Steven Hassan
Steven Hassan | |
---|---|
![]() Hassan in 2019 | |
Born | 1953/1954 (age 67–68)[1] |
Occupation | Mental health counselor, author, lecturer |
Nationality | American |
Education | M.A., M.Ed., LMHC[2] |
Alma mater | Cambridge University Fielding Graduate University |
Genre | Non-fiction |
Subject | Psychology, mind control, cults |
Spouse | Misia Landau |
Website | |
freedomofmind |
Steven Alan Hassan (pronounced /hɑːsɪn/) is an American author, educator, psychologist,[3] and mental health counselor specializing in destructive cults.[4] He has been described by some news media as "one of the world's foremost experts on mind control, cults and similar destructive organizations."[5] He is a former member of the Unification Church, and he founded Ex-Moon Inc. in 1979,[6] and in 1999 founded the Freedom of Mind Resource Center. He has written on the subject of mind control and how to help people who have been harmed by the experience.
Personal life[]
Hassan was born circa 1953, and raised as an observant Jew.[1][7] He is a native of Queens, New York, and as of late 2020, lived in Newton, Massachusetts.[8]
Hasan reported that, at age 19 while perusing a poetry degree at Queens College, he was deceptively recruited into the Unification Church,[9] and spent 27 months as a member.[10] [11] Hassan claims to have been involved in recruiting, fundraising, and political campaigning for the Unification Church. He also claims that he rose to the rank of assistant director of the Church at their National Headquarters, and personally met with Sun Myung Moon during numerous leadership sessions.[10][12]
During his time in the Unification Church, Hassan reported living in communal housing and sleeping less than four hours a night. Part of his duties included selling carnations on street corners in New York.[13] In an interview, Hassan reported that he believed Richard Nixon was an archangel, and during the Watergate scandal, he and other members of the Unification Church were involved in prayer and fasting to "prove their loyalty to the president".[9] He also reported surrendering his bank account to the church, and quitting college and his job to work for the church.[9] Hassan reported that "he was ready to kill or die for" Moon.[13]
In 1976, after working two full days without sleep and driving a van for fundraisers, Hassan became fatigued and fell asleep while driving which resulted in a serious automobile accident that required him to seek medical care; his parents hired counselors to work with him and convinced him to leave the organization through a process that Hassan called "deprogramming".[10][13] Hassan later married his first wife but divorced in 1989, and she died in an accident in 1991.[13] He returned to his Jewish faith tradition after leaving the Unification church;[7] He is an active member of in Brookline, Massachusetts.[13] He married a second time to Misia Landau, a science writer and artist, with whom Hassan has a son named Matthew.[8]
Cult expertise[]
Hassan was described as "one of the world's foremost experts on mind control, cults and similar destructive organizations" by Salon,[5] and as a cult expert and mind control expert by numerous other media sources.[14][15][8][16][9][17] In 1979, following the Jonestown mass suicide and murders, Hassan founded a non-profit organization called "Ex-Moon Inc.". The organization consisted of over four hundred former members of the Unification Church.[12] Hassan studied the thought reform theories of Robert Jay Lifton, and concluded that he was "able to see clearly that the Moon organization uses all eight" characteristics of thought reform as described by Lifton.[18] Hassan also studied the work of Richard Bandler and John Grinder who developed neuro-linguistic programming, the works of Milton Erickson, Virginia Satir, and Gregory Bateson.[18] Hassan's study of such sources helped him to develop his theories on mind control, counseling and intervention.[19]
Hassan has been outspoken against involuntary deprogramming since 1980.[11][20] In Combatting Cult Mind Control, he stated that "the non-coercive approach will not work in every case, it has proved to be the option most families prefer. Forcible intervention can be kept as a last resort if all other attempts fail."[21]
Hassan graduated from Cambridge College in 1985 where he earned a Master’s degree in counseling psychology.[2] Hassan studied hypnosis and is a member of the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis[22] and the International Society of Hypnosis.[11][23] Hasan wrote his first book, Combatting Cult Mind Control in 1988, where he described his own recruitment as the result of the unethical use of powerful psychological influence techniques by members of the Church.[24][12] He has been helping people exit destructive cults since 1976.[25] Hassan's books have been described as "somewhere at the literary crossroads of memoir, self-help guide, and mind-control theory primer."[13]
