Cult-Like Behavior in Extreme Trump Followers

become a sustaining member of the commonwealth  club for just 10 a month join today uh welcome to today's commonwealth club  presentation my name is dr patrick o'reilly   i'm the chair of the psychology forum at the  commonwealth club and i will be the moderator   today for today's program i'm i am pleased to  introduce today's speaker dr stephen hassan a   mental health professional who has been helping  people leave destructive cults since 1976 after he   was deprogrammed from sun and moon's unification  church he is the author of four books including   combating mind control the guide to protection  rescue and recovery from destructive cults   and more recently the cult of trump a leading  cult expert explores how the president uses mind   control if you have any questions for dr hassan  please use the text chat feature and uh and your   questions will be sent to me and as time allows  dr hassan we'll answer them so without further   ado please welcome dr hassan thank you so much dr  o'reilly i'm very honored to be invited to speak   at the commonwealth club and i am a member um so  thank you for inviting me and let's jump in so   i've been asked to speak about cult-like behavior  and extreme trump followers and in my presentation   i wanted to start with the question how  would you know if you were under mind control i'm going to come back to this question later in  the presentation but i do want to say that it's   not so easy because when you're involved with a  destructive authoritarian cult you think you're   thinking for yourself it's your free choice uh  and you don't understand what's happened to you   you're unable to see the situation objectively  so in this presentation i want to not just define   the whole issue of undue influence but  also give insight into the mindset and   give a frame that will be useful for everyone  excuse me so i'd like to start with social   psychology's most important principle which  is known as the fundamental attribution error   which is the tendency people have to look  at another person and overestimate their   character their disposition underestimate the  context or the situation that's influencing them   so specifically when i hear people talking  about trump believers i hear repeatedly   how they're stupid they're ignorant they're this  they're that as opposed to really thinking clearly   about what's gone into their experience  that has caused them to become so fanatical   and um i've always been teaching for 45 years  about situational vulnerabilities that all   people go through in their life to being recruited  by an authoritarian cult but i thought i would   just mention some of the key things divorce  separation the you know a breakup of a   relationship death of a loved one illness of  course so many people have died because of covet   i don't know anyone who doesn't know someone  who's died because of that the economic problems   loss of job graduation moving to a new city  state or country and of course people who   are magical thinkers are as opposed to analytical  thinkers can be more vulnerable and some other   things some other factors of vulnerabilities there  are folks who are high hypnotizable um and so they   have good concentration good imagination  and under the right set of circumstances   can be implanted with ideas that they would  normally not ever choose of their own volition   um excessive amounts of of meditation even being  on screens which has been tremendously developed   expanded i should say because of the pandemic  all kinds of problems but what i would like   everyone to understand is step back from  that bias of blaming the victim who gets   into a mind control cult and really look at  the context and what's been happening to our   society and our world another important concept  that i want to share is the notion of the   authentic self and then the cult self that that  gets created that suppresses the person's self   and the key point here is understanding that mind  control or brainwashing or undue influence does   not erase the person but it creates a kind of  pseudo identity that suppresses the person and   they did take the liberty of mentioning tonya or  patty hearst who was kidnapped by the symbionese   liberation army as everyone in san francisco  knows so well and actually i was recruited   into the moon cult the same month that uh patty  hearst was kept kidnapped and became tanya so   here's a couple of pictures of moon being crowned  the messiah in the dirksen senate office building   and because of time i'm not going to  go into it but the moonies are very   best known for their mass weddings where moon  would say you and you you and you you and you   and i guess i should say for those uh listeners  in san francisco the moonies were big recruiters   in the bay area uh under our front group called  the creative community project for decades   but these folks are all believing that moon is  the messiah and that he can read their minds and   know everything about them they often didn't know  each other before they were being told to marry   each other and uh most of the people as far as all  the statistics i'm aware of how are now divorced   uh many years later so this is sean  this is a little laser pointer sean   moon one of moon's sons who has a uh version  of the moonies that he calls the rod of iron   ministry he takes a verse from the bible and says  that we need assault rifles for god and i bring   this up because the moonies have a gun factory in  pennsylvania and here's sean moon on january 6th   during the insurrection