Re: [ot] cult influence and power, 1988-2018

Chapter 12–Next Steps _
I knowbut one freedom & that is the freedom of the mind_ Antoinede Saint-Exupéry The unethical use of mind control has reached the point where it is a major social problem, not only in the United States but across the globe. Human traffickers enslave hundreds of thousands of people in this country and millions worldwide. Organizations such as the Unification Church, Scientology, Jehovah’s Witnesses and countless others are affecting the lives of millions of people all over the world. Destructive cults such as ISIS/Daesh[193] and other extreme terrorist groups have gained considerable political attention (if not power) by playing out their grisly activities on the world stage. Some groups, such as Al Qaeda, have managed to invade our shores by influencing domestic terrorists, like those who committed the Boston Marathon bombing. Freeman-On-The-Land, also known as Sovereign Citizens, is listed on the FBI’s domestic terror watchlist.[194] Groups are exerting their influence economically, through their “training” courses for business people in key positions in corporate America. Cults are also gaining ground among the waves of Asian and Hispanic immigrants to the United States, moving beyond their traditional recruitment of the white middle class, which has allowed them to broaden their financial base. People in other parts of the world, who are enamored of the “American dream,” are falling prey to U.S. based Bible cults and multi-level marketing (MLM) groups. Many cult groups have become so skilled at their public relations work that they have gained a high degree of social acceptance, even among prominent professionals. One ploy taken by wealthier groups is to lure respected professionals—scientists, lawyers, politicians, academicians, clergy—to speak at cult-sponsored conferences by offering them large honoraria, often at conferences held in exotic locations, with all expenses paid. These invited speakers may not know or even care about the cult involvement, but their mere presence at such conferences gives tacit approval to the cult. For instance, former British Prime Minister, Edward Heath, attended Moonie conferences. Sociologist Eileen Barker, who wrote _The Making of a Moonie: Choice or Brainwashing_ and made her professional career saying my life work was mistaken, admits to attending 14 such conferences, but claims that this has not affected her objectivity! My concern about cults is broad and urgent. Their activities, if unchecked, will continue to wreak untold psychological and, at times, even physical damage, on many thousands, if not millions, of people who do not understand what constitutes unethical mind control. Unless legislative action is taken to make destructive cults accountable to society for violating the rights of their members, these groups will continue to deceive the general public into believing that they are doing nothing out of the ordinary. Speaking practically, I realize that many will be reluctant to add yet another issue to their list of serious concerns. Every day, when we read a newspaper or watch the TV news, we are confronted by the threat of nuclear war, global climate change, massive destruction of the earth’s natural resources, starvation in Africa, widespread political corruption, deadly microbes like the Ebola virus and so many other concerns. Why add another? Because like Ebola, the mind control viruses of cults sicken and drain life from human beings. Unless they are contained, they will continue to spread, infecting ever more people. Furthermore, like biological viruses, cults adapt to take advantage of human weaknesses. They exploit legal loopholes to escape prosecution. They manipulate and subvert Internet search engines to bury criticism that might alert people to their unethical behavior. They pour out scorn and disinformation about former members. They use social media to recruit new members. Thousands of stories about cults have appeared in the media in the past few years, yet few address the issue of mind control directly. They tend to be presented as stories about strange or controversial “religions” rather than about people who have been deceptively recruited and controlled through mind control. Media attention usually dies down after the big stories—Charles Manson, the Jonestown massacre, Waco, Heaven’s Gate, and the Tokyo subway sarin gassing by Aum Shinrikyo.[195] It may seem that there are fewer cults because there have been fewer big stories, and as I’ve mentioned, many people with whom I come into casual conversation on the subject of destructive cults express surprise when I tell them that such groups are still a major problem in American society. Imagine, then, how they react when I tell them that this lack of awareness is the result of disinformation campaigns, not just by cults but by the very institutions that are supposed to protect our constitutional freedoms. Cults And The United States Government Public reaction to the Jonestown massacre on November 18, 1978, was shock and disbelief. The murder of a United States congressman showed that some cult leaders would stop at nothing to keep anyone, especially someone in a legitimate position of authority, from exposing them to public scrutiny. I was deeply saddened by news of the assassination of congressman Leo Ryan. I knew that he was highly knowledgeable and concerned about destructive cults. He had been a leading member of the Congressional investigation of Korean-American Relations headed by congressman Donald Fraser. Released on October 31, 1978—just a few short weeks before the mass suicide at Jonestown—the Fraser Report, as it came to be known, recommended that an Executive branch inter-agency task force be set up to pursue illegal activities committed by the Moon organization.[196] No action was taken on that recommendation. (Moon was convicted four years later of felony tax fraud, and served thirteen months in a minimum security prison in Danbury, Connecticut). It seemed that something was being done about the cult problem, given all the activity on Capitol Hill, in the late 1970s. After Jonestown, Congress launched a formal inquiry. On May 15, 1979, a House Foreign Affairs Committee issued its report, describing in detail the brainwashing tactics of Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple. They concluded by recommending that the National Institute of Mental Health be given funds to further research on mind control and destructive cult groups. Nothing was ever done to follow up on that recommendation, either. However, Senator Bob Dole did put together a hearing on cults after Jonestown at which I was invited to speak. On the morning of the hearing, I was suddenly told that no former cult member would be permitted to speak. We were told that this was to avoid allowing current cult members equal time to speak. Yet in the hearing room—which was filled with ex-members holding up signs saying, “Elect Bob Dole President, Repeal the First Amendment”—we found that Neil Salonen, the spokesperson for the Moonies, had, nonetheless, been allowed to deliver a statement. I was beginning to realize the political clout of the cults. But I came to realize much more. What the Jonestown “inquiry” showed me—and many others—was that in the face of an outrageous and evil act, the best our government could do was to hold a highly-censored hearing—a public show that neither got to the details of what happened nor took steps to see that such terrible events would never happen again. The government had failed us but, as we were soon to learn, it had done far worse. It turns out the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had been conducting its own mind control research. It was experimenting with some of the very same techniques—and some far more ruthless—that had killed over 900 people at Jonestown. What’s more, it had been carrying out these covert experiments on an often unwitting group of Americans since the late 1940s. The government was guilty of the very offense it claimed to be protecting us from. Credit goes to author John Marks, who in 1975 read one sentence in a government report that led him to investigate the CIA’s secret activities. In 1979, he published his famous _The Search for the Manchurian Candidate_, to widespread national attention. Inspired by Marks’ initial discoveries, Alan W. Scheflin and Edward M. OptonJr. undertook complementary research, which culminated, also in 1979, with the publication of _The Mind Manipulators_. Both books laid out in detail the mind control research that was being performed by the Central Intelligence Agency from the late 1940s through the early 1960s, and that involved subcontractors at over 80 American institutions. Code-named MK-ULTRA, the CIA’s mind control research program was a clandestine and illegal program of experiments on human subjects that was intended to identify methods that could be developed for use in interrogations and torture. MK-ULTRA left no stone unturned in the quest to find ways to manipulate people’s mental states, alter their brain functions, and control their behavior. The techniques used in MK-ULTRA’s experiments ranged from the chemical—LSD and other psychotropic drugs (including the notorious BZ, which never leaves the human system and was given to hundreds of unsuspecting GIs); to the physical—brain surgery, electroshock; to the psychological—sensory deprivation, isolation, hypnosis, sexual and verbal abuse, and more. Scheflin and Opton actually uncovered a 1953 speech by Allen Dulles, then CIA director, frankly admitting this to be true.