, I lost my train of thought. I forget.

John Dehlin [00:36:01] No learning about other destructive cults.

Steven Hassan [00:36:03] All right, so the thing is that what worked for me was learning about Chinese Communist brainwashing because I knew I wasn't in a cult, but I was willing to listen about that. And I found that people in the cult of Trump and QAnon, they're very interested in learning about chines Communist brainwashing techniques. I go through Robert Lifton's eight points and I use that as a jumping off point to get into the bite model. The other thing that that's very effective is talking about traffickers with people in QAnon. And there was a court case against the cult leader named Keith Ranieri of a cult called Nexium, or ESP is another branch of that cult. He's in jail for 120 years for conspiracy to do trafficking.

John Dehlin [00:36:50] So.

Steven Hassan [00:36:50] So explaining how educated, intelligent people, including a billionaires and actresses and actors, have gotten into that cult and women were being branded by their genitals by quarterizing iron with no anesthesia. And using those other cults as. As case examples to explain mind control. And then use that as a platform to gently ask questions to help the person start saying, this is not like my experience, or this was like my experience.

John Dehlin [00:37:27] Some of my favorite, you know, cult documentaries are Wild Wild country and Going Clear. You've mentioned the vow and Seduced by nxivm, which I haven't seen yet.

Steven Hassan [00:37:38] Nexium. Yeah. And Wild Wild country was Rajneesh Bhagwan, Sri Rajneesh. And Going Clear was about Scientology.

John Dehlin [00:37:48] Yeah, those are. Those are really great. Okay, so learn about destructive cults. The next tip you offer Steven and Hassan is step into their mindset, find out how they came to their beliefs. Tell us about that.

Steven Hassan [00:38:04] Yeah, so when I talk to folks and let's say we're talking about QAnon, I might ask them when they first remember hearing about QAnon and get them to think back, and what did you think it was? And they almost universally say they thought it was crazy.

Steven Hassan [00:38:26] And then you go, that's interesting. So walk me through, step by step, some of the main things that caused you to take them seriously, and then that caused you to believe what they were teaching and really empower people to remember details and tell you about it. Because just in the process of reflecting back, material can come back into people's consciousness. That can really help them a lot.

Steven Hassan [00:38:55] So, for example, when I was recruited by the women into the Moonies, and I remembered that initial conversation where I said, are you students here at Queens College? Oh, yes. Well, they weren't. Are you part of a religious group? Oh, no, we're not. And then we were bowing to an altar with Moon's picture on it. Just remembering the lies at the beginning really helped to. To exit as well. So that's just a few points.

John Dehlin [00:39:22] I love it. Okay, the next point is don't try to reason and definitely don't debate or argue. This could backfire. Tell us why trying to debate or even reason can backfire.

Steven Hassan [00:39:40] So my. My experience is that when I got into the Moonies as Steven Hassan, this cult identity got programmed that believed that Moon and his wife were my true parents. And it was this part that was operating for the two and a half years I was in the cult.

Steven Hassan [00:39:59] And this identity was impervious to any negative thought or even question about Moon, the doctrine, or the group. So when somebody would try to say, how could Moon be the messiah, he has an M16 gun factory. My father actually said that to me. All that made me do is do thought, stopping, believe he was possessed by Satan, you know, and feel persecuted by him.

Steven Hassan [00:40:25] So his intention was to help me reason, but he was giving me facts in too direct a way where it was attacking the group. So I did this. This. Shutting. Shutting down. The best technique is asking a good question with respect and being quiet and really waiting a long time for the person to think of an answer and then following up with that answer. So you enter into their model of reality and so how they view the world. Because ultimately they're the ones who will know how to help themselves as opposed to you rescuing them or you persuading them that they're wrong. And you're right. That doesn't work in. In this field.

John Dehlin [00:41:14] Yeah. In fact, one of the slides I put up, it says, be curious, ask questions, learn to listen and pay attention. And that seems counterproductive because you kind of feel like, no, they've. They believe these things that are hurtful and wrong. I've got to convince them otherwise. You're saying, be curious, ask questions, and listen and pay attention. Right?