attempt and as far as i  know uh other than the fact that he was tweeting   how it was antifa that did the violence um i  am not aware of any media covering the mooney's   involvement with the cult of trump although  many people know about the washington times   they don't understand that the moonies have  been involved with the media with trying   to influence the government for decades and i  am a whistleblower i was a leader in the cult   i cut off from my family dropped out  of college quit my job and believed   that moon and his wife were my true parents  and my parents my real parents were satanic   and for anyone wondering i basically had a  near fatal van crash due to sleep exhaustion   and after two weeks in the hospital visited my  sister and my family arranged a deprogramming   which saved my life and it was that experience  that has governed and directed me for the last   45 years of my career quick graphic think about  authoritarian cults uh top leaders and and cults   can be ideological cults you don't need a living  leader or a person to have an authoritarian cult   but keep in mind the main numbers of people are  out here and not people who are in the core and   for the book the cult of trump i developed  this graphic to try to explain how i saw it   and there are very powerful financial  political influencers the christian   right that wants dominionism that wants to  abolish the separation of church and state   wants to undermine women's right to choose and  gay rights were influencing using their followers   to be the core uh base of trump of course there's  a bubble the right-wing media social media   that we know also well but the good news is  trump has been defeated and hopefully he will be   served in criminal charges soon  biopsy psychological operations   and i want everyone who's listening this to  understand to step back and look uh through   this frame that what's been happening has been  psychological warfare as well as cyber warfare   and the utilization of data mining through the  cambridge analytica hack which is this great   documentary the great hack social dilemma is a  documentary uh interviewing former executives   from major platforms facebook linkedin twitter  talking about how ai is is made to uh capture   people's attention in order to influence them  and this documentary a lot of people haven't seen   uh it talks about a company called glue that takes  people's data that's been harvested without their   permission largely and sells it to third parties  in order to target them and recruit them so   back in 1974 when i was recruited at queen's  college oh yes and i grew up 1.3 miles from   donald trump by the way in flushing queens  what what what i want everyone to understand   is that when i was involved with colts for decades  helping people get out of cults for decades   uh it was a person-to-person thing but with the  introduction of the internet and the increasing   sophistication of understanding and knowledge  about how to manipulate and control people   online that's how we've gotten to where we are  today and uh knowledge is power and understanding   this and making sure to inoculate our children  our family and friends is absolutely critical   so i thought i would just make a list of  uh from chapter five of the cult of trump   um because of time i don't want  to go through all of them in in   detail but um framing is a very powerful  social influence uh orientation robert cialdini   uh so famous social psychologist has talked  about in his book pre-suasion the necessity to   you know basically decide the territory of  whatever the interaction is going to be about and   unfortunately the cult of trump uh people  have been far more sophisticated in my   uh m in my opinion than uh than everyone who  has been trying to promote democracy and freedom   of course storytelling is one of the oldest  forms of influence it's a way to share   experiences and of course if you tell a story  about needing to make america great again   and you create a fantasy around that um that's  the frame that many people in the cult of trump   uh have been uh indoctrinated into versus  looking historically looking at the facts   and having a more nuanced and robust and complex  understanding of our history in our country   rejection is a very important and powerful  technique of influence where you're diverting   people's attention to the other side in order  to take the attention off of you so if you   think back trump would often blame uh hillary  clinton for example for trying to do a coup   when i think the evidence will come out that  in fact uh there was there is evidence about   the 2016 election for example but projection  is is being used constantly uh and i'll get   into explaining how to um parse and how to  understand a whole continuum of influence repetition over and over and over again especially  by an authority figure someone who occupies the   office of the presidency can keep changing  people's stories at will with a tweet and   that's what he was doing for four years straight  social proof is getting other cop politicians   to support his big lies his pathological lying  getting media people to repeat its celebrities   um i want to talk about hypnosis and  something called neuro-linguistic   programming nlp it's something that i've  studied in depth in 1980 actually in 1981   right after my exit from the moon cult in 1976  i was just immersed in wanting to understand   brainwashing and mind control and undue influence  and this is a system that was developed by grinder   and bandler based on a psychiatrist milton  