Welcome and Introduction to the Episode

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. I am your host for today, John Dehlin. It is March 16, 2023 and we are super excited to have back on Mormon Stories. Kind of a legend and a world leader in understanding cults and in helping people break free. We have with us Dr. Stephen Hasson. Hey, Stephen. Welcome to Mormon Story Studios.

Steven Hassan [00:00:28] Thanks, John. It's so great to be here and nice to meet you in person. Final.

John Dehlin [00:00:32] Yeah, I picked you up at the airport last night and it's been fun to get to know you a little bit.

Steven Hassan [00:00:35] Yeah. And we went for a latte and the Starbucks woman called you out. And me too, called us out.

John Dehlin [00:00:42] Yeah. So I'm getting Steven a latte and the woman's like, are you John De Lynn? I was like, embarrassed. Yeah. And then she looked over and she says, wait, are you Stephen Assen?

Steven Hassan [00:00:51] It was really funny.

John Dehlin [00:00:52] I think there's probably like three people in all of Utah that would be able to identify as both, only because we run in different circles sometimes. But that was really fun.

Steven Hassan [00:01:00] Yeah, we snapped some selfies, so that was fun too.

John Dehlin [00:01:04] So it's, it's been an honor to bring Stephen Hasson here to Utah. We've wanted to have him come for a long, long time. I'm going to just do a quick little intro about a couple things and then we're going to jump in. Today's episode is going to be all about Stephen's story.

John Dehlin [00:01:21] So tomorrow we're going to have him back to talk about his work with cults and with people leaving cults and then with, with people trying to heal and grow from having bidden cults or high demand religions. But just to give you a quick couple things about Stephen, the book that we brought him on to discuss before, the book that I think if there's one book you read from Stephen, I'm going to recommend, it's this one, Combating Cult Mind Control. The number one best selling guide to protection, rescue and recovery from destructive cults.

John Dehlin [00:01:55] Stephen is the founder or the author or the originator of the bite model, Behavior, Information, thoughts and emotions, which is a really valuable way along with his influence continuum to evaluate undue influence or unhealthy organizations or relationships. And by the way, his work applies not just to churches and religions, but to governments, to, to educational institutions, to gurus, to yoga instructors, to multi level marketing scams, to, you know, even podcasters. Like it's applicable, it's, it's, it's applicable in your marriage, with your relationship with your parents. Like it's all about just coercion and undue influence and learning about how to, how to deal with it. There's a second book that he, he's the author of several books.

John Dehlin [00:02:47] A second book that we're going to be referencing today and tomorrow is Freedom of Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, cults and Beliefs. He has a third book called the Cult of Trump, which we're not going to be covering today and tomorrow just to avoid polarization and getting distracted. On Mormon stories, I try and stay away from talking about politics, but Steven would tell you it's one of his most important books. So you guys can check that out if you want. We won't be covering that today or tomorrow, but we're also bringing Stephen here to speak to Mormons and post Mormons along the Wasatch front.

John Dehlin [00:03:24] So in the description on both YouTube and Facebook right now, there's several links. Tonight Stephen's going to be speaking at the Lost and Found Club, which is led by Chelsea Homer, dear friend of mine. She has a Facebook group called the Faith Journey Meetups, which is like almost 10,000 post Mormon women who provide support to each other. Stephen speaking tonight. There's still tickets available for that if you want to click and see Steven tonight.

John Dehlin [00:03:53] I think it's in Sandy, but check out the Lost and Found Club link for that Saturday. Stephen speaking at thrive. There's two thrive you thrive unite is happening like in 20 cities across the world. Stephen's going to be speaking at Lehigh Thrive in the morning in Lehigh, Utah and then at Ogden Thrive in the afternoon. So those are two opportunities you have to see Steven speak. There are links to Thrive Unite also in the show notes right now in the description. And then finally, Stephen and I are hosting an all day workshop in Alpine, Utah this Sunday. And there are still tickets available for that if you want to see us do our thing for a full day, something we've never done before.

John Dehlin [00:04:36] So we're really excited about that. And then the last thing, the most important thing I think for Steven, other than you buying right now his books, which I encourage you all to do, Stephen has an amazing online course that he's made available. It's like nine hours of amazing content. A foundational course of his thoughts and feelings. Kind of like 40 years. How many years worth of of work

Steven Hassan [00:04:59] have you done in now? 47, John.

John Dehlin [00:05:01] 47? Yeah, 47 years working in Colts. He's put together a foundational course for clinicians, but also for you and for your friends, for coaches, for anyone who thinks they could benefit from his 47 years of expertise on Colts. I highly recommend it. In the show notes and descriptions right now there's a link and you can purchase the course and it's a way to support him and his lifelong dedication to supporting people escaping from cults and high demand religions and then rebuilding healthy happy lives. Stephen also works as a coach or as a, he has a PhD. He, he has done the graduate work in in mental health but he works helping people transition out of unhealthy culture organizations but also dealing with family members with personal assistance.

John Dehlin [00:05:54] Zoom calls interventions to help people who are in need whether it's you or dear friends or family. So that's my introduction, Steven. He's also been on every single media outlet you can think of. Oprah, Bill O'Reilly, CNN, you know, CS, you know, ABC, New York Times, Wall Street Journal. You really can't mention a prominent media outlet probably that Stephen hasn't been on multiple times. So he's a real global thought leader. And Stephen, what did I miss or what would you want to add to your intro?

Steven Hassan's Path Into the Moonies

Steven Hassan [00:06:27] Well, I would just say that I got interested in the subject because I was recruited into the moonies cult in 74. So if we add in my two and a half years in the Moonies then I'm going to be 49 years of doing this. But really what propelled me and has continued to propel me was that it happened to me and I had experienced a radical personality change and cut off from my family and friends and became a right wing fascist person who was capable of violence if I was ordered to do so. And I was deprogrammed. We'll do that tomorrow. But the rest the beginning was just trying to figure out what the hell happened to me and researching and some of the top people saying you really should study psychology and explain it further.

Steven Hassan [00:07:21] So I, I owe my family for helping to rescue me out of the Moonies after near fatal van crash. And February of 2024 will be 50 years, my 50 year anniversary.

John Dehlin [00:07:35] Amazing.

Steven Hassan [00:07:35] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:07:36] Yeah. So that's a good preview for today because today we're not going to be dealing into the clinical or the procedural or the structural ideas around cults and and his life body of work. Today we're just going to do a traditional Mormon story where Stephen tells his story. We're live streaming it because we wanted to promote his upcoming events this weekend.

Steven Hassan [00:07:59] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:07:59] And Samantha Shelley from Zepp on the Shelf will be joining us in just a bit. We notified her last minute that we wanted her to help co host but we're gonna, we're gonna try and tell your story in kind of a maybe a two to three hour engagement. So.

Steven Hassan [00:08:12] Never been done before. So. Yeah, I try to calm my nerves.

John Dehlin [00:08:17] Yeah. And I just want to say that, like, your story deserves high quality audio and video. And so that's why I'm really grateful we were able to fly you here and spent today doing this.

Steven Hassan [00:08:32] Yeah, no, I'm excited. And we'll do more tomorrow.

John Dehlin [00:08:34] Yeah. Okay, so let's jump in. Stephen, normally I say, how does your Mormon story begin? But you don't necessarily have a Mormon story, do you?

Growing Up Jewish and Early Beliefs

Steven Hassan [00:08:44] Nope.

John Dehlin [00:08:45] So tell us just a tiny bit about your parents. Whatever you're comfortable sharing.

Steven Hassan [00:08:50] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:08:51] And did they have a religious upbringing or a cult upbringing? And then did they raise you with any, you know, religious or spiritual foundation? Let's start there.

Steven Hassan [00:09:02] Okay. So I was born in 1954 in Flushing, Queens, New York. I have two older sisters, Thea and Stephanie. So I was the youngest of three. My mom got her master's and became an art teacher in middle school when, I guess, turned 12. So she was like a homemaker. And then she became a teacher and an art teacher. My dad had been a musician growing up. He actually played trumpet in the army during World War II, but went into his father's hardware store business.

Steven Hassan [00:09:46] When he met my mom, he wanted to have more stability than being a musician, I'm told. So I grew up going to Hasson Hardware in Ozone Park, Queens. And I grew up in a small attached house on 172nd street near Union Turnpike, just opposite St. John's University.

Steven Hassan [00:10:10] And St. John's is a Catholic college, big on basketball. And I grew up with the Knicks and basketball. I'm 6ft tall, but I love that sport. So I grew up playing basketball. I was a very introverted kid. I was told by my mom that in the beginning they were worried that I had a developmental problem because I wasn't doing baby talk. And then when I started talking, I was talking in sentences.

Steven Hassan [00:10:40] And then they realized I. I was bright, I guess, and I loved to read. I was a basic introvert. And so I was reading, you know, textbook chap, you know, major books, even when I was 7, 8, 9 years old. So I was kind of interested in big topics. So what else do you know?

John Dehlin [00:11:07] So you, you have Jewish ancestry, right?

Steven Hassan [00:11:10] Yes. Forgive me.

John Dehlin [00:11:11] So, and even before your parents, like, do you know about your Jewish ancestry prior to your parents?

Steven Hassan [00:11:17] Yes. Good question. So I'll, I'll, I'll answer that by saying my mom Grew up Orthodox Jewish. So my grandparents were Orthodox. They were in Bronx. My dad was much more of a cultural Jew and not as observant, but my mom lit Shabbat candles. We had a kosher household, which means separating milk from meat things and no shellfish, no pork in the house, and different dishes for milk and meat types of things. I went to temple on Shabbat. I was bar mitzvahed. I really didn't like the Judaism I was taught as a child. It didn't make sense to me.

John Dehlin [00:12:08] Why not?

Steven Hassan [00:12:11] I just couldn't relate to the notion of a divine being that was angry and judgmental and would deliberately harden Pharaoh's heart in order and, or do plagues and kill firstborns. Like what? Like that was so bizarro for me.

John Dehlin [00:12:32] And you. And you. You tuned into that as a, as a kid.

Steven Hassan [00:12:36] Oh, I was reading philosophy books as a child. So by the time I was bar mitzvahed, I was very identified as a Jew. And I should add that I've had a very weird experience because my last name is spelled H A S S A N. So many people mispronounce it as Hassan.

Steven Hassan [00:12:59] And that was the name of the cousin of Muhammad of the Muslim religion. And so I, you know, many Jews thought I was an Arab or they thought I was a Muslim. And so I experienced discrimination. And after 9, 11, I had trouble getting on an airplane because of the spelling of my last name. I went to Israel to do an archaeological dig in the Negev Desert at Tel Be' er Sheva or Beersheba, which is in the Bible.

Steven Hassan [00:13:33] And they almost, these Israelis wouldn't, almost didn't let me on the airplane because I thought I might be an Arab terrorist or something. So that's always been interesting to me. But also I've always been a human rights kind of guy and really believe in things like honesty and justice and human rights. So that was my early childhood. I, I, so theologically, the belief in

John Dehlin [00:14:03] God, the belief in Judaism is the Jewish people is like God's chosen people. The belief in like a literal Adam and Eve and, and a literal Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and a global flood, you know, how did you, how did you, Joan and the whale, how did you square those very traditional Jewish teachings?

Steven Hassan [00:14:27] You know, so you're asking me when I was five, ten.

John Dehlin [00:14:30] Yeah.

Steven Hassan [00:14:31] Or so.

John Dehlin [00:14:31] Yeah.

Steven Hassan [00:14:34] I did not believe in a literal Adam and Eve story at all. That didn't make sense because I grew up with science and, and evolution and so that, you know, they were myths and my, my Education as a Jew was that we were chosen, but we were chosen to be serv. And we were not better than others. We just had an obligation, a special obligation to do what's called tikkun olam, which is repair the world. It's a very important value that I grew up with, that I still continue to believe in. That we have an obligation as human beings to not just take care of ourselves, but to take care of others, to make the world a little bit better place.

John Dehlin [00:15:30] Would you have been taught by your rabbis to not take the Torah literally?

Steven Hassan [00:15:37] Jews do not take the Torah literally.

John Dehlin [00:15:40] Okay.

Steven Hassan [00:15:40] Period. Like, that's never been the case.

John Dehlin [00:15:43] Okay. I don't want to I'll say juice, blame you, but do whatever you want. Like my understanding, there's ultra Orthodox Judaism, there's Conservative Judaism or Orthodox Judaism, and I know those are even separate things, Conservative versus Orthodox. But then there's like Reform Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism.

Steven Hassan [00:16:02] There's a whole spectrum. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:16:04] And so wouldn't. Wouldn't the more conservative branches of Judaism take the Bible literally?

Steven Hassan [00:16:11] Not at all. Not even the Orthodox or the ultra Orthodox. The old religion was like temple sacrifice of animals. And when the temple was destroyed, Judaism transformed to be a rabbinic interpretation religion.

John Dehlin [00:16:29] Which means what?

Steven Hassan [00:16:30] It means that, that the few people, mostly guys, my understanding, mostly male, patriarchal, was an oral tradition where they would memorize Torah, eventually got written down on. On parchment as the Torah scrolls. But from its ever since the temple was destroyed, it's all about rabbinic interpretation of what was in the Torah. And honestly, a lot of things have been mistranslated, especially by Christians and others that have nothing to do with Judaism. They just don't get the core concepts even of Judaism.

John Dehlin [00:17:18] Well, I don't. I mean, I don't, I don't want to belabor this point, but like, you're telling me like a Hasidic rabbi doesn't believe that Moses was a historical figure?

Steven Hassan [00:17:27] Oh, no, they would believe that Moses was a historical figure and God spoke at Sinai and many different religions, they would believe that. But they don't look at the Torah without rabbinic interpretation.

John Dehlin [00:17:42] Okay.

Steven Hassan [00:17:43] They don't just read the words in Hebrew and, and say, this is the, the literal, inerrant word of God that can't be changed.

John Dehlin [00:17:55] But there would be a branch of Jews somewhere that believed in a literal Adam and Eve and in a literal global flower.

Steven Hassan [00:18:02] I would agree that for me, so I believe in a continuum. And there are ultra Orthodox people that would look at me and say, I'm not a Jew? Yeah, because I eat shellfish.

John Dehlin [00:18:16] Right.

Steven Hassan [00:18:17] Or because I drive to my temple on Shabbat and for them doing anything that is work. Because they take that verse literally. Yeah, but my rabbi drives to temple in order to lead services, and for him, it's work to do a service sermon and everything else.

John Dehlin [00:18:40] Was your, Was your temple growing up considered a Reform?

Steven Hassan [00:18:45] No, it was considered conservative. So males were asked to wear yarmulkes or kippas on their head all of

John Dehlin [00:18:54] the time or just when they're in the temple?

Steven Hassan [00:18:56] In temple, in the, in the sanctuary of the. So the temple had a lot of offices and school office space, etc. But in the sanctuary where the, where the Torah resides, in the ark where I grew up, men and women and if women wanted to, would wear talit or taluses, the prayer shawls and yarmulkes. And typically when I went as a child, I would dress up with a tie and, you know, not go in tattered jeans and, and sandals.

John Dehlin [00:19:37] So your, your beliefs growing up as a Jew were non, non literal. You believe, you do. You trump science, trumped stories of the Bible. You saw the Bible as kind of fable or myth?

Steven Hassan [00:19:50] They would definitely. And the mindset is that Judaism evolved because it started as a cult of the temple where these high priests would take animals and sacrifice them. And the idea was that you could atone for your sins through your using the high priest. And there was a whole set of rituals and ornaments and, and such. And I know we're talking about my early childhood, but tomorrow or whatever, we can talk about where I've been out for the last 15, 20 years. Because it's evolved, right? Because, because I pretty much was disillusioned with Judaism. And by the time I went through my bar mitzvah, I was just like, okay, well, I. I'll play on my temple's baske team. But that was kind of where I was at.

John Dehlin [00:20:45] So what made you become disillusioned with Judaism? What were the main pillars of your disillusionment?

Steven Hassan [00:20:55] So you, you need to understand. My father worked on Shabbat. It was his big day of the week in the hardware store. And I was brought in to work with him because he wanted me not to be an introvert, and he wanted me to learn the importance of work and talking to strangers and sell them paint or screws or fixing windows and all of those kinds of things. So it was my mom's side of the family where, like, lighting the candles and celebrating the fact that there was a day that was supposed to be not about the worldly work, but a day of, of family and good food and napping and, and going. Going to temple. Yes, but a day of contemplation and soul restoration. And I still love the idea of Shabbat and I think. And I do Torah study every, Every Saturday morning.

John Dehlin [00:22:02] Going back to them?

Steven Hassan [00:22:03] Yeah, no, back to then. My childhood. So it was interesting because my father's side was very secular and cultural and my mother's side was very religious. And I love my grand father. And he would put on tefillin, which is a, A prayer leather scroll of dedication. So he would go in the basement by the. Our washing machine and daven and do his, his, his prayers. And for him it was really important. And my mom was, Would pray for things. And so there was. And I love my mom. I was very close with her, much more emotionally close than with my dad growing up.

John Dehlin [00:22:48] So given your mom loved it so much, what led to your disillusionment? What. What were the top three to five things you became disillusioned with with your Jewish upbringing?

Steven Hassan [00:23:03] It's a very interesting point. No one's asked me this, were they

John Dehlin [00:23:08] mean, were they strict? Did you just not like the doctrine?

Steven Hassan [00:23:11] It wasn't strict. And I had friends who weren't kosher and were, you know, they were Jewish culturally, but they weren't observant. And somewhere around, I don't know, 10, 11, 12, we would start eating out at Chinese restaurants and I was exposed to pork and I would eat it and I didn't. Nothing bad happened to me. And shellfish, I kind of like scallops and shrimp and lobster.

Steven Hassan [00:23:43] So it started, you know, culinarily for me to not following kosher laws, but otherwise I didn't feel like it resonated with my sense of the divine. That said, I always had a faith in God from my childhood, and I still do. But it's not this notion of a anthropomorphized guy floating in the clouds with a beard, you know, who's a judge and who harden, you know, has anger and it's gonna wipe out the world.

Steven Hassan [00:24:25] That just never made sense to me. And it felt more like it was a Greek or Roman God's kind of orientation to me than what made sense to me. And of course, I want to emphasize that I grew up post Holocaust, and while I didn't lose any family, this was something from my earliest memory that the Nazis rounded up so many people and killed them.

Steven Hassan [00:25:00] And because we were Jewish, even if we didn't believe religiously, so that Was an important part of my psyche was that we were a small minority religion and that a lot of people blamed us for a lot of the world problems and therefore we should stick together against, you know, the, the, the masses, so to speak.

John Dehlin [00:25:29] So it sounds like theologically the idea of a anthropomorphic God didn't make sense.

Steven Hassan [00:25:34] Never made sense to me.

John Dehlin [00:25:36] You didn't like kosher, the dietary?

Steven Hassan [00:25:38] It wasn't that I didn't like, didn't. I didn't feel like guilty if I went out and had a White Castle hamburger or, you know, whatever.

John Dehlin [00:25:50] And with the Holocaust, did you just feel like if we're the chosen, that's not, that's not a. It doesn't seem like a great honor to be chosen. Was that part of it? Just like if we're God's chosen people and, and humanity keeps punishing us so severely, maybe, maybe I'm not super interested in being one of God's chosen.

Steven Hassan [00:26:09] So I really want to emphasize that from. In my experience and the people that I know growing up, the notion of being chosen is not the same as outsiders who project that we think we're superior and therefore we should run everything. Right.

John Dehlin [00:26:26] That's not what I meant. Sorry. I just meant that there's got to be some irony to the idea of a chosen people. But then to see that severe persecution the Jews have experienced for millennia. I'm just saying you mentioned the Holocaust as I talked to you about disillusionment was the Holocaust.

Steven Hassan [00:26:47] You know, that makes me want to identify more as a Jew.

John Dehlin [00:26:51] Oh, okay.

Steven Hassan [00:26:51] Not less, not less.

John Dehlin [00:26:52] So the Holocaust didn't really factor into your disillusionment?

Steven Hassan [00:26:56] No, no.

John Dehlin [00:26:58] Okay.

Steven Hassan [00:26:59] I. There's a few other things I want to just say about my, my memory of my childhood and how I thought of things. So one, One of the messages that, that I received is your education is they can't take that away from you. If the Nazis show up, they could take your house, they could take your art, they can take your car, but they can't take your mind.