Steven Hassan [00:41:36] Yeah, exactly. And take the frame of, hey, you're intelligent, you believe this. And if it's true, I need to believe what you believe, so please persuade me also.

John Dehlin [00:41:47] You ask them to persuade you. Yeah, that's a great technique.

Steven Hassan [00:41:51] Yeah. Help me understand, you know, why you think this is true or this is real. You know, I don't see it, but maybe I'm missing something. And then this. And then they'll think back, oh, I watched this video. Okay, let's make a deal. I'll watch this video with you. We can share screens online, and then after we watch it, we'll talk about it, and then I'll share a video with you, and we'll watch it together and we'll talk about it. So there's reciprocity, and it comes out of a place of mutual respect.

John Dehlin [00:42:28] Sometimes a loved one, especially in a religious organization, will say, I don't. I. I've been taught not to ever read or listen to things that aren't approved by a centralized source. So they're. They're actually going to decline that invitation to have reciprocal learning opportunities. What do you do if. If they're just unwilling to look at anything that isn't approved by the centralized source?

Steven Hassan [00:42:51] Yeah. So, you know, so that brings up another important point. Don't expect to help them in one conversation of an hour or something like that. It's a process that. That gets people in, and it's a process that helps people get out. But if people say, I've been taught not, you know, told not to, you know, talk to ex members because they're. They're low spiritually or something like that, I don't say, oh, that's obvious then, that you're under mind control. I say, oh, curious. How do you feel about that? And have. Have you had a close friend or family member that's ever left your organization? Oh, yes, my brother left three years ago. Oh, so when you sat down with him to discuss it, what did he say? Oh, I'm not allowed to talk with him.

John Dehlin [00:43:45] Really?

Steven Hassan [00:43:46] But it's your brother, huh? But I don't push more than they're willing to go. Just putting little seeds, little. Little question marks, and I may go to. Huh. That reminds me of my friends who are in Scientology and they are told to disconnect from anyone who's left their group, even if it's their mother or their sister, their brother, their wife. So they're not allowed to talk with them either. How do you feel about Scientology telling their believers not to talk with ex members? How do you feel about Moonies being told not to talk to ex Mooney's?

John Dehlin [00:44:27] Do you risk them feeling like you're insulting them by. By bringing up invoking examples of other cults and possibly.

Steven Hassan [00:44:36] I mean, the bottom line, I mean, you're a psychologist, John. You know that really creating an alliance and a rapport and trust is key to any long term relationship. So, I mean, I read body language. I watch people's faces. If I'm starting to say something and I can see them shutting down, I usually don't finish the sentence.

John Dehlin [00:44:59] That's so good. So that brings me to. I think it's probably topic.

Building Rapport and Using the BITE Model

Steven Hassan [00:45:03] Oh, look at the bird over there.

John Dehlin [00:45:05] Yeah.

Steven Hassan [00:45:06] Cardinal.

John Dehlin [00:45:07] Oh, yeah.

Steven Hassan [00:45:08] Beautiful.

John Dehlin [00:45:10] This was the most, I think the most brilliant thing I read of all the brilliant things I read. You say build rapport and trust and always ask yourself, quote, is this conversation empowering the person I'm talking to, the loved one to feel closer to me? And you. You. You really only know that if you are paying attention to their body language, to their brow, to Their eyes to their arms, to their posture, and if they're tensing up, if they're seeming to get agitated, what do you do? Stephen?

Steven Hassan [00:45:43] No, so that's exactly right.

John Dehlin [00:45:46] So

Steven Hassan [00:45:49] rapport and trust is one of those things that some people do very naturally and some people need to really work on learning. But I would say that there are like you like to read. You recommend books. John I read a brilliant book called we need to Talk by a woman named Celeste Headley. She did some ted, TED talks that are wonderful. And it's really about not thinking while the person's talking to you, what you're going to answer, but really paying attention so that the person really feels that you're with them.