[197] Dr. Ewan Cameron, who was president of the Canadian, American and World Psychiatric Association, supervised mind control research in a Canadian psychiatric hospital. This meant that at the same time that the government was dropping the ball on the Jonestown investigation, it was covering up a program far beyond anything that Jim Jones could have ever imagined. Other researchers attempted to follow up on this work but, by then, the CIA—in violation of many federal laws—had destroyed almost all of its relevant files. The MK-ULTRA records were virtually all destroyed except for a few boxes of financial records, making it impossible for investigators to find out what really happened. ABC aired an excellent documentary on the secret program called _Mission Mind Control_. In 1975, a Congressional committee, led by Senator Frank Church, decided to investigate. The Church Committee set out to unearth the full scope of the research but, at its hearings, it became clear that it had not been able to go beyond the discoveries made by private researchers. The committee was derailed by the same two CIA strategies, leaving the public in the dark. First, the CIA leaked information about its attempted assassinations of world leaders, which sent the Committee—and the media—running after that story. It then claimed that the MK-ULTRA was a “rogue elephant”—the brainchild of a few overzealous agents who worked on it, without the knowledge of their higher-ups. Members of the committee bought these explanations, thereby missing the fact, stated explicitly in Dulles’s 1953 speech, that knowledge of—and responsibility for—the program went all the way to the very top of the CIA. Thousands of people were experimented on, which makes it impossible to believe that this was not a significant program. It is also true that at that time almost all social psychological research was actually funded by the U.S. government. Thankfully, Milgram and Zimbardo published their results.[198] I knew first-hand that techniques for mind control were real—I had lived in a mind control environment and practiced it on others. I had researched the subject of mind control, and had the great fortune to speak with top experts on the subject, such as Robert Jay Lifton and Margaret Singer. I knew that no self-respecting psychologist would deny that there was useful information in mind control research—information that _could_ be used to affect people, for better or worse. But the revelations about the MK-ULTRA—and its cover up—forced me to confront another set of questions that demanded answers. Why wasn’t the federal government informing the American people about the dangers of mind control? Why was the issue continually shuffled into a discussion of religious liberty and the First Amendment? To this day, there has been no official government statement on the existence—let alone the dangers—of mind control. European countries, including Germany, France and Belgium, have recently recognized the dangers posed by mind control cults and have created task forces to investigate them. There is apparently no such initiative on the part of the U.S. government—not by the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, or any other intelligence-gathering agency—despite the threat that they have posed to our national safety. It’s about time the Surgeon General, or some other high-ranking government official, made such a statement. Perhaps there are other political explanations for why the government does not admit to any knowledge of mind control techniques. Whatever the reasons, there is now little doubt that, during those decades, the American people unwittingly spent millions of dollars on mind control research. That money would have been far better spent investigating the devastating effects of mind control in cult groups. Former members present a tremendous opportunity for researchers, but there is no political will for such an investigation. I am not against research into mind control. To the contrary, as a mental health professional, I am heartily in favor of ethically conducted research, which increases our knowledge of ourselves and the workings of the mind.[199] Nor, for that matter, am I opposed to the classification of some information in the interest of maintaining national security. But if the government has indeed been conducting research into mind control, then it has a responsibility to inform the American public that mind control exists. In the absence of recognition by the government that mind control exists and that unethical mind control is wrong, _the government’s silence indirectly condones the practice of undue influence by unethical people and organizations on the rest of society_. One only need look around to see the effects of that silence: mind control groups are proliferating at an unprecedented pace. The principles of freedom and democracy demand that the reality of mind control be exposed to full public scrutiny. Cults, Mind Control And The Mental Health Profession The U.S. government issues licenses to professionals who are responsible for restoring ailing people’s mental well-being. Mental health professionals do this by developing specific techniques and therapies to address the problem that a patient or client may have. One population that cannot count on having its mental health needs met is that of cult victims and other victims of undue influence. This is particularly strange because for years, the _Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)_—which is published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and is relied upon by clinicians, researchers, drug companies, health insurance companies, the courts and policy makers—has contained a designation for victims of cult brainwashing and thought reform. The most recent version, the _DSM—5_,[200] identifies this group of patients under a special category: Other Specified Dissociative Disorder 300.15 (F44.9). If you go to page 305, number 2, you will read: “*Identity disturbance due to prolonged and intense coercive persuasion*: Individuals who have been subjected to intense coercive persuasion (e.g., brainwashing, thought reform, indoctrination while captive, torture, long-term political imprisonment, recruitment by sects/cults or by terror organizations) may present with prolonged changes in, or conscious questioning of, their identity.” I wish I could say that most mental health professionals _have_ read it. To the contrary, it must be one of the DSM-5’s least known categories. Therapists and other practitioners are largely unaware that a diagnosis of mind control can even be made and are certainly unfamiliar with the specialized approaches that have been developed to address it. Meanwhile, a subset of their patients continue to suffer as a result of their cult involvement—that is, unless they turn to a relatively small handful of people who have recognized their needs and are willing to treat them. There was a moment in time when this could have changed. In 2002, Professor Philip Zimbardo, who conducted the now-famous Stanford prison study, was President of the American Psychological Association (APA). He saw quite clearly that the APA had not served the interests of this suffering population. He asked Alan W. Scheflin, then a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, to chair a panel, _Cults of Hatred_, at the APA’s annual convention. In his opening remarks, Scheflin said that the mental health community has not addressed the needs of two different populations: those who accurately believe that their minds have been controlled in cultic and other situations; and those who mistakenly believe they are the victims of mind control and may be suffering from delusions or paranoia. The event brought together academicians like Scheflin and Zimbardo; therapists, like myself, who work in the area of mind control; and former members of groups such as the Peoples Temple. It was, for me and many others, a momentous occasion. Zimbardo tried to seize that moment by writing about it in the President’s column of the APA Monitor.