erickson's work with with uh naturalistic or   process oriented hypnosis and much of what  what um eriksen taught in nlp teaches and i   should say tony robbins is probably the biggest  promulgator of the techniques of this influence   of mirroring people mirroring their words  mirroring their postures their breathing pacing   wherever they're at and then leading them it's  a very important concept uh to learn more about   visualizations like imagine the immigrants  they're coming they're invading us and and this   type of mental manipulation to generate fear is  hugely important in the cult of trump fear hatred   anchoring is another term think of anchoring  as a cue a lot of people know of pavlov's dogs   whether it was a ringing of a bell and a dog  would salivate words can become anchors and   um and gestures can become anchors and it's a  way that we learn but it's also a way to program   people if you're an authoritarian confusion is  the single most important technique if you want to   mind control someone or exert undue influence  is to disorient them so that they're off balance   and they're they want to make sense of what's  happening but things are very confusing   and so for example we're kind of wired to follow  authority figures that we believe are legitimate   and we're kind of wired to expect that you know  media is going to be telling us the truth although   i think now after four years of the cult of trump  we are much more suspicious about what information   is being sent our way and what's the source and  hasn't been validated but confusion if somebody   like trump says a statement like uh well obama  wasn't born in america big lie but he says it and   he says it over and over and over again repetition  etc that the normal reaction is confusion   because he shouldn't say that but he is saying  that so it activates a part of people's minds to   try to to resolve the confusion and unfortunately  whatever information is coming at us dominates   pattern interruptions so how to explain a pattern  interruption i want to use the access hollywood um statement that he made that he was that  trump was caught on tape where he talks   about grabbing women by their genitals  and as soon as he said it i realized   this is a a technique to pattern interrupt  some in other words to invade their space   it's so out of the ordinary script it's so  out of the ordinary uh code of of conduct   that unless you've been violated or raped  where you slap the person and you scream   you you're in shock that somebody just touched  you in your privates and in that moment of   confusion and pattern interruption trump would  say but you're so beautiful you made me do this   and it's a way of of of harming and assaulting  women that i i believe we're going to be hearing a   lot more about double binds is where you're given  a sense of a choice but in fact whatever you do   the person who's the puppet master  is in control of the choices   so you have the illusion of choice but there  is no choice so for example in the moon cult   you can leave the door is right there but  you'll regret it forever and satan will   invade and destroy the earth but it's your  choice uh that's an example of a double bind next i'd like to talk about the phenomenon of of q  and q anon it's a uh not a kooky conspiracy in my   evaluation it's actually fulfills  the qua the of an authoritarian cult   and i believe it's primarily a psyop that was  intentionally um developed and and i wrote about   fourth generation warfare in the cult of trump  which is a new concept that i was not aware of   it's a it's a concept that was written up in  the late 80s by an american military strategist   william linz who paired up with paul irich of the  christian right and a group called the council of   national policy if you haven't heard of the  council of national policy check out shadow   nation by ann nelson it's a very important book  to read but fourth generation is about creating   psychological confusion disorientation recruiting  ad hoc believers um who will be agents for you   to create chaos um when people ask me give  me an example of fourth generation warfare   so why would trump put someone in charge  of the epa who doesn't believe in the epa   they let delegitimize the government to  delegitimize science to promote global   climate change as a hoax for by those forces  that have fossil fuels and want to uh protect   what they perceive are their assets so this kind  of intentional manipulation using the media using   ex-so-called experts and i it drives me crazy to  hear the media talk about we live in a post-truth   world that's not true truth still matters we  live in the age of undue influence and digital   undue influence and facts and science still  matter when i was studying q anon i learned   about um alternate reality gaming i and i'm of the  generation where i didn't do video gaming so but   it was a very it's a very important construct to  know about and i wanna mention a tedx mid-atlantic   program it's 90 minutes long but jim stewartson  helped to develop alternate reality gaming where   people play roles but it's now been weaponized  by q and on where these queue drops are made and   people are trying to puzzle what does it mean and  they project meaning into the most uh coincidental   facts or points and it's all been generated  intentionally to stir people up into this   black and white all or nothing good versus  evil and projecting all evil on the other   so the democrats are pedophiles and  the illuminati and the satanic cabal   and regurgitating anti-semitic old anti-semitic  memes but