Steven Hassan [00:46:28] It's absolutely huge. I would also say that, you know, in my work with families who are trying to rescue someone, I tell them, you need to make a shift away from honest communication, which means saying whatever comes into your head to your family member or friend to what I call the strategic interactive approach.

Steven Hassan [00:46:52] And the goal of strategic interactive approach is empowering the person to think, think for themselves and make their own decisions. So that's the penultimate goal of my method. But the first step is rapport and trust building and indeed everything you're doing in that is, are they feeling closer to me? If there was a meter from 1 to 10 and we started the conversation and it was a 3, what needs to happen to make it a 4, a 5, a 6, a 7, 8, 9, 10?

Steven Hassan [00:47:24] And it really comes down to listening, asking good questions, finding common grounds where you can share perspectives. Maybe they like trout fishing, maybe they like basketball, maybe they like scuba diving. You don't know, but finding those things out.

Steven Hassan [00:47:42] But ultimately it's really for me about empowering the person to start thinking for themselves and reality testing. And that means inviting them to feel safe to consider other perspectives, including yours.

John Dehlin [00:48:00] Right. I'm going to share just three quick comments. I've got a comment from T Y G H R R. He says this is a counterproductive conversation, elitism at its worst. Not a fan of that comment, but I'll share it anyway.

Steven Hassan [00:48:15] No, no, no, but I mean, that's. There is this movement to dis experts, people who have credentials. I know I have my, my diploma up in the back and all the books and, and all I can say is I'm sorry you feel that way. And if I was interacting with the person, I would be saying what would need to happen for you to be able to really listen to what I'm saying and take it in and Then give a long silence. And if they're honest, they may say, take the screwing tie off and the jacket off. You know, put down the damn degree. It's like, you know, offensive or whatever. And if I was wanting to interact with that person, I would do that. I take my tie off, I take the degree and like copies of my book in the background down.

John Dehlin [00:49:13] Right. That was a really elegant way to respond to that question. Thank you. That was. I learned a lot. Anna. Anna writes something really interesting. She writes, building rapport is the same advice given to Mormon missionaries to help them work with a prospective investigator or someone who's looking into the church. So basically, in some ways you're giving the same advice that, that Mormon missionaries learn in the MTC to be effective missionaries.

Steven Hassan [00:49:46] A hundred percent. And it's a great point. And I don't have my. Oh, I do have my thing handy dandy. The, the, the idea of, of this, of a group that has a black and white, all or nothing. This is mirrored. So I'm having trouble figuring out left from right.

Steven Hassan [00:50:07] When you're in an authoritarian, esque type of group and you're doing rapport and trust to deceive the person and get them in so that they can be dependent and obedient and become a good identity of the group, that's influence, that's unethical. And if you want to do ethical influence, the rapport and trust is based on real respect and empowering them to decide what they want to do with their life. I actually get asked that question a lot when I'm counseling cult members is how do I know you're not mind controlling me? And I say, I'm explaining what mind control is like. I'm giving you the historical, factual stuff so you can decide whether it's mind control or not.

Steven Hassan [00:50:56] I have no hidden agenda. When we're done talking, you never need to talk to me again for the rest of your life unless you want to. And I don't have an agenda other than sharing what I've learned, my journey, my, my, my knowledge base. But it's about your life. You need to decide what's true and work and what works for you.

John Dehlin [00:51:20] And you're not asking for 10% of our income for life. And you're not asking, you're not asking for our spouses to, to take them on as your own spouse.

Steven Hassan [00:51:30] Yeah, and I believe in love, John, and I believe in truth. You know, and if something is legitimate, it will stand up to scrutiny. And why would you want to follow something or some person who isn't honest or things aren't true. Yeah, life's too short, too precious.

John Dehlin [00:51:49] Amen. Trevin writes. This is awesome. I needed to hear this. I have not been good with this topic with family members who are still Mormon members and for those that are involved with Q. Thank you, Trevin. I appreciate that.