[201] His words were so eloquent that I have decided to reproduce them: “A basic value of the profession of psychology is promoting human freedom of responsible action, based on awareness of available behavioral options, and supporting an individual’s rights to exercise them. Whatever we mean by “mind control” stands in opposition to this positive value orientation. Mind control is the process by which individual or collective freedom of choice and action is compromised by agents or agencies that modify or distort perception, motivation, affect, cognition and/or behavioral outcomes. It is neither magical nor mystical, but a process that involves a set of basic social psychological principles. Conformity, compliance, persuasion, dissonance, reactance, guilt and fear arousal, modeling and identification are some of the staple social influence ingredients well studied in psychological experiments and field studies. In some combinations, they create a powerful crucible of extreme mental and behavioral manipulation when synthesized with several other real-world factors, such as charismatic, authoritarian leaders, dominant ideologies, social isolation, physical debilitation, induced phobias, and extreme threats or promised rewards that are typically deceptively orchestrated, over an extended time period in settings where they are applied intensively. A body of social science evidence shows that when systematically practiced by state-sanctioned police, military or destructive cults, mind control can induce false confessions, create converts who willingly torture or kill “invented enemies,” engage indoctrinated members to work tirelessly, give up their money—and even their lives—for “the cause.” Zimbardo hoped that APA board members would wake up to the reality of mind control. That did not happen. Previous efforts by others had fared no better. In 1983, Dr. Margaret Singer headed a task force on Deceptive and Indirect Methods of Persuasion and Control at the request of the APA.[202] Despite her efforts, the problem was not deemed serious enough to be taken up by the APA. Internal politics appeared to be at work to keep this body of knowledge from public attention. The promise contained in previous editions of the _DSM_ and in the current section of the _DSM-5_ goes unfilled and, indeed, unrecognized. The fact that neither the government nor organized psychotherapy has stepped up to help those adversely affected by mind control is dreadful. But I am hopeful that this will soon change, through the efforts of enlightened mental health professionals and, importantly, the growing number of former members who are taking action and telling their stories to therapists and anyone else who will listen. Mind Control Research And Its Application Despite the lack of attention by the government and mental health profession, many people have been hard at work studying mind control and how it affects people. They have written numerous books and hundreds of papers. After publishing his 1961 classic, _Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism_, former Air Force Intelligence psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton went on to write two more books on the theme of mind control. In 1986 he published _The Nazi Doctors_, in which he describes the psychological process of “doubling” that German doctors underwent to enable them to obediently perform acts of unimaginable cruelty in service to Hitler. Lifton then wrote a book in 1999 about the Japanese terrorist Aum Shinrikyo cult entitled, _Destroying the World to Save It_, in which he applied his model of mind control to explain how cult members were manipulated into killing innocent people in order to bring about an “apocalypse” that would supposedly erase all of the bad _karma_ of the Japanese population. Margaret Singer wrote two books with Janja Lakich[203]—_Cults in Our Midst_ and _Crazy Therapies_. In _The Lucifer Effect_, Philip Zimbardo detailed his famous Stanford prison study and applied its lessons to understand the horrible acts committed by American soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison. Louis Jolyon West and Paul Martin wrote a paper on pseudo-identity disorder that is now considered a classic. Social psychologist Robert Cialdini’s best-selling book, _Influence_, details six laws by which people can be made to alter their behavior and beliefs. Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson’s _Age of Propaganda_ shows how PR and advertising manipulate the public. Former cult members have written their stories—such as Deborah Layton (Peoples Temple), Nori Muster (Hare Krishnas), Alexandra Stein (The O), and Richard E. Kelly (Jehovah’s Witnesses)—using their firsthand experiences to shed light on the process of mind control. Some, like me, have become mental health professionals, in an effort to apply our life experience to help others overcome the predatory behavior of cult leaders and other victimizers. Research now strongly suggests that cult leaders, dictators, pimps and human traffickers have one or both of two serious personality disorders: narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) or antisocial personality disorder (more commonly known as psychopathic/sociopathic disorder). Canadian sociologist Stephen Kent presented a wonderful paper at a recent meeting of the International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA), titled “Narcissistic Grandiosity and the Life of Sun Myung Moon,” in which he took extensive quotes from Moon and fit them into the nine criteria of NPD as set out in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic manual, the DSM—5.[204] Former cult member and respected therapist, Daniel Shaw, wrote an important book, _Traumatic Narcissism: Relational Systems of Subjugation_, which is really worth reading.[205] Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. has written a book called _Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited_, and he has posted several informative videos on his youtube channel, samvaknin. Psychologist Anna Salter wrote what I think is the best book on sex abusers (and not surprisingly most cult leaders), _Predators: Pedophiles, Rapists, and Other Sex Offenders_.[206] On the other side of the cult equation, Dr. Flavil Yeakley, a respected psychologist from Abilene Christian University, has undertaken considerable research into the psychological profiles of cult members.[207] Dr. Yeakley administered the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a personality profile research device, to over a thousand members of different religious groups, both mainline and cultic. He asked members to fill out the questionnaire three times. The first time, they were asked to answer the questions in their present frame of mind. The second time, they were asked to answer the questions from the state of mind prior to joining the group. Finally, Dr Yeakley asked his test subjects to respond to the questions as they thought they would answer in five years’ time. He administered this test to members of the Boston Church of Christ, the Church of Scientology, the Hare Krishnas, Maranatha, the Children of God, the Moonies and The Way International. The results showed a high level of movement toward certain standard personality types as defined by the test. In other words, people in certain cults appeared to be all moving toward having the same kinds of personalities, distinct to their particular group, regardless of the original personalities they brought with them into the group. In comparison, when this test was given to members of the Baptist, Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches, there were no significant changes in psychological profiles over time. In short, there was no indication of any pressure to conform to a certain type of personality. People’s fundamental personalities—their authentic selves—remained intact. I wrote to Yeakley that I thought these findings offered support for my idea that cults actually give new personalities to their members—Yeakley refers to it as “cloning”—as they suppress the members’ original identities. As Dr. Yeakley explained in a letter to me: “In the Boston Church of Christ and in three of the cults, the shifting was toward the ESFJ (extrovert, sensing, feeling, judging) personality type. Two of the cults were shifting toward ESTJ (extrovert, sensing, thinking, judging) and one toward ENTJ (extrovert, intuitive, thinking, judging). There is nothing wrong with any of these three types. The problem is with the pressure to conform to any type. It is the shifting which is negative, not the type toward which the shifting takes place.”