Intelligent People Fall Prey to Cults This was my mother’s response in 1974, when I dropped out of college, quit my job, donated my bank account, and moved into the Moon Center in Queens, New York. She was trying to reconcile how her son, an honors student, could be foolish enough to be taken [...]
Charles Duhigg The "Change Agent" podcast is a five-episode series by The New York Times. It is hosted by Charles Duhigg, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and author of "The Power of Habit" and "Smarter Faster Better." It uses real-life problems to try and solve a surprising story. (When we worked on the podcast [...]
Undue Influence Undermines Autonomy It is completely understandable that people might resist any request to help a person who has been unduly influenced. The person might say, "Why should I? They are an adult. I don't think it is right to interfere with their decision." If the person isn't asking for help, why get involved? Americans [...]
How Can I Rescue My Child From a Cult? Whether you are looking for help for your son or daughter, your brother or sister, mother or father, or husband or wife, my advice is to do your homework, first. In the coming weeks, I plan to share the errant beliefs I wrote about in my book, [...]
Combating Cult Mind Control For over forty years, I have endeavored to help people understand my own cult experience- being recruited into a front group of the Moonies in 1974 while a student at Queens College in New York. This year, on November 18th, 2018, my book Combating Cult Mind Control will be 30 years [...]
This past weekend, I attended and spoke at a conference at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. This one-day event was sponsored by MeadowHaven, The Protestant Chaplaincy of the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, Dartmouth Bible Church, and International Cultic Studies Association. The title of my talk was "Spiritual Abuse: Strategies to Help Someone to Exit, Heal and [...]
This coming Sunday marks fifteen years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. On the morning of September 11, 2001 our nation was changed forever. Many lives were lost, and many of us were left in shock and disbelief as we helplessly watched the scenes of horror on our TV screens. We spent the next few days [...]
Guest Blog by Steve Guziec Update: As of January 2018, Steve Guziec is no longer working with Freedom of Mind Resource Center. He wished to take his life in a new direction and we wish him the very best in his academic and life pursuits. I'm so excited to be working with Steven Hassan and [...]
I am often approached by concerned family members of adult cult members who need help. I work with the family by coaching them to use my Strategic Interactive Approach. This involves teaching them how to employ an ethical influence campaign based on compassion, and designed to help the cult member question the group’s leader, doctrine, [...]
