Combatting Cult Mind Control by Steven Hassan

From the Foreword

The phone was frighteningly loud. The clock read 4:30 a.m. It was difficult to take in what a reporter from the Berkley Gazette was saying on the phone: "Margaret, I hate to bother you this early, but we have just learned that Jim Jones has decided to pull the trigger in Guyana. I've been here all night at a house in Berkley talking with ex-members of People's Temple and with relatives of persons down in Jonestown. There's a mother here whose husband and twelve-year-old son are down there and she is desperate. It is not known if everyone's dead or if there are survivors. I know I have told you not to work with ex-members of People's Temple because of the dangerous harassment that Jones' so-called "Angels" direct against former members. But these people need to talk with you and get some help with what has happened."

As daylight was breaking, I passed up the steps guarded by somber Berkeley police, as it was feared that Jones had left "hit orders" for members still in the area to wipe out defectors when he ordered the final "White Night," his term for the often rehearsed moment when he would have all his followers drink poison.

The reporter, my son (also a reporter), and a few police officers had warned me not to give my usual gratis consultation services to ex-People's Temple members, even though I had long given these services to former cultists. Jones allegedly used his "angels" to wreak vengeance against members who left and against their supporters as well.

The woman whose husband and young son were eventually identified as dead in Jonestown was only one of many. I spent hours and days meeting and talking with various survivors as they returned from Guyana to the Bay area and attempted to get their lives going again after the Guyanese holocaust. There were attorney Tim Stoen and his wife Grace, whose young son had been held captive by Jones and died in Jonestown. There were the members of the basketball team who missed the mass suicide-murder. There was a nine-year-old girl who had survived having had her throat slit by a woman who then killed herself in Georgetown, Guyana as part of Jones' mass death orders. There was Larry Layton, who faced courts in two countries, for allegedly carrying out Jones' orders at the airport in Guyana where Rep. Leo J. Ryan and others died.

I began to work with ex-cultists about six years before Jonestown and continue to do so til this day. I have provided psychological counselling to more than three thousand persons who have been in cults. I have written about some of this work and have talked with lay and professional groups in many countries about thought reform programs, intense indoctrination programs, cults, and related topics.

My interest in the effects of thought reform programs began when I worked at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research after the Korean War. At that point I met and worked with Edgar H. Shine, PH.D., Robert J. Lifton, M.D., and Louis J. West, M.D., pioneers in the study of the effects of intense indoctrination programs. I was involved in the follow-up studies of former prisoners of war, interviewed long-term prisoners of the Chinese, and participated over the years in much of the work on conceptualizing thought reform programs. As Steve Hassan does in this volume, I have repeatedly described the specific needs of persons who have been subject to such and have emphasized the lack of knowledge that most citizens as well as mental health professionals have about the processes, effects, and aftermath of being subjected to thought reform programs.

Steve Hassan has clearly and convincingly described how mind control is induced. He integrates his personal experience in a cult, and his practical skills developed in twelve years of exit-counselling of persons who have been in mind control situations with theories and concepts in the scientific literature. The book comes alive with real-life examples.

For the first time, an experienced exit-counsellor outlines step by step the actual methods, sequence, and framework of what he does and how he works with families and the person under mind control. He draws on the various scholarly works in the fields of thought reform, persuasion, social psychology, and hypnosis to offer theoretical frameworks for how mind control is achieved.

Exit-counselling is a new profession, and Steve Hassan has spelled out here a type of ethical, educational counselling which he and others have developed. He has devoted the time and has the literary skill and educational background to make this volume a major contribution. The reader is taken from Steve's first telephone contacts with desperate families to the final outcome of his interventions. These counselling techniques and tactics are socially and psychologically well worked out. They are ethical and growth-enhancing. While the need is great, there are few really adequately prepared and experienced exit-counsellors. They do not offer what psychologists and psychiatrists offer, nor can they be replaced by these or other mental health professions. Exit-counselling is a special field, one that demands specific knowledge, special techniques and methods and a high-level of skill.