it's very important to understand   that everyone who believes in q anon has been  in my opinion a victim of undue influence   and very sophisticated online undue  influence this is probably one of the most   important slides um that i want to share with you  it is what i refer to as an influence continuum   and i want you to think about this not as a  binary but a continuum of ethical influence   and unethical influence and think about over  here human rights and democracy and rule of   law and collaboration and cooperation and think  about here elitism authoritarianism fascism   where people are objects to be manipulated and  controlled um on this side free will and critical   thinking is crucial using your conscience love  based it wants you to be true to your real self   but in a authoritarian cult no matter if it's  a political cult the religious cult the therapy   cult the commercial trafficking cult it's  all the same patterning of creating this   this pseudo-self and love so-called love is  conditional upon performance and doing what   the leader or the ideology dictates and whereas  here it's about conscience as a core reference   point for your decision making and your agency  this is about doctrine and internalizing the   doctrine and it's typically heat filled and fear  and guilt-oriented the goal of authoritarian cults   is dependency and obedience so i have a couple  of other things about leaders unethical leaders   are narcissistic and psychopathic i have  a couple of slides on malignant narcissism   that i will cover shortly but it's about  secrecy it's about wanting uh total power   it's all about power here people realize you know  what i'm a human being i have my limits i need to   be trustworthy accountable uh and empower my my  uh my team if it's my employees my my family my   co-workers and in organizations a very important  construct is the notion of informed consent   where you know upfront who who are you what do  you believe and what do you want from me before   you get recruited and indoctrinated and in my  opinion if we're looking at religious groups   the healthy ones are upfront honest accountable  trustworthy and the authoritarian cult groups   in my opinion actually violate people's religious  freedom i'm i grew up jewish and when the   women were recruiting me after my girlfriend  dumped me and i was sitting in the cafeteria   at queen's college and i asked them are you part  of a religious group they said oh no not at all   and at that moment they infringed  on my religious freedom as a jew   to make a conscious decision whether i wanted  to get involved with an anti-semitic fascistic   authoritarian cult i never would have dropped  out of college or threw out my poetry or cut   off from my family or friends if it hadn't  been the undue influence program exerted on me   so here the means create the ends  here the ends justify the means   here if you're in a church or a temple a  mosque any relationship you're free to leave   here in the ideology there's no freedom  to leave you become a non-person   you become an enemy you become a traitor and it's  it's so crucial that everyone understand this and   a few years ago i came to the realization after  40 plus years of activism that the law itself   was about a hundred years out of date in terms of  understanding the whole idea of undue influence   the law says you turn 18 you're an adult and and  and does not appreciate all of the forces and   social psychological factors that go into um uh  deceptively recruiting and indoctrinating people   and so i got him oh so this is my model  that goes with this so i'll come back   to to my dissertation in a minute i have a  slide on that but going back to the slide   i have formulated based on leon festinger's  cognitive dissonance model um a model that   looks at a group's behavior their information  their thought control and emotional control   and going through these four overlapping  components can robustly identify if a group or   a person is over here on the healthy end of the  continuum or the unhealthy end of the continuum   so very briefly here's the slide behavior control  information control thought control and emotional   control i put the url of my website because you  can get copies of all of this information there   and i have a few uh oh and this was my my  doctoral dissertation so i realized the law was   out of date and so i decided to do a literature  review taking robert lifton's models of studying   chinese communist brainwashing margaret singer was  another major person and i know that my introducer   patrick o'reilly dr patrick o'reilly was studied  with dr singer margaret singer wrote the forward   to my first book in fact combating cult mind  control but i i went through all of the major   models of brainwashing and thought reform  and mind control looked at the literature on   undue influence and i want to give a shout  out to the borchard foundation that that   funded a very comprehensive research paper that  led some laws to be changed to protect the elderly   in california from undue influence and the elder  elder justice coalition of california is the place   to go for more information on that and then i  looked at the federal laws involving labor and sex   trafficking and the legal system itself and i  did a um quantitative study on 1400 subjects   and we came out with a very powerful factor  analysis for authoritarian control that plugs   into the influence continuum i just showed you and  i want to do a shout out to santa clara law school   professor emeritus alan shefflin social influence  model and this is