Steven Hassan [00:52:03] I'm curious if the More the The LDS leadership has put out a statement to members that QAnon is not legitimate and anyone who's, who's involved with it needs to step back in reality, test what it's teaching.

John Dehlin [00:52:21] That's a great question. And it turns out that many of the participants, some of the most prominent participants in the insurrection at the US Capitol were from Idaho and Utah. In fact, there was a plane ride to the protest that Mitt Romney was on and he got shouted down on the plane ride to Washington, D.C. because there are so many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who, who believe in QAnon and or supported what led to the insurrection. And so no, the Mormon Church has not condemned, you know, things like QAnon because they risk angering too many of their own membership in Utah County.

Steven Hassan [00:53:08] Really sad. And I want to, I hope I don't alienate any of your listeners, but when Mitt Romney voted for conviction and in the first impeachment, I was like, good for him. Like, good for him that he did that. He did something right and righteous. And so I wanted to say that, yeah, good for him.

John Dehlin [00:53:35] Yeah, I agree. And you're, you're in Massachusetts, so you knew Governor Romney before you knew Presidential, before you knew Senator Romney.

Steven Hassan [00:53:42] Right. Governor, I think. Right.

John Dehlin [00:53:44] Yeah. Okay. So I'm just going to repeat what you said one more time. Always ask yourself, quote, is this conversation empowering the person I'm speaking with to feel closer to me? If it doesn't, stop talking, change the subject, try something else. And never argue, yell or insult. Yeah.

Steven Hassan [00:54:06] And apologize. You know, if you, if I recommend to people, they say to somebody, you know, on a scale of 1 to 10, how much rapport and trust do you feel towards me? And if it's like two, you say two. What. What did I do? You called me a, you know, a year ago. You don't remember that and you apologize. I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. Can we have a redo. Be flexible and be centered on the here and now towards a positive future is my recommendation.

John Dehlin [00:54:44] Yeah. And you will, you will make mistakes. So you need to have some way to repair because mistakes are going to happen.

Steven Hassan [00:54:51] Take your Ego out of it. It's not a contest. It's about helping a fellow human being. And, you know, people help me, which is why I've been spending my life helping others. And it makes me feel good to know that I'm able to make a contribution to somebody else.

John Dehlin [00:55:09] I love it. Okay. One of the tips you give is respect their intelligence. And what's interesting about this is whether you're talking about occult like Scientology or QAnon, is there is no correlation between intelligence or IQ and belief in cults or conspiracy theories. Right. And so not only. Not only is it ineffective to insult their intelligence, it's often inaccurate as well. Can you talk about how there's no correlation, but necessarily between intelligence and believing in culture? Conspiracy theories.

Steven Hassan [00:55:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:55:45] We.

Steven Hassan [00:55:45] We want to have more data, hard data. But I can tell you that my friends who are former cult members, like yourself, John, are some of the smartest people on the planet, in my opinion, brilliant people. And, you know, I'm going to share something that. That I learned a long time ago, and I'm not remembering who said it, but it's like the more mind you have, the can be controlled. It's like if you're apathetic and complacent and don't care about improving your life, don't care about anyone else, don't want to make the world better, don't want to, you know, be part of a spiritual community, you're going to be hard to manipulate and control.

Steven Hassan [00:56:30] But if you do want to learn and grow, if you do care about other people, if you do care about God, if you do care about a larger cause, then you're susceptible. If you don't understand the techniques and how to identify unethical cults.

John Dehlin [00:56:46] Yeah. Okay, we're running out of time, so I'm just gonna let you. Just for 30 seconds, talk about. Not for 30 seconds. I'll give you. We'll do a lightning round where I'm gonna offer you.

Steven Hassan [00:56:59] Okay, what's that?

John Dehlin [00:57:00] Say that again.

Steven Hassan [00:57:01] Lightning round.

John Dehlin [00:57:02] No.