Steven Hassan [00:27:28] So that, that was something that still is really, really important. And the other thing I want to emphasize was that one of the most important hol up Jewish is the liberation from bondage story from Pharaoh. And I believe that, you know, this getting together, having matzah, it's called Passover, to remember being a slave, to remember that, you know, people didn't want to leave the comfort of Egypt and you know, the scary, this whole scary thing, but this notion that people were enslaved but didn't Know about it. And we can talk more about this tomorrow if you want. But it's a very important theme also, I believe into, when I reflect back on my life journey, that this is a liberation from cult mind control story that I grew up with. I got into a cult.

The Influence Continuum and Leaving Judaism

John Dehlin [00:28:34] Okay, so, so do you, you know, we'll be talking about the influence continuum, but do you consider your Jewish upbringing as. Where do you put that on the influence continuum? With. With acknowledging that our audience doesn't even really have an introduction to the influence continuum, but just pretend they did. Where. Where would you put your upbringing on the influence continuum?

Steven Hassan [00:28:59] So because it's a continuum to ethical to unethical, it was. Was much more over to the ethical informed consent. I never felt coerced to believe or to. I had to go to services. It was more like a social thing to do with my grandfather when he visited or, you know, I, I typically, I never went with my dad to services except during my bar mitzvah or something like that. Was a, A marking of becoming an adult. You know, when you're 13 and you read from the scroll and you give a little davar or a teaching and it's like public speaking practice in the Jewish religion. But I was always interested in ideas, many different kinds of ideas. And I never felt constrained by my family or my culture or my religion that I had that I had to be in a box.

John Dehlin [00:30:04] Yeah. Okay, so what was your mom or your mom's side of the family frustrated when they. When she noticed you were kind of distancing yourself from the faith? Was there any family drama about apostasy in Mormon language or.0. She was even sad to see you becoming secular?

Steven Hassan [00:30:23] I don't think so. I think. Well, my mom was one of these women who was saintly, if I can use that Christian esque term. She was just unconditionally loving and creative and kind and believed, you know, the best in people. She was a bit of a worry wart, which is her parents. They worried about everything. So I picked up some of that worry gene, I think, from that side of the family. But no, they just wanted me to be happy and safe and they wanted me to. I was bullied a bit in elementary school because I was a bit of a nerd, I guess, to use that language. But I was good at school. So some people may have felt intimidated or, you know, jealous or whatever, but, you know, things came easily to me in school. In fact, I was pretty bored in school. So I was always like reading books.

John Dehlin [00:31:29] Right. Overall then, do you feel Like Judaism provided you with the valuable structure to grow up. And when I say absolutely, like identity, community, morality, spirituality was a good container for you to develop within.

What Made Hassan Vulnerable to Recruitment

Steven Hassan [00:31:46] Yes, you, Yeah, I really do. I, I, when I, when I talk about my life experience to other people. And the only other person who asked me about Judaism was Joe Rogan. I know I'm jumping out of frame to the 2015, but when he heard I was a Jew, he asked me questions for 30 minutes because he had knew nothing about Judaism and he was shocked that a cult expert who knew, you know, was into Judaism. But, so anyway, I, I want to stay faithful to your desire to keep me in my childhood. But my recollections were really, I was into, you know, TV was happening.

Steven Hassan [00:32:29] We've had a black and white tv and I spent a lot of time watching all kinds of. Really? Yes. And yeah. But I also was into combat and some of the post World War II war things. In fact, I talk about my, my child parts that I had grown out of that got recruited to become a Mooney. But that we can talk about tomorrow.

John Dehlin [00:32:55] No, we're talking about the Mooney stuff today.

Steven Hassan [00:32:57] Oh, yeah. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:32:58] Okay. So, okay.

Steven Hassan [00:32:59] But I, I was, I was not to, to sound extreme, but I was reading philosophy, like postgraduate philosophy books when I was seven, eight, nine years of age. So I was just thinking in a way, like, why isn't the world better? Like, why are things so screwed up? This is not the way it should be. Why is there racism? Why is there injustice?

John Dehlin [00:33:28] So how do you go from what sounds like a really idyllic Jewish upbringing into a cult? Take us through. Like, it would seem like you, you were given a good upbringing. You loved science, you love to learn, and you were curious and had a great upbringing. Take us to the path that leads you to join a cult. Well, so what made you vulnerable and, or interested?

Steven Hassan [00:34:01] So nobody joins a cult knowing what it is. I need to state that categorically. So for me, I was, I was in the last draft lottery to go to Vietnam. I grew up, you know, being very like, we have to fight evil. And we fought Hitler in World War II, and then of course, the communism threat, we would get under our wooden desks because Russia might nuke us at any moment. So that kind of mentality, John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Martin Luther King was assassinated.

Steven Hassan [00:34:41] We were in the Vietnam War. This didn't make a lot of sense that we were not doing anything but harming a lot of civilians and spending a lot of money and that made no sense. Etc, and, and I've discovered I like to write poetry.

Steven Hassan [00:34:59] So I found my voice. I think it was in third grade. I had a teacher who encouraged me to write and to do art. And so that's kind of. Steven was. And it's. It's an art form where it's kind of free form, trance writing, you know, like words that come to you and you put them down and then you reshape them to communicate a feeling or a thought or an idea or a series of things. So that's kind of where I was at. I had skipped eighth grade because in New York City you could if you scored high on the tests. So I was 17 when I graduated high school.

John Dehlin [00:35:44] What year was that?

Steven Hassan [00:35:46] I want to say 71.

John Dehlin [00:35:48] Okay.

Steven Hassan [00:35:48] My father said, you know, being the male child, both my sisters got married very young in their lives. So. And my mom was an art teacher. My father said, you want to take the business over? It's a good business. It's, you know, you can make a great living. It's very secure. And I'm like that. I can't see myself selling, you know, being in a hardware business, threading pipe and pumping kerosene into to alcohol bottles, which I did in the back.

Steven Hassan [00:36:22] And so he said, I have, you know, high blood pressure, varicose veins, and, you know, your sisters have left the house. I think I'm going to sell the business. And I was like, great. He said, well, then you have to go to college or get a job.

Steven Hassan [00:36:37] Like, those are your options. And in retrospect, that was an error. If I could go back in time and tell my parents there was no such thing as a gap year back then, I would have said, don't rush them into college.

Steven Hassan [00:36:53] And I'll also say that I had, in retrospect, a very insulated experience growing up, because all my friends, all of my cultural interactions were with fellow Jews, and I knew nothing about Christianity or any other world religion. And it wasn't until I was in college that I got to start talking with people and learning about all these other religions. And I wish that I had been taught in my Hebrew school. As my son later was, here's what Christians teach and here's what Muslims teach, and here's what Buddhism teaches to just, like, say, hey, there's a lot of different paths to being spiritual.

Steven Hassan [00:37:40] So there was some ignorance about that, that that played into it. But the truth of the matter is, I was not a joiner. Like, I think I was in my sixth grade chorus, and I was on a basketball team. I wasn't good enough to be on my high school team because I was only 6ft tall. We had a 6 foot 11 center. We were citywide champions. But I scored rebounds and I helped in the practices. That was as good as I could get in terms of basketball. Anyway, I lost my train of thought,

John Dehlin [00:38:12] so let's try and really narrow in. So I'm assuming you're in college. What was it about your state that made you vulnerable to. Let me just give you a couple options. Were you depressed? Were you lonely? Did you not have a sense of meaning and purpose? What primed you to be open to.

Guest [00:38:32] No.

Steven Hassan [00:38:32] I was a creative writing major and I was working as a banquet waiter at the Holiday Inn in Hempstead on the weekends to make money. I should also add, when I turned 17, I had a thing with my father where I said, because I was earning money in the hardware store, I said, I'm going to buy a motorcycle. And my father said, they're too dangerous. And I said, I can't afford a car.

Steven Hassan [00:38:59] And he said, so if I get you a car, will you promise not to get a motorcycle? And I said, sure. And I came home one day and he handed me keys to a gold Dodge Dart Swinger with a vinyl roof. And I was 17.

Steven Hassan [00:39:17] And I just love cars and driving and. But the. The point is, is that I. To answer your question, I loved women. I started dating, like, for me, I was a young kid, but my hormones were normal and fell in love with a woman at 17 and she broke my heart. And I wrote a whole bunch of poem.

Steven Hassan [00:39:43] And. And, and so what made me vulnerable, I had another girlfriend, a model who dumped me very abruptly and rudely. And so I was kind of down about, you know, this really sucks. I really cared about her and, you know, is this what love is? And it really sucks. And I was just beginning the spring semester. It was February of 1974. And three women at the college cafeteria asked if they could join me at my table because I was waiting for my next class. I had just gotten my textbooks for college and I said, sure. And they started flirting with me. What later is called love bombing.

John Dehlin [00:40:31] We also call it flirt to convert.

Steven Hassan [00:40:33] Yeah, well, I learned how to do that as a good Mooney. So I was not looking to join anything. And your heart broken.

John Dehlin [00:40:42] And you were kind of.

Steven Hassan [00:40:43] I had my heart broken and these three really attractive women just like zoomed in on me. Those books are really. I think I had high diggers being in time. I think I had a book on the UPADA shots I had a philosophy of religion class, I believe, and they just flirted with me. And I said, are you students? Yes, we are. You know, are you part of some religious group? No, we're not.

Steven Hassan [00:41:13] Well, so what, what are you up to? Well, we part of the student movement trying to make the world a better place. Maybe you'd like to come visit some of our friends tonight for a free dinner. And I knew nothing about cults. And I should also add, I forgot to mention this, but I bicycled across the US when I was 16.

Steven Hassan [00:41:37] I. I worked in the Negev desert. At 17, I drove across Canada to Alaska when I was 18 with my buddy Lenny, all the way up the Alcan highway to Alaska. And I was this punk 19 year old who thought I knew it all. And like, no one could mess with my mind, you know, it didn't even enter my consciousness that there was any danger at all. And my father made a big mistake.

Steven Hassan [00:42:07] When I was in the hardware store, he said, steve, you can always know when people are lying by checking out their eyes. When they're lying, their eyes are gonna like, be shifty. These women looked me dead in the eyes and lied their faces off, as I learned to do later as a good Mooney.

John Dehlin [00:42:25] Let me just test. Samantha, let's make sure your mic's working really quick.

Guest [00:42:27] Hello, Are we hearing me?

John Dehlin [00:42:29] It looks like it's working. Yeah. Audience, please text if you can't hear Samantha. Okay, so you had your heart broken and then three cute young girls. What was their pitch? These were, they were.

Steven Hassan [00:42:42] No, it was, it was like, you're fascinating, you're so smart, you're so good looking, you're, you know, like just love bombing kinds of things. And I was very vulnerable because I was, I was down and I was like, what, what's going on? This really sucks.

John Dehlin [00:43:01] So what happened next?

Steven Hassan [00:43:04] So they, they basically said, are you doing anything tonight? No. Would you like to come over and have dinner and meet some of her friends from all over the world? Sure. Here's the address. And I didn't understand what this group was. No one had heard of the Moonies by then. By the way, In February of 74, I should also add, it was the same month Patty Hearst was abducted by the Symbionese Liberation Army. Just for those people thinking historical contexts.

Steven Hassan [00:43:37] And basically I, I arrived at this house, There were about 30 people there. There were people from Holland, Germany, the UK, Japan, Korea, Australia, and probably a few other European countries. And we sat on the, on a wooden floor as food was served and Then later in the evening, oh, our friend from Holland is giving a talk. Would you like to listen?

Steven Hassan [00:44:09] Again, I had no antenna up that this is a cult and they're trying to recruit me. It was like, would you like to meet our friend? So sure. I'm generally open minded and want to learn and experience different people.

Steven Hassan [00:44:29] So I listened to this lecture and it was weird because people in the room were like falling asleep as the guy was talking. And I'm sitting there and people. And some people are like hitting themselves. And that was really weird.

Steven Hassan [00:44:48] And I don't have a lot of memory of the content of that talk. My biggest memory was people falling asleep. And then afterward when the lecturer asked me what I thought, I said like, what's up with the people who are like falling asleep? And oh, you wouldn't understand.

Steven Hassan [00:45:07] Which of course makes you more curious if somebody says something like that. Well, this teaching is really powerful and there are forces that don't want people to know. Whoa, this material, that's what he said to me.

John Dehlin [00:45:23] The people are falling asleep because of evil.

Steven Hassan [00:45:25] Unseen didn't use the word evil, but yeah, spiritual forces. That was the first word of spiritual. But again, the frame was we're not part of a religious group. They were very congruently lying to me

John Dehlin [00:45:39] that they told you flat out they're

Steven Hassan [00:45:41] not a religious group. And I don't know why I even asked the question, but obviously it was in my mind. I have a very clear memory of asking them, oh no, not at all. And I was looking at their eyes, are they lying? And it was like, nope, they're, they're on the level.

How Indoctrination Into the Unification Church Worked

John Dehlin [00:45:58] So how did your indoctrination happen?

Steven Hassan [00:46:02] It was a whole series of things that happened.

John Dehlin [00:46:07] It's just kind of like a step by step.

Steven Hassan [00:46:09] But I need to explain to you that I worked as a banquet waiter on the weekend at the Holiday Inn. And so sometimes it was a wedding, sometimes it was some other function. Each weekend was a different time to report. Sometimes it was a Friday night or a Saturday or a Sunday.

Steven Hassan [00:46:28] And they started talking about, we're all going away this on the weekend, you have to join us. And I was like, I work. Sorry. And they're like, oh, but you're gonna miss out. And it's like, too bad. That's, you know, I've worked every, every weekend for two years and that's, I need to make my money, get my gas money and whatever.

Steven Hassan [00:46:50] And they just kept repeating it. And I said, listen, I work. If sometime I don't have to work, then I'LL come. That was a mistake that I said that because two days later I called my boss up, what time do you need me? Oh, the wedding was cancelled. Take the weekend off.

Steven Hassan [00:47:14] Never happened before. So I'm like, wait a minute. I wasn't that suspicious or whatever, but I was like, I don't know, this is really weird, a synchronicity or something. And maybe I'm meant to go to this weekend together. So. And I had given my word if I don't have to work and I'm a person of my word.

John Dehlin [00:47:41] And there are cute young women.

Guest [00:47:42] Women.

Steven Hassan [00:47:43] They were cute. But, but. So yes. And I didn't have anything to do that weekend and I drove to the house and I got into their van and it went to a location I didn't know. This is way before cell phones, so nobody knew where I was going. I didn't know where I was going.

Steven Hassan [00:48:03] And as we're driving into this multi million dollar estate in Tarrytown, at the front of the van they say, oh by the way, this weekend we're having a joint workshop with the Unification Church. And I went, church? This isn't religious workshop. Nobody said anything about a workshop. I want to go back.

Steven Hassan [00:48:28] Oh, what's wrong, Steven? Are you scared or something? I'm not scared, but I want to go back. Like I'm didn't want to be part of a workshop or do something with church. I'm Jewish, I'm not interested. And they're like, do you have a thing against Christians?

Steven Hassan [00:48:49] So they did a typical mind control or turn it around on you. That is your problem versus no, they lied to me, the women who recruited me and I said I want to go back. Oh, I'm sorry, we're not going back, you know, now. But we'll go in the morning. We'll drive you back in the morning. Why don't you come in and you know, we'll get you in the morning.

Steven Hassan [00:49:13] So then I go in, there's a fireplace, people are singing folk songs, things that I grew up I didn't mention. I went to sleepaway camp during the summers when I was a child. So I had some individuation and got to be in the woods and learn how to canoe and swim and all these other things in, in summer camp.

Steven Hassan [00:49:39] But it reminded me of summer camp like you know, get around, sing, you know, 500 miles and you know, this land is your land. Other Peter, Paul and Mary types of songs. And the people seem very nice. But I just, I wanted to leave and I didn't have a way to leave in retrospect. I would like, went out and hitchhiked in the snow in a dark road. Get me out of here. But I didn't realize I was in danger.

Steven Hassan [00:50:11] So the morning comes, I didn't sleep well because there was a lot of noise. It was a group male dormitory type situation with sleeping bags, etc. And I come down, okay, I'm ready to go. Oh, the van left. So sorry.

Steven Hassan [00:50:28] Well, why don't you just go have breakfast and, you know, see what we can do. And it was just like this, one thing after another that was just delaying, delaying, delaying. And I wound up staying for two days. The end of the second night, I'm like, okay, I have class in the morning, let's go back to Queens. And they're like, oh, no, there's a third day.

Steven Hassan [00:50:56] You don't want to miss the third day, do you? And I'm like, I have class in the morning. I want to go back. Like, drive me. And so they worked on me for, I don't know, an hour or two. Persuaded me that I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn't hear the conclusion of the workshop. So I stayed a third day, missed a day of class.

John Dehlin [00:51:21] What was the general substance of the workshops?

Steven Hassan [00:51:25] So the Mooney's ideology is called the Divine principle. I later became a lecturer and recruiter for this. So I know the theology quite well. And the workshop lectures were. It was very organized. I would say there were three believers to one newcomer. But you didn't know that. Oh, you didn't know that you. Oh, absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:51:53] Creating the appearance of.

Steven Hassan [00:51:55] Correct. And then there were groups of sheeps and goats. They wanted the. The good people, they wanted to really hone in on. And each had a team leader. And then there was a spy person and they would meet in the evenings. I didn't know this at the time, but I, like I said, I. I became a leader and I understood the methodology.

Steven Hassan [00:52:22] And so there would be discussions on, like, what's going on? They would ask everyone to write a reflection sheet after each evening. So there would be these discussions on how we going to get to Steven or how we're going to get to Mary or whatever.

Steven Hassan [00:52:37] And they would orchestrate conversations in between the lectures and the work workshops and the fun sports activities that were worked into the day. You were never left alone. Even if you had to go to the bathroom, someone spontaneously needed to pee also at the same moment. But I didn't realize this all at the same time at that Moment in any case. So the theology, the theology was like if there is a God, then God's creation would be perfect, but it's not. So like what happens?

Steven Hassan [00:53:15] What went wrong? And there was a whole theology about God as masculine and feminine and give and take action and what was called the four position Foundation. There was a lot of gobbledygook in, in retrospect, but it was presented with such seriousness as if this is the ideology that will explain everything. In fact, later they would call it the completed Testament, the Old Testament, the New Testament and the completed Testament. Why? Because all of human history was to serve the coming of the Messiah on Earth to complete the original Garden of Eden goal that God wanted to create the perfect expression of his love.

John Dehlin [00:54:03] So it was rooted in the Holy Bible.

Steven Hassan [00:54:05] Oh yeah, there was a lot that was cherry picked. I mean, after I got out I did a deep dive to understand theology, talking with Jewish theologians, Christian theologians, etc. But I didn't, I didn't have any exposure to Christianity, so I really didn't know. And any talk of Jesus didn't work for me. Like I didn't have a big negative, but it was like not my worldview that I was operating from, but the idea, the Jews do have an idea of a moshiach or the Messiah, but the Jewish presentation of that person is a person who brings peace, not someone who is God in human form or anything else.

Steven Hassan [00:54:57] But like though there will be a good ending, God will send a good person that will bring an ending. So the, the idea that was put to me was, and I'll, I'll give you a quick demo of the final minutes of a three day workshop of the Moonies if you'd like, I can go into that.

Steven Hassan [00:55:22] So the lecturer would, and I should say the whole workshop was up and down emotional states and a lot of hypnotic stuff where they were asking people to visualize an ideal world or visualize all the starving children on earth, etc.

Steven Hassan [00:55:42] And the feedback sheet for me the end of the third day was, I am too blown away to write anything now as much as. Because what I again in, in, in, in analyzing after the fact, I was overloaded emotionally, psychologically. I, I, I didn't know what was up or what was down. But the, the rap was something like this and the guy would be pacing back and forth.

John Dehlin [00:56:14] So you hear, you've been hearing a

Steven Hassan [00:56:17] lot of very deep profound things in the last three days and maybe, just maybe it's a pile of rubbish. But on the other hand, what if, what if if

Guest [00:56:48] what?