This book should have a wide appeal. Anyone with a relative or friend who has become involved with a group using mind control procedures will find it useful. Any citizen can profit from seeing how vulnerable to influence we all are and learning that mind control exists -- that it is not a myth.

We must heed the potentially destructive and frightening impact that the use of mind control by selfishly motivated groups can have on the very fabric of a society. This book fills a need and deserves a wide audience.

Margaret T. Singer, Ph.D

Adjunct Professor, Department of Psychology

University of California, Berkeley, California

Recipient of the Leo J. Ryan Memorial Award

From the Back Cover

Cults are on the rise today, with recruitment practices targeting all segments of society, including the elderly. A former cult member and one of America's leading experts in counselling people involved in cults, Steven Hassan, exposes the troubling facts about destructive cults . . . and shows you how to:

• recognize the signs of a destructive organization
• protect yourself from psychological manipulation
• rescue a friend or loved one from a destructive cult -- without coercion
• overcome the residual problems of former cult membership

Steven Hassan has been involved in educating the public about destructive cults in America for more than fourteen years. He holds a master's degree in counselling psychology from Cambridge College.

What the Experts are Saying About Cult Mind Control

"Combatting Cult Mind Control combines superb research with authentic personal experience. The result is a remarkable achievement."

Rabbi A. James Rudin

Co-author of Prison or Paradise: The New Religious Cults

"Steve Hassan has demonstrated his openness and ability to bring a broad range of knowledge and scholarship to bear on vexing questions of cult methods and alternatives for intervention. The result is a significant contribution to public understanding of the modern reality of mind control and the widening dimensions of the cult experience."

Flo Conway & Jim Siegelman

Authors of Snapping and Holy Terror

"I strongly recommend Combatting Cult Mind Control. Cults are a major problem that affects more than a few people...Steve Hassan is a bright and superior person who has authored an important book..."

Steve Allen, Entertainer, Comedian, Songwriter

Creator of the original Tonight Show

Parent of an ex-cult member

Author of Beloved Son: A Story of the Jesus Cults

"I can think of no one more qualified than Steve Hassan for writing a book that explains in understandable and compelling terms what a truly serious and growing threat destructive cults pose for all of us. I only wish my family had known about the problem before it was too late. Steve's book should be required reading for every family in America [and Canada]."

Patricia Ryan, Lobbyist

Daughter of Congressman Leo J. Ryan (killed at Jonestown)

"The author probes beyond doctrine to uncover the thought control techniques common to many cults. Without this insight into the mental processes involved, a Christian worker can expend great effort trying to reach trapped individuals with no positive results."

David A. Reed

Christian Research Journal

"This book's practical value is enhanced by the author's extensive experience as a counsellor to concerned families following his own involvement in a well-know cult. It is both readable and informed by scholarship."

Ronald M. Enroth, Ph.D.

Author of The Jesus People, Why Cults Succeed Where the Church Fails,

A Guide to Cults & New Religions, and A Guide to Cults

"A valuable, well written book on a topic of genuine importance. Steve Hassan explains precisely how cults operate to control minds and, in the process, he provides sharp insights into how the influence process works in every day situations as well."

Robert B. Cialdini, Ph.D.

Author of Influence

"...it is my hope that this book will reach many readers including parents of children in cults, ex-members, and the public at large...this work is a most crucial contribution to the understanding of cults and the prevention of their further destructive influence on our society."

Dr. Philip Abramowitz,

Director Interfaith Coalition of Concern About Cults

"Hassan is a master in the difficult task of opening closed minds. Anything he writes is on my book list concerning destructive religious practices."

Robert Watts Thornburg

Dean of Marsh Chapel

Chaplain to Boston University

"Anyone who has witnessed a loved one rapidly slip into the emotionally insulated and distant world of a cult, knows the extent and swiftness of its catastrophic effects. Few people understand the mechanisms by which these devastating seductions are systematically engineered by cult leaders. Steve Hassan knows from experience. Through his examples and analyses, we finally witness how cults work and learn how we can protect ourselves and our loved ones from them."

Stephen Josephs, Ed.D.

Psychologist

Founder of Massachusetts Institute of Neuro-Linguistic Programming

This book is available through www.amazon.com