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Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
This is something that I'm picking up on already is many of the things that a cult might say to you are actually true. Do you get what I'm saying? I do think mankind is asleep in that way. And we see it in what we eat, how we live, how we work, how we consume. There is a level of like a sleep. Sleepwalking. Yeah, but I go like, yeah, no, this is true. We're not in touch with our bodies anymore.
We're not in tune with our minds. We act mindlessly. I get it. If someone said that to me... People walking down the street.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know how many times I see people walk into the street on their phone and then a car has to swivel? I'm like, yeah, we are. So they would have me on that line. If they said, mankind is asleep, I'd be like, carry on.
But you're hitting on another universal point that's really demanding, underlining, and with a red pencil, that... that the ideologies have truthful, important things in it. And they quote famous people who say really important things. So it's not just all BS. And that's also, as a therapist, that's what I try to do in helping my clients deconstruct. How did they get hooked?
What were the pieces that hooked them? And the technique, I'm jumping ahead and I'll circle back to your earlier question, but the technique that's most effective is I empower my clients to understand Chinese communist brainwashing, my model, et cetera, and the technique is this simple.
I ask people to go back to that critical earlier moment when they were getting recruited or they were falling in love with someone who was a malignant narcissist that was gonna ruin their lives. If you knew then what you know now, what would you say and do differently?
This is What Now with Trevor Noah.
How do you pronounce your last name? Hassan. Hassan. Like Maggie Hassan.
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Chapter 2: How does personal experience shape understanding of cults?
I don't know if you've watched it. Which one? The Arnold Schwarzenegger documentary. And it's self-reflection as well. He's in it. Talks about his life. How old is it? Maybe it's like a few years old now.
Oh, I haven't seen it. I haven't seen it, yeah. Well, he talks about his illegitimate son and his relationship. Talks about everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've seen it.
Yeah, he talks about everything.
It's really great. But I watched it again. I think I watched it too quickly.
It's really, really great. So this was, wait, 1970. So wait, how long were you in a cult for?
I was recruited at Queens College the same month Patty Hearst was abducted by the Symbionese Liberation Army. Women flirted with me. My girlfriend had dumped me. And a few weeks later, I'm a right-wing fascist cult, but I didn't know what it was at all for months.
I feel like that puts somebody in the perfect position. You know... I had a conversation with a monk about who can be a monk and how to become a monk and what a monk life is. And it was interesting. So we're in Bhutan and they took us to... Is it a monastery? Yeah, it is a monastery. Okay, just making sure. So we go to the monastery and there's all the monks there and everything.
And there's all these young boys. who've come from different childhoods. Some have almost been on a path of monkhood their whole lives. Others have come in because they're living troubled lives.
And so somebody said in the group we were in, they were like, oh, but like, isn't that, you know, this kid's been through like this 20 year old or 19 year old, he's been through, he's done all these things and can he be a monk? And the monk said something really amazing. He said, oh, he's the best person to be a monk. Because if you've been perfect your whole life and you're a monk, that's fine.
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Chapter 3: What techniques are used in cult recruitment?
So these friends of mine that I just made in the apartment block did not show up for soccer that day. Then there were two teenagers, like maybe in university age, who were outside our gate in the apartment because we played in the parking lot. And they kicked the ball, ball came over to them. They were on the other side of it and they just said, hey, how are you doing? And I said, I'm fine.
They said, what are you doing? And I said, I'm playing soccer, but my friends are not here. They were like, if the gate would open, we'll play with you. And I was like, yeah, the gate won't open. It's fine. We can just talk from here. They kept showing up until they were familiar to me. A week later, they said they spotted me coming back from school because I had to take the train.
Yeah, they were targeting you.
They said, you look like you've come from far. Because I was like, I was still going to a township school, living in town. So I took the train. So they said, you know what we could do? We're in university now. We could help you with homework if you want. Then I said, yeah, I'm fine with homework. They were like, trust me, we're good at math. And I hated math. We do all sorts of things.
But if you want, we could help you. But now we're outside the gate just before I entered the apartment block.
Yeah.
And I said, no, thank you. Two weeks went by. I saw them again, but now with my friends. So now this is important to mention. These were white kids. I'm black. Our apartment building was predominantly white. The two friends of mine, Fanny and Geralt. Now I'm seeing them interacting with them, thinking it's all normal. But the target here was me. So ultimately they said to me, we know what you do.
We could meet at the mall. The mall was not two blocks away from my house. It had restaurants. They said, we can meet at the mall, all of us. Fani and Kharal did not go. I ended up going. We got to a restaurant. There were two other people. Three to one ratio. Yes, there were two other people.
It was the ideal recruitment.
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Chapter 4: What do cult leaders learn from their experiences in cults?
But do they, though?