Hassan is a member of the Program in Psychiatry and the Law, a Harvard think tank of forensic experts.[26] He was an instructor in Psychiatry Grand Rounds at Harvard Medical School's Psychiatry Residency Training Program during October 2017, and was a teacher of 4th-year psychiatry at Brigham and Women’s Hospital for 17 years.[26][25][2][27] Rick Alan Ross, a critic of Hassan,[28] alleged that Hassan misled media outlets about his status at Harvard.[29]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/61/Steven_Hassan_at_Ralph_J_._Bunche_Library_is_At_State_Department_September_11th_2017_Beth_Lampron_State_Department_Official.jpg/220px-Steven_Hassan_at_Ralph_J_._Bunche_Library_is_At_State_Department_September_11th_2017_Beth_Lampron_State_Department_Official.jpg)
In 1995, Michael Langone questioned Hassan's "humanistic counseling approach." Langone suggested that Hassan's intervention method "runs the risk of imposing clarity, however subtly" and "thereby manipulating the client."[30]
In 1999, Hassan founded the Freedom of Mind Resource Center.[31] The center is registered as a domestic profit corporation in the state of Massachusetts, and Hassan is president and treasurer.[32] The Institute has investigated and published research on various groups including Hare Krishnas, Al Qaeda, and Opus Dei.[13]
Hassan has spent several years developing a model to evaluate cult and cult-like groups. In his third book, Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults, and Beliefs (2012), Hassan presents Lifton's and Margaret Singer's models alongside his own BITE model.[33] Hassan received his doctorate from Fielding Graduate University and published a dissertation in January 2021. His dissertation focused on the Bite Model and was titled, "The BITE Model of Authoritarian Control: Undue Influence, Thought Reform, Brainwashing, Mind Control, Trafficking and the Law". In it, Hassan explains a model he developed in an effort to measure degrees of exploitative control or undue influence. He designed the model to evaluate the areas of behavior, information, thought and emotional controls.[34] Describing the model, Hassan told reporters that "I talk about cults being on the continuum, from OK cults that are benign and where you have informed consent, to the unhealthy, destructive, authoritarian types."[8]
After the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, Hassan was interviewed by some reporters to explain his view of the bombers' state of mind and how he believed mind control was involved.[35][36][37]
In August 2018, Hassan delivered a TEDx talk on technology and mind control at TEDxBeaconStreet Salon.[26] Hassan has appeared Nightline, 60 Minutes, CNN, Fox News, CBC News, and in many other media outlets as a commentator on cults.[13]
In October 2019, The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control, was published, which represents a broadening of Hassan's focus from New religious movements into application of his approach into political culture [38] Hassan stated that he hoped the book would lessen political division.[8] Hassan has been criticized and accused of sensationalism and self-promotion for applying his cult diagnosis framework to politics.[9] "Mainstream social scientists are divided on Hassan and his fellow cult-busters, with many sociologists of religion believing that what they do is nothing more than stoke hysteria, reminiscent of the witch hunts of the colonial era."[13]
Books[]
- Combatting Cult Mind Control, 1988. ISBN 0-89281-243-5 — reissued 1990 (ISBN 978-0-89281-311-7) and 2015 (Combating ..., ISBN 978-0967068824).
- Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves, 2000. ISBN 0-9670688-0-0.
- Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults, and Beliefs, 2012. ISBN 978-0-9670688-1-7.
- The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control, October 2019. ISBN 9781982127336.
See also[]
References[]
- ^ Jump up to: a b Allen, Rachel (June 1, 2021). "The Man Who Wants to Free Trump Supporters From "Mind Control"". Slate.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c "Steven Hassan". Retrieved 2021-08-12.
- ^ June 11, 2021. "Is The Royal Family A Cult? This Expert Thinks So". Bustle. Retrieved 2021-08-23.
- ^ "Data Mind Games". New York. July 29, 1996. p. 52.
- ^ Jump up to: a b Devenga, Chauncey (March 25, 2021). "QAnon and the Trump cult: Expert Steven Hassan on whether they can be saved". Salon.