[208] Much more research needs to be done. Well-respected mental health professionals who are experts on mind control—Lifton, Singer, West, and Zimbardo, along with John Clark, Edgar Schein, Michael Langone, Carmen Almendros, Rod Dubrow-Marshall, Bill and Lorna Goldberg, Steve Eichel and others associated with the International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA)—have researched, written on, and advocated for more awareness about mind control. There is an especially profound need for epidemiological studies to investigate the public-health effects of undue influence. Psychotic breakdowns, violent acts by former cult members, suicides, drug and alcohol abuse, depression, and anxiety disorders are public health issues that can all be caused by mind control, either deliberately or as side effects. There are exciting possibilities in the developing technology of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) which might help us understand whether brain function changes as a result of undue influence. I suspect it does. Functional MRI’s have already shown a distinct signature when someone is in a hypnotic state—the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) lights up distinctively. They have also shown that dissociative identity disorder (DID) produces a distinctive brain signature when a person switches identities.209 Every day, in real-life contexts, cults are essentially performing unethical social psychology experiments. One way to stop them is to expose the biological effects of their manipulations. I believe that incredible good can come from this kind of research. More research also needs to be done on the potentially _beneficial_ use of ethical mind control techniques (for instance, for weight loss, motivation, smoking cessation, and so on). The use of mind control technology is not inherently evil. Like any technology, it can be used to serve or to harm, to empower people or to enslave them. Severe depression affects millions of Americans and robs them of their ability to enjoy life. It may be possible to teach these people some helpful mind control techniques (like psychiatrist David Burns teaches essential cognitive-behavioral strategies in his seminal book _Feeling Good_) to support or hasten their recovery.[210] One such simple technique involves repeatedly imagining a better future. Such a technique is effective and ethical, but only when someone freely makes the choice to use it and the _locus of control_ is within oneself. Mind control techniques can also be used to help people currently stuck in the criminal justice system. There is a great need for massive reform of our prison system. Inmates can be taught more effective ways to break their cycle of low self-esteem and law-breaking behavior. Their voluntary use of mind control techniques may help them change their thinking, behavior, and relationship to society. It is my belief that _people who know how mind control operates have a distinct advantage_, providing they use their knowledge for ethical purposes—to bring about positive change in themselves and others; and to protect themselves and others from the unethical use of mind control by less ethical people. A measured approach, one that is guided by morality and wisdom, must be taken when using any powerful tool for altering the human mind. I hope that these issues will be thoroughly debated and protections built in to prevent any abuses of this technology. These considerations represent just the beginning of societal understanding of mind control. Much more must be done to educate mental health professionals and empower them to help people who are still suffering. Protecting Children From Cult Abuse Children occupy a unique and challenging place on the spectrum of issues involving undue influence. There is so much research showing the damaging effects of abuse—be it physical, sexual, emotional or verbal—on the developing brain. (The good news is that there is also research showing that the brain is remarkably resilient: it retains its plasticity well into and possibly throughout adulthood.) Children who are raised in isolated, totalistic cults may be indoctrinated to hate those outside the group or to believe that Armageddon is just about to happen. They are told that if they stray from the group, terrible things will happen: their families will suffer, they will lose their connection to God and spend all eternity in Hell. Extremist groups train even child members how to kill. These are forms of mental and emotional abuse. Any country that allows such activities to take place should be held accountable. The International War Crimes Tribunal at Nuremberg went so far as to suggest that this kind of abuse of children constitutes a crime against humanity. David Cooperson, a veteran child protection social worker, has written a vitally important book, _The Holocaust Lessons on Compassionate Parenting and Child Corporal Punishment_, which convincingly shows how hitting, spanking or paddling children has detrimental effects on a child’s development. He has a website, stoplegalchildabuse.com, and is on a quest to make it illegal to physically harm children in the U.S.. Forty countries have brought such legislation, including the Scandinavian countries and the UK. Any country that grants tax-exempt status to organizations that abuse children, not just physically, but mentally, emotionally or spiritually, should be held responsible for that abuse. Tax-exempt organizations like Jehovah’s Witnesses, that have had policies in place for decades that systematically protect pedophiles from criminal prosecution, and which disfellowships victims and their families for speaking out, should lose their exemption. The leadership should be prosecuted for conspiracy to cover up illegal activities. The tragedy is that many children or young adults who run away from totalistic groups, like the Watchtower, end up homeless and in the control of pimps who exploit and control them for money and sex. They move from one mind control situation into another. Child pornographers are being identified and prosecuted, but not enough is being done to protect children from being kidnapped or sold to human traffickers. As a start, men have an absolute obligation to find out the actual age of anyone they have sex with. If they look underage, they probably are underage. Call the police and rescue this minor. There could be laws requiring people to report suspected child trafficking. Some states still have laws that allow people to apply for a religious exemption when it comes to medical treatment. Christian Science continues to lobby State governments to allow parents to keep their children from medical treatment. Jehovah’s Witnesses prohibit members from having blood transfusions and expect members to refuse transfusions and other medical treatment for their sick or hospitalized children. They routinely apply for religious exemption on the basis of belief. These laws can and must be amended to protect the health and lives of children. Gretchen Callahan’s failed faith-healing story in chapter 6 is heartbreaking, but there are countless children similarly and needlessly suffering. Not all of these children die or lose a limb or an organ due to medical neglect. But they are often in physical pain and may also suffer emotionally, especially if they are made to feel that their illness is their fault or are told that their disease is spiritual and that all they, or their parents, need to do is pray for God to intervene. Perhaps most concerning of all is the situation with those groups, like the Twelve Tribes and Followers of Christ, which do not register their children at birth. Sick children, who are often denied medical treatment, may die and be buried on the cult property without the outside world even knowing they ever existed. Linda Martin, a former member of Followers of Christ, is trying to bring attention to the large number of children who have died, due to the group’s faith healing practices. Janet Heimlich’s Child Friendly Faith Project is an outgrowth of her important book, _Breaking Their Will: Shedding Light on Religious Child Maltreatment_. I gladly joined its board of advisors and the organization has held two very important conferences in Austin, Texas.