The massacre of 11 innocent Jews in the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania last Sabbath by a hateful, disturbed man is a wake-up call for everyone who loves freedom. I attended my own synagogue that morning and experienced a wonderful Bar Mitzvah where the dvar, taught by the thirteen-year-old, was about intelligent disobedience and [...]
Beginning to Doubt and Question There are moments when almost anybody can become disillusioned when in a totalistic, or rigid and intolerant, group (or controlling relationship). Losing one’s “faith” can happen for a wide variety of reasons. Maybe they become aware of some discrepancy or hypocrisy in the doctrine or in a leader’s behavior. Perhaps someone [...]
June 19, 2018 I try to blog every week with updates about my work, research, current events, high control groups, coercive control, media and other topics. I have written pieces on U.S. politics, world news, child abuse, human trafficking, terrorism, undue influence, multi-level marketing, and healing and recovery. Whether you are new to Freedom of Mind [...]
June 28, 2018 This Influence Continuum graphic describes my model for evaluating influence–from the healthy to the unhealthy. My BITE model offers a list of concerning practices that represent unhealthy mind control: Behavior, Information, Thought and Emotional control designed to create dependent and obedient slaves to a person or ideology. One example of many is the lack [...]
Mental Health Awareness Month May is Mental Health Awareness Month! I wanted to write this blog on how some high control groups program their members away from mental health help. This is true, especially in the case of Jehovah's Witnesses, Scientology, The Moonies, as well as countless other high control Christian, Jewish and Muslim groups. A recent murder-suicide [...]
The Freedom of Mind approach to recovery and healing from destructive cults is customizable and designed to meet the needs of most any person who has been influenced by a cult. People who were born or raised in a cult have spent their early developmental years under cult control. Other people may have entered into [...]
"Don't Blame the Victim" This is a very commonly held, but fallacious generalization about people involved with destructive relationships and cult groups. People often try to find fault with people who experience tragedy by blaming the victim. Laying blame gives people a false sense of control over their own lives by distancing them from the victim. [...]
Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia, 2017 Reliable Information? or Ideologically Biased? We have been living in the Information Age, the Knowledge Age, with access virtually 24/7 to anything and everything. Many in today's world go to Wikipedia to learn about cars, animals, medicines and even cults. And that is okay. For the most part, Wikipedia [...]
Freedom of Mind Resource Center: 2017, A Year in Review Hi, Steve Hassan, founder of Freedom of Mind Resource Center, here. I wanted to wish everyone a very happy holiday and a very good new year. It's been awhile since I blogged because of my doctoral work at Fielding Graduate University. I just [...]
Forty-one years ago today, I was deprogrammed from the cult of Sun Myung Moon. Many of you may not be familiar with the Unification Church, AKA the “Moonies.” The church and its many front groups and related organizations have not been in the news as much recently. They lost a lot of their American membership after [...]