part of what i think judges and   juries need to understand and how the law needs to  be updated is that you can analyze the influencer and the influencees and look at you know do they  have authority over the person were they wanting   power money or sex or what and the techniques is  my bite model that um i just mentioned behavior   control information control thought control and  emotional control and the consequences and with   this frame any expert witness can evaluate undue  influence by looking at the person was there a   radical personality change when they got subjected  to the undue influence or the cult involvement   and what what are those factors that  were used on the person and i think this   hopefully will be uh so helpful in  determining uh going forward how to do justice   so i have four slides now and they're very dense  and i don't want to go through everything but i do   want to highlight with behavior control that  these days you don't need physical control   you can control people through their screens  and through their smartphones so many people are   living at home now or in apartments they have no  commit physical connection to other cult members   but it's not necessary but what is necessary you  may be encouraged to wear certain clothing and   hairstyles a lot of people are sleep deprived we  have research uh robust research that people need   seven to nine hours of restorative sleep and  most americans are sleep deprived which sleep   deprivation is a major factor that that makes  people more susceptible to um to undue influence   restriction uh lots of time  reporting behavior modification   wanting to be part of the group discourage  individualism rules and regulations but the key is   wanting dependency and obedience to the authority  information control information is the food we use   to think and if information is  poisoned and lies are poisoned   and framing can be twisted to be poisonous it's  very very important for us to be stepping back   and really understanding and thinking about  information just like we think about food oh   do we want to just eat anything or do we want  to eat healthy things that will sustain us   and as i mentioned before deception is absolutely  key or lack of informed consent and deliberately   holding back or distorting information or the big  lie um cutting people off from believing in other   sources of information is valid and of course fake  news and the media is the enemy of the people what   makes people regulate their own behavior to avoid  taking in information from other points of view   so going through this entire thing the spying and  pairing up and manipulating the extensive use of   information and propaganda i read brian stelter's  book uh hoax on fox news uh in the cult of trump i   talked about alex jones um taking over a thousand  stories from russian propaganda tv and whipping   it up into a story that then got picked up by  breitbart that then got picked up by fox news and   then other media outlets would report on that so  it was affecting all of us even those who are not   were never believers in donald trump as a  legitimate authority figure as president   um so thought control think black and  white all or nothing good versus evil   very rigid in other words the complexity  of life is made into kind of cartoon   kind of simplistic and that's how i thought as  a mooney like anything that helped the group was   god and anything that criticized the group was  satan and i was literally brought in 1974 with   several hundred other moonies to see the exorcist  movie and moon gave a lecture about how god made   this movie and this was going to be a prophecy  of what would happen to us if we left the group   and the next slide gets into phobia  indoctrination this this inculcation to motivate your amygdala your fear center over your  critical frontal cortex is absolutely crucial   loaded words very powerful the names that trump  would create for his adversaries to try to   minimize them put them down um  thought-stopping techniques to   shut out any negative thoughts denial  rationalization so thought control again   behavior control information thought and  emotional control are interrelated but   it's all about controlling the person's sense of  self and their belief system and their behaviors so i have a slide on the loaded language  piece they're buzz words lyfton talked   about this term loaded language when he  was studying chinese communist brainwashing   and in the moonies it was cane able problem or  chapter two problem but in in the cult of trump   it's all about mega and the storm and fake  news the deep state etc but words should be   looked at as tools for us to think and not just as  a weapons or as things that are anchors or cues to   keep us in line with the ideology and emotional  control basically all these authoritarian cults   on the one hand want you to feel special and  you're part of the elite and you're chosen   and everyone else is part of the problem that  needs to get resolved people are told to shut off   their negative emotions whether they're homesick  or they're angry at the leader or they're doubting   suppress it through thought  stopping and other techniques   when you're in a cult you're always told to  be positive about the group to the public   so you're always giving positive testimonials  or how great it is but internally it's not the   case people report feeling very suffocated and  phobia indoctrination there is the it's one of   the fastest mental health illnesses to cure  if you understand the structure of phobias   and it's one of the pieces