It's a great question. Yeah, they have to. But do they, though? It's a great question. I can't say definitively. I'm a forensic expert. But I can tell you that when you're surrounded only by yes people, you tend to believe what you want to believe.
Right.
That becomes your cult.
So it becomes your reality. But it doesn't mean you don't have doubts.
Okay, but now this introduces now... I'll say one more thing that's important.
So a lot of people think cult leaders are just con artists and criminals. Yes, that's why I'm asking the question. I'm sorry if I interrupted your question. No, no, no, that's perfect. You didn't at all.
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Chapter 5: How does economic uncertainty influence susceptibility to cults?
You answered it. No, most cult leaders were in a cult themselves before. That's where they were trained. That's where they learned a lot of these techniques. So it's not... I'm a criminal because most con artists and criminals, they want to get in, make the money, and get out. They don't want to create something for 20 years. Followers. Yeah, it's a lot of responsibility.
Uniform.
But... It turns out what I learned, because I was a whistleblower for a congressional subcommittee investigation in 1976, they were looking into Korean CIA activities in the United States, and the Moonies were a major part of the Korean CIA. And what I later came to understand, we're getting into politics, is this okay?
Yeah, definitely.
What I understood was that because North Korea brainwashes, this is the height of the Cold War. North Korea and South Korea separated. There were two unsuccessful coups in South Korea. The CIA thought we have to stabilize the regime.
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Chapter 6: What techniques can help in conversations with someone in a cult?
So we're going to help them set up a Korean CIA and we're going to pick a proxy group to brainwash political dissonance. And they selected the Moonies. So the Moonies were used as a tool to brainwash South Koreans. And they used the Moonies to make arms to give to dictatorships around the world by passing congressional approval. This is insane. I'm not making this up. I've written books on this.
No, no. What I'm saying about insane is like I go, it's just crazy. Like the CIA, that's what my brain was thinking. It was just like, wait, what? Wait, what's happening here?
Yeah.
Well, but remember MKUltra? Yeah. Okay, so the CIA was experimenting with LSD, hypnosis, electroshock. And after Jonestown, there was a special, I think ABC did a special, and the former head psychologist of the CIA said, yeah, we researched brainwashing, but we didn't find anything that worked, and we burned our records.
Right.
Lies. Total lies. And to this day, no government has been honest with its citizens of, we know how to hack people's brains. We know how to recruit and indoctrinate people. But that's where we're at now is we have to educate everybody because America is being hacked. We're in a coup. It's really horrendous what's happening, and people need to understand. This is a Cold War extension.
We thought the Soviet Union collapsed, we won, and Putin and the other oligarchs who were KGB are like, we're taking down the U.S.
You see, but this is what I mean about where we draw the distinctions.
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Chapter 7: How does technology impact our connection to reality?
Mm-hmm.
Because in my head, I'm going, I hear when there are specific cults and then I understand what you're saying about the B-I-T-E, right? But then I go, it feels like, and maybe I'm wrong, but it feels like to me, there are some overlaps between things that are cult-ish but not necessarily a cult. And then there are things that are definitely cults, but don't seem like a cult.
And so it leaves us in the space where you go, is this a tool that cults use? Or is this a tool of cults that non-cults use? Oh, it goes both ways. Absolutely. So you're not necessarily saying that everyone is in a culture. Or are you saying that they're in a culture? I can't figure it out.
Well, we have culture. I mean, I grew up in the fear of the nuclear holocaust and fearing Russia and getting under my wooden desk at PS-173 in Queens because Russia may nuke us. And then I had my disillusionment with American Vietnam when I thought it was a just war and I realized that they were lying from the whole time and they were just killing innocent people who wanted their country, etc.
But it was to fight communism. In any case... What I want to say is that we are either going to continue to evolve as a species with the goal of planetary survival, which means cooperation with other countries, or it's the authoritarians versus the rest of us. Yeah. who want rule of law and human rights and gay rights and women's rights and indigenous rights and minority religious rights.
So I think that there's more of us than them, and we just need to understand correctly to diagnose the situation and approach it.
Now, actually, to that question, though, this is something I've always struggled and grappled with, but I've gone... Should we try to immunize everybody from cult or cultish ideas? And is that realistic? Or should we focus more on the environmental issues? circumstances that make it easier for somebody to be in that situation.
So going back to what you were saying, you playing football in your little, one of the things that stuck out to me was your friends weren't there that day. Do you get what I'm saying? So that becomes the first, I think you're less likely to go talk to these people and to be taken away if your friends were there. I just identify one point by myself as Trevor. I go like, oh, okay.
So if you have a robust community, maybe it's less likely. Absolutely. And then I think of like economic situations or circumstance. So if you're in an environment where, you know, you're not hungry and you're not desperate. You're not heartbroken. You're not heartbroken.
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