Steven Hassan [00:57:02] So I mean that the most problematic thing is people have these phones and they're constantly being influenced for seven to ten hours a day. And if you want to reflect and figure things out, turn it off. Take a time out from involvement with whatever group or whatever thing you are. Take a few days off, take a week off. Walk in the woods, play with your puppy. Like, remember what's important to you, because then you get some perspective on this. But as long as people are constantly online, constantly being reinforced and indoctrinated, it's very hard to promote a change of point of view.

John Dehlin [00:57:50] So that's the suggest a timeout tip. Okay. The next tip is help them get in touch with their authentic pre cult self or identity, which if they're born into the cult, that's harder. But tell, tell us what, what you mean by that.

Steven Hassan [00:58:06] Well, a lot of people who are born into cults still, of course they all have authentic selves. The question is, in the period of time that they exited the cult, how much were they able to, you know, tune into themselves and what they really care about, what's really obvious for, for a bunch of folks, if you're gay and you're raised in a homophobic environment, you know, you've been told to suppress it and try to do conversion therapy or whatever, which doesn't work. It's brainwashing.

Steven Hassan [00:58:41] And, but the, the bottom line is, let's say someone who was not in a cult, they get into QAnon, you want to talk about who they were prior to QAnon and what they were wanting to do with their life, what turned them on, what their likes were and and dislikes were, and if it's a family member or friend, dig up old photos, videos, play music used to like to listen to together because that activates the person's authentic self and that's the part of them that's going to help them to exit.

John Dehlin [00:59:16] There is such a thing as a formal intervention. And I know that you actually offer your services in extreme cases for actually you flying in and participating in a formal intervention. I don't know that, you know, a lot of people in the LDS Church don't consider themselves to be in cults. I don't even like to call the Mormon Church a cult. I'd be curious to know if you've ever been involved in an intervention with members of the church Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints. But in the QAnon case, at a minimum, talk about the potential role of formal interventions if you'd like.

Steven Hassan [00:59:52] So again, the issue with a formal intervention is first of all, I don't do anything that the person doesn't voluntarily agree with. And then the question is, what would motivate somebody to voluntarily agree? In my case, I wanted to prove to my parents I wasn't in a cult and I wasn't brainwashed. And they said, well, we, we will sleep better at night knowing that you've participated. Learn this material. If you go back, it's not on us anymore. It's not our responsibility. And that's really the frame that I use with all my clients. It's like it's your life.

Steven Hassan [01:00:32] Give me this time, let me present my ca, my information, the cases about other cults, etc, use me. But it's time limited. The one request is don't be on, on their screens talking to the cult, calling them up. Just give yourself a space to have a new perspective. And I found that one day is not enough, two days, not enough. Three days is kind of the magic period.

Steven Hassan [01:01:06] Rarely do I need to do a fourth or a fifth day, but usually by three days there's a saturation level. People get the key points. They're already the mind is starting to work and that's my goal. Not to indoctrinate them, but just get them empowered to start thinking so that they will research on their own.

John Dehlin [01:01:28] So if somebody wants to reach out to you to try and plan an intervention, how would they, how would they do that?

Steven Hassan [01:01:34] So on my website I have case evaluation forms and that precedes any type of consult. Typically it's done on zoom, the initial one. And I want to customize an approach that's going to make sense to help. So if every case is different, I would say the Freedom of Mind book that you showed earlier talks about developing a team approach to help a particular person. So if there's aunts, uncles, you know, brothers, sisters, neighbors who are worried about the person's cult involvement, educating them first. And I do a two day weekend prep meeting with them and I give them a crash course and then I coach them how to have interactions with the person so that there's a lot of AHAs, there are a lot of different people interacting and again, the goal is for them to be empowered and think for themselves, not to do an intervention.

Steven Hassan [01:02:35] With me, the goal is not even to do an intervention, it's to get them to go online and start researching this. So much great information that's reliable and factual online. So the idea is empowering people that the person knows that already has history with them so that they can then take the information in and reality test.