[211] Another aspect of cult life—and even of noncult life—that is devastating to see occurs during and after separation or divorce, when children are indoctrinated against one parent by the other parent. Parental alienation is a very real phenomenon. It goes on all the time when a parent leaves a cult. The cult parent may truly believe that their former spouse is evil for “leaving God” (and for leaving the family.) Some of these groups actually instruct cult parents to make up lies to get the child to believe that the ex-member parent molested them, in an effort to influence a judge to stop contact. Developmental psychologist Amy Baker has written, along with Paul Fine, a number of excellent books addressing this huge problem, including _Surviving Parental Alienation_ and _Co-Parenting with a Toxic Ex_. Baker has developed a curriculum for middle school guidance counselors to use with children whose parents are undergoing a divorce, to protect them from abuse. Understanding the BITE model has proven to be vital for children who have been programmed to hate their parent. It helps them understand what happened to them, so that they can take the first steps towards reconciling with that parent. I would be remiss if I did not mention homeschooling. While it may work beautifully in the outside world, the fact is, many destructive cults insist on schooling their children in order to keep them from that world, which they often consider to be “Satan’s world.” While there are legitimate homeschooling curricula, it is imperative that there be checks and balances to protect children. On the other hand, if a child comes to public school with black and blue marks, or displays a severe trauma reaction, teachers and counselors must investigate and do what they can to protect the child from abuse. Similarly, if a child appears isolated and wary or avoids interacting with children and adults outside their insular community, this can be very detrimental to their development. The onus is on the school to investigate. Cults And The Law Current laws do not even recognize that mind control exists, except when there is the use of physical force or the threat of such force. There _are_ laws concerning undue influence that protect children and vulnerable adults—the elderly, the dying, people with certain mental illnesses, people with disabilities—from being taken advantage of by what California law used to call “artful and designing persons.” Aside from the elderly, it is very difficult, if not impossible, for courts to agree that a healthy, functional individual can be subjected to undue influence and undergo a radical personality change. This is not a new phenomenon. Years ago, judges had a somewhat similar attitude towards women who were physically abused by domestic partners. Those judges said, “Just leave.” It took many years and many experts to persuade them that the psychological dynamics were nowhere near that simple. When victims of cult abuse appear in court seeking a remedy for the harms that have been done to them, the odds are usually against them.[212] Part of the problem is that courts generally prefer not to be involved with what they view to be interpersonal “squabbles,” especially in the absence of some kind of physical abuse or coercion. Legal theories that might protect cult victims either do not exist or have not been applied to this kind of situation. When experts testify in court, the literature they draw upon concerns brainwashing and mind control. These terms are seen by some judges as fanciful or outlandish—something out of Hollywood—and certainly devoid of scientific grounding. The law requires that, for an expert to testify, it must first be demonstrated that he or she will be testifying about matters of science. Judges do not think about mind control or brainwashing as matters of science. There are legal causes of action that could be utilized by cult victims, such as fraud or “intentional infliction of emotional distress.” But the law on these two subjects has not been applied or developed in relation to cult situations. Courts and judges might be disinclined to extend these time-honored legal doctrines to this more controversial arena. Meanwhile, the same principles of influence that are used to recruit people into cults are being used by pedophiles to groom children and to turn people into human trafficking victims. The definition used by the U.N. for labor and sex trafficking is use of fraud, force, and coercion. Law enforcement and other professionals who routinely deal with these victims are beginning to finally understand that this adds up to mind control. Laws to protect victims of sex trafficking are beginning to change as well. Several states now have what are called Safe Harbor laws, which protect minors who are arrested for prostitution (it should be called “trafficking” but isn’t, yet). Instead of being put into jail, these young people are protected by social workers who advocate for their safety, health and well-being. There is a growing understanding that young sex workers are not exercising their free will; they are under the mind control of pimps or sex traffickers (this is also true of many adult trafficking victims). Loyola law professor Kathleen Kim has written numerous articles, including “The Coercion of Trafficked Workers,” which argues the need for law to be applied fairly and in support of victims’ rights.[213] The same is true for all victims of mind control. Part of the problem facing lawmakers and the courts is that cults have sought to hide behind the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom. In this country, people’s right to believe whatever they want is absolute, as it should be. What is _not_ absolute is a group’s right to _act_ in any way that it likes. For example, a sect may believe that it is a sacred act to handle poisonous snakes, but the law prohibits snake-handling rituals because too many people have died as a consequence. Lawyers for cults do their best to ignore this difference, and try to turn mind control issues into issues of belief, rather than issues of behavior. Attorney Marci Hamilton’s excellent book, _God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty_ brings to light the way in which groups with influence over lawmakers enjoy special treatment under the law. Another way to frame this issue involves freedom _of_ versus freedom _from_. The Constitution guarantees Americans the right to worship, think and speak as they please. But to what degree should we be protected from other people’s attempts to make us worship, think and speak as they want us to? Legislators and courts are still struggling with this. Cult recruitment and conversion are particularly difficult to analyze. Does a group really have the right to deceive potential converts who would stay away if they knew the truth? Likewise, does a group have the right to manipulate a person’s thoughts, feelings and environment in order to create a conversion experience? If so, where should the line be drawn between legal and illegal manipulation? I will say more about this shortly. So far, it has been difficult to determine scientifically whether a person is under mind control. Any evaluation has had to be subjective. Mind control experts have been seeking a legal vehicle that will allow them to satisfy the law’s requirement that they will be testifying from scientific data. They now have one. Alan W. Scheflin, who is Professor Emeritus at Santa Clara University School of Law, in an important paper, argues that all human beings have the right to protection from undue influence, a concept the law has recognized for at least five centuries. With this legal precedent in place, the remaining issue is qualifying experts to testify on the basis of science. In his paper, “Supporting Human Rights by Testifying Human Wrongs,” which appeared in the _International Journal of Cultic Studies_,[214] Scheflin describes what he calls the Social Influence Model, or SIM, for determining whether undue influence has occurred. This model provides a structure for the presentation of scientific data. It involves an analysis of six elements: the influence itself; the influencer’s motives; the influencer’s methods; the circumstances under which the influence occurred; the influencee’s receptivity or vulnerability (regardless of their designation as a minor, a vulnerable adult, or a non-vulnerable adult); and the consequences for both parties. For each of these elements, there is abundant social science data that an expert may use to give the judge and jury a clear picture of why the communications that occurred should be labeled _undue_ influence. Currently, the law tends to protect cults more than it protects their victims. In part, this is because of the enormous wealth of some mind control groups, which allows them to hire the best attorneys and to file harassment lawsuits (unwinnable, but very troublesome to the person or organization being sued). In addition, there is the first amendment issue. Sadly, some of the leaders of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have historically sided with cults, invoking the First Amendment and ignoring mind control research. Still, brave former members of many different cults have initiated civil lawsuits against their groups. The results have been mixed. But when the Moonies sued the London _Daily Mail_ newspaper for libel over two articles it published in 1978, they lost. In the longest libel suit in the history of England, the court found that the Moonies did “brainwash their members and did try to cut people off from their families.” Because British law requires that whichever party loses the suit is responsible for the expenses of both sides, the Moonies were required to pay some $2 million in expenses.[215] There has been a trend of cases over the last few decades holding that cult critics who describe a group as a “cult” and accuse it of using “mind control” or “brainwashing” are protected under the First Amendment from liability for defamation.