- ^ "Former Moonie Steven Hassan: My Fight Against Mind Control And Brainwashing". International Business Times UK. 2012-09-03. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
- ^ Jump up to: a b "The Truth About Steven Hassan". Freedom Of Mind.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Pennington, Juliet (17 December 2020). "Author and cult expert talks Fiji, diving, and future grand plans". Retrieved 22 August 2021.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Allen, Rachel (June 1, 2021). "The Man Who Wants to Free Trump Supporters From "Mind Control"". Slate. Retrieved 2021-08-23.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c "Steven Hassan, M.Ed., LMHC, NCC, Cult Expert". Apologetics Index. Retrieved August 12, 2021.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c "The International Society of Hypnosis". World News. Retrieved 2016-02-05.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c Biography of Steven Hassan, Freedom of Mind Center
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i Elton, Catherine (September 1, 2007). "The Other Side of Enlightenment". Boston Magazine. Retrieved 2021-08-23.
- ^ "New book says there is a 'cult of Trump'". CNN. November 24, 2019.
- ^ Grabish, Austin (January 17, 2021). "Church fighting pandemic restrictions is cult-like, former worshippers, expert allege". CBC.
- ^ Tucker, Jill (January 17, 2021). "Experts see cult-like behavior in Trump's most extreme followers. Breaking them free may not be easy". San Francisco Chronicle.
- ^ "Cult expert to CNN: 'All of America needs deprogramming' after Trump years". Fox News. January 9, 2021. Retrieved 2021-08-23.
- ^ Jump up to: a b Combatting Cult Mind Control, Steven Hassan, 1998, Ch. 2, ISBN 0-89281-243-5
- ^ Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves, Ch. 2, Steven Hassan, FOM Press, 2000
- ^ Mind Warrior. New Therapist 24, March/April 2003.
- ^ Hassan, Steven (1988). Combatting Cult Mind Control. ISBN 0-89281-243-5, p. 114
- ^ "Member Referral Search". asch.net. Retrieved 2016-02-05.
- ^ "Steven Hassan". Retrieved 2021-08-12.
- ^ Combatting Cult Mind Control, Steven Hassan, 1998, Ch. 1, ISBN 0-89281-243-5
- ^ Jump up to: a b "About The Author". Simon and Schuster. Retrieved 2021-08-12.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c "Is Technology Controlling Your Mind?". TEDxBeaconStreet.
- ^ Steven Hassan (October 13, 2019). "Take It From a Former Moonie: Trump Is a Cult Leader". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 2021-08-23.
- ^ Ross, Rick Allen (May 14, 1998). "Rick Ross Responds to his Critics". Retrieved 2021-08-23.
- ^ Ross, Rick Allen (October 24, 2019). "Author Steven Hassan misleads the media while criticizing others for doing the same". Retrieved 2021-08-23.
- ^ Langone, Michael D, ed. (1995). Recovery from cults : help for victims of psychological and spiritual abuse (Norton paperback ed.). New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 9780393313215.
- ^ Lamoureux, Mack (August 11, 2017). "How Cults Use YouTube for Recruitment".
- ^ "Business Entity Summary for Freedom of Mind Resource Center, Inc". corp.sec.state.ma.us. Retrieved 2016-02-05.
- ^ Hassan, S. A.; Shah, M. J. (1 January 2019). "The anatomy of undue influence used by terrorist cults and traffickers to induce helplessness and trauma, so creating false identities". Ethics, Medicine and Public Health. 8: 97–107. doi:10.1016/j.jemep.2019.03.002.
- ^ "The BITE Model of Authoritarian Control: Undue Influence, Thought Reform, Brainwashing, Mind Control, Trafficking and the Law - ProQuest". www.proquest.com.
- ^ Was Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Brainwashed? Wall Street Journal Live Interview
- ^ Radicalism and mind control NECN Interview
- ^ Officials: Suspect claims they were self-radicalized on Internet CNN Erin Burnett OutFront Interview
- ^ Fisher, Marc. "Review | The Republican Party is in thrall to Trump. Does that make him a cult leader?". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2021-03-11.
- 1954 births
- Living people
- American psychology writers
- Jewish American social scientists
- American psychotherapists
- American social sciences writers
- Brainwashing theory proponents
- Critics of Falun Gong
- Critics of the Unification Church
- Critics of Scientology
- Deprogrammers
- Exit counselors
- Mind control theorists
- Researchers of new religious movements and cults
- Cambridge College alumni
- Former members of new religious movements
- American male non-fiction writers
- Former Unificationists