The deprogrammers were making comparisons with Hitler and Moon
and I said
"I don't care if Moon is like Hitler,
I've chosen to follow him, and I'll follow him to the end!"
This was me just before being recruited into the Moonies --
(Charlet) Look at that!
Steven Hassan is a counselor, cult expert
and former cult member.
We went to talk with him about his experience.
My name is Steve Hassan
I'm a licensed mental health counselor
and I'm an author of three books about cults,
the most famous of which is
I got interested in this whole subject after my family deprogrammed me
from a two and a half year involvement with the Moon Cult in the early '70s.
The Moon Cult, or "Moonies", refers to the Unification Church
founded in the '60s by Sun Myuan Moon.
The group was known for its mass weddings and staunch anti-Communist beliefs.
The world view of a member of the Moonies was very "us" versus "them"
We are the chosen, we are the elite --
we are going to take over the world.
Only Korean will be spoken, all other religions will be abolished.
When and why did you join?
So I was 19, I was gonna graduate.
I was gonna be a poetry writer,
but my girlfriend dumped me, and I was lonely.
Three women flirted with me,
and I remember asking at one point,
"Are you part of some religious group?" and they said, "Oh, no, not at all."
And they invited me over for dinner
and they were like, "Hey we're going away for the weekend - it's gonna be so cool, you need to come."
and I was very naive a
and trusting
and everyone was smiling and sincere and warm
and I was just like
not getting that this was a cult, this is how they operate.
What was your life like?
A lot of recruiting, or fundraising, or "political actionizing"
those are the three major roles.
They would say you have to look three inches into people's eyes
Like this -
"Hi there"
(Steve) "How are you?" (Charlet) Stop
(Steve) Right, I was there for for two and a half years
but I was made a leader and that was made part of the allure I guess?
So, when and what was the turning point that lead to you leaving the cult?
Well my last job in the cult was
as a fundraising captain in Baltimore
and we were selling flowers on street corners.
Everyone on my team had to make a minimum of $100 a day
otherwise they couldn't sleep at night.
I would never ask of my members what I wouldn't do myself.
So while I was sleeping three to four hours a night normally,
now I was not sleeping at all.
And I lasted three days
and I fell asleep at the wheel of a van.
Woke up as I was driving into the back of a trailer truck at 80 mph or so
That accident put me away from the group for a few weeks sleeping eating away from the constant indoctrination
k
so she lured me to our house, basically
didn't tell my parents who had been wanting to come find me to help me
So it was actually a near-fatal accident that ended up saving your life?
Have you been in contact with anyone
So as soon as I woke up I wanted to get all the people I recruited out
Obviously, naturally I felt the shame and
And I reached out to them all
I think it's too raw.
What was it like to reintegrate back into
It took me months to admit I was in a cult and speak out publically
It took me a year before I could kiss a woman and not have the indoctrination
in my head
it was very traumatic
Is there such a thing as a beneign cult?
Definitely. Yeah, of course. I believe in there are positive religions
and that spiritual experience is a great thing
and that spiritualism is a good thing
if people know what they're getting into, if people are free to leave
and people are able to read whatever they want to read and talk to whoever they want talk to.
What do we get wrong about people who've joined cults
there's something wrong with that
they're weak, they're stupid
Wow, there was a very systematic mind-control technique
and they just didn't understand what was happening to them, so they just got programmed
What techniques do cults use to recruit and influence followers?
They use deceptive recruitment so people don't know what's happening to them
Loaded languange
Totallist black and white ideology
Those are the universal techniques
As someone who being in a group that has been called a cult
As someone who
My influence is
empower people to think for themselves
and give them information to reality test
so they can actually make a choice
I can tell you what you shouldn't do is say "You're in a cult!" and try to argue the person rationally out of it
because they;ve already been exepcted to
from people who are ignorant
What it isn't is a quick fix
I'm very grateful I was rescued by my family and I wish everybody
and I wish everybody had family that cared as much as mine and had the means to be able to help
and most people don't