that i teach my clients  to help their loved ones to reality test um so very briefly if someone has an elevator phobia  they can't imagine riding safely and comfortably   they can only generate negative movies in their  head of plummeting to their death or being trapped   for eternity and understanding intellectually is  it a safe elevator does it have emergency brakes   has it been inspected then one can learn  techniques for positive visualization   systematic desensitization to get over  any phobia especially elevators are easy   um there's no happiness outside of the group   so asking asking someone in the cult of trump  what would happen if they decided to leave   what do you think would happen to you is a  really powerful question because when you're   in a mind control cult you don't think about  leaving until you do when the mind opens up so i want to just come back to this and mention  this narcissistic profile i see i have about nine   minutes left so i'm going to speed up a little  bit more and just tell you in chapter three of   the cult of trump i compare donald trump with jim  jones sun myung moon and hubbard of scientology   i mentioned keith renery and a few other cult  leaders as well and i like the term that eric from   um used malignant narcissism which  isn't just these basic narcissistic   qualities of grandiose self-centered behavior and  fantasies of attractiveness and power the need for   praise and admiration the sense of entitlement and  lack of empathy but the anti-social pieces as well   where you think you're above the law you think  that that it's fine to lie and be a pathological   liar i believe donald trump has now told over  30 000 lies um according to fact checkers   they're always exploitative interpersonally  they're sadistic harassing violent paranoid   you know uh and they have a problem trusting  anybody even their own subordinates or family so if you remember back to the beginning of my  presentation i asked how would you know if you   were under mind control and i really i'm wondering  what you think and normally if we're together in   person i would be calling on people and hearing  ideas but because of time i want to just outline   my recipe for how to know if i may one is take  a time out from the involvement with the group   in the case of the cult of trump that means  turning off your phones turning off notifications   getting off the internet and just letting your  brain rest and this was something that was so   important in my exit of the moon cult was being  in the hospital away from the cult for two weeks   and sleeping and eating it's hugely important  so physically stop the constant reindoctrination   and this is a very difficult task in this  digital age in the age of the covet pandemic   and i can talk about some of the ideas that i've  come up with from my clients but that's the first   step if you really want to assess for yourself  whether you've been under mind control take a time   out second study models of of thought reform  brainwashing and mind control and i recommend   using robert lifton's model margaret singer's  model my bite model of authoritarian control   and then the next thing is seek  out critics and former members   because when you're in an authoritarian  cult you're not allowed to think negative   thoughts you're not allowed to read critical  articles or watch critical documentaries   and do it like just say look if it's  legitimate it will stand up to scrutiny   and if it isn't legitimate why would i want to  continue to be involved right so seek out the   critics hear what they have to say i've written  several books on the subject but i am by no means   the only source of information that you need to  know about the uh involvement of the cult of trump   and then i i want people to think  back to when they first heard of   trump or when they first heard of  q anon and what they thought it was   and my experience is usually people have  negatives that they remember back in time   and then honestly self-reflect like what were the  things that got you to join to get you to commit   to spend time money recruit others and really  unpack it with q anon there is specific doc   um propaganda videos and documentaries that have  been made that were deliberately engineered to to   recruit and indoctrinate people into the rabbit  hole where they would constantly be more involved   so that honest self-reflection is absolutely  critical and by studying the influence   continuum and the bite model you can answer  the question for yourself um and especially   talking to former members who have left and are  happy and fulfilled it's incredibly powerful so this is a slide that i added last minute but  i felt like for this presentation i needed to   give some advice if anyone has family or friends  involved with the cult of trump still cueing on   the first thing i want to say is when people  are in this bubble this ideological bubble   of a cult the only way they're really  going to get help is if outside information   connects to them and it's family and friends  that are the most powerful agents of positive   ethical influence and unfortunately so  many people i've met have told me that they   just cut off contact with their sister their  brother their aunt uncle parents best friends   and i'm urging everyone educate yourself first  learn more but then reach out and say i miss you   and if they're angry at you because you called  them names told them they were stupid there were   you know other words um apologize and say look you  you matter to me and i want you in my life again   how can we proceed