Steven Hassan [00:56:49] If it's true? Could you just walk away? Let us pray. Heavenly Father, Father, we are your children. Father, please open up our hearts. Father, the world is so. For 40 minutes, 50 minutes, an hour. And then people would be broken up into small groups to pressure them to stay for the seven day workshop that starts the next morning.

Steven Hassan [00:57:25] And I had already made up my mind. I'm leaving. Like whatever they say or do, I'm out of here. This is too much. I thought I was going to have a fun weekend. What the hell's going on here? And I went home. My, my mother said, where have you been? We've been so worried about you.

Steven Hassan [00:57:46] I don't know. I was in upstate New York at this multi million dollar mansion. She said, you look like you're on drugs. Were you doing drugs? And I was like, I don't think they gave me any drugs. And my mother said, let's go talk to the rabbi. Let's go talk to the rabbi. I said, sure.

Steven Hassan [00:58:05] So we went to my temple. We've talked to the rabbi. The rabbi had no clue about cults whatsoever. He thought I was interested in becoming a Christian. My question was, is there going to be a messiah that's coming? Because part of the push is that, you know, we're coming to the end of the world history and we're going to be, you know, the world is going to be divided and God's going to restore his perfect creation and you don't want to miss it. Like if you go back to college and write poetry and the Messiah's on the earth and this monumental war with, against communism and Satan is going to happen.

Steven Hassan [00:58:45] I didn't believe in Satan growing up. I should be very clear about that. Jews don't believe in Satan or demons or evil spirit or heaven or hell either, honestly, because I forgot to mention all of that. I just want to know, is it possible that there's a messiah coming? And how would we know?

Steven Hassan [00:59:05] And he, he, he was useless. What he should have said to me is, Steven, I've never heard of this group, but I can assure you, if it's legitimate, it will stand up to scrutiny. Promise me you won't go back or interact with them for the next few weeks and let's try to find out who they are, what they believe and what's about what's about them. Like that's what he should have said. I would have been very happy with that answer and I would have been very coop.

Steven Hassan [00:59:35] But I was back at home, back in school, going, what if, What If. What if, what if? What if? And then I had what I thought was a spiritual experience. I was sitting in my bedroom. I had a whole group of books on the floor. Some of them were open.

Steven Hassan [00:59:52] One of them was a book about Ouspensky and Gurdjieff, which I didn't mention before, but again, I was reading all kinds of philosophy books. And my next door neighbor was in what turned out to be a cult called the Gurji Foundation.

Steven Hassan [01:00:10] So as I was growing up, he was brilliant. He, you know, he's very warm and loving man. Was talking about how people are walking around asleep and how we can work on our consciousness to elevate ourselves to become, you know, know, better human beings.

Steven Hassan [01:00:30] So I had read all these books and I just grabbed a book. It was by Ospensky, In Search of the Miraculous. And I just. The paragraph that my eyes focused on said something about how Gurdjieff was a pivotal person in human history because he was alive on earth.

Steven Hassan [01:00:54] And I'm reading this going, but he's dead and maybe, maybe the Messiah is coming. They didn't say it was Sun Myung Moon, by the way. This was like weeks later before they revealed that. And so again, I had this experience and I was like, am I supposed to learn more about this group? And the appeal wasn't to devote my life. The appeal was to find out more, are just expose yourself some more.

Steven Hassan [01:01:28] So I looked at that. I thought, maybe I need to go back this weekend and listen again. Because it seemed like. It seemed like the first weekend. It seemed very childish and simplistic to me, what I was being. I was very resistant to it, but they kind of broke me down over the days. But now I'm volunteering to go back a second time. And at that point they, I.

Steven Hassan [01:01:56] I did the deep dive into believing that maybe, maybe I'm at this. This chosen person at this major moment in human history and I'm supposed to help save the world and make the world a better place.

John Dehlin [01:02:13] And you said there was a spiritual experience.

Steven Hassan [01:02:16] That's what it felt like. I would. I didn't label it a spiritual experience. If anything, it was more like, know this, maybe there's something bigger going on here and I'm meant to go and

John Dehlin [01:02:31] that was sitting in your room or where were.

Steven Hassan [01:02:33] I was sitting in my bedroom and I picked up this book.

John Dehlin [01:02:36] But nothing to do with movies, had

Steven Hassan [01:02:38] nothing to do with. Had to do with another cult, which I didn't realize was a cult.

John Dehlin [01:02:43] Right.

Steven Hassan [01:02:43] But what I'm trying to convey is that I should never have gotten into this group. If that wedding was never canceled. I never would have gone. I'm sure I never would have gone.

John Dehlin [01:02:55] Lack of informed consent.

Steven Hassan [01:02:57] And, and, and I got home, I said no to the seven day workshop and they worked on me for hours trying to persuade me. And I just. And you need to get angry and assertive if you, if, unless, because if you cave then you'll, you'll do whatever they tell you to do. Because I know that. Because I became a leader and I used to do this on people to recruit them. But, but I became a true believer and a model true believer to the point where I was held up as the future of the group.

The Ingredients That Made Recruitment Possible

John Dehlin [01:03:34] So it sounds like the ingredients were, you're in your exploratory years as a young adult, you got dumped, you were probably longing for community and friends.

Steven Hassan [01:03:45] I had friends, I had community. I wanted, wanted to have a girlfriend and I liked sex a lot.

John Dehlin [01:03:52] So you were looking for a girl, but then they made you feel special and they gave you a sense of purpose and identity along with community. And that was a hook.

Steven Hassan [01:04:04] I'm, I'm resistant to your description and I'll tell you why if I can. And that is because what I've learned about the mind and about social influence is that the public tends to blame the victim as if they were weak and that's why they got in or vulnerable and that's why they got in. And I, I think human beings are, being human, going to be open to influence of all types and some good, some bad, etc.

Steven Hassan [01:04:41] And I honestly wasn't looking to leave my family, drop out of college, throw my poetry out, become a right wing fascist who would murder people without a hesitation. I was ordered to do so and, but I had friends, I had great family. I lived in this same house. My parents were there for 55 years. Like I knew all the neighbors, they knew us.

Steven Hassan [01:05:09] It was a very tight knit feeling community. So it was. And I was living at home while I was going to Queens College and working on the weekends. So it doesn't really fit in my experience. But again, as I've learned more about social influence and hypnosis, what I was doing before was a hypnotic voice.

Steven Hassan [01:05:33] You know, the deep voice where you're using the pacing and I'm not going to do more of that. But people go into an altered state when somebody's talking like that for any amount of time and the only option is to get up and walk out or get up and start walking back and forth. And keep meta commenting on what the person in the front is talking about.

John Dehlin [01:05:59] So you want to resist the suggestion that you were vulnerable in any way.

Steven Hassan [01:06:03] I was vulnerable. I was horny, I was, I was down. I really thought I would get lucky with one of the three women, honestly.

John Dehlin [01:06:12] But also they were telling you there's

Steven Hassan [01:06:14] a purpose, there was a bait and switch. It was, I was not interested in joining a group. I was not interested in joining or changing a religion.

John Dehlin [01:06:23] Tell you there's some big purpose that you're meant for and you could come be an important part.

Steven Hassan [01:06:28] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:06:29] And that it made you feel like you were part of something big, special.

Steven Hassan [01:06:33] Yes, absolutely. And it was my Japanese leader who played a central role, role in my recruitment, indoctrination. And he played a role unlike my father. And this is a, you know, again, I've done a lot of therapy myself with good therapists over the years.

Steven Hassan [01:06:53] My father was very stoic and unemotional. He almost never hugged me or his father had been an alcoholic. He died when I was very young. I never knew my grandfather, but my, my grandfather apparently had an alcoholism problem and would throw things at my father and things. And my father's idea of a good father was a father who doesn't drink and doesn't hit his kids, but he rarely would be.

Steven Hassan [01:07:25] Steven, I'm so proud of you. You're so smart. In fact, my father never went to college. She was very bright, but he, he, I felt always like, I remember asking him to help me with a third grade mathematics thing. And he was intimidated because he didn't know, I don't know what it was, if it was geometry or something like that. And it seemed so simple to me, but for him, he was intimidated. So what I'm trying to get at is my father.

Steven Hassan [01:07:57] I'll give you a story that later got resolved in therapy. But I, I did a think it was a, so A History Regents. You know, in New York there was like a statewide test for competency or whatever. I think it was American history.

Steven Hassan [01:08:17] And I got a 97 out of a hundred and one other person got a 97. And almost the whole state flow plunked that test. And half of the test was essays, so it wasn't like multiple choice guesswork. And I was so happy I got a 97. I said, Dad, I got a 97. He said, so what happened to the three points?

Steven Hassan [01:08:43] And the guy in the Moonies who became my surrogate father figure was always like, you're special. You have no idea what God has in mind for you, you have a major role to play in the history of humankind. And in the Moonies, the ideology is you have 10 generations of your ancestors in the spirit world on your mother's and father's side, and they're all stuck in low levels. And you need to do good acts to give them good spiritual vitality elements to help elevate them. So there's this huge feeling of pressure and guilt to be a good Mooney, because all these beings will accuse you for eternity if you ever betray God and leave and all of that crap.

Steven Hassan [01:09:35] So. And I guess I'm the kind of person that if I'm going to do something, I want to do it to the best of my ability. And I. And I can honestly tell you, when I was in college and I had to stand up and read a poem to a class of 20 others, I was shy and I was embarrassed.

Steven Hassan [01:09:55] The Moonies would stick me on a stage in front of hundreds of people or a thousand people, and I was speaking. I like the feeling of speaking. And that was one of the things that I can credit my cult membership that they taught me about how to run a business and how to public speak and how to go on three hours of sleep a night for seven days a week.

John Dehlin [01:10:20] And so, Steven, we're about an hour and 10 in. So I want to give you a chance to take that break.

Steven Hassan [01:10:26] I do need a break.

John Dehlin [01:10:27] So what I'm going to do is bring. Go ahead. And I'm going to bring Samantha on. Samantha, as you know, as. As we bring Steven here to Utah to talk about. About Colts and his experience with cults, it's. It's a little bit problematic because, number one, Mormons hate being referred to as a cult. And you could even say that when you hear a story about, like, the Moonies, like Steven's experience, or, you know, we mentioned Jim Jones or we mentioned Nexium or, you know, the Symbais liberation movement or Charles Manson. Like, especially when we're talking 70s cults, like, I can see why there's a. There's a line of thought which is like, don't ever call the Mormon Church a cult, because what Steven just experienced with vans taking you to a place where you're basically kidnapped for multiple days and, like, coerced and pressured in really intense ways, it's like, that's not that Mormonism isn't even in that game.

Comparing the Moonies to Other High-Demand Groups

John Dehlin [01:11:25] So it's wrong to use the same word, cult to describe the Moonies that you would describe Mormonism. I'm just curious if you have. I've been watching you reflect on similarities in your upbringing.

Guest [01:11:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:11:36] While we're giving Steven a quick break, I'm wondering what. What thoughts you have.

Guest [01:11:40] Yeah, I'm definitely relating to a lot of what he's saying as he's speaking. And obviously, undue influence is a spectrum. And, you know, there are cults where you'd be kidnapped in the van without even choosing to get into the van at all, and you're blindfolded. You know, there's things that are even worse than that, I'm sure. So it's a whole spectrum. Spectrum. But, yeah, I'm relating to so much of.

John Dehlin [01:12:01] What are some of the main parts you relate to?

Guest [01:12:04] Being a high achiever academically, being a poet, even though I wasn't very good at poetry. But, you know, I think poetry is generally associated with being maybe sensitive or having a lot of feelings or, you know, just the.

Guest [01:12:21] The interest in philosophy I relate to. Also the. You know, Stephen wasn't looking to join a group. He became sort of just curious about this group, which is how it was for me with Mormonism. I thought I was just signing up for, like. I thought the missionary lessons were sort of just like a little class where it's like, let's teach people about our religion because nobody really knows about Mormons in England. So that's what I thought I was signing up for.

Guest [01:12:48] And it's kind of tricky to talk about because. Because it. It was, you know, a friend and their family who brought me in. So it wasn't, you know, these strangers plotting to bring, you know, it's these sincere people who really, as I'm sure the Moonies sincerely believed in what they were doing.

Guest [01:13:07] But I relate to even little parts of the story, like how Stephen didn't want to really go to this weekend. I remember there was this one time I didn't want to go to another missionary lesson because I was starting to get a sense that it was a bit weird.

Guest [01:13:20] And so I was trying to get out of it and saying to my friend, oh, well, I have to go to the gym tonight. And I remember him saying, come on, Sam, you know, this is so much more important than the gym. And I didn't. But him saying that did sort of plant something there. And just that kind of what if?

Guest [01:13:38] Presenting that to the brain is quite powerful. I mean, even in, like, I do intentional living coaching and I. And the phrase what if is powerful for the brain, you know, as sort of introducing new ways of being and thinking and. Yeah. So relating to a lot Even down to the alcoholic grandfather and unemotional father. There was a lot.

John Dehlin [01:14:01] So. So as. I mean, as hesitant or as eager as some of us may be to either attach or not attach the word cult with Mormonism, if you had to. If you had to sort of so far, assess how familiar his story feels to you, like a, to F, what would you say?

Guest [01:14:21] Yeah, I mean, it's different by a flavor or a couple of degrees, but it's really not that different. It's. I am relating a lot. Yeah. And I definitely consider Mormonism a cult, having been converted to it.

Steven Hassan [01:14:31] Yeah.

Guest [01:14:31] Especially at 17. Similar sort of age.

John Dehlin [01:14:34] Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, I'm really glad you're here, Samantha.

Guest [01:14:37] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:14:37] Yeah.

Guest [01:14:37] This is very interesting.

John Dehlin [01:14:39] Yeah. Well, Steven, this is great. So I'm gonna ask you to do something that maybe you're not prepared to do, but I'm gonna give you. Give it a try. Let's just say you had one minute or a minute and a half in an elevator and you had to describe the most important Mooney beliefs, like the elevator pitch of Mormons. Call it the plan of salvation. It's like, here it is. You were spirited before heaven. God sent us to earth to get a body so that you could have experiences on earth. Earth. But we all sin. So God sent Jesus to sins.

Steven Hassan [01:15:11] I don't know if I can do it in a minute. Can I do two?

John Dehlin [01:15:13] Yeah, two minutes.

Steven Hassan [01:15:15] So Almighty God is perfect and wanted to create the perfect expression of his love. He created Adam and Eve before they reach maturity. Lucifer had sexual hard on for Eve and had sex with her. And she. He had sex with Adam, bringing in a fall of man. All this satanic evil blood lineage. All of human history is to restore that ideal world. Jesus failed his mission.

John Dehlin [01:15:49] What?

Steven Hassan [01:15:50] Totally? I can't say totally. He half failed his mission because John the Baptist was supposed to become his disciple. The Jews were supposed to march on Rome and take over Rome. And John the Baptist failed. And Jesus was the result of a woman and a man, not virgin birth.

Steven Hassan [01:16:14] And Jesus lost faith on the cross even. But he offered spiritual salvation. He asked Moon. So history was trying to purify blood lineage from Israel to Korea. And the new messiah is Sun Myung Moon, who was asked by Jesus to complete his failed mission to restore the world to God. And we're supposed to all speak Korean. All religions will be abolished. And democracy is satanic. And it should be a hegemonic nepotistic system.

Steven Hassan [01:16:54] And the thing that made the Mooney so famous were the mass weddings where Moon would line up thousands of male and female devotees and say, you and you. You and you. You. And. Because he supposedly could read everything about your spirit and know everything because he was the perfect, sinless Adam.

Steven Hassan [01:17:16] And. And you were supposed to have five minutes to decide whether you want to do a God wants for you. And of course, everybody, almost everybody, said yes to the mask match. Then you were split, and you had to hit each other with a wooden stick on the butt as hard as possible. Male hitting the female on the butt to root out and pay indemnity for the sin of Adam and Eve having, you know, illicit sex.

Steven Hassan [01:17:46] Then people would be separated. But the point is, these people didn't know each other. They didn't consent. Many didn't speak the same languages, and they were often sent off on missions where they didn't even see each other for years.

Steven Hassan [01:18:00] And. And what else? They want to take over the world. They think all other. Everything other than them is evil and needs to be restored. And the Moonies are still very active to this day.

John Dehlin [01:18:16] Wow. So really quickly, the Bible says explicitly that Mary was a virgin. Like, what did they. How did they. They get around parts of that theology and doctrine that you just told me when it contradicts with the actual phraseology of the Bible.

Steven Hassan [01:18:33] So now we're getting into theology and that it's not my strength, but I can tell you that much of the New Testament was mistranslations of the Hebrew scriptures. No. According to scholars. And the word for maiden is not the same as verge. A virgin.

John Dehlin [01:18:55] Okay. So they would have said a Mr. Virgin is a mistrans.

Steven Hassan [01:18:57] Yeah. And the. One of the big appeals of the Moonies is they were going to unite science and religion. They actually had Nobel scientists and they would spend millions of dollars doing this conference for the unity. Unity of the sciences and religions. And they would quote Einstein, they would quote other famous people to portray that we really are grounded in reality. It's not just poofy, you know, religious beliefs, but we. We're about restoring, you know, true love. But coming back to the mass weddings, you have to understand, Moon was married many times before the current woman who's running the group now, and. And had a child out of wedlock and all kinds of other affairs, even though members were not allowed to masturbate or ever have sex without permission with their. Their assigned partner. So there was. There's a whole dark side of the actual cult.

John Dehlin [01:20:03] So let's. That was beautiful. You knocked it out of the park. Great job. Thank you.

Steven Hassan [01:20:08] I don't know if Other former Moonies would have say, but you forgot. Well they're not on the histories of the parallel, the parallels of history of restoration. That's a good one. So they, they, they try to, they have a timeline where they try to predict that the Messiah is born between 1917 and 1930 and Moon was conveniently born in 1920. But and as a lecturer, as was done when I was being recruited and indoctrinated, the lecture would say and you can go to the library and you can open up the history text textbooks and you can check this out, that this is true. And I would repeat that same BS only when I checked it out, the timelines were wrong.

John Dehlin [01:20:51] Oh yeah.

Steven Hassan [01:20:52] Like not even close.

John Dehlin [01:20:54] So, so big lie.

Steven Hassan [01:20:56] Big lie.

John Dehlin [01:20:57] Yeah. A plus on describing an introduction to Mooney doctrine of theology. Will you now back up and tell us the history of Sun Young Moon and what we know about his life before he started this church? And just a little bit about, he's, he's passed away now.

Sun Myung Moon and Unification Church History

Steven Hassan [01:21:15] 2012. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:21:17] So

Steven Hassan [01:21:19] I want to invite people to come to freedomofmind.com I have lots of documents including a former government subcommittee investigation on Korean CIA activities in the United States on the Moonies. And again, you need to understand that I was told certain things in the cult as a leader and I had maybe 100 leadership meetings where I was in the room with Moon, where I was bowing to the floor before him. There was one point where he was redoing the leadership and ordering all the American leaders to 120 day training. And he, he, he, he basically said I graduated the 120 day training because my leader Kamiyama said I was too important.

John Dehlin [01:22:08] We're gonna get there. Just go to his history real quick.

Steven Hassan [01:22:10] So he was raised Presbyterian in, in North Korea. Of course the Korean War happened. He was in a concentration camp, I am told by the communists, which is probably where he learned a lot about how to do mind control and brainwashing.

Steven Hassan [01:22:31] But what I, what I know of him really, I guess I'm, I'm. No one's asked me this question in a long, long time. But what I want to say is that his group, he was in a cult where he took a lot of the doctrine from.

Steven Hassan [01:22:52] And I have a video with a Japanese Christian friend of mine and colleague who helps get people out of cults like the Moonies who actually went to Korea and has. I have a video of him showing pictures of the actual history of, of his past. But it was a small know nothing cult until the founder of the Korean CIA decided that there would be a good proxy group for them to use to brainwash South Koreans who are dissidents to counter North Korean brainwashing.

John Dehlin [01:23:27] So you're saying the. The foundings of. Of the Moonies of the Unification Church was a partnership between Sun Young Moon and the South Korean government.

Steven Hassan [01:23:40] So he started the cult. He was an ex cult member of this other cult that. That he stole a lot of the doctrines from. But it was really, the Moonies would never become a thing without very intentional political intelligence, intentions and money.

John Dehlin [01:23:59] So he started the church in Korea.