[216] Therefore, former members should feel encouraged to speak out about their experiences. There are a small handful of lawyers in the United States that have offered to assist cult victims in these types of suits at low rates or pro bono. Attorney Paul Grosswald (who himself is an ex-Scientologist) is such a pioneering individual. He has truly stepped up to the plate regarding a recent libel suit brought by “God the Mother” of the World Mission Society Church of God (WMSCOG) against former member Michele Colon for writing on the examiningthewmscog.com website that the group was a cult and broke up her marriage. There is little doubt, as well, that if the American economy gets shaky, cult-owned businesses will flourish. Many cult-owned businesses are able to undercut competition because they have free labor. They can also avoid paying taxes because their bookkeeping systems show payment of full salaries, yet those paychecks are in reality turned over to the tax-exempt organization. It therefore appears the business is making a marginal profit in comparison with the monies it is actually taking in. In other cases, new employees will be expected to attend all company—sponsored “workshops” and “seminars.” Even now, business executives are flocking to programs that can teach them how to better influence and control people. Cults have actually taken over the running of some companies in this way. Despite the progress, there is still much more work that needs to be done. The threat of lawsuits by cults chills many people and makes them refrain from expressing themselves. It has also caused the media—which is entrusted with reporting difficult truths—to hang back or shy away altogether. Heather Kavan of Massey University in New Zealand wrote an important paper, “Falun Gong in the Media: What Can We Believe?” [217] I have personally seen how fear of cult lawsuits can affect the media. In early 1988, the editor of a popular magazine saw me on television and asked me to write a review of the then-new book _L. Ron Hubbard—Messiah or Madman_ by Bent Corydon, a former 22-year Scientologist. As it happened, I had just finished the book the week before, and happily agreed. However, the review was never published. The publisher later told me she was afraid of being sued by the Church of Scientology. She regretted not being able to print it, but said that it just didn’t make good business sense for them to do so. Prior to its publication, eleven publishers told Jon Atack that they would like to publish his book, _A Piece of Blue Sky_, but that they were afraid of litigation from the Scientology cult. With the creation of the Internet and the coming forward of many top former leaders of cults, information is much more available than ever before. There have been many books, websites, documentaries and stories published. It is difficult for cults to do information control when there is an open Internet. Destructive Cults And Business: The Case Of Multi-Level Marketing Groups On October 24, 2013, an _ad hoc_ committee of about forty consumer advocates, bloggers, attorneys, economists, and others—including Douglas Brooks, Robert L. Fitzpatrick, and Bruce Craig—filed a formal petition with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requesting that it investigate the multi-level marketing (MLM) industry, and that it formulate regulations to protect consumers from unfair and deceptive business opportunities. On March 12, 2014, the FTC announced that it was investigating the supplement company Herbalife. Over the years, other MLM companies, such as Amway, have been sued by the FTC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and state Attorneys General. Any company that tells people that they can become millionaires by buying and selling their products and by recruiting others to do the same may be found to be a pyramid scheme by government regulators, and should be viewed with suspicion by anyone who is being recruited by them. According to the consumer group Pyramid Scheme Alert (pyramidschemealert.org), the MLM industry may now be facing its greatest challenge. Fitzpatrick, Brooks and Craig have released a white paper which dissects the entire MLM industry.[218] In the white paper, Brooks and Craig—two of the foremost legal experts in the area of pyramid schemes—carefully researched and evaluated the federal court cases that define and outlaw pyramid selling schemes. (These are found in Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act.) They applied these cases to the widespread practices of MLMs today to see if they are legal. Their white paper is the most in-depth and current evaluation of MLM legality ever produced. The analysis has become especially important now that theFTC has launched an investigationinto the legality of Herbalife. As a crucial part of the white paper, Fitzpatrick conducted a statistical analysis of MLM economic performance and of the MLM business model to determine its financial value to consumers and society, which is included in the white paper. The white paper is a must-read for attorneys, regulators, journalists, financial analysts and any interested consumers who want to determine how the FTC investigation could affect not just Herbalife but all MLMs, their shareholders and their distributors. While they take an important first step, Brooks, Craig and Fitzpatrick ignore a critical aspect of the MLM phenomenon. What they don’t report is how some MLM recruiters deceptively recruit and keep people dependent and obedient by following the BITE model. New recruits are pressured to attend rallies and conferences where they are influenced to buy materials, such as books and CDs; to keep a positive, unquestioning mental attitude; and most importantly not to give in to family and concerned friends who raise questions. They are told to never talk negatively about the company and, if they have questions, to ask only their recruiter, known as their “upline.” The cost of involvement, unless the person is in the top one percent of earners, is very high, in part because their earnings are so low. Bank accounts are drained, marriages are strained and broken. Relationships with family and friends can end up in tatters. People often wind up leaving the group, ashamed, embarrassed, depressed and sometimes even suicidal. These groups should not be in business. It is up to our government to make sure the public is protected. Until that time, _caveat emptor_: let the buyer beware. Cults And Religious Freedom The major defense that cults use whenever any criticism is directed against them is that it is an attack on their right to freedom of religious belief. This right is one of the most fundamental principles recognized by law and it has been memorialized in every major international covenant concerning human rights. When pilgrims were fleeing persecution in Europe and elsewhere, they sought refuge in the U.S. to practice their beliefs without government suppression. The Founding Fathers were wise to put freedom of religious belief in the very First Amendment of the Constitution. It is that important. The strong legal protection afforded to freedom of religion refers to religious _beliefs_. It does not necessarily protect _behaviors_. For example, human sacrifice to the gods may be part of a person’s belief system, as it was in earlier times, but if carried out in modern-day Boston or anywhere in the U.S., it is homicide. Courts have routinely banned snake-handling rituals, because of the many deaths that have resulted from that practice. It has famously been said, by judges and others, “Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man’s nose begins.”