in a way that makes sense  for both of us and let them feel respected let   them feel loved let them feel warmth and the  most important thing is stop throwing facts   or trying to persuade them like you know and they  don't know take a frame of look whatever's true   we both need to figure this out maybe i steve  hassan have been brainwashed by the liberal media   let's talk about it why do you think  i'm brainwashed let's discuss what   brainwashing is and one of the big achilles  heels with anybody in any particular cult is   they don't think they're in a cold but they know  other groups are cults and the two populations   that i found to be most effective with cult of  trump folks is talking about chinese communist   brainwashing and trafficking and pimps and how  they enslave people and you can go through the   influence continuum and the bite model so  that they understand it and then the key   technique of all time is asking a good question  with respect and thoughtfulness and kindness   and waiting patiently for a response from  the person typically a q anon or a cult of   trump person will send you 20 30 vid um links  and and watch look at this and say let's just   do one at a time we'll take turns you do one  thing we'll watch it together and we'll discuss it   and um then it'll be my turn to do one thing  we'll watch it and discuss it and we can move on   so i have lots more um on my website i'll just  say that my whole approach at helping people   exit me is involves getting family members and  friends and ex members together and coordinate   a systematic positive influence aimed at  empowering the person to think for themselves   and make their own decisions i call it the  strategic interactive approach and wrote a whole   book on this technique and um i invite you to  freedomofmine.com i have a non-profit entity for   my research called freedomfromunduinfluence.org  and with that i am finished thank you   um for the opportunity and dr o'reilly hassan  that was absolutely fascinating and uh no big   surprise you've got quite a few questions  we've got time for i think most of them   and i'll ask the questions in the order i received  them uh um just a moment because a lot of them   um some people think domestic but no  excuse me i'm gonna go to another one based on history what would be the  consequences if trump was returned to power   oh i i that was my nightmare and that's  why i've been working so hard for years   because i think we would lose our  democracy and we would have a dictatorship   because he wanted to be installed forever and have  his children maybe follow when he passed away and   it would be a nightmare and right now we're  living a nightmare trying to undo all of the   damage that's been done and uh the next question  is does former president trump know he's lying   is it intentional very good question and  i i want to comment that there's this very   toxic ideology that's been around for a long  time saying that you create your own reality   and so if you don't believe it's true then  it's not true and this is the culture he was   raised in by an authoritarian father he was  raised in the church of norman vincent peale   where you believed a hundred percent and  if you doubted that was evil so in his mind   it's not the same as normal people thinking and  that's part of the problem of the average person   can't imagine the mindset of somebody who has  such a a hole in their in their soul that they can   assault women lie put children in cages  but unfortunately so to answer the question   yes and no would be the  most honest way of saying it   okay uh dr hassan please comment on the  woke movement and the cancer culture   great question thank you for asking it i actually  wrote a blog criticizing cancel culture of any   kind on the left on the right i think humans are  not perfect we need to get out of this demand for   purity that people have to be perfect if people  make mistakes and they are apologize and they're   accountable for their mistakes it should not  end a career in my opinion i think we need to be   focused on the here and now thinking about how  we want america to be how we want the world to be   and work actively on that so i am against  canceling people because they have different   ideas or you know or or uh affiliations another  question for you is could this cult model apply to   the entire trump family what would be the danger  of any uh trump children were to come to power i think i i i defer to mary trump on  psychologist mary trump who grew up in the family   and i i think she knows everybody in a way that  i could never i think it would be disastrous for   anybody in the cult of trump including the current  members of the senate and the and the congress   who are in the cult of trump to be in power and  ascend even higher here's a longer question i'm   going to read it in watching the lead-up to the  storming of the capital there was a festive air   among many of the people attending the rally they  were singing uh remember that song twisted sing   sister song i don't know how i know that but it  is uh we're not going to take it it was just like   a carnival atmosphere is this an indication that  for many of the extreme believers the attraction   was one of community that they felt they were an  integral part of something larger than themselves   oh i think this is a huge factor and it's a point  that i didn't make earlier in the presentation   that my experiences as people want to improve  themselves and they want to be part of a bigger   cause and a bigger community  this is healthy and normal   and the