Steven Hassan [01:24:01] He started it in Korea. And I don't think it was taken over or guided by the Korean CIA until 61 or two or three early 60s. So he, he founded it in 54, presumably.

John Dehlin [01:24:18] Okay. And so he starts it and then

Steven Hassan [01:24:23] he had a lot of sex with a lot of student, a lot of girls. There was. There were newspaper articles at the time alleging that he was not a. Not a good Christian at all.

John Dehlin [01:24:36] Did he. Did he claim special powers from the storm start? Did he Clear?

Steven Hassan [01:24:41] I don't know. I think so.

John Dehlin [01:24:43] You don't know?

Steven Hassan [01:24:44] I. I mean, I think he did, but I don't know that he was telling people overtly that he was the Messiah and Jesus.

John Dehlin [01:24:49] Was he just like a pastor?

Steven Hassan [01:24:52] He didn't have any theology training. I think he did a year as an electrical engineer at Wasedi University in Japan.

John Dehlin [01:25:03] So how is he a religious leader leader if he wasn't a pastor? Was he like a guru?

Steven Hassan [01:25:09] There's a lot of cult leaders who just create a story about their past. And his story is when he was 16, Jesus appeared to him, said that he had to fulfill his unfinished mission.

John Dehlin [01:25:23] So he claimed to be visited by Jesus at age 16. Does that sound familiar, Samantha?

Guest [01:25:28] Did he claim that at 16 or retroactively?

Steven Hassan [01:25:31] Retroactively, I don't. Again, there are people who have. Are now deceased, but who were there at the beginning, who's written about it. But most of that material is still in Korean or Japanese and not translated.

John Dehlin [01:25:47] So after he gains a religious following, he claims that previously Jesus visited him and said, what?

Steven Hassan [01:25:56] I need you to fulfill my unfinished mission. You are the lord of the second adventure event. And not only Jesus, but Buddha, Muhammad, everybody, former presidents of the US Are all like, you know, bowing before Moon is what members believe.

John Dehlin [01:26:13] And he had a problematic sexual history.

Steven Hassan [01:26:16] Oh, yeah, he left his, you know, his wife and he was partying with lots of college students, apparently. And the hypocrisy of cult leaders is legendary, I might add, having studied the Whole subject. But I want to just mention. Forgive me, but I'm going to go to 1976. When I got out of the Moonies. I was a very high ranking person with access to all these internal documents. And I was approached by this congressional subcommittee looking into the Korean CIA.

Steven Hassan [01:26:57] And I said, I will tell you anything you want to know, but I'm afraid they're going to murder me. So can we, you know, not make it public that I am giving you all my documents and that I'm answering all your questions? They said, sure.

Steven Hassan [01:27:11] And it was only after Jonestown happens, because I naively thought the government was going to expose this cult and shut them down because they were involved with so many illegal, improper things, so many that I knew of. Then after Jonestown and Leo ryan was assassinated, 900 people were murdered at the hands of Jim Jones.

Steven Hassan [01:27:36] I was called to Washington to testify. Senator Dole asked me to come and testify. I get down to D.C. and the Moonies are protesting and I'm taken off the agenda along with a former People's Temple member. And I went, what the hell's going on here? The Moonies were put up to speak at a countercult thing. And that's when I decided I would read the entire investigation. There were 11 volumes of transcripts of this investigation. That's where I read the. The founder of the Korean CIA, who was under oath saying I organized and utilized the Unification Church for use as a political tool.

John Dehlin [01:28:23] Sure.

Steven Hassan [01:28:23] And it opened up my eyes to a political reality of how psychology has been undergoing a evolution or revolution to speedily figure out how to manipulate and brainwash people en masse.

John Dehlin [01:28:40] Yeah, well, that, you know, I had my first really eye openening, shocking moment just as you tell your story. Because Joseph smith, somewhere between 14 and 16, claims later, 10, 15 years later that at that same age he was visited by God and Jesus and he had a problematic sexual history. So for me, and I'm sure for you, Samantha, big bells went off, right?

Guest [01:29:05] Yeah, yeah, but they all do that.

John Dehlin [01:29:07] I mean, that's. That's common, right?

Guest [01:29:09] Yeah, it's common enough to not be surprising.

John Dehlin [01:29:11] Yeah, but it. But that's very familiar.

Steven Hassan [01:29:13] So, but, but understand that a lot of copycatism happens with cult leaders where. Because I. I think Smith was way earlier than Moon was even born. So the likelihood is that if, if Smith said that in the 1800s, that moon copied him as opposed to the other way around. Well, of course, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:29:38] He died, of course. 1844.

Steven Hassan [01:29:40] Yeah. And I should also add that I was in Leadership meetings where these very big shot people. I didn't know their names, but I knew on at least two, three occasions there were Mormon higher ups that were meeting with moon. This is 74 to 76.

John Dehlin [01:30:00] Yeah. We often wonder how much, much lawyers and accountants and leaders of the LDS Church meet with Scientology leaders, Jehovah's Witness leaders, because they all share similar experiences of like, hiding abuse, of. Hiding their financial position, of marketing, you know, in. In a culture that's in.

Steven Hassan [01:30:23] And wanting to stop the ex members and the movement to expose brainwashing and

John Dehlin [01:30:28] mind control and protecting what they call religious freedom.

Steven Hassan [01:30:32] Well, that's, that's their rap. But yeah, so.

John Dehlin [01:30:38] So they collaborate.

Steven Hassan [01:30:39] So the, the Moonies would back a lot of Mormon politicians. Orrin Hatch was someone that the Moonies adored, and they worked very closely together to name one person. Ooh, that's a little gross. I don't know if I'm not supposed to talk about politics, but there's a lot of, A lot of dirty dealing happening with elitist billionaires who think that there's, you know, and they're malignant narcissists. I should say that too. They don't. They don't have empathy and they don't care. They look at people as objects for their use.

John Dehlin [01:31:17] Yeah. Well, this is so fascinating. Let's. Let's try to circle back to your story now. Okay, so you. And then I guess we didn't finish with, with Reverend Moon. So at some point he moved.

Steven Hassan [01:31:29] I hate when people call him a reverend. Okay. He never went to seminary. He paid a few tens of thousands of dollars to get an honorary degree. Okay, but he's not a reverend. I was a reverend. Yeah, he said, we're reverends now. I was Reverend Stephen Hassons. Like, okay, it's like Scientology. We're all religions. We're. We're. We're in a religion now now.

John Dehlin [01:31:53] So. So at some point, I guess he moved to the U.S. is that right?

Steven Hassan [01:31:57] Yes. He first came in 65. And I have some speeches, some copies of transcripts of speeches that were recorded and then printed up by the cult.

John Dehlin [01:32:09] Did he ever speak English?

Steven Hassan [01:32:11] His is very interesting because as a leader, I had access to all these documents they call master Speech weeks. And I have very early 70s before I got recruited, where he's saying, I'm busily studying English. That's the one thing that's going to help solve the, you know, speed up the Restoration.

Steven Hassan [01:32:33] And his English sucked. Even, you know, throughout his life, he could barely articulate words. And he always tried to promote a vision of him being superior at anything he did. And he couldn't drive a car because he would have to speed and beat everybody wherever he. I mean, this is one of the stories that, that members were, were told.

Steven Hassan [01:32:56] But most of the time when he, when I was in leadership meetings, it was clear he was hearing English and understanding it. But he would speak in Korean and someone would translate. And sometimes he would say one thing, and what got translated was obvious. Obvious by body language that it was not the same thing.

John Dehlin [01:33:19] One other quick parallel. The Mormon Church considers itself a restorationist church. So we talk about the restoration all the time. And what we mean is, like you said, Jesus, Jesus's work fell into what's called apostasy. And Joseph Smith was needed to restore Jesus's true church and then to finish the job. So in that sense, it's another very important parallel between the Moonies and the Mormons.

Steven Hassan [01:33:43] Yeah, I really want to learn more about Mormonism, so I'm, I'm very interested to learn. Anything you want to share?

John Dehlin [01:33:50] Well, we're, we're sharing some parallels.

Steven Hassan [01:33:52] Yeah, no, this is really valuable. I, I, if I may just say quickly that I entered my professional career about the fundamentalist Latter Day Saints. It was asked to talk to a couple of girls about that. I know you don't want to talk about that, so I will get there. I'll, I'll leave it for later.

Life as a Committed Moonie Member

John Dehlin [01:34:15] Okay, so you're converted at what age?

Steven Hassan [01:34:20] I was 19 into the Moonies, and I was deprogrammed May 11th of 1976, just before my 22nd birthday.

John Dehlin [01:34:30] So three years.

Steven Hassan [01:34:31] In the movie, it's like it was closer to a little more than two years and a little bit less than two and a half years.

John Dehlin [01:34:38] And did you say you dropped out of college? College?

Steven Hassan [01:34:40] Yeah, they, they, they asked me to, to drop out of Queens College and then go back and start a student club on campus called Carp. So I was the founder of, of a recruitment entity at my former college where I would recruit students to drop out of college and join the messianic movement.

John Dehlin [01:35:02] Wow.

Guest [01:35:04] I'm still curious what happened at your. Well, maybe not. Second thing, after the weekend where you had decided that you wanted to go back just out of curiosity to learn more. What was that? The, the meeting or the day when there was a switch where it went, it crossed over in your brain from just being curiosity to being converted or what was that transition?

Steven Hassan [01:35:26] Good question. What I remember is them making explicit appeals that you just really need to do your due diligence. Steven, and learn more so you know what you're getting involved with. And, and if you don't like it, you can leave. So it was absolutely the opposite of, we're asking you to commit your life forever to this organization. They didn't say at that time, early point, we want you to drop out of college or we want you to cut off contact with your family and friends because they're possessed by Satan. It was none of that. It was an appeal to, why don't you take the time to understand the divine principle and really study it up? And I said, so who is the Messiah? We can't tell you. You need to pray about it.

John Dehlin [01:36:19] So they're holding information from you?

Steven Hassan [01:36:21] Totally. Yeah, totally. But again, I, I love to learn. I'm a curious person. And they're like, you need to figure this out, Steven, who the Messiah is. We can't tell you. So that was kind of the lure, Samantha, to, to. Okay, so I skipped a year. I, I was going to graduate college a year early. I have time. I'm going to just spend, you know, another weekend to learn more. But by the end of that weekend, I was gone.

John Dehlin [01:36:56] You figured it out who the Messiah was?

Steven Hassan [01:36:58] No, but I was like, my memory is hazy about the specifics. I remember them saying, you know, oh, they use the 40 day condition. They like to do numbers. And they said, you know, Jesus fasted for 40 days. Moses, Moses who met Moses, fasted for 40 days to receive the Ten Commandments. We think you should do a 40 day condition to not interact with your family or friends and just study the divine principle. That was the 40 days where I immersed myself into reading their scripture.

John Dehlin [01:37:39] They have scripture?

Steven Hassan [01:37:40] They have a book called the Divine principle. Yeah, Hardcover, black with gold lettering.

John Dehlin [01:37:46] Does it give you the answer to who the Messiah is?

Steven Hassan [01:37:49] It doesn't. And, and it doesn't explicitly say Sun Myung Moon, but it gives all. It leads you to the conclusion that there could be no one else. But later I, as a leader, I came to realize that the divine principle was different in different countries. Like the Japanese, culturally, they don't like the Koreans. They look down on the Koreans. And they're one of the biggest strongholds of Mooney money is Japan. And we can talk about what's happening after the assassination of Abe, but they definitely didn't want to talk about Korea being, you know, the chosen nation or anything like that. In Korea. Yeah, yeah, not at all.

Guest [01:38:33] What was your level of conversion at the start of the 40 day days was how much of you was still thinking this was just an intellectual experiment.

Steven Hassan [01:38:44] My recollection was that was my frame that I'll take time out from school and my family to study more. It was not like a formal baptism or. And I never went to a seven day work workshop which was extraordinary. People went to a three day, seven day 21 day 40. And then if you were a leader, 120 day training. I did two, three days. And the rest was individual grooming by the top leadership.

Guest [01:39:19] So you went into the 40 days thinking maybe this is legitimate and sort of the thing. But then by the end of the 40 days fully converted.

Steven Hassan [01:39:28] Yeah. And it was towards the end of that that they asked me to. They told me the Abraham being asked to kill his son Isaac story as an example of his true faith. And they asked me what my Isaac was and I said, I don't know. And they said we think your poetry is. Do you love God enough to sacrifice the thing you love the most? And I said yes. And they said, well, go get your poetry tree, throw it in that garbage can. And I lost like 400 poems and years of my writing, but I never got back.

John Dehlin [01:40:05] Psychologically. What, what's that mechanism of what does that do for them to ask you to sacrifice something important to you? Why is that important?

Steven Hassan [01:40:14] Well, so on multiple levels. But if you can get someone to do an extreme behavior, there's a very powerful cognitive dissonance and it's forced to rationalize it and justify it and feel good about it. And they wanted to kill my pre Mooney self. Like everything got redefined as my satanic origin.

Steven Hassan [01:40:41] And I came to later be told that the Holocaust was necessary because the Jews didn't accept Jesus. The exact opposite. Opposite of my entire childhood values and, and beliefs. But part of the indoctrination is to create a pseudo identity in the image of the leader or the ideal member.

Steven Hassan [01:41:05] So I was taught to think like Moon and feel like Moon and walk like Moon and talk like Moon. And I was, I was led to believe that Milton and Estelle were my physical parents, but Moon and his wife were my true parents.

Steven Hassan [01:41:23] There was a lot of parental and. And being a good child of God. So regression to childhood appeals in the indoctrination of the cult. But what I want to say is that the projection that one has, if you are told this is the Lord of love, who's the most perfect being on earth, I can generate, and I did generate a lot of projection of what how great this person was. As opposed to this another billionaire business person who's overweight and is arrogant.

Steven Hassan [01:42:06] But I mean, I was, I was later in these leadership meetings where I could like, see he had wax in his ears and he hadn't cleaned them or he had BO or he did a fart and he didn't say excuse me to anyone because, like, we were nothing and he was Messiah.

Steven Hassan [01:42:26] But a lot of things get suppressed because you're. You're in this new identity and you're taught any negative thought is Satan or evil spirits invading you. In fact, in 74, the New York membership were taken to Greenwich Village. They had rented an entire movie theater to watch the Exorcist movie.

Steven Hassan [01:42:49] Then we all went up in vans to Tarrytown and Moon gave a speech how God made the Exorcist. And this movie is a prophecy of what will happen if you leave the Unification Church. And I can cite that, that, that experience as the beginning of me consciously turning off any doubts because I was that afraid of demonic possession, even though a few months earlier, before the cult, I didn't believe in Satan or devils or demons at all. Like, zero.

John Dehlin [01:43:27] So you just rifle up for me a bunch of parallels that I just. When I interview ex cult members, I like to draw attention to.

Steven Hassan [01:43:33] Sure.

John Dehlin [01:43:34] So like, you know, hero worship. Check for Mormonism, whether it's Joseph Smith or the current prophet.

Steven Hassan [01:43:39] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:43:40] They speak to and for God and they're next to God or Jesus in righteousness. There's even accounts of Joseph Smith boasting to be superior to Jesus in some ways so that.

Steven Hassan [01:43:51] Oh, oh, Moon did that too, by the way. And superior to God at some speeches.

John Dehlin [01:43:57] So there's parallels there. For me, there's definitely, definitely parallels of, you know, the, the most. Probably the most famous Mormon childhood song is I am a Child of God. And I think we're. We all have such a positive association with that song growing up that. Because it's with our childhood. And there's a loving Heavenly Father and. And who does it and a loving Heavenly Mother and who doesn't love that? But what I'm just now realizing is there's a psychological purpose of a song like that because it basically says, says, you know, Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother are more important than your own parents.

Steven Hassan [01:44:31] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:44:32] And then, But. And that's a fact. I don't think there's any Mormon that's going to disagree that if you have to choose between Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother and your own parents, you choose Heavenly Father and your. And Heavenly Mother. But, but the rub is that who is it that tells you what Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother want For you, it's the church leaders. So in that way there's some soft parental alienation that isn't quite as hard as maybe Scientology or the movies, but for me it's there. Samantha, does that ring true for you or not?

Guest [01:45:01] Yeah. And also in a way infantilization because I didn't grow up with the song I Am a Child of God. But it. Songs like that being introduced to my psyche, they do take you back to those younger versions of yourself where you know, it's appropriate for you to be codependent and kind of sort of prime you for just that. Yeah. More childlike state where you feel like you need to look to these perfect parent figures.

Steven Hassan [01:45:27] So you, you also reminded me that so much of the Mooney experience was singing holy songs. There was a whole booklet of holy songs. And so we would do pledge service on Sunday at 5:30 and bow to an altar with Moon's picture on it and recite a pled to fight for our life, for God and the fatherland, which was Korea, etc. But whenever we would, you know, go and hear Moon speak or any of the leaders, we would be singing holy songs for two, three hours before they would appear just to warm up the environment.

Guest [01:46:10] And

Steven Hassan [01:46:13] this is an un. Yet to be really researched and documented area of cult mind control is the use of music. Music.

John Dehlin [01:46:21] Yeah.

Steven Hassan [01:46:22] Because it affects our brain and an emotional level deeply. So like one of. One of the songs, Heavenly Soldiers.

John Dehlin [01:46:33] Yeah.

Steven Hassan [01:46:34] In the Moonies. Like a lot of things about being a child and if you think developmentally, if you wanna, if you wanna control a person, reduce them to childhood and be their parental.

John Dehlin [01:46:46] Yeah.

Steven Hassan [01:46:46] Substitute. Then they're. They're going to be. Really apply it.

John Dehlin [01:46:50] Yeah. It's beautiful. Really quick just to note a couple other things.

Steven Hassan [01:46:53] Sure.

John Dehlin [01:46:53] This idea that negative thoughts are satanic. Super Mormon, right?

Guest [01:46:57] Oh very. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:46:57] Yeah. Like in Mormonism, contention is of the devil. And anytime you feel yucky, that's the Holy Ghost telling you to run away. But once you've been conditioned into Mormonism, of course anything against Mormonism is going to make you feel yucky. So you're always primed to run away from anything that would.

Steven Hassan [01:47:13] Yeah. And you're taught to do thought stopping or emotion blocking because you want to stay pure, you want to stay aligned with your, you know, your, your mission and, and, and God's spirit.

John Dehlin [01:47:26] And then the Exorcist story reminds me of fear and conditioning through fear. And with music that, you know, the bite model. The E is emotion. Fear is one emotion.

Steven Hassan [01:47:35] It's the biggest universal mind control technique is what I call phobia indoctrination nation.

John Dehlin [01:47:40] And with Mormonism, it's that you won't be with your, your children or your parents or your siblings in the afterlife. Right. So it's, it's fear of not making it to the highest degree of the social kingdom with all your family. So that's the dark side of fear based emotional manipulation. There's a, there's positive emotion that we're manipulated with as well. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir is one of the world's most famous choirs.

Steven Hassan [01:48:02] Right.

John Dehlin [01:48:03] We all sing from a very young age, primary songs that indoctrinate us. And you know, we're conditioned to sing inquirers and to love music. And that music evokes positive emotion, which then we associate. We're taught that whenever you feel positive emotion, that means the church is true.

Steven Hassan [01:48:19] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:48:20] Samantha, I know you wanted to jump in there.

Guest [01:48:22] Sorry, this is a separate point. But I also think it's interesting. You're not Korean, but the Moonies had you putting Korea on this pedestal as, you know, the most important country. And I'm not American, but I'm being conditioned to put America on this pedestal. Not so much while as a Mormon in England, but yeah, once it comes, can cults can even get you to embrace nationalism for a country that isn't yours? Nationalism, which you would think you would have something in your brain being like, you know, that random country is probably not the best country in the whole world.

John Dehlin [01:48:51] Yeah, nationalism of the founder. And if you read even the Mormon scriptures, Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants, it talks about the Constitution and how God prepared the United States to be the place where the true church would be restored. And that's a fantastic parallel, Samantha, the nationalism.

Steven Hassan [01:49:08] Good point, Samantha.

John Dehlin [01:49:08] Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, pledges like Mormons recite. There's a young women's pledge that young women's recite every week. Right. Men have pledges, you know, missionaries have pledges. And so I don't mean to like be doing parallelism to, to sort of reinforce my own biases, but I am hearing a lot of parallels.