John Dehlin [01:03:01] I love it. Okay, so there are several documentaries that you recommend. Do you want to just tell us the names of a few of your favorite documentaries one more time?

Recommended Resources and Closing Thoughts

Steven Hassan [01:03:12] Well, I did a blog on three documentaries that I think is crucial for people to understand 21st century cult mind control tactics. It's the great hack, the social Dilemma and people you may know. So if you contact John or go to Freedom of Mind and look on the blog and do the social dilemma in quotes, you'll find that Blog with the links.

Steven Hassan [01:03:40] And again, you know, the human mind was not created to be online. This is a new invention in the last 20 years and human beings are now learning how to deal with this new environment. And we have a problem because there are enemies of the United States and enemies of democracy that are deliberately using the lack of regulation on platforms, the, the lack of privacy protection for our data to manipulate us and to turn us against each other and to make us give up hope so that they can do their nefarious deeds. And I'm encouraging everyone to become an activist, become an educated consumer, be smart online and know you have to check out who's behind this website, what is their message. Look for verification from objective sources and not just retweet or reshare things because you like the headline. Be careful about that.

John Dehlin [01:04:48] I love it. Okay, so several good documentaries that we'll recommend including the Vow Seduced, Inside the Nexium Cult, the Great Hack, the Social Dilemma, people you may know, Fourth generation warfare going clear and wild. Wild country. Here is. I'm going to show one last time the the page on Freedom of mind dot com, right? Is it Freedom of mind dot com?

Steven Hassan [01:05:14] Yep, it's Freedom of mine dot com. Yeah, that's the blog we did with some of the highlights from my, my Reddit QAnon casualties AMA.

John Dehlin [01:05:24] Yeah, I think that's a, I think that's a really important and it's very lengthy. So if you really want a lot of good in depth info on how to help your loved one who's struggling with QAnon, check out that, that page. And then of course, Steven, since we're coming to the end, freedomofmind.com I want to promote of course, your books Combating Cult Mind Control, Freedom of Mind and the Cult of Trump. What's the best way for people to purchase these books so that you get all the money?

Steven Hassan [01:05:55] Thank you. So Combating I bought back from my publisher so you can buy it anywhere. I've been having horrible experience with, with the Kindle copy, but we put it up on Apple Books and Google Books for Combating. I also hired someone to read it. If you like audiobooks, books, Freedom of Mind, probably Amazon, but I did not record that. That's on my list of things to do. The Cult of Trump is by Simon and Schuster. I make the least amount of money on it, but it's the most widely available on a million sites. And I really do recommend people read it because it will give them real insight into what the heck is really going on. Structurally in our country and real keys to how to bring us together again.

John Dehlin [01:06:49] Does the book Cult of Trump actually mention QAnon?

Steven Hassan [01:06:52] Yes, it does.

John Dehlin [01:06:54] So you really are a prophet. Not that I doubt it.

Steven Hassan [01:06:56] Not that I doubt it because I submitted the final manuscript, I think in April of 2019, and then QAnon was pretty small compared to. But it's grown. But I absolutely did include it.

John Dehlin [01:07:14] Okay, really quick. The Udemy site. Udemy is spelled U D E M Y. There's a course there called Understand cults the basics. It. It's a. It's 1199.

Steven Hassan [01:07:28] Yeah. It's three and a half hours of me doing PowerPoints and explaining what I think people need to know as the basics. I've been hearing from a ton of mental health professionals saying where do I learn how to help?

Steven Hassan [01:07:43] And you know, this is my first entry effort, but I'm looking for a place to do ceus to, to teach as well. And we need, we need. I really want to help mobilize former members who've done their homework and who genuinely care to tell their stories and different venues and talk to the media and educate the media because they don't understand cult mind.

Steven Hassan [01:08:10] And this hashtag, it would be so great if we can get some high profile people, especially a few celebrities, to be using this regularly in their, in their social media because we want to create an exit ramp for people to say, hey, there's unlike you have thrive on your hat. It's like there's life after group and not only life, but you can thrive. I got out. How about you?

