Combating Cult Mind Control: The Guide to Protection, Rescue and Recovery from Destructive Cults

by Steven Hassan

Beloved Son: A Story of the Jesus Cults

In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act. –George Orwell, (actual name, Eric Blair)

The goals of every SIA effort are to empower the individual to be their own person: to think critically, to evaluate, and to reality-test and to exercise their own free will. The person learns to listen to their inner voice, rather than the instructions of an authority figure.

Paradoxically, because the earlier editions didn’t mention either group, the book wasn’t banned by church leaders, and so it was widely read by church members as a result.

The techniques of undue influence have evolved dramatically, and continue to do so. Today, a vast array of methods exists to deceive, manipulate and indoctrinate people into closed systems of obedience and dependency. Sadly, the essential information in this book is still not widely known or understood. People around the world remain largely unprepared

Truth is stronger than lies, and love is stronger than fear.

If you are involved with a religious organization, keep in mind that God created us with free will, and that no truly spiritual organization would ever use deception or mind control, or take away your freedom.

I help these people recover and start their lives over. My approach enables them to make this transition in a way that avoids the trauma associated with the often-illegal abduction method Ted Patrick called deprogramming.

The popular view of cults is that they prey on the disaffected and the vulnerable—losers, loners, outcasts, and people who simply don’t fit in. But the truth is very different. In fact, most cult recruits are normal people with ordinary backgrounds—and many are highly intelligent.

Who Are The Moonies? The Unification Church (whose formal name is The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity) was once one of the wealthiest, most influential, most visible, and most destructive cults operating in the United States.

As far as the media were concerned, the Unification Church and its followers faded away in the 1980s. The truth is that the Moon organization became more sophisticated, expanding its many religious, political, cultural, and business front groups.

Mind control is any system of influence that disrupts an individual’s authentic identity and replaces it with a false, new one.

The Moon organization comprises enterprises ranging from ginseng exportation to the manufacture of M-16 rifles.

In the United States, perhaps the most visible Moon controlled entity is The Washington Times—a newspaper which has enjoyed considerable influence both in Washington and internationally. Former President Ronald Reagan said it was his favorite newspaper and that he read it every day. When the Times celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2007—former President George H.W. Bush was the headliner. Han Sang Keuk and Bo Hi Pak have both been top executives of the Times. It is reported that the Moon group spent some $2 billion on a newspaper that has never returned a profit.

Until recent years, a thread running through all of Moon’s myriad organizations was anti-Communism. To put it simply, the Moonies believed that Christians and the citizens of the non-Communist world were locked in a mortal struggle with the satanic forces of materialistic Communism. To the extent that Am...

The fall of the U.S.S.R. and the adoption of capitalism by China were major factors behind this—although, interestingly, Moon claimed to his followers that he was the reason Communism fell apart.

a 1973 speech, in which Moon declared, “When it comes to our age, we must have an automatic theocracy to rule the world. So we cannot separate the political field from the religious…Separation between religion and politics is what Satan likes most.”

the Washington Times has never been just a newspaper. It has enabled Moon’s organizations unusual access to the power brokers of American politics, and influenced people and even governments around the world.

Currently the empire’s primary organization is the Universal Peace Federation (UPF).

The UPF owns the University of Bridgeport, a private university in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and has used it to facilitate recruiting some people into the group by offering them a scholarship to come to study in the U.S.

Kahr Arms, a handgun manufacturer, is also part of the Moon network.

Different cults appeal to the many different human impulses: such as desire to belong; to improve oneself and others; to understand the meaning and purpose of life.

Religious cults are the most well known. They often have a charismatic leader and operate with religious dogma.

Political cults, often in the news, are organized around a simplistic political theory, somet...

Psychotherapy/educational cults, which have enjoyed great popularity, purport to give the participant ...

Commercial cults play on people’s desires to make money. They typically promise riches but actually enslave people, and compel t...

None of these destructive cults deliver what they promise and glittering dreams eventually turn out to be pat...

I believe that people want to be free.

At that point I didn’t notice that my questions were never answered, and didn’t suspect I was being deliberately strung along.

However, I did feel a bit confused and said I didn’t think I’d be coming back. When I said this, a silent alarm seemed to go off among the people in the house.

When I returned on Thursday night, I was barraged with flattery from all sides, all evening. This practice, I would later learn, was called “love bombing.” I was told over and over what a nice person I was, what a good person I was, how smart I was, how dynamic I was, and so forth.

What should I do? It didn’t dawn on me in my agitated state of confusion that I had been subjected to mind control—that whereas one week earlier, I had had no belief in Satan, now I was afraid that he was influencing my thoughts.

I didn’t want to change my religion; I just wanted to do the right thing.

By the end of those three days, the Steve Hassan who had walked into the first workshop was gone, replaced by a new “Steve Hassan.” I was elated at the thought that I had been “chosen” by God, and that I knew what I needed to do with my life.

At that point, I was still aware of a muffled voice deep within me that was warning me to watch out, to keep questioning everything.

I can also see very clearly that the higher I rose in the hierarchy, the more corrupted I became: Moon was making us over in his image.

I had done a 40-day “indemnity condition”—giving up my friends and family for forty days, not seeing them or communicating with them in any way. This is a practice used by several cults and in particular about the two years Mormon ‘missionaries’ are kept from their families.

I was told my creative writing, especially my poetry, was my “Isaac.” I dutifully threw out everything I had written—some four hundred pieces.

I was in a high-speed daze of exhaustion, zeal, and emotional overload.

I took things very seriously because of the potential spiritual repercussions of everything I did. I thought my every action had monumental and historical implications.

It is ironic that whereas Moon’s stated goal was to unify the world, many of his strategies fostered jealousy and spite among leaders, virtually ensuring a lack of unity.

His disregard for legal and accounting advice eventually landed him in jail. His use of deception in order to buy real estate and businesses caused great enmity in many communities.

Re-motivated by our increased level of fear, we continued our recruiting activities at a blinding pace.

One irony of my experience in the Moonies is that the higher I rose in the organization, the closer I got to the total burn-out and exhaustion that eventually led to my exit from the group.

I had been trained to have little concern for my overall well-being during those days. The most important thing was to work as hard as I could for “Father.’’

Fear of the outside world, particularly of our parents, was drilled into our minds. Although I didn’t realize it then, each successive deprogramming story was more terrifying—and more exaggerated—than the one before.

I had discovered some glaring inconsistencies. It was dangerous for someone in my position in the organization to ask questions that couldn’t be answered. The other group leaders filled me with so much fear about deprogrammers that my questions were shelved. I believed my spiritual survival was at stake.

I drove my team hard, and together they averaged over $1,000 a day in total profit—tax-exempt cash.

After all, every person but us was being controlled by Satan, and it was up to us “Heavenly Children” to claim money back from Satan for God’s Messiah,

Usually I had someone ride “shotgun” position to protect me from being attacked by evil forces, including “sleep spirits.” As ridiculous as it seems now, I actually believed that spiritual entities were all around me, waiting to invade me and possess me. This was all part of the mind control indoctrination.