Guest [01:49:32] I mean, is it a bias or is it just noticing relevant parallels?

Steven Hassan [01:49:36] Yeah, I agree with Samantha on that one. It's not a bias to say two plus two equals four. It's not five, it's not three.

John Dehlin [01:49:44] Yeah.

Steven Hassan [01:49:45] And you know, there's, there are these formulaic, destructive, authoritarian cult practices. And that's part of the power of, of, of. I know we're going to talk about my work later. But to see it in another group allows one a perspective on one's own experience. In A, that way you can see it in a different way.

John Dehlin [01:50:07] Yeah, well, maybe. Let's just take a second to introduce the bite model. We've talked about it before. B stands for behavior. I stands for information and the control of it. T stands for thoughts.

Steven Hassan [01:50:19] Right.

John Dehlin [01:50:19] And E stands for emotions. Control of thought thoughts and manipulation through emotion. What were the like? Mormonism is like, don't drink coffee, don't drink tea, don't drink alcohol. You know, stay sexually pure. No masturbation, that sort of thing.

Steven Hassan [01:50:34] Yeah, I never masturbated one time in two and a half years. So what were the single time?

John Dehlin [01:50:39] What were the big behavioral no NO's.

Steven Hassan [01:50:41] I had two nocturnal emissions and I had to fast for three days and take a cold shower till I turned perfect purple. Sorry, I have to just.

John Dehlin [01:50:49] No, that's great. What were the big behavioral no no's within the Moonies, the way they controlled you with behavior, was it addressed?

Behavior Control, Sleep Deprivation, and Mind Control

Steven Hassan [01:50:55] Well, you know, first of all, a universal mind control thing is sleep manipulation and deprivation. So as a good Mooney, we were told, father only sleeps three to four hours a night. I was trained to be like father, therefore I would sleep three to four hours a night. So I was sleep deprived. And we know for sure through neuroscience that you're not using your cortical, your frontal cortex when you're sleep deprived. You just are not able to think clearly. And I. That was my state for two and a half years. There were a few exceptions where I got very sick and I slept for a week. I had tonsillectomy, I slept for a week through that. But other than that, I. I was chronically sleep deprived. You know, there was rigid rules of where you slept, what you ate, how you dressed, what were you not supposed

John Dehlin [01:51:52] to eat, what were you not supposed to eat or what were you supposed to eat?

Steven Hassan [01:51:59] It's a good question. Mostly in the Moonies, the leaders got very fancy restaurant food. And often The Moonies got McDonald's or rice dishes. I learned to eat sushi in the Moonies. And the Moonies are very big in the fishing industry. A lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

John Dehlin [01:52:22] Is that part of the doctrine or the theology? What you shouldn't.

Steven Hassan [01:52:25] No, I don't think it was a doctrinal thing. It was more like we, you know, we need to save money, frugality know. But in the meantime, Moon has Lincoln Continental stretch limousines and yachts and mansions, multimillion dollar mansions and we're sleeping on sleeping bags on the floor, you know, freezing cold. But for me, you always had, oh, this is an important part of the, the doctrine which I forgot to mention.

Steven Hassan [01:52:58] So in the Mooney theology because, because Cain killed Abel and Abel was the preferred child of God, all of the restoration had to be that Cain had to submit to Abel. And so in the Moonies, all relationships were described as Cain Abel relationships or chapter two relationships. Cain Abel were authority subordinates issues like you always had to obey your leader. Even if he told you something stupid or something that was wrong to do, you were expected to follow blindly. I'll give you a quick example of that. I was in a put on a mobile fundraising team as part of breaking a person's ego to be on the streets selling chalk chocolates or candies or candles.

Steven Hassan [01:53:55] And I was put under someone who was a new captain on a van. And he dropped me off to go into a bar at like three in the afternoon. And I said, you know, there's nobody in the bar this time of day. Why don't you drop me off at the stoplight because I can make a lot more money.

Steven Hassan [01:54:15] That was reported back to the superior who yelled at me me because I was faithless. How did I know if I went in that I wouldn't have gotten a hundred dollar donation from a single person that I needed to just blindly obey? So that was inculcated over and over again. I lost my train of thought.

John Dehlin [01:54:37] In Mormon, you were. Why were you nodding your head, Samantha?

Guest [01:54:41] Just, just the follow the leader, even if he's wrong.

Steven Hassan [01:54:44] Oh yeah. So, so Cain able. So everything was like submission to whoever was designated as your authority figure, even if they didn't know what they were talking about. And the other was a Chapter 2 problem, which is in the divine principle is the fall of man that you having lust.

Steven Hassan [01:55:01] So in my experience in the Moonies, I was never allowed to be in a room alone with a woman because she might rape me or seduce me. And like I have two older sisters. I grew up with women I love, loved sex. I know, but this was like, no man is subject, woman is object, man gives love, woman gives beauty and this whole very patriarchal, you know, thing going on. But I want to mention those two concepts in just link it to loaded language. Because thought control, if you can reduce the complexity of human interaction into these labels or into these boxes, it's, it's, it's easy to manipulate and control people's identities.

John Dehlin [01:55:52] Okay, so strong sexual controls.

Steven Hassan [01:55:56] There was no sex and I couldn't hug a woman, a friend or whatever, without marriage. Yeah. And even if you were married, you had to get permission to, to kiss your wife or, or have marital relations. If there were strict positions, they were not for oral sex, they were not for women on top, you know, missionary position, et cetera. Again, I got out before I was married, so this is not something I have direct experience about.

John Dehlin [01:56:28] Yeah. So Mormonism forbade oral sex until there was a revolt in the church. But masturbation to this day is forbidden.

Steven Hassan [01:56:35] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:56:35] And premarital sex is forbidden.

Steven Hassan [01:56:36] Samantha, did you want to.

Guest [01:56:37] Were you saying that you couldn't hug men either? Either or.

Steven Hassan [01:56:40] No, you could hug men.

Guest [01:56:41] You could hug men.

Steven Hassan [01:56:42] You can hug men.

Guest [01:56:43] So you had some physical touch?

Steven Hassan [01:56:45] So I had some, but was very rare. But I want to just tell you a story of my friend Alan Wood, who is a top leader who left just before I joined because he said they were making people into Nazi Steven like you. And Alan tells the story of being with Moon, where he said, and he was the head of the political arm of the moonies in the U.S. he said, Father, what do we do about homosexuals? How do we help these people? And Moon's response was, tell them if it becomes a problem, to cut it off, barbecue it, put it in a shoebox, and send it to me.

John Dehlin [01:57:23] Oh, Moly.

Steven Hassan [01:57:26] Alan said when he heard that, he knew he needed to leave the cult. It's very homophobic cult. And they would do conversion things and abstinence pledges, you know, go around in schools to tell people never to have premarital sex and.

John Dehlin [01:57:49] Oh, so, yeah, sexual control.

Steven Hassan [01:57:52] Very homophobic.

John Dehlin [01:57:53] Homophobia. Check. Check.

Steven Hassan [01:57:55] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:57:55] Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Steven Hassan [01:57:59] So. Well, it's not okay. But you're saying, yeah, check.

John Dehlin [01:58:03] I'm saying, check. We have those in common.

Steven Hassan [01:58:05] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:58:05] We never have a leader. I guess we never had leaders explicitly tell gay men to cut off their penises.

Steven Hassan [01:58:11] Right.

Guest [01:58:13] I suppose not. But there were things like, was it Boyd K. Packer who essentially endorsed a missionary companion, punching his companion for finding out he's gay? Yeah, things like that.

John Dehlin [01:58:25] Right. Yeah. You know, and we, I, I, I want to someday have a conversation with you just about the parallels and the differences. But there's so many parallels. Mormonism takes a bit of a softer approach with the same mindset, just a bit of a softer hand. Well, now think allows it to be more wealthy and powerful and successful. So there's so many parallels, but it's always with a tiny bit of a softer hand edge. And you're saying, no.

Guest [01:58:53] Yeah, but I mean, if you go back to Joseph Smith or Brigham's time, well, you know, that. That kind of polygamy times, at least it wasn't as soft as it is today.

John Dehlin [01:59:01] No. Brigham Young would say, if you catch a. If a black man and a woman are having sex, like blood atonement, javelin through the heart is their only atonement. You know, kind of weird.

Guest [01:59:12] Yeah. Murder is merciful if someone's been sinful.

Steven Hassan [01:59:15] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:59:15] So, I mean, so, like, so we

Guest [01:59:17] talk about Mormonism being, you know, because it has had to become softer because it's wanted to be so mainstream. But, like, the majority of the existence of Mormonism hasn't really been like that

John Dehlin [01:59:26] has been in some ways as horrific as Reverend Moon or Leader Moon. What do I call him?

Steven Hassan [01:59:31] Mr.

John Dehlin [01:59:32] Moon. Mr. Moon. I'm triggering, Steven.

Steven Hassan [01:59:35] When I say no, you don't trigger me. It's just. It gives him a credibility he doesn't earn. He never earned.

Guest [01:59:41] Language is powerful.

Steven Hassan [01:59:44] Yeah. And. And. And cult propagandists want to promote it as a legitimate religion, and I don't think it is. I really don't. I want to add one more parallel. So I was at a leadership meeting with Moon, and typically men sat on one side of the room and women were on the other side of the room.

John Dehlin [02:00:04] This is how Mormon temples are organized.

Steven Hassan [02:00:06] And I was. Yeah, I was sitting in a black sister. Her name was Patricia, was, like, within eyeshot of me. And this is a speech that got printed up so I can document what I'm about to say. I'm paraphrasing, but he said, you know, when you think about the races, the Orientals are blessed in the spiritual area and Caucasians in the scientific area, and black people in the area of physical and education.

Steven Hassan [02:00:39] You can know by how many black people are in basketball. And I remember looking at her, and she looking at me like, did we just hear what we just heard? Like, I grew up in Queens, and it was very racially diverse place, so hanging out with black people and Asian people was very normal for me as a child. Well, but he was literally saying black people, you know, weren't intelligent. And. Yes, as a race. And it was like, what the Jack.

John Dehlin [02:01:17] I mean, we racial.

Guest [02:01:19] Yeah, we could find quotes paralleling that quite easily.

John Dehlin [02:01:21] Absolutely.

Steven Hassan [02:01:22] Well, you. Yeah, you reminded me of that later. The Moonies did a big push to try to redo that image, and it started going about black churches offering to buy them new roofs or what do you need in order to recruit black people, Steven?

Parallels Between the Moonies and Mormonism

John Dehlin [02:01:39] It was just announced this week that our prophet Our current prophet, Russell M. Nelson is receiving like the Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Award for like racial healing.

Guest [02:01:50] Have we got to the bottom of that? Like, who's been paid? Who. Who is looking at Russell M. Nelson? It has to be paid for.

Steven Hassan [02:01:58] Yeah, it's. It's really dirty.

John Dehlin [02:02:00] But. But it's part of a rebranding.

Steven Hassan [02:02:03] It's rebranding, that's. It's pr, public relations.

John Dehlin [02:02:07] So you're. So the Mooney's went through something very similar.

Steven Hassan [02:02:10] Yeah. So I want to also point out that, that after this congressional investigation happened, they said we found so much wrongdoing, an interagency task force should be set up with. And they named about six or seven branches of government and nothing was ever done except. Except for that he was engaged in a conspiracy to avoid paying income taxes, where he went to jail for 13 months. And I can. And the Moonies all believe he was persecuted because he was a religious Asian leader. But the reason I'm bringing it up is that when he went to jail, they did this huge rebranding. They spent $30 million in prison. And at that point they said calling anyone a Moony is like calling a black person the N word.

Guest [02:03:02] We've literally heard that around the Mormon rebrand.

John Dehlin [02:03:06] Russell Nelson, as soon as he became prophet, said that that using the term Mormon as a self identification tool is a victory for Satan.

Steven Hassan [02:03:16] Wow.

Guest [02:03:16] And. And certain zealous Mormons on Twitter, I've seen them say that it's like calling a black person the N word. It's a slur.

Steven Hassan [02:03:24] Yeah. So I continue to talk about them as the Moonies because when I was in Moon, was so happy that we were called Moonies. We had cups with I heart Mooney. I had T shirts with I love to be a Moony.

Guest [02:03:40] And I'm like this level of parallels down to that nitty gritty detail.

John Dehlin [02:03:45] No, we, we, the Mormon Church had an I'm a Mormon campaign and billion dollars. Meet the Mormons Times Square.

Guest [02:03:52] I'm a Mormon.

John Dehlin [02:03:53] I'm singing I'm a Mormon, yes, I am.

Steven Hassan [02:03:56] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:03:56] And now it's evil.

Steven Hassan [02:03:57] But.

John Dehlin [02:03:57] But it, but it is when your church hits so much bad PR and gets such a bad reputation. And by the way, we just settled with the Security and Exchange Commission for a five million dollar fine for deceiving the public and the membership about our, our vast financial holdings.

Steven Hassan [02:04:14] You still talk about our.

John Dehlin [02:04:16] Yeah, yeah. I have a cultural Mormon for sure. And I still consider this my people.

Steven Hassan [02:04:20] I find that interesting, John. Maybe, maybe we'll talk about it my corner around here.

John Dehlin [02:04:29] But, but the point is like our reputation has gotten so problematic that, that it's got to be that getting rid of eschewing the Mormon identity, like you say, like the Moonies is an attempt to rebrand because it's just, it doesn't sell. Right. The Mormon identity no longer sells.

Steven Hassan [02:04:46] Well, I would like to think from my perspective that your podcast Mormon Story Stories podcast played a role in them saying we need to not use the word Mormon anymore.

John Dehlin [02:04:58] Well, of course I want to believe that.

Steven Hassan [02:04:59] No, I really, I'm saying that not just as I'm saying that as an observer of the field, but I didn't know, I didn't think of the Mormons as a mind control cult until the Ex Mormon foundation brought me out in the early 2000s. And I'm sorry, met 250 former Mormons, many fourth, fifth generation. And I'm talking about the bite model. And, and, and, and they're like everyone's nodding in the audience like, and that

John Dehlin [02:05:33] was right as I was going through my faith crisis. Like I went through my faith crisis in 2001. I remember Richard Packham and Sue. Yeah, that's Ex Mormon Foundation.

Steven Hassan [02:05:42] That's who brought me out.

John Dehlin [02:05:43] And I watched you give that talk right when I was going through my faith Christ. What year did you come out again?

Steven Hassan [02:05:47] I want to say it was 2002 or something like that. I also want to tell you the fellow who spoke after me blew my mind. I don't remember his name, but he had been a professor or a teacher at a Mormon training institute.

Steven Hassan [02:06:03] And the title of his talk, I'm sure the video is still online or something like Deception as a management tool of the LDS Church. Yeah. And he did this presentation starting with all the lies from Joseph Smith. And he gets to the end where he has a recording of him with his boss where he is saying, so you're telling me that I have to lie to my students about the, the truth about Mormon history to keep my job? And the boss said, that's correct. And he said, well, I, I quit. That was the end of it. And but when I listened to this lecture, I'm like, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, feathers like a duck.

Steven Hassan [02:06:47] I get it. Seems to really fetch. I had always known, not always, but I saw a PBS special on the, the two year missionary training that was flat out like the Moonies. Like that was a mind control two year thing. But I did, didn't, I didn't. I needed to learn from former members More about mainstream Mormonism.

Guest [02:07:11] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:07:12] Another parallel is that Joseph Smith was also incarcerated multiple times. Like oh yes, except Mr. We we one up you because Joseph Smith was killed sort of in an apocalyptic meltdown and Mr. Moon was able to live to a ripe old age.

Steven Hassan [02:07:28] Yeah, he got very demented.

John Dehlin [02:07:30] But he did have multiple sexual partners.

Steven Hassan [02:07:32] Yes, he, he had at least one child out of wedlock. His name is Sammy Pak, who was raised by Bohipak, his main translator who is also the KCIA CIA liaison person in the South Korean embassy in the early 60s. So he, he had a child out of wedlock and, and was raised and the guy the kid didn't know until his 20s.

John Dehlin [02:07:55] All right, so while we're giving you a break, Samantha, we've got a lot of cool comments coming in. Any, any thoughts or reflections, Samantha? I, I guess, I guess believing faithful Mormon Samantha might accuse us a little bit of parallelism where we're just like picking cherry picking parallels. But is that self Paul Darius, Ask yourself God.

Guest [02:08:25] The. Well, the parallels are extensive. I mean we're not just talking about things that you know, quite a lot of even something like no sexual activity. That is an extreme rule. But even that which might be somewhat pervasive across religions, although still high demand religions, which is no small thing. We're even talking down to the name of, of down to the thing of not calling them the Moonies anymore. Come on. It doesn't get more.

John Dehlin [02:08:53] That's crazy.

Guest [02:08:55] Yeah. It's so weird how patterns just repeat over and over. You know, unbeknownst to, to people like Russell M. Nelson isn't really conscious of, of why he. Well, I suppose he might be conscious of why he hates the term Mormons. Seems like he's had that one for decades. It's been his personal beef.

Steven Hassan [02:09:13] But.

John Dehlin [02:09:14] Yeah, yeah, but the parallels are uncanny.

Guest [02:09:16] The parallels are extensive. They, they are both micro and macro and you, you cannot, you can't intelligently analyze life without looking at patterns like that is how we build our understanding of the world is identifying patterns and, and you know, categorizing things and understanding things along a continuum. Like we have to do it it. So it's certainly not cherry picking because we're, we're just talking about so much of the same things and the same psychological mechanisms and you know. Yeah, we're also not in denial about the fact that you know, we can obviously say yes, Scientology is. It seems like a worse cult or is you know, higher along on that influence continuum and sounds like the Moonies potentially depending probably higher up The Mormonism, like we can still recognize that.

Guest [02:10:10] We can still recognize the ways that Mormonism is better. Like I've said this on, on the self YouTube channel, but if I was an ex Scientologist, I wouldn't have a YouTube channel about it, you know, so we can still see the ways that Mormonism is a bit softer, at least in 2023. Because obviously again, if you're living under theocratic Brigham Young, completely different story. You could get killed for leaving the church or speaking out.

Unification Church Wealth and Business Enterprises

John Dehlin [02:10:33] But yeah, yeah, Samantha, I don't know if you know this, but just while Steven's out, one massive parallel is wealth. Do you know about sushi and the Moonies? Do you know about that parallel?

Guest [02:10:46] No, but I was interested because you said the Moonies are huge in the fishing industry.

John Dehlin [02:10:49] Yeah. So I'm sharing, I'll share right now in the comments. One of the most amazing hours of podcasts I've ever listened to. It's, it's called, called, it's from the New York Times, the daily podcast. And it's called the Untold Story of Sushi in America. And Samantha, I'll just give you the high level and this will make you never want to eat sushi again. But you're a vegan.

John Dehlin [02:11:11] Yeah, but basically at some point Moon, Mr. Moon decides he wants to bring sushi because before the early 80s, I guess sushi wasn't a huge deal in the United States. But Moon comes from Korea and you know, liked sushi. And so he just decides he's going to bring, he's going to single handedly bring sushi to the United States. And so he like, he picks like a hundred. And I'm, I'm making up the details based on my memory, but it's generally right. He like picks 100 of his leaders at some meeting and he gives them each a hundred dollars and he says, go to, go to Lincoln, Nebraska, Alaska, go to Dallas, Texas, go to, you know, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, here's a hundred bucks and start a sushi restaurant.

John Dehlin [02:12:03] And over time, all of his, a ton of his leaders start building sushi restaurants. And then guess what? All these sushi restaurants need raw fish to supply the sushi outlets. And so fast forward, long story short, short, the Unification Church built up a fish wholesaling empire that to this day feeds some crazy percentage. Like between 60 and 80% of the sushi that we consume in the United States is served through the Mooney Organization and it's made them a multi billion dollar corporation. Does that sound familiar?

Guest [02:12:44] That is really wild.

John Dehlin [02:12:46] Yeah. And, and, and, and just, and, and it became a problem because when Mr. Moon dies, his, his, like, current wife, she wants to take over the sushi industry, but is, you know, some of his children are with her, but some of his other children maybe with previous wives, I'm not sure. And there's a, both questions about who succeeds with the church, but almost more importantly is who succeeds with the sushi empire. So just like Joseph Smith had a succession crisis crisis, this podcast goes into the succession crisis. Is it the wife that takes over?