[219] The U.S. Constitution emphasizes the individual’s right to freedom of speech but it, too, has limits. The law does not allow me to take a bullhorn at 3 o’clock in the morning and wake my neighbors with religious or any other kind of speech. In fact, the law may regulate the content of speech under what is called the “clear and present danger” doctrine. Speech that is designed or likely to cause a riot or serious harm to other people is not given protection. Religion does not enjoy immunity from these legal limitations. Frederick Clarkson, in his 1997 book, _Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy_, showed how the men who shaped our nation’s approach to religious freedom were well aware that even religion’s rights had their limitations. As we hear cries of religious persecution by groups that specialize in violating the rights of others, it is worth considering how the framers of the Constitution thought about these things. Clarkson notes that James Madison, writing about religious freedom in one of the most influential essays of his time, denounced the “invasion” of an individual’s “conscience” by other “Sects.” Madison’s conclusion was simple. The role of government should be “protecting every citizen in the enjoyment of his Religion with the same equal hand which protects his person and his property; by neither invading the equal rights of any Sect, nor suffering any Sect to invade those of another.” Clarkson notes that Madison was not the only founding father to hold such a view. He quotes Thomas Jefferson as writing that a church is a “voluntary society” of which a person “should be as free to go out as he was to come in.” In recent years, there has been an interesting twist in the discussion about religious freedom. While there is general acceptance of the concept of freedom of religion, there is mounting concern for the adoption of freedom _from_ religion. In much the same way that my freedom to move my fist stops at your nose, there is also a belief that your freedom to worship stops at my head, or more specifically, my mind. The Constitution guarantees Americans the right to worship, think and speak as they please. But to what extent should we be protected _from_ other people’s attempts to make us worship, think and speak as they want us to? It seemed to Clarkson, as it seemed to Madison—and it seems to me—that if there are laws that protect people from being conned out of their property, there should be laws that protect people from being conned out of their beliefs, thoughts and opinions. The point is not to diminish or disparage a particular religion, but instead to show equal respect for the rights of others to believe or not believe as they choose. The protection of religion should not require the sacrifice of individual liberties and social values. With regard to cults, the point may be more directly stated as follows: it is not your beliefs that require regulation—it is your practices. It is not what you bring people to believe. It is _how_ you bring them to believe it. Clarkson declares that “inducing people to secluded locations and willfully impairing critical faculties of recruits and members for purposes of indoctrination and continuation of membership is a far cry from Jeffersonian—or any other definition of voluntary association.” According to Clarkson, “Respect for religious freedom means respect for the integrity of the conscience of the individual.” He continues: “Groups that use deception and coercive forms of persuasion to induce people to abandon their own conscience and adopt the beliefs of another, certainly violate the religious freedom of individuals, even if governments and cult apologists turn a blind eye to such abuses and the slow corrosion of this area of constitutional rights.” It takes significant knowledge as well as maturity on all of our parts to navigate our religiously plural society. The protections we each enjoy under the Constitution are also enjoyed by people with whom we disagree. Unless we are able to embrace this concept in ways that inform our thinking on every aspect of counter-cult work, we risk undermining our own cause. We can take a hint from none other than George Washington, who famously wrote to the Touro synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island in 1790 about the meaning of religious freedom and citizenship. “For happily,” he wrote, “the Government of the United States gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”[220] _To bigotry no sanction and to persecution no assistance_. That is a good principle to guide us in our work. Nothing would grieve me more than to learn that this book has caused anyone to become religiously intolerant. I remember how I felt being spat upon, kicked, punched and verbally abused because I was a Moonie. Such treatment, always uncalled for, only served to reinforce my feelings that I was being persecuted for my faith in God. And it also had the opposite effect to what people desired. By reinforcing cult leaders’ claims about persecution, it made me dig my heels in deeper into my cult identity. It made me less willing to have dialogue with people who wanted to insult me and consequently with those who wanted to help. I was able to reconnect with my original faith after I left the cult, but it was _my_ freedom of choice to do so. Not everyone makes the same kind of decision. For some, the cult experience ruined their ability to have faith in any kind of organized religion. My point is, discrimination toward anyone for their beliefs—or their lack of belief—is illegal. In principle, I am against banning cults. That will only force them underground.[221] Much as I abhor their practices, I also believe they have the right to exist, so I would not support legislation prohibiting them. On the other hand, I would love to see the government supporting an inoculation program against destructive mind control and cults in which citizens young and old were provided with an understanding that kept them free from undue influence. The Future Much can be done to stop the spread of cults and undue influence. Here is a brief checklist of practical steps that people can take: Everyone Learn more about cults, mind control and undue influence. Many wonderful documentaries have just been done—including HBO’s _Going Clear_ (on Scientology), _Truth Be Told_[222] (on Jehovah’s Witnesses), and _Prophets Prey_ (on Warren Jeffs’ Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints [FLDS] cult). Watch them! Visit websites such as openmindsfoundation.org (Open Minds Foundation), icsahome.com (International Cultic Studies Association) and Families Against Cult Teachings (familiesagainstcultteachings.org). Please visit my website, freedomofmind.com. Read widely. You may appreciate my other books _Releasing the Bonds_ and especially the more recent_ Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones LeaveControlling People, Cults and Beliefs_. Stay up-to-date with our social media. Follow us on Twitter(@CultExpert) and Facebook (facebook.com/FOMinc). Read the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and share it widely.[223] Share these resources with others. Discuss one of them in your book or movie group. Tweet about them. Put up relevant articles on your blog. Write reviews on Amazon.com and Goodreads.com Protect yourself—research any potential organization carefully before agreeing to attend its events. When in doubt about an organization, ask the questions provided in Chapter 7. Don’t give out personal information of any kind to _anyone_ until they have demonstrated that they are trustworthy. Do not put personal information up on the Internet. If someone enters your life with “psychic” powers, you should assume they found your personal information online. Lobby your politicians—local, state and federal. Set up appointments to tell them your concerns. Ask them to stand up for human rights. If you suspect that someone you know is under the sway of a group or individual and may be a victim of undue influence, don’t turn a blind eye. Act quickly. Express your concerns to the person’s friends and family. If you know a former cult member whose involvement kept them from gaining a formal education or employment, please go out of your way to help find them a job or re-enter the educational system. Do whatever you can to help them integrate into society. If you are a former member, help de-stigmatize the whole area of cult involvement. Tell people your story. Help them understand that those of us who were in a cult do not have something “wrong” with us. Help the public see that we were unduly influenced. If you are in a position to help the efforts to assist current members to reevaluate their life and exit to freedom, please do! If it is prudent not to do so publicly, there is much you can do behind the scenes to help people who are actively setting up websites, social media campaigns, contacting authorities, hiring attorneys and private investigators to find out vital background information. Government: Federal and State Ask the Surgeon General—or some other high-ranking and credible government official—to state definitively that undue influence exists and that destructive cult mind control is bad for public health. Educate law enforcement and intelligence agencies, so that they can more effectively combat human trafficking and terrorism.[224] Pass lobbying laws and impose stiff penalties for those who subvert the Constitution and abrogate human rights. Consider carefully any “religious” organization that applies for tax-exempt status. Take action against those who currently have such status, such as Scientology.