whole role of music is a whole nother  dimension uh as well as movies like the matrix   like people need to understand the red  pill of the matrix that's a story frame   that a lot of people in the cult of trump  have adopted that somehow they have the real   truth of what's going on and everyone else  is part of the the uh automatons out there   um but absolutely emotional connectivity and  feeling like you're part of something great   is a powerful motivator and i do believe the biden  administration can capture this energy and and   and many of the ngos that are springing up um to  help us rebuild our country i believe you've asked   answered this but you might want to elaborate it  on it um do you think q anon was a military psyop my understanding is is a psyop that was instigated  by a former american military intelligence   officials who know how to do psyops and let me  be clear you had a a previous guest dr o'reilly   who was talking about conspiracy theories and and  i love that she talked about actual conspiracies   that uh our government has been involved  with and i think it's absolutely critical   to understand that um parsing what's real and what  isn't real but pulling back and and and we will   be forensically able to identify who the key  players are i believe they have actually been   identified but you're going to find former  military intelligence christian right people   russian people and maybe some neo-nazis  in there and a few other bad actors   uh and is it a coincidence that cultural  leaders act and sound so much alike um i i all i can say is you know people have  been interviewing me about cults for decades   i was interviewed for a business book called the  culting of brands or something like that where   there was a study of like what do colts do to keep  people in what can we do for our corporations to   keep people in and an adaptation of a lot of these  methodologies into corporate culture and i think   now we're realizing that greed doesn't work that  our system needs to have community values and and   and the long-term trust of people if a company  is to continue to exist and so i i really think   we need a reset based on understanding we don't  want to do to others what we don't want done to us   and we're all on this beautiful planet earth  together and we have to be thinking globally for   our mutual survival okay somehow i got lost for  a moment um please feel feel too elaborate feel   free to elaborate on this one doctor one premise  that cult-like groups count on is that potential   new members are vulnerable in some way how is  this applicable to the extreme trump followers   so the documentary people you may know it actually  shows that they were looking for people who are   having distress whether they were googling  you know what to do if you're depressed or   uh frequenting other sites we're looking for  medication or other psychological well-being   selling these people's profiles to cult  groups who then will meet them on their   facebook page or wherever and have somebody  invite them for a bible study or whatever   so i really think that there's an error i saw  a recent article kind of saying oh call cult of   trump followers have mental illness i think that  that we have a little fundamental attribution   error bias going on there rather than i think the  big focus needs to be on the deleterious unethical   influences that have been used to find people and  manipulate them i also can tell you when i was a   leader in the moon cult we were told to stay away  from people with psychological problems because   they were too much work and too unreliable to  control we wanted good people smart talented   who would work long hours for no money okay and  here's a very good question i'm just going to   condense a little bit do you do you think that um  that public education should emphasize criticals so i i think that public education  not only needs to teach civics uh   explaining to people how the country and the  whole system works critical thinking but also   media literacy and how to discern something  that's true from something that's a belief   or a conspiracy theory and we need to get hold of  our technology because our technology is largely   controlling us i actually did a tedx talk on that  theme about technology controlling our minds and i   i also want to do a shout out for one of my  mentors dr phillip zimbardo and his heroic   imagination project which is a curriculum  that i think should be taught in every school   in the united states and adapted for different  levels of of but it's encouraging people to   understand social psychology and do the right  thing and i think it's a beautiful inoculation   kind of program that's already been developed  but it needs to be plugged in and encountered   as it happens i did host dr zimbardo's talk on  that subject for people who are curious they   can find a podcast of it on the commonwealth  club website wonderful well i want to thank   you dr hassan that was absolutely delightful uh  i really appreciate your taking the time we're in   california you're in massachusetts so thank you  it's an honor thank you so much for inviting me and uh ladies and gentlemen that wraps up  this program i hope you have a delightful   day the weather is beautiful here in  the bay area let's try to enjoy goodbye you

Channel: Commonwealth Club of California

Views: 29,760

Rating: 4.7129369 out of 5

Keywords: CommonwealthClub

Id: ppJY4Kh1MzY

Length: 63min 30sec (3810 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 05 2021

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