Guest [02:13:19] Who's the heir to the son?

John Dehlin [02:13:21] Is it this other son and who's the heir, you know, to, to the leadership?

Guest [02:13:26] That's quite a movie storyline.

John Dehlin [02:13:28] You know, it's fascinating.

Guest [02:13:29] Quite the.

John Dehlin [02:13:30] And, and I, we had sushi with Steven last night.

Guest [02:13:33] Oh, did you?

John Dehlin [02:13:34] Yeah, yeah. At Tsunami.

Guest [02:13:36] So it's all just so wild as well, because you just think of these groups, groups such as the, you know, the way the Mormons are viewed in England, but the Moonies too, it's like you think of them as so obscure and tiny, and I suppose they are relative to how many people exist, but they're so effective at gaining influence and power and wealth that despite being such a tiny subset of the population, you have no idea the level of influence they have over your, like, how many people in America know about the Moonies connection to sushi? Probably barely any.

John Dehlin [02:14:07] I learned like last year. I'm 53.

Guest [02:14:10] I love learning about cults and I just learned that at, right now.

John Dehlin [02:14:13] Yeah, yeah. It's a big deal.

Guest [02:14:14] So just the amount of, the amount that these obscure groups will have, you know, their fingers in the pies of our lives and we don't even know it.

John Dehlin [02:14:22] Yeah, yeah. So Steven, while you were taking a break and we're inhumane on Mormon stories, and we just go, we hit record and we just go.

Steven Hassan [02:14:29] And if you don't mind me going to the restroom, I'm fine with that.

John Dehlin [02:14:33] I just told Samantha the story of sushi, the Moonies and sushi that I learned from the daily, the New York Times daily podcast. About, about, I guess, I guess it

Steven Hassan [02:14:42] says, it was, it was in their magazine. I think it's online. It's an actual print thing. And then they did a. Yeah, but

John Dehlin [02:14:49] I, I, I mean, in this story, maybe. So you knew, you knew Mr. Moon, like you met him and were in the room with him. You weren't.

Steven Hassan [02:14:56] Many times.

John Dehlin [02:14:57] Yeah.

Steven Hassan [02:14:58] And, and the holy family, including the two sons who have a gun factory in Pennsylvania and a cult worshiping AR15s. Yeah, we can talk about that tomorrow.

John Dehlin [02:15:10] Okay, so. So I guess I was just telling her that according to the story, he just, like, gives a hundred bucks to, like 100 of his followers and says, go start sushi restaurants throughout the world or throughout the United States. Long story short, they become the suppliers of sushi restaurants and corner like 60 to 80% of the sushi market. Right.

Steven Hassan [02:15:29] Well, they have the largest fish processing plant in the world in Kodiak, Alaska. They have a boat building business. They were putting people out catching tuna off of Massachusetts or out of Gloucester because there were regulations, one tuna per boat. So they made these smaller boats, would send the member out, catch a tuna, come back in, send another boat out with a different member. Of course, the members were not given their pay because they were church members. So they would donate their. So they were undercutting legitimate fishermen, fisher people. Anyway, there's so many illegal, immoral things that this group has been involved with. Really a lot of devious, destructive, horrible things, including, you know, funding terrorist groups and neo Nazi types of operations and their quest to be anti communist. And they're. They're still world players to this day.

John Dehlin [02:16:37] So that idea of unpaid labor, whether it's missionaries paying to be missionaries in the Mormon religion or senior missionaries after they've. After they've retired, paying in their retirement to. To literally do corporate jobs for the church as a religious mission, but they're literally serving in corporate functions.

Steven Hassan [02:16:56] It's. I think it violates labor alone law. Yeah, labor trafficking law.

John Dehlin [02:17:01] We want to say something.

Guest [02:17:02] I just have a question, and maybe this is skipping ahead. If so, we can put a pin in it. But is it scary to talk out about the Moonies? Because I always. I was saying to John before, while you're away, if I was an ex Scientologist, I wouldn't do a YouTube channel about Scientology. I'd just go quietly into the night. Mormonism is kind of one of those ones where you can get away with it. I mean, John has for 20 years without it being too much of a risk to your life. What's the deal with the Moonies? Because I know you mentioned earlier that you would have killed for them if you'd been asked to.

Steven Hassan [02:17:32] Well, I was. Yeah. I was thinking also about your comment about my allegiance to Korea and the idea that the world would be speaking the Korean language only when Moon took over. I remember Moon saying that if North Korea invaded the South Korea, they would send all the Americans to the front line to be martyrs to get America in the land war in Asia. I was Like Yes, Father, which is Victory in Korea. So my story is that when I first left, they didn't believe I left because I was such a fanatical devotee. They thought I had been brainwashed by my deprogrammers. Can we hold that?

John Dehlin [02:18:22] Go. No, no, no. Can we just describe what your three years as a Mooney were like before we talk about you leaving it? We'll come right to that as the exact next thing. But like, what major roles did you play for the Moon?

Steven Hassan [02:18:34] You'll have to remind me to come back.

John Dehlin [02:18:36] We will for sure. Okay, but just for the chronology. Like, what roles did you play? What. What. What things did you do? What were your observations of Mr. Moon? And how scary and dangerous and troubling did it get? And then we'll talk about how you left. And then we'll talk about Samantha's question.

Hassan's Role in Recruiting and Indoctrinating Others

Steven Hassan [02:18:55] So I was almost always in New York at Queens or Manhattan. I was mostly involved with recruiting and indoctrinating people. I did some political activism. For example, fasting for Nixon during Watergate because God said he wants Nixon to be president despite Watergate.

Steven Hassan [02:19:22] And a quick funny story with my dad, who had voted for Nixon. I voted for McGovern and said, Nixon's a crook. Like, how could you vote for this creep? I thought, wrongly as a Mooney, that he would be pleased that I was supporting Nixon. And I called him from Washington. I said, oh, Valex. And he says, Steven, you are right, he's a crook. I'm like, no, dad, you don't understand. God wants him to be president. He's like, steve, he's a crook. Now I know you're brainwashed in any case. So back to my things. I also did. I was in charge of commun Transportation for a seven day fast in front of the United nations through a front group that had been concocted to try to get them to stop.

Steven Hassan [02:20:09] To. To stop. A motion to withdraw UN troops for. For human rights violations in South Korea that was successful. Mostly I was telling them how to recruit Americans and telling them, you know, what would work and what wouldn't work. And I was sent to set up Carp at Queens College. Then I was made to be assistant director of the Flushing Center.

Steven Hassan [02:20:37] Then Moon decided he would move the national headquarters from D.C. to New York to be closer to him. He didn't like the president of the Moonies because he was thought too much for himself.

John Dehlin [02:20:49] What do you mean, the President of the Moon?

Steven Hassan [02:20:51] The guy named Neil Salonen was the American head of the Unification Church. And so the headquarters was Moved up and I was told to be the internal able to Neil Stallone and you know, Abel and Cain, like I was going to be his superior and I, they wanted him to learn from me how to be obedient and mindless, basically. So I was assistant director of Church 10 at national headquarters.

John Dehlin [02:21:19] Wait, so Moon put the leader of the moonies in the US under you spiritually?

Steven Hassan [02:21:26] Wow.

John Dehlin [02:21:27] When you're like 20.

Steven Hassan [02:21:29] But you have to understand I was really a good Mooney. I'll give you a quick story. So the Moonies will also do a lot of street fundraising. They were making $30 million a year in cash, selling chocolates, candies, candles, flowers, lying, saying it was for Christian youth programs.

Steven Hassan [02:21:54] And so for ego deconstruction, even leaders were sent out to do fundraising. So, you know, you just, you couldn't complain. You had to just follow the orders and be obedient and do your job. So it's pouring rain. It's the west side of Manhattan. And I'm at a stoplight and I see this Lincoln Continental over there. It stopped at the red light and I recognize it's father and Mother. It's a Saturday night. I run over to the car.

Steven Hassan [02:22:27] You have to get this image. This, this, this guy's bowing to a Lincoln Continental. You know, the way the passengers are the, the window comes down. He's beaming, smiling. And I'm like, father, mother, would you like chocolate or would you like mints? Oh, give me the chocolate. Here's a twenty. And he gives me a twenty dollar bill and takes exit. And then the window goes up. He drives off. He's going, I guess to the theater or something. And then the next morning, a Sunday morning, which was the typical gathering of all the membership. He says, and if you're pure in heart, you might get a blessing like Steven Hasson did last night.

Steven Hassan [02:23:14] And then he describes it to the membership, and it was like he fundraised the Messiah. It's like, yes, it's what God wanted me to do. But you have to. I'm, I'm painting this picture that I was just really a true believer.

Steven Hassan [02:23:31] Like, if I'd stayed in for 10 years, would I have still been that fanatical? I don't know. I don't think so. But I could have been. But I lost my train of thought. What was I saying before?

John Dehlin [02:23:44] You were going through all the different roles? Oh, yeah.

Steven Hassan [02:23:46] So mostly I was in leadership and, you know, thinking about how and Moon was giving talks about infiltrating Congress and how we need to control the Government and how democracy was satanic and, you know, and so. And then a very odd thing happened that didn't make sense until much later, after my deprogramming, but I was lecturing at a lecture hall opposite the main public library in Manhattan on Fifth Avenue, and I was given a stipend, and I decided to go and buy some history textbooks. Remember, I mentioned earlier about the historical time parallels, and now I said, go to the library and check it out.

Steven Hassan [02:24:39] These parallels are true. So I thought I would bolster my lecture with some facts from these books. And I asked my leader, I said, excuse me, but this history textbook doesn't support the divine principle. And within a few hours, I was pulled aside and told that they just found out my parents were trying to kidnap me and deprogram me. It was crucial that I leave the, you know, the New York immediately and go to Pennsylvania.

Guest [02:25:11] Yeah.

Steven Hassan [02:25:12] And I never put the two together until years later that I had asked. I had pointed out the crack in the wall that would have, like, blown up the belief that this was the truth. It was an intentional lie. Right. But they distracted me. They put me on a fundraising team, then they made me the head of a. A fundraising team.

Steven Hassan [02:25:35] And it was in that period that my leader said everyone on my team had to make a minimum of $100 a day, otherwise they couldn't sleep. And me being the good leader, if my members didn't sleep, I wouldn't sleep either. I was sleeping three to four hours a night, normally. Now I'm up for almost three days with no sleep. And I wake up as I'm driving into the back of a tractor trailer truck at 80 miles an hour, slam on the brakes, the thing's a pancake cake, and they have to rescue me.

Steven Hassan [02:26:07] This comes back to the question about am. Am I afraid of being assassinated? Because when I first left, they literally went like this to me when I was out protesting one of the mass weddings. But I had survived this, by the way.

John Dehlin [02:26:24] That's a sign that I did in the Mormon temple, slitting my throat.

Steven Hassan [02:26:28] Oh, as. As proof that as.

John Dehlin [02:26:31] As a. As a threat that we assign to ourselves if we ever divulge the secrets of the temple.

Steven Hassan [02:26:37] Oh, that's a good. That's a good. Not good one, but that's a relevant point to this story. But I kind of felt like I should have died in that van crash. Like, the people who saved my lives so they thought it would blow up, were like, you're alive. It's amazing that you lived through it. So I kind of like, had my, my, my brush with death. And I've kind of made my peace with death, so I've never been afraid with death threats. And I'm like, bring it on.

John Dehlin [02:27:05] Right.

Steven Hassan [02:27:07] More. The more you harass me, the more I'm gonna speak out. And I made a very deliberate, conscious decision to make an ex member group. So if I died, it would be clear other people would speak, so it wouldn't just be silence. I also. Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

John Dehlin [02:27:26] So, so thank you for sharing that and so many parallels. But just to circle back to the bite model, the eyes information, it sounds like the Mooney religion had withheld really information from you and deceived you with information.

Steven Hassan [02:27:42] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [02:27:43] Worked really hard to prevent you from learning the things that then would allow for the T in the bite model, the thoughts, guts, that maybe the church wasn't what it claimed to be.

Steven Hassan [02:27:52] Is that so? But, but I would add there are other things in the eye, like extensive propagandizing and not having access to TV or newspapers or any other sources of information. Having people spy on each other and report if they see anybody violating any rules, you know, is very important. Any information you would tell them would be used to manipulate you if you got out of line or any type of problem.

Steven Hassan [02:28:25] And yeah, just extensive indoctrination, like hours and hours of moon speeches or, or listening to lectures or reading doc doctrines, etc. People were always kept busy. There was no vacation time. Oh, you can take a couple of weeks off. Off like didn't exist.

Steven Hassan [02:28:48] And there was this always this urgency. Oh, and the other thing is they would always make a goal and then up it. So this. And, and Lifton later talked about demand for purity. The idea is we want you to bring three people a week to the introductory lecture. So I'd bring three people and it's like, well, bring five, bring seven, bring 10, you know. And I, I had recruited 13 direct disciples. They called them spiritual children who. And, and, and at the point that I got my first spiritual children, that was another moment of my indoctrination where I was like, I was told, you don't want to show any doubts at all because you're a parent now and you don't want to harm your spiritual child and interfere with their faith journey.

Steven Hassan [02:29:42] So therefore, that was another level of involvement. And indeed, later when I studied psychology, it's, it's, it's a very powerful. Recruiting other people into the cult is a very powerful reinforcer into your cult identity and your involvement.

John Dehlin [02:30:02] We say Mormonism these days, days that The Mormon missionary program is far more for the missionaries than it is to bring converts to the church.

Steven Hassan [02:30:11] Interesting.

John Dehlin [02:30:12] Samantha, any parallels that are striking with you? Just over the past five, ten minutes,

Guest [02:30:16] I was just thinking about how on Mormon missions I think a lot of people have this mindset of if, you know, if they wake up two minutes late, past the fixed time you're supposed to wake up, then maybe that will prevent someone's soul from being saved that day. Or there is that idea that if you don't rigidly adhere to the these arbitrary rules, then you might put someone else's salvation in jeopardy. And that, yeah, that definitely keeps people.

Steven Hassan [02:30:38] Absolutely. So I want to say even when with fundraisers where you're asking someone to give two bucks for a 15 cent piece of chocolate, it is believe that you're giving them a ticket to heaven because you're getting them to do a good deed that connects you to the Messiah.

John Dehlin [02:30:58] Yeah.

Steven Hassan [02:30:58] And there was even a movie called Ticket to Heaven. And but that was the, the notion and yeah, it was not only recruiting that person, but all their ancestors were like starving in low levels of the spirit world. So you, you. I took it very seriously and I did to others what was done to me. I lied. I manipulated because the ends justify the means.

John Dehlin [02:31:24] You consciously lied.

Steven Hassan [02:31:27] My Mooney identity, this is the mentality. Satan deceived Adam and Eve away from God, so God needs to deceive Satan's children away from Satan to God. That is the explicit teaching.

John Dehlin [02:31:44] Yeah. And we call it lying for the Lord.

Steven Hassan [02:31:47] Yeah. Heavenly deception was the term that was the Moonies term. The Christians call it transcendental trickery. And on it goes.

The Turning Point: Leaving the Unification Church

John Dehlin [02:31:58] So, okay, so you have this big car crash. Well, let me just say this, two quick things and then I want to go to your leaving. The Moonies did like I think about Malcolm X and when he discovered for the first time that Elijah Muhammad had had a mistress and had had babies with his mistress kind of thing. Did you ever learn anything about Mr. Moon that was like either through books you read or things you heard about his sexual history or whatever, that while you were a Mooney made you wonder whether he was actually fallen or corrupt as a leader or did you ever just observe?

Steven Hassan [02:32:43] I never had conscious doubt. I suppressed them. I did thought stopping. Moonies are trained to do chants to themselves like crush Satan. Crush Satan. Glory to heaven. Peace on Earth. Glory to heaven. Peace on earth. True parents. True parents. So you were taught these thought stopping techniques, which is a behavior modification technique to stay pure. There was one episode where a Member asked me, me, is it true that father was married before? True, Mother.

John Dehlin [02:33:18] Because you hadn't been taught that he had been married before.

Steven Hassan [02:33:21] Not at all.

John Dehlin [02:33:21] So that information was withheld from you, his previous marriage, correct?

Steven Hassan [02:33:25] Yeah, correct.

John Dehlin [02:33:27] Okay.

Steven Hassan [02:33:29] He was the sinless, you know, most pure, most perfect human being ever on earth, Remember better than Jesus because Jesus failed because he should have been married and had perfect children and sinless children. But. So I remember asking my leader, Kamiyama about was father married before? And he said, yes, but it's not good to tell members that. That was one of the few moments where he intentionally said, said lie to the members. Don't. Don't reveal this.

John Dehlin [02:34:10] Yeah. And you probably know this because I think I talked about it in your interview with me. But I was 31 before I ever read anything specifically about Joseph Smith's 30 plus wives.

Steven Hassan [02:34:21] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:34:22] Like in all my time as a Mormon, any additional wife of Joseph Smith's was literally never mentioned in church ever.

Steven Hassan [02:34:30] Yep.

John Dehlin [02:34:30] And if you talked about it, you would have been punished.

Steven Hassan [02:34:32] Yep. You know, that's a parallelism.

John Dehlin [02:34:36] Okay. All right. So how in the world did you lose your faith and extricate yourself? You said you got to the point where you literally would have killed for Mr. Moon.

Steven Hassan [02:34:49] I was trained. I was a security guard on a few occasions. And it would have been an honor to jump in front of him and take a bullet or, you know, take a gun and shoot somebody who is trying to harm father or mother or whatever.

John Dehlin [02:35:06] So you'd have died or killed for him.

Steven Hassan [02:35:08] But I mean, even early on I was told, we'll send Americans to the front lines of Korea if North Korea invades in order to get America in a land war. And I was like, fine with, with that. Whatever God wants ever God wants. I. I surrender. Wow. Tell me what to do, God.

Steven Hassan [02:35:30] And I prayed two to three hours a day, I should add. Also. And they were not normal prayers. I came to realize this much, much later. They were prayers. More like telling God things. You know, like declaring things as opposed to humbly asking for things or. Please guide me.

Steven Hassan [02:35:57] I need to share another story that led to my promotion to the national headquarters. And this falls under the maybe category of spiritual experiences. But keep in mind, I was like sleep deprived and so the mind does a lot of funny things. And I also do. Did two seven day fasts and I think four, three day fasts, only water and worked full days.

Steven Hassan [02:36:23] Oh my gosh. Yeah. But I had this recurring dream where I was in a room. It was similar to the. To the rooms that I would meet with Moon in the mansion. But I was brought to the head of the table where Moon was seated and the other leaders were around the table.

Steven Hassan [02:36:48] And Moon hands me a cleaver and says, I want you to chop off your finger. And in my dream, I put my pinky down and I chop off my finger and the blood spurting in my dream everywhere. And they give me a wall white gauze that instantly becomes red. And Moon is beaming, so happy and so proud of me.

Steven Hassan [02:37:17] And I had this dream three nights in a row and I reported it to a Japanese woman leader and. And Moon said I was tested in the spirit world. And I passed. And that's when I was told I was going to be the able to Neil Stallone and the President of America.

John Dehlin [02:37:38] And what do you make of all that now

Steven Hassan [02:37:42] again, after the fact, trying to listen to other people who've left and piece things together. I was remembering that we had been told about the Yakuza, which are the Japanese mafia gangsters with tattoos. And they often have to chop off a finger to show loyalty. Loyalty to their gangster mob boss. So I think that may have been the origin of where I got that idea from. But it fit the model of Steven as the model American member that everyone needed to. To follow. So that was a relevant thing. I want to tell one other really quickly, really.

John Dehlin [02:38:32] Okay, Steven, thank you. I'm gonna just give a quick shout out. Going Bananas just gave a 10 super chat. If we, if. If you guys don't mind, we have a lot of live listeners right now. Please just take a moment to subscribe to our YouTube channel. While you're at it, subscribe to Zelf on the Shelf. Uh, that's Samantha's YouTube channel as well. But those subscriptions really help. And I just want to thank Going Bananas for the Super Chat Chat. They just made a $10 donation. You know, we, we flew Steven out. We're paying for his stay along with the workshop that we're doing. But, but we fronted the money and you know, your donations help allow us to do things like have Samantha here's a co host, have me here and have Steven come.