John Dehlin [01:08:36] So the hashtag is I got out. And people can make Instagram posts or Twitter posts or you know, Facebook posts, YouTube videos where you talk about the health and happiness and joy that can come.

Steven Hassan [01:08:53] Yeah, exactly.

John Dehlin [01:08:54] Extricating yourself from a harmful religious cult.

Steven Hassan [01:08:57] Yeah, exactly. And not just religious, it can be political. We're doing a blog now on therapy cults where the. A therapist controls the person and manipulates them and makes them dependent.

John Dehlin [01:09:09] Or a pyramid scheme business cult.

Steven Hassan [01:09:11] Right level marketing cults. Cults of personality. The probably the single biggest population is where a man's controlling a woman and in some cases a woman's controlling a man. Isolated them from family and friends and has totally controlled them. Like that's. That is a cult of one.

John Dehlin [01:09:33] All right, Dr. Stephen Hasson. Well, I promise to keep you to an hour and we've gone a little bit over, although it has been promoting your good work. So I hope it's helpful.

Steven Hassan [01:09:41] Thank you so much, John.

John Dehlin [01:09:43] Yeah, I want to encourage all my listeners to buy Steven's books to pay for his course. Reach out to Steven. Steven, thank you so much for all your work. You're a hero to me and to so many people. Any final words you want to give before. Before we close today?

Steven Hassan [01:09:58] Love is stronger than mind control and love is stronger than hate or fear. And lastly, fear is a good thing if there's real danger. The problem is that cults put phobias in people's mind, making them believe there's danger when there's no danger. And that's where you need to use your frontal cortex to really assess, is there real danger if I question the prophet or if I question my leader of my particular organization or and be honest to yourself, be to thine own self be true.

John Dehlin [01:10:37] I love it. And I'll just quote Anna Skelton, who writes, thank you, John and Steven. This was great.

Steven Hassan [01:10:43] Thank you.

John Dehlin [01:10:44] Writes great show, Stephen. Thank you so much. Keep up the good work. Please let us know if we can ever help you. Okay?

Steven Hassan [01:10:51] Thank you so much. It's great. Take care.

John Dehlin [01:10:53] All right, stay in touch.

Steven Hassan [01:10:54] Okay, great. Bye.

John Dehlin [01:10:56] Thanks, listeners. Thank you so much for joining us today on Mormon Stories Podcast. If you appreciate this stuff, please support Stephen Hasson and his great work. Go to freedomofmind.com you can purchase his books on the Internet, Amazon, wherever else you can buy books.

John Dehlin [01:11:14] And thanks for your support of Mormon Stories Podcast. If you do support us, thank you. If you don't support us, less than one out of a thousand listeners or viewers donates to the Open Stories foundation. We are a 501c3 nonprofit. We are transparent. We're not a harmful cult. And if you want to have more programming like this, please consider a donation today. Go to MormonStories.org, click on the donate button at the top of the page. You can become a monthly donor. And we'll always be transparent in our finances. Every dollar that you donate goes to the cause of helping people heal and grow after orthodox Mormonism.

John Dehlin [01:11:55] And and we will continue bringing on amazing guests like Dr. Stephen Hassan for as long as you're willing to support us. You can give us positive reviews on on Apple podcast app, on the the Facebook Mormon Stories podcast page. You can share this podcast and others on social media. Please share this interview with anyone that you think might benefit from it and just spread the word and spread the love. And if all you do is heal and grow, that's all. That's the most any of us could really hope for, ask for. So please do that. Remember, Thrive means that there's healing and growth after being in a harmful cult.

John Dehlin [01:12:36] Be good to each other, love each other. And please email me with any feedback you have@mormonstoriesgmail.com I love your feedback, I love your suggestions. And again, thanks again to all of you who joined us today. And thanks to Dr. Stephen Hasson for his help up. You guys take care and we'll see you again soon on another episode of Mormon Story Podcast. Take care everybody.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.