IALMH

This blog contains a talk I gave at The Program in Psychiatry and the Law on September 11, 2019. It was 18 years to the day that Al Queda made a horrific terrorist attack on the United States and killed thousands of innocent men, women and children and injured scores more. As you will hear in the video recording of my talk, I felt the need to acknowledge its personal as well as professional significance for me to be speaking about this topic, at The Program in Psychiatry and the Law, at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, 43 years after my deprogramming from the right-wing extremist Moon group. A destructive cult group that taught members that “democracy was satanic” and who sought to establish a theocracy with Moon as the messiah and his minions as his blind followers. I was trained to be blindly obedient and believe if commanded, I would have flown a plane into a World Trade Center building. Horrifying, but I know I was that thoroughly programmed. It was this realization after my deprogramming that has motivated me to research, publish and create more public awareness to the dangers of radicalization.