John Dehlin [02:39:16] So if any of you do want to support us financially, whether it's through super chats on YouTube or through the donation button, please do so. And while you're at it, support self on the show shelf and their patreon. But thank you, Going Bananas, he writes. Thank you, Steven, for making this episode happen. I'm in shock at how many parallels there have been so far. Mormon Stories has been so helpful in my faith crisis this past year. Thank you. And I don't think that, you know, going bananas is the only person who's finding so much value in hearing your story to help them process their own. Did you want to add anything, Samantha?

Guest [02:39:52] No.

John Dehlin [02:39:52] Okay.

Guest [02:39:53] But your story was also helpful to me when I was leaving Mormonism.

John Dehlin [02:39:56] Yeah. Yeah.

Steven Hassan [02:39:57] I'm so glad.

John Dehlin [02:39:58] Yeah. Okay.

Steven Hassan [02:40:00] So how did I get out of the cult?

John Dehlin [02:40:02] Well, after this, without a Stephen Hassan,

Steven Hassan [02:40:04] with this near fatal van crash and a very severely broken leg and physical trauma to my body, I was in a hospital away from the cult, sleeping all day long and eating and no contact with the group. My team came to visit me for a half an hour once and they were reassigned to somebody else. And they gave me a little cassette recorder with one of Moon's speeches on it. But other than that, there was no reinforcement for the cult mindset. And I did a kind of a violation of the instructions that I was under. I called my sister Thea, who I was very close with growing up.

Steven Hassan [02:40:57] She's three years older than me and, and she said, I'm so happy to hear your voice and how are you? And I'm like, I'm in a hospital. What happens? And I fell asleep at the wheel of a man and I broke my leg and hurt myself. Oh my God. You know, I want to help you. When can you come home? And I'm like, I need surgery and I don't know if I can come and visit you because mom and dad are satanic. And my oldest sister Steffi also had said that I was in a cult and I was brainwashed. Brainwashed. My sister Thea never did. So she was just like, I miss you and I don't understand.

Guest [02:41:42] So she was the safest person for you?

Steven Hassan [02:41:45] Absolutely. Absolutely.

John Dehlin [02:41:47] Huge lesson. Be safe if you want to have a relationship or even have influence on believing family and friends be.

Steven Hassan [02:41:54] She was unconditionally loving. And that's the ethical side of the influence continuums. You love someone for their beingness, not because they're doing what you want them to do or behaving or believing what you're. You want them to believe.

Guest [02:42:09] Can I ask a very quick question?

Steven Hassan [02:42:11] Sure.

Guest [02:42:11] Were the Mooney's paying for your surgery and healthcare?

Steven Hassan [02:42:15] I, I, the. The van was insured and they got the cheapest, most pathetic medical help. And they would routinely send people to clinics even though they had billions of dollars because they didn't want to spend God's money on members healthcare. And if people got really Sick. They asked them to look, leave and become associate members and wouldn't take responsibility even though when they joined they turned over everything.

Guest [02:42:41] Wow.

Steven Hassan [02:42:42] To them financially. That's another egregious part of their policy. But my sister said, you have a nephew. I want him to know his Uncle Stevie. I'll never forget it because as a kid I was called Stevie, but that was like the real me, Stevie. Right. And I said to her, I think I can arrange a visit, but you have to promise not to tell mom and dad or Steph that I'm. I would come and I think I can arrange it.

John Dehlin [02:43:15] So you were taught that non members were inferior and. Or evil? Of course, yeah.

Steven Hassan [02:43:24] Thousand percent. We were the, we were the chosen and not the way you were asking about Judaism, thinking that Jews are chosen people. The Moonies, we were the elite of God period in human history.

John Dehlin [02:43:37] And I mean, is that a soft parallel, Samantha, or hard parallel for Mormons?

Guest [02:43:41] The superiority.

John Dehlin [02:43:42] We don't think non Mormons are evil.

Steven Hassan [02:43:44] Right.

Guest [02:43:45] I mean anything ranging from just ignorant and under the influence of Satan without

John Dehlin [02:43:50] realizing it to full blown evil or definitely spiritually inferior. Yeah, you would never say that as a Mormon, but you kind of.

Guest [02:43:59] And it even comes into other things, you know, non, non Mormon marriages aren't forever. They're just, you know, second rate marriages, things like that.

John Dehlin [02:44:07] Be aware of anyone who's not a believing faithful member and especially, especially anyone

Guest [02:44:14] who has any pushback on anything you believe or. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:44:17] Stay away.

Guest [02:44:18] Were you explicitly forbidden for having contact with any of your family members?

Steven Hassan [02:44:21] They told me to not, not tell them where I was because they had used the story that they were out to kidnap me and beat me and torture me to lose my faith.

Guest [02:44:31] Because you had mentioned that you called your dad about the Nixon thing. Was that allowed? Was there some.

Steven Hassan [02:44:38] That was much earlier in my involvement and I didn't have a cell phone, but I was encouraged to proselytize and the idea is to try to bring everyone in and get them to donate money and to. And there were a few parents who were willing to say that they support their loved ones choice of a new religious movement or group or something like that.

Steven Hassan [02:45:03] So my sister said, she promised. I talked to my leader and I said, you know, once my surgery's over, I'm not going to be able to be fundraising or lecturing. I have, I had a cast on from my toes to my groin at the time and the other leg was bandaged and my chest I guess had been compressed against the steering wheel. I said, I really Feel guilty if, if a family member needs to say and take care of me during my convalescence. I think I should go to my sister's house and let Satan take care of me.

Steven Hassan [02:45:41] And he looked me in the eye, he said, are you sure? And I said, yeah, I think this is what God wants. And he said okay. So then I got permission to go see my sister. I was on crutches and thank God my sister told my parents they did fire ex Mooney's and, and I was at my sister's house. I was on the living room couch and the Moonies. And I was told by the Moonies to call in every three hours hours. And I didn't because I was visiting.

Steven Hassan [02:46:18] So they were suspicious and they kept saying, oh, he's getting eyeglass, new eyeglasses. Because they had been smashed or were taking this or that. And finally the Moonies are like, we're gonna, we're coming. Because they had known the address. And long story short was that I was, was so fanatical.

Steven Hassan [02:46:45] I had been prepped against deprogrammers. I was sure it would be a test that I could pass. And I, of course I was angry that Satan had invaded the situation, but it was a chance to prove my loyalty to father and true parents etc and but the Moonies were coming. So my, and I had been asking for my mother because I, my plan was to guilt trip my mom into releasing me because I could, my mom would do whatever I told her. Like historically, mom, please, I don't want to have to sue you and dad, whatever. That was my plan. So my father said, okay, let's go see mom.

Steven Hassan [02:47:29] And I agreed to get into the backseat of a car. My leg was and you know, outstretched and my dad was in the front. And two of the ex members, one of whom was someone I had recruited into the cult who had left Gladys, who was part of my team.

Steven Hassan [02:47:46] I always liked Gladys. Anyway, so we're driving on the Long Island Expressway and we pass the exit to my house, to my parents house. And my first thought was, we're not going home. I need to kill my father. And I started thinking about how I could reach over and snap his neck while he's driving on the expressway.

Steven Hassan [02:48:16] And I actually thought about it several minutes and then I thought he's going to die, I'm going to die. The other people are going to die. And I still have so much more I can do on earth to help God. And they would never get me to betray father. So like this is ridiculous. So I Decided not to kill my father in a moving car on the expressway. And we get to another location and I'm in the backseat, my father's pulled over and this football sized man starts walking over to the car.

Steven Hassan [02:49:00] 250, 300 pounds, you know, six, five or whatever. And I said to my father, my father was in the front seat of the car, he was turned around and I said, I'm not getting out of the car and if you make me, I will kill everybody body or you will have to kill me and the blood will be on your conscience forever.

Steven Hassan [02:49:26] I'm looking at my father, I'm saying these words and my father starts to cry like a tear. This is the famous words he said, how would you feel if it was your son, your only son, who meets a group of people, controversial group of people, drops out of college and disappears from your life? How would you feel?

Steven Hassan [02:49:58] The tear got me and I'm tearing up just remembering that moment because my authentic self was like, he really loves me. So I said, thinking so communism, communists have brainwashed him to persecute father. I can step into his shoes and imagine why he's doing this. I could imagine doing the same if it was my son.

Steven Hassan [02:50:30] So I said, I, I think I'd be doing what you're doing now. So what do you want from me? And he said, I just want you. You just sit and listen with an open mind to information. And if you want to go back in a few days, I'll drive you there myself. But at least your mother and I will be able to sleep at night knowing we did the responsible thing.

Steven Hassan [02:50:56] I still get teary when I think about it. So again, for me it was a challenge of my confidence that I wasn't in a cult and I wasn't brainwashed and I was doing God's will. I knew the truth.

Steven Hassan [02:51:12] So I agreed. And so there was another three days that he asked me not to run away, not to try to contact the cult, but to listen and cooperate with the ex members. And honestly, what was happening in the deprogramming? There were four deprogrammers. One was not an ex Mooney, one was like a fanatical Christian who was very dogmatic.

Steven Hassan [02:51:43] But the one that wasn't, you know, in the Moonies, all he did, his name was Gary Rosenberg, may he rest in peace. He would, he would say, so Steven, what do you think? And in retrospect, again, after the fact, I would be telling him how to get me out, but it was not conscious.

John Dehlin [02:52:07] How would you respond?

Steven Hassan [02:52:09] So you know, so Nestor and Mike, you know, would be talking about this or that and I'd be. And then Gary would say so what do you think? You know, like Nestor's never going to get me with the Bible, I'm not a Christian, like that's not going to work. And this I was like the real me was like here's, here's the path to get me out.

Steven Hassan [02:52:34] And Glattus and this is another thing, Mooney and other cult members are really heavily phobatized about deprogrammers that they were vicious, mean, satanic, like sex drug and rock and roller. And I was a leader and I was trained how to discriminate and evaluate people. And I knew these were sincere, good hearted people. I didn't agree with them at the beginning because I was blocking every negative story they would share. But over time as they were telling me stories I started remembering better stories of more abuse or a better lie or whatever. I'll never forget Gladys who I recruited

John Dehlin [02:53:19] from when you were in.

Steven Hassan [02:53:20] Yeah but this was an unconscious process. Right? But Gladys was like do you remember lying to me when you recruited me? And I was like, oh I never lied to you. And then she like recounted the story that I said to her which I had no memory of. And I truly at that moment if you put me on a stack of bibles I would have said I never lied collide in the Moonies like ever.

Steven Hassan [02:53:46] Because I was so in that mindset. But the critical thing that opened me up was was seeing the ex members. No one was abusing me. Everyone was nice and gentle. They were very sure that the Moonies were a bad thing and that, that it was a cult, etc. I was doing thought stopping. My phobias were very strongly intact.

Steven Hassan [02:54:13] But then I learned about lifting and Chinese Communist brainwashing because they said you want to know about Chinese Communist brainwashing. And in the Moonies they were Satan. So sure I'll learn about Chinese Communist brainwashing. So we went through the eight criteria out of chapter 22 of Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism.

Steven Hassan [02:54:36] Robert J. Lifton, M.D. a psychiatrist. The subtitle is A Study of Brainwashing in China. I looked at the book 1961 it was published. So I was like oh this is not an anti father book or an anti moon book.

Steven Hassan [02:54:57] We're going over the eight criteria. And it was clear to me that the Moonies did all the eight of these excuse me criteria. It did not compute because Satan, we were God, Chinese communists were Satan. But we're doing the Same eight criteria that Lifton said was a brainwashing environment.

Steven Hassan [02:55:20] So that was a major shift in my subconscious. Did not fit. Like how God and Satan could be using brainwashing. The same patterns. The thing that woke me up was the last day before I was going to be driven back to the cult was they handed me a speech printed by the cult where Moon was speaking to congressmen and senators. And I'm going to paraphrase, but he said something like, I'm aware that you have heard of a controversy that I am brainwashing American youth.

Steven Hassan [02:56:06] I would never brainwash American youth. I respect Americans very much. I'm surprised that such accusations and. But again, they were just asking me, what do you think? They weren't trying to tell me what to think. And I'm reading this and I had the first negative thought in two and a half years. Years. I said, what a liar.

Steven Hassan [02:56:30] Mine. What a snake was the first thought. And then it was like, wait a minute. If he's a liar, that means he can't be a man of God. Because we teach God is a God of truth. Means that he's not trustworthy.

Steven Hassan [02:56:49] And once I realized the whole thing was based on one presupposition, that Moon was the Messiah. Messiah. Once Moon was not the perfect man anymore. I had this experience of. And I describe it like a house of cards going plop, plop, plop, plop in my mind.

Steven Hassan [02:57:10] And I also describe it like being in a dark room and someone opens the blinds and the sun comes in. And you're like, holy crap, there's sun out there. There's green leaves on trees out there. And then I cried for three hours straight. I cried and cried. I had hurt. They had to bring me cold compresses because I couldn't stop crying

John Dehlin [02:57:40] straight.

Steven Hassan [02:57:41] Yeah. Remember I had a cast on my leg, but I would. I was inconsolable ball.

John Dehlin [02:57:49] It's almost like a reverse spiritual epiphany. But like in horror. As you realize. What. What did you realize?

Steven Hassan [02:57:57] I had dedicated every fiber of my being to this group. And I realized it was a lie in one moment.

John Dehlin [02:58:07] You had that realization?

Steven Hassan [02:58:09] Yeah. It. It is later called a snapping moment, which it was what Deprogrammers. There was a whole book called Snapping where Ted Patrick, who created the term deprogramming, said, you want to snap someone out of it by overloading them and forcing them to have this shift in consciousness. I've learned this is horribly traumatizing. And I avoid doing anything that harsh and direct. Direct. But for me, I was so like, how did this happen to me? Like, I've been praying to you, God, and how could this, how could he be a liar? But how could we be doing brainwashing all the things that I didn't believe we were a cult or we were brainwashed. Now I know that we were. I was a leader. I was horrified.

Guest [02:59:10] And that moment was at the end

Steven Hassan [02:59:11] of three days, five days from start

Guest [02:59:14] to finish, and nothing felt like it was touching you. Up until that point.

Steven Hassan [02:59:20] I was blocking it, but I was not. So I really subscribed to the dual identity, dissociative identity model because the real me was suppressed for those years. It was. I was hearing and remembering a lot of things that should have got me out if it was a normal environment.

Steven Hassan [02:59:43] But thought stopping, phobia programming, sleep deprivation, all these things. Kept it in a box in my. In myself. And I was, I was ashamed. I was embarrassed. I was confused. I wanted. I felt like I had been spiritually raped.

Recovery, Deprogramming, and Reclaiming Identity

Steven Hassan [03:00:11] I also described the feeling like I was on a skyscraper. Like I was at the top of the world and I was just falling. And I had no idea what would happen. I would crash and burn. I just felt out of control, like I was falling off a skyscraper.

Steven Hassan [03:00:31] Down, down, down. And it was really scary. Having former members, especially Gladys, who were loving and kind and spiritual provided an exit from the phobia indoctrination that, you know, I would be like the demon in the Exorcist movie.

Steven Hassan [03:00:58] Like that was not true. I wasn't going to be possessed like that, but I. I was. It was, it was devastating. It was one of the most traumatic events of my life. Aside from the cr.

Guest [03:01:19] How did your parents connect with those people?

Steven Hassan [03:01:25] Those people meaning the people who they hired?

Guest [03:01:28] Sorry, yeah. The D program is.

Steven Hassan [03:01:29] So there was a fledgling movement led by a Rabbi Davis in New York about the Moonies. Because we were recruiting a lot of people on a lot of campuses and around. There was a lot of. Of effort of street witnessing. We would do 72 hour witnessing events and street preaching. I would stand on the street corners and be preaching to the air. America, we're in a crisis time. God is summoning you, you know, like crazy. But anyway, go ahead.

Guest [03:02:07] This is just a really random memory. I remember when I was home in England at Christmas last year, there was what looks like a Korean man standing in the middle of the town square. I can't remember if he was singing or like preaching to the air, but could that be connected?

Steven Hassan [03:02:22] There are so many Korean cults.

Guest [03:02:25] Okay.

Steven Hassan [03:02:25] And many of them are Former Moonies who splintered off and started their own cults. Is.

John Dehlin [03:02:32] Was there a term anti Mooney that Moonies would use to describe people who are opposing the church? Or did you have a name or title that was disparaging for people opposing the church? Like, like Scientology has what? Subversive people?

Steven Hassan [03:02:48] Yeah, suppressive. Suppressive people. I was one 1976, I'm proud to say, because I spoke out against Scientology. Once I learned more about it, it horrified me. No, no, people were just satanic or communist. Yeah, Communists, Satanic atheists.

John Dehlin [03:03:10] Yeah. And were you, did you have a, did you have a snapping moment, Samantha? I'm trying to remember.

Guest [03:03:17] It was more a series of mini snaps, I'd say, and I could, I can remember sort of the final moment where the last shred of hope left my brain that this thing could still somehow be true and fit together and you know, know. But yeah, I'm kind of curious about that difference. Seems like some people can have that one single moment. But I feel like for a lot of ex Mormons it is a gradual process because those psychological mechanisms kick in. You double back down, you try and make it work for longer. I almost wonder if that's because Mormonism is slightly softer than the Moonies. So it almost allows you to go back. What do you think?

Steven Hassan [03:03:58] No, I think my experience was very unique. You know, the combination of being away from the cult for two weeks was

Guest [03:04:05] huge, which does make me think a lot of people left Mormonism in the pandemic and they tell me that it's because just getting space from the church helps them reimagine.

Steven Hassan [03:04:14] Yeah. So I did a TEDX talk. How can I know if I've been brainwashed? And I offered my story in the Moonies and then said there's a force step reality testing strategy that anyone can answer that question for themselves. I don't know if you've seen it or know of this TEDx talk, but basically I say the first step is separating yourself from the influencer or the predator or the predatory organization. And I do believe that you can have a one on one mind control situation with a malignant narcissist. Just get away and sleep and eat and be in nature and remember who you were before you ever met this group.

Steven Hassan [03:04:58] And I know it's different when people have been raised and born or raised in a group, but for those of us who are recruited later in life, just take a time out. Next, study models of brainwashing, thought reform and mind control. I use lifting because it was so pivotal. To me. And by the way, I've interviewed him, he's still alive, he's in his 90s. If people want to see my interviews with him, you can come to my YouTube channel.

Steven Hassan [03:05:27] So study Lift and Singer was another person who had a model or my bite model of authoritarian control. Study that. Then the next step is deliberately seek out ex members and critics. Because when you're in a mind control cult, you're programmed never to trust an ex member or a critical critic. They it's spiritual pornography or it's garbage or dog eating its vomit or whatever.

Steven Hassan [03:05:55] But if you take the position of I want to know what's true, I want to know what's real and I'm smart and I can discern, find out what's the beef. Especially former leaders of a group or someone who was sixth generation, like, find out their story and really listen to it.

Steven Hassan [03:06:15] Then with the knowledge of the bite model, with the knowledge of former members, go back in your experience and ask yourself, if I knew then what I know now, like when I was on the mission or this or that, then you can begin through reality tests. Yes, it either fits the authoritarian byte model of control thing or it or doesn't, or it's somewhere in between.

Steven Hassan [03:06:44] But that by doing that exercise, at least you can know here's, here's the, here are the models, but that by experts. Here's what the critical information says, the truth, the facts that are documented, the former leaders. And then being honest with yourself. That's the other thing I want to say, say is people need to be honest. And as a therapist, if people really want to make change or grow, they need to be really honest with themselves. Even if they have impermissible thoughts or feelings. It's like, let them out, let's air it out, let's look at it all and have that kind of commitment to, you know, reality. And so that's how to know whether you've been brainwashed, washed.

Guest [03:07:33] It's so tough because we always talk about the question that is so important that members, Mormons are able to ask themselves, if is if this wasn't true, would I want to know? And I feel like for members to even get to the point where they see the value of those four steps or see the value of asking whether this is. There almost needs to be a weakening of faith prior to even getting to that point. So it's so hard to.

Steven Hassan [03:07:58] So I remember before the moon. I'm sorry, I interrupted.

Guest [03:08:00] No, no, you didn't.

Steven Hassan [03:08:01] So I remember before the moonies, I read I want to say it was a Zen teaching story. I'm not remembering the author, but the story was that a man grew up in a village. He went on a hunting trip or he left the town and something happened in the well war. And everyone went crazy, everyone went mad.

Steven Hassan [03:08:31] And the man came back and realized they all drank the water and they're all nuts. And the purpose of the story is to ask yourself, would you drink the water to fit in? Or would you say, nope, they're mad.

Steven Hassan [03:08:51] I don't want. This is my life, and I don't want to be mad head. And I remember that story because in my mind I said, no, I would not drink the water. Of course, people talk about the flavor aid all the time with Jonestown, like. And they try to make jokes about it, which isn't funny for people like me to hear jokes about it. But this story about if you knew that something wasn't true, would you choose to believe it just to fit in or not?

Steven Hassan [03:09:26] And again, we'll talk more, I guess, tomorrow. But I like to teach people social psychology and how the mind works and explain our biases of consciousness and to build a framework, because I believe if you talk to Mormons and ask, what do you think of the Chinese Communist brainwashing program programs right now, that they'll say it's terrible and that it's immoral and illegal, but they won't know anything about what's happening there.

Steven Hassan [03:10:00] But that's the bridge. You. You find something that they would say is wrong and evil and bad, and you ex. Then you break it down and explain the. The. The variables. And then you're creating a platform for analysis process of your own experience.

John Dehlin [03:10:19] And I think that's. I think I want to make sure. And there are a couple more questions I want to ask before we tie up.

Steven Hassan [03:10:26] Okay.

John Dehlin [03:10:27] But I'm going to make another plug for your course because Foundations of Colts.

Steven Hassan [03:10:32] It's a foundational course. I aimed it for clinicians initially, but people have been taking it who are ex members or relatives who have a loved one in a cult that they're trying to help. And it's just the foundational knowledge. There's much more to describe about how to actually talk to people in an effective way. But it's over nine hours. And I think it's very. A very good value for people because it's basically the equivalent of one hour of my time of talking doing a consult to take the course. It's almost 10 hours. Hours.

John Dehlin [03:11:09] Yeah. And I just included a link to it. In the comments and we'll include it in the show notes. But I mean come on, this guy's a legend. He's now spent almost 50 years of his life helping build cult awareness and helping people extricate themselves from un, unhealthy organizations and cults and not just churches and religions but MLMs and you know,

Steven Hassan [03:11:30] gurus, political cults, therapy cults, large group awareness training cults.

John Dehlin [03:11:37] Yeah.

Steven Hassan [03:11:37] And controlling relationships and not to mention Russia, China, Iran and other authoritarian dictatorships.

John Dehlin [03:11:45] And I took a look at with him of the, of the course and kind of the breakdown and it's amazing. So please buy the course for your own, check it out and knowledge but also support Steven and his work because you need support, support to carry on the further work that you want to do.

Steven Hassan [03:12:02] Yeah, I'm trying to scale John, my work because there's only one of me and I'm not getting younger. So I want to train up those who want to learn, who are coaches, who want to be therapists etc as well as just I want to empower all former members to do the self healing work so that they can share their story and destigmatize to the general public public that only stupid people can be in a cult or you know, ignorant people that they're brilliant people who've been had their minds hacked and have gotten into these situations whether they were born in or recruited them.

John Dehlin [03:12:42] Yeah, yeah. So please support Stephen Hasson in this work and by the course. So really quickly now back to Samantha's question. Yes, you, you have this, this, this whiplash. What was the moment? You called it a what moment? Snapping, snapping moment. You had the snapping moment. You had this devastating three hour cry because of this intervention. You realized that you had given your life and everything to a cult. What are, what were those final steps? To leave and were you terrified to leave especially since you had ascended at such a high level. What were those final steps?

Steven Hassan [03:13:19] Oh, I thought they were going to murder me. I thought I'd be assassinated as soon as they knew that I was no longer in because I, I was at these meetings where you know, they trusted my loyalty and I wound up giving all these speeches to the US government and outing them. But like I said, I was saying before, I just made a very conscious decision. I sat down in front of cameras in the first few weeks and, and told everything I could remember. I later remembered a lot more but I, I put them in lawyers safes and said if I'm, if I die, if I'm killed, this should be released. This was before VHS. This, I may have been 8 millimeter or something. This was 76. I have no idea.

John Dehlin [03:14:10] Oh, would that be cool if they still.

Steven Hassan [03:14:12] But I, but I, I put them in and I had two copies and I had lawyers say if anything happens to Steven Hasson, we have all of his recordings and they will be released publicly and there will be such bad public relations you will never recover from it.

Steven Hassan [03:14:28] The other thing I did was I really tried to align myself with high profile people, politicians, people in the Jewish world came to my defense. But I pretty much said, you know me and I'm telling you if you try to stop me, I will work harder to expose you. And I've used that.

Steven Hassan [03:14:58] And I really feel like I've been gifted my life. Like I never imagined I'd be 47 years doing, doing this work. I'm a cancer survivor from like, was it 16 years ago I had lymphoma. And that's another discussion about how important good sleep is. Steven to nine hours. John Dehlin sleep seven to nine hours, wink, wink, nod, nod.

Guest [03:15:24] You just seem like someone that might be on the slept.

Steven Hassan [03:15:28] No, but people who are raised in cults where they don't sleep properly, that's one of the most important things for their, their health and recovery is, is like realizing we are in our bodies and we have to take care of our bodies. And it's a very wise thing. And a toxic thing with a lot of cults is believing that your body's evil and that you should ignore the pain, you know, that you're suffering versus go to a doctor and find out you may have cancer and you should need surgery or radiation or chemo or something happened with me with the golf ball in my armpit anyway, so. But I, I, I, I feel very at peace. I, I make my, my decisions, you know, based on. I want to do something valuable every day to contribute to help more people. Yes, you want, I was just gonna

John Dehlin [03:16:25] say, say it's one thing most people I don't know, at least in many of the high demand religions I'm aware of, they never leave. So it's a monumental act to figure it out. And a, by the way, there's a lot of people these days in 2023 in Mormonism who figured out but don't have the courage to leave. So there's figuring it out. That's monumental.

John Dehlin [03:16:48] Having whatever resilience and strength and courage to just figure it out and open this. Then there's deciding to leave. That's a whole another major milestone. But there's so many people that would leave and just like, disappear and just say, like, I'm running as far away from this as possible. So not only figuring out and leaving, but then deciding not only to speak up and be an activist. That's a third major step that you took. But then the fourth is dedicating your entire life, life to helping others. What the heck were you thinking?

Steven Hassan [03:17:22] Like, yes.

John Dehlin [03:17:24] What is it about you that had you take all four of those steps versus other people that would stop far sooner?

Guest [03:17:31] It's like that Spider man meme where the two Spider men are looking back at each other.

John Dehlin [03:17:35] I. I've only got 20, so by

Steven Hassan [03:17:37] the way, Spider man was in Queens, by the way, which was my borough. So I. Of all the superheroes, I. I've always liked Spider Man a lot. So there's another piece to the story that I think your listeners want. May want to hear to answer your question. And that is. So at the point that I cried and I said, I don't want you to drive me back. I said, I'm. My brain is fried and I don't want to make any commitments or decisions for the next three months.

Guest [03:18:12] Months.

Steven Hassan [03:18:12] I need to figure this out because I felt totally overloaded and really confused. I said to my father, you need to go get my stuff out of this location. I have all these internal documents that are really important.

Steven Hassan [03:18:32] I signed a notarized document. He went with the police to the location of the Mooney house. They tried to stall and go through my stuff, but we got all the main speeches out. So I was already thinking ahead.

Steven Hassan [03:18:50] But the big thing that shifted for me is I just started reading again. And I had been reading two to three books a week before the Moonies. And I read nothing in the Moonies other than Mooney material and stuff. So my concentration was shot. My. Even my recollection of what words meant. I had to read a dictionary again to remind myself what words meant.

Steven Hassan [03:19:18] And I developed, and I was told by a therapist, steve, the mind's like a muscle. Like if you broke your arm and you had it in a cast, when the cast comes off, you're weak. You're going to need to do exercise.

Steven Hassan [03:19:30] You need to just have that attitude to reclaim your power, your psychological power. That was really helpful. But I said, I. I really need to talk to Lifton. So I asked around. I found out he was at Yale.

Steven Hassan [03:19:51] I got his phone number and I called his office and I talked to Lily Finn, his secretary, and they said, I'd like to arrange a talk with Dr. Lif. Then what's this about? I read his book, and it saved my life.

Steven Hassan [03:20:08] Huh. Which book? Anyway, he gets on. On. No, actually, it was. He got on the phone with me and he. I said, your book saved my life. He said, which book? Because he had written a bunch of them by that. I said, thought reform, the psychology of Total. And he said, that old book, why?

Steven Hassan [03:20:28] And they said, well, I was recruited into the Mooney's at Queens College in 1974. And I became this stranger. I became this, you know, radical person, and da, da, da, da, da. And I really want to talk to you about it.

Steven Hassan [03:20:44] I had read his book, and it didn't match my experience because. So he said, come and see me. And he arranged to have me come to his penthouse. It wasn't penthouse. It was a Central park west apartment overlooking Central Park.

John Dehlin [03:21:01] Nicer than Queens.

Steven Hassan [03:21:02] And I'll never forget this meeting because here's this Yale psychiatrist. I'm a college dropout, right? I'm like a nobody. Embarrassed, ashamed. And I'm sitting on the couch, my legs up with my cast, and he's standing there, there. And there's a wall of hardcover books from the top to floor, the entire room. And I start to explain how I was recruited, how I recruited people. The three day work, the introductory lectures, the three day workshop, seven day 21 day, 40 day workshop. And he's listening and he's nodding, and then he says the fateful words. He says, you know, I just studied this second hand. But you lived it. They did it to you, and you did it to other people. And what you're describing is so much more sophisticated than what I studied. You need to study psychology and explain it to people like me.

John Dehlin [03:22:12] Wow. So he was turning over the mantle to you? A little. Little bit.

Steven Hassan [03:22:16] It. It's called in the biz a therapeutic reframe or turning lemons into lemonade. But it was like, there's some value to this, what I went through. So. And then I started meeting ex members of Scientology and other groups. I'm like, holy.

John Dehlin [03:22:44] Are you feeling emotional right now?

Steven Hassan [03:22:45] Yes. Tearing up.

John Dehlin [03:22:47] Oh, so what is it you're feeling when like, yeah, no, I believe you. I'm just.

Steven Hassan [03:22:52] No, I was back in the room with him. So that brings up the feelings of what. Of how lost I was and how confused. And how much we can have such an impact in a short amount of time to just change somebody's life completely. But even so, I never imagined I'd be doing this for 47 years. I thought I did two and a half years. I'll do two and a half years to take them down was what I was thinking. Then Jonestown happened.

Guest [03:23:36] And

Steven Hassan [03:23:40] when I saw the bodies and the children, I was like, I could have done that. That what, that's what propels me to this day. Because you never know. Like, I'm doing this talk that could be somebody in another country hearing this story and might ignite them. Life is precious. Our time on earth is precious and we can lift each other up.

John Dehlin [03:24:21] I think we had to end there. What do you think, Samantha? Yeah, that's super powerful and super beautiful and, and I, I, I really, and

Steven Hassan [03:24:29] I'm, I, I thank my deprogrammers. I have a blog, you know, with pictures. My 40th anniversary of my deprogramming. I'm ever grateful. One became a psychiatrist, one became a social worker. I'm forever grateful because back then you were, you were risking getting arrested and going to jail. It was a big deal to rescue somebody.

John Dehlin [03:24:59] The comments from the live streamer flowing in, things like, thank you so much, Stephen. Oh my heart, you know. Love you, Steven. So are the Mormon stories. The Mormon stories audience is sending you their love and gratitude.

Steven Hassan [03:25:14] Thanks and thanks to my family who loved me always. They didn't give up on me. Love is stronger than mind control. I keep telling the people, don't give up. Even if the cult members won't talk to you, you keep talking to them and just say, I miss you, I love you, had a dream about you that we were together doing a picnic or fishing together again or whatever. Bring up good memories. Let them know that you love them no matter what. Even if they are in a cult, you still love them. You love their heart. They love their beingness.

Guest [03:26:10] I think about that a lot, A lot. With cult like political ideologies these days and how I think my generation and the one below it can be quite quick to cut off their loved ones for believing the wrong things. And you know, obviously if there's not a healthy way for someone to be in your life, I understand that and boundaries are important, but I just think like keeping whatever bridges you can, even if those bridges are like the favorite movie that you and your mom and dad check, like they matter and they, they might, you know, lead to somewhere further one day. So I'm always an advocate for people not burning them, even if they're, they seem tiny and you know, and there

Steven Hassan [03:26:48] are therapists, you can behave as mediators if there are violations from your childhood where you are unsafe or not protected. There are People who you can ask and say, would you be willing to contact people? And on the flip side, I've had former members come to me whose families have turned their back on them because they were so angry and hurt that they didn't come to their wedding or they didn't go to see mom when she was dying of cancer to say goodbye. And they're so angry at the cult member and they don't put the anger at the cult. They blame the person and they don't understand they were on mind control. Control.

John Dehlin [03:27:31] Yeah. Well, that was beautiful and that was powerful and I think that makes it a good way to end today's episode. But number one, you've been so generous to give us so much time today, you know, but tomorrow we still have more time and we have Thrive on Saturday for those who.

Hassan's Ongoing Work and Closing Reflections

Steven Hassan [03:27:53] Yeah, I'm excited to learn more and meet more people. If anyone has much books and wants me to sign them at any of these in person things, I'd be happy to make time to, to sign or take a selfie or whatever.

John Dehlin [03:28:06] So if you are joining us now live and you are interested in tonight, the Lost and Found Club led by Chelsea Homer and her wonderful board, they're having Steven speak. You can go to lostandfound Club. There's a link in the description right now. You, there's still tickets available available. You can see Steven tonight with Chelsea Homer's Lost and Found Club. Also please check out Faith Journey Meetups which is a Facebook group that Chelsea Homer started that has almost 10,000 progressive and post Mormons supporting each other, women supporting each other throughout the world. Check that out. And then Thrive, you're speaking at Thrive Unite in Lehigh and in Ogden on Saturday. Coming up, go to thrive beyond religion religion.com or go to the description to get links to that. And then Sunday you and I are doing a full day workshop.

Steven Hassan [03:28:58] That's the thing I'm most excited about, honestly, because we haven't taught together and I really want to learn from you and I really want to teach what I'm learning as I'm interacting with ex Mormons. It's going to be awesome.

John Dehlin [03:29:11] Yeah. Well, I feel a little bit like you felt when Lifton said you need to teach others. I'm like, what?

Steven Hassan [03:29:17] Trust me. You, you, you have been teaching me.

John Dehlin [03:29:24] Yeah. So if you want to join us on Sunday, we'd love to have you. It's going to be an alpine again in the description is the links to the all day workshop and there's still tickets available for that as well, and if we can, we're going to record that and then. Yeah, make it available.

Steven Hassan [03:29:38] Yeah, the, the, we, we want to empower more people to do their full healing and to know what they can do to help family and friends who are still trapped.

John Dehlin [03:29:50] Yeah. And finally, I'll just end by saying buy Steven's books. The two books that we're plugging explicitly are combating cult mind Control. Please buy this book and buy 20 copies for your friends and family right now. Buy this book. And the other book is Freedom of Mind. If you're having thoughts about helping loved ones leave controlling people, cults and beliefs, Freedom of Mind is a book that you can purchase. I also mentioned that you wrote a book that you believe very passionately about called the Cult of Trump. And while we try and stay as politically neutral as we can in Mormon stories, podcasts so they don't get off mission and alienate people, I, I have to show you the respect of mentioning the book and saying that if you want to learn about, about Stephen's analysis as it relates to, to Trump, you know, that's up to you.

Steven Hassan [03:30:43] Yeah. And I'd like to invite people to come to freedomofmind.com because I have downloadable PDFs of the influence continuum, the bite model, list of malignant narcissism, my work on trafficking, sex and labor trafficking. Check out my blog interviews. I do a range of range of interviews and you know, I have, I have videos of my interviews with Lifton as well as talking about his other books, the Nazi doctors. He, his last book is called Losing Reality and I forget the subtitle but has to do with cultism because he's come in a journey. He was very afraid to speak out about cults when I was speaking out about cults and he's, he's morphed also.

John Dehlin [03:31:29] Fantastic. So there's a YouTube channel. And please again, buy, buy Steven's course and support him and learn a lot through that. All right, and tomorrow we're going to come right back and we're going to talk about healing and growing after a cult or a high demand religion and how to communicate with believing family and friends that are still in. We're just going to scratch the surface and we'll get six, six good hours with you at least. So on behalf of my listeners and viewers, Stephen Hasson, you're an inspiration to us all.

Steven Hassan [03:32:02] Thank you so much.

John Dehlin [03:32:03] We give you our, our respect and our honor and our gratitude for your life's work.

Steven Hassan [03:32:08] Thank you. I want to forgive me because I know we're wrapping up. But the first time you contacted me and asked me to be on Mormon Stories, I was like, do I want to be on Mormon Stories Podcast? And I said, you know, would you read Combating? And I'll never forget you emailed me, your book's blowing my mind. And then the next day, I get a color coded bite model analysis. No one ever did a color coded. I was like, brilliant idea. Can I use that with other groups? And you're like, sure. You know, always, never, sometimes color coding thing. And it's like, brilliant. Thank you, John. So you contributed to my work. Work dramatically.

John Dehlin [03:32:50] Well, that's fun. Yeah. And I'll. I'll try and find a link to that post because I made a post. I basically took all the sub bullets for bit and E and rated Mormonism green, yellow, or red for whether they. They qualified for the criteria.

Steven Hassan [03:33:06] Yeah. And I. I dare say we could probably do a version for women in these patriarchal cults too. I did an interview with Yasmin Mohammed, who was raised in an extremist Muslim cult married to a Al Qaeda terrorist, and she opened my eyes to the oppression of women under fundamentalist Islam, which is horrendous in Afghanistan and Iran. Women need more empowerment and support, as do gay people and indigenous people.

John Dehlin [03:33:41] People. Yeah. Yep. And trans people. And yes. You know, and yeah, I. I love that your work spans not just churches and religions, but yoga instructors and MLMs and governments and, you know, educational institutions and podcasters. It can be applied to your significant other. Right.

Steven Hassan [03:34:04] And your parents.

John Dehlin [03:34:05] Right. It's all that. So, yeah, it's great stuff. Samantha, I am so glad I contacted you like 30 minutes before we started and said, can you get here?

Guest [03:34:13] I know I woke up so late today, but I was like, Stephen Hassan. Yeah, I'll be there.

John Dehlin [03:34:18] Yeah, thank you.

Steven Hassan [03:34:18] I'm glad you did too.

Guest [03:34:20] Yeah, this has been amazing. And me six years ago is fan galling so hard.

John Dehlin [03:34:27] And check out Samantha. Samantha is a coach. Samantha Shelley coaching.

Guest [03:34:33] Yes, that's my website and Zelf on the shelf is my YouTube channel.

John Dehlin [03:34:36] And subscribe to Mormon Stories and subscribe to Zelf. Subscribe on Patreon to self and support us on Mormon Stories if you feel like it. But most importantly today, support Stephen Hassan.

Steven Hassan [03:34:46] No, I think support everybody who deserves it.

John Dehlin [03:34:51] All right, thanks. All right, thanks, Stephen. We'll see you tomorrow.

Steven Hassan [03:34:54] See you later.

John Dehlin [03:34:54] We'll see you, Samantha.

Guest [03:34:56] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:34:57] And we'll see all you again soon. Soon. On another episode of Mormon Stories, Contact. Be good to each other. Be kind to each other. And remember that love is stronger than mind control. Did I get that right?

Steven Hassan [03:35:10] Stephen Absolutely loves.

John Dehlin [03:35:12] It is than mind control.

Steven Hassan [03:35:14] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:35:14] That's beautiful. Thanks, everybody. Take care.

Steven Hassan [03:35:17] Thanks. Bye.

John Dehlin [03:35:18] And thanks, Steven. We'll see you all again very soon.

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.