[225] Tax-abiding citizens should not be forced to subsidize such organizations! Set up a special agency where people can report infractions and/or blow the whistle on questionable groups. Hire experienced investigators to investigate and collect evidence. Questionable groups should be asked to reform their policies and pay damages, or they will lose their IRS exemption. Groups that are found guilty should be stripped of their tax-exempt status and made to sell property and other assets to compensate victims. Media Please accept the responsibility to support investigative journalism aimed at protecting the public good! Do not hide the truth from the public because of the threat of lawsuits that might hurt the “bottom line.” Perhaps there should be some federal agency set up to fund attorneys who defend investigative journalists who have been sued or threatened. The government might consider funding an independent media resource designed for the public good. Fire reporters and editors who are on the payroll—or the ideological hook—of known totalistic cults, especially those which systematically engage in criminal behavior or have stated agendas of taking over the world and violating non-members’ civil and human rights. Your archives are filled with documentaries and shows that have exposed destructive cult groups. Open them to the public! Many of these shows—like 60 Minutes, Dateline, Nightline, 20/20 and shows like Donahue and others—should be online for the public good, either free or at a reasonable fee. Words matter and so do names. Using the term “ISIS” is not just misleading—it is an affront to Muslims. The destructive group is not a “State” nor does it represent the overwhelming majority of Muslims, most of whom do not wish to revert to 7th century shariah law. Switch to the term that many Muslims use: Daesh. As a start, use _ISIS/Daesh_ or _Daesh/ISIS_. As people become familiar with Daesh, drop ISIS altogether. Be precise when labeling an Islamist group. Do not call the tiny Wahhabi sect, to which Al Qaeda and Daesh/ISIS members belong, “Sunnis.” This is like calling the Branch Davidians at Waco “Christians.” Most Muslims want nothing to do with terrorism. It is no part of their faith. Write more stories about undue influence, mind control, former members, whistleblowers, and anybody else who stands up to injustice. Hold them up as courageous heroes. There is an idea afloat to collect one dollar from every citizen of the United States to fund a truly independent investigative journalism entity whose job will be to truly look out for the public good and who is not beholden to politicians or advertisers or special interest groups. Where facts that are indisputable could be published online for all to see. Such an institution is vital to keep our democracy functioning, as the existing system is declining rapidly. There is a recent report that advertisers are now influencing some editorial boards to do stories that will include “product placement” within their report. Very upsetting and confusing. Educators If you’re sufficiently knowledgeable about mind control and undue influence, offer a program, unit, class or curriculum. If not, bring in a qualified speaker. Create an atmosphere in your classroom that encourages questioning, open discussion and respect for a wide range of beliefs and opinions. Teach students how to think critically and analytically. Rather than teaching to the test, teach young people how to think for themselves. Teach them to look out for others—to be responsible citizens. Attorneys Study and use Alan W. Scheflin’s SIM model of Undue Influence. Please consider representing former members without fee or on a no win/no fee contingency basis. Educate judges. Make presentations at American Bar Association meetings. Contact Freedom of Mind for legal strategy, research, and expert witness work. Mental Health Professionals Attend a class or workshop in the basics of mind control and cult dynamics. Find training or supervision from a qualified expert. When beginning to work with new clients, ask questions to help determine if they have been victims of undue influence. If you do not have the appropriate training, refer them to professionals who do or get trained yourself. Spiritual Leaders Talk about undue influence and cults with your congregants and your networks. Bring in speakers on the subject of cults, mind control and undue influence. Practice, encourage, demonstrate and speak about spiritual discernment. If you suspect a congregant is a victim of mind control, act quickly. Speak with their family members and friends. Speak with a cult expert. Insist that schools and seminaries offer courses on how to counsel victims of undue influence. Clergy are often first responders in crisis situations, and many are not well prepared to respond effectively. Practice tolerance and organize programs that bring together people of different faiths as well as humanists. Less isolation and more ecumenism. Sign and participate in Karen Armstrong’s CharterforCompassion.org Philanthropists Cults have the money. We don’t! If people made contributions of money, it could be used to: Fund those established scholars and practitioners who do not have the resources to research and write about cults, mind control and undue influence. Establish a major think tank where this research can be gathered and analyzed and where resources to help victims and their families can be centralized. Develop educational programs exploring the vulnerability and strength of the human mind. Support Philip Zimbardo’s Heroic Imagination Project (heroicimagination.org)! It is one of the most inspiring teaching tools I know. With new modules on cults, trafficking and terrorism that I hope to help create, it will be one of the best methods for inoculating people against mind control and undue influence all around the world. Develop facilities that help victims of human trafficking and other cult mind control situations to understand and recover from undue influence. Support the Child Friendly Faith Project (CFFP) (childfriendlyfaith.org) and Against Violent “Violent Extremism (AVE) (againstviolentextremism.org)—two non-profits I am involved with. I hope to find some angel (or some foundation) who will help me with the resources needed to train, along with others I respect in the field, like Jon Atack and Joe Szimhart, the next generation of people who can help people to understand how to step out of “self-sealing systems” to freedom of mind. Tell other philanthropists about this cause. The need is huge but so is the reward. Crowdsource! Choose projects that interest you and get others to help you support them. Final Thoughts Writing this book is the fulfillment of my long-standing desire to contribute a practical, informative guide to the problems of mind control, undue influence and destructive cults. It has been a long, often difficult, road but also an incredibly rich and rewarding one. I can’t imagine having followed any other path. Despite the many difficulties, I am grateful to have been allowed to do this work, and, given the choice, I would not follow any other career path. I have had a very rewarding life. Through my writing and my counseling work, I have had the privilege of helping people to free themselves from mind control situations of every kind imaginable, as well as some that are unimaginable. My hope is that this book enables many, many others to understand more clearly how undue influence operates within destructive cult groups and other situations that may be occurring in their own or their loved ones’ lives. It was important, I think, to tell the whole story, and to include my methods for helping people leave cults and other mind control situations, even though I have worried that it might make these destructive groups more sophisticated in their programming. By demystifying my work—and theirs—I hope that countless numbers of people will be motivated and able to start working to help themselves and those they love. I also hope that this book will help to create a powerful public consumer awareness movement about mind control and destructive cults. I hope that the government will finally acknowledge the problem and take steps to protect the public. In the meantime, I hope readers of this book will join OMF, ICSA and other counter-cult groups and subscribe to their news-letters and journals. Furthermore, I encourage those people who have been through a cult mind control experience to get involved and make a stand. We need your help! Sharing your knowledge and experience—telling your story—can be incredibly powerful. It is freeing and empowering to tell it. And it can be freeing and empowering to hear it. You can save lives. As destructive cults and mind control come to be better understood, the social stigma attached to former cult membership will begin to dissolve. Former members will come to realize that we were not to blame for our involvement. People will see that we have a lot to give back to society given the chance. Many of my former clients and friends have gone on with their lives and become happy, productive citizens. They are doctors, lawyers, dentists, chiropractors, psychologists, architects, artists, teachers, parents and social activists. Support groups can help a lot, but it takes active participation. Whether you are in need, or have something to give, or both, I urge you to take a positive step. You can make an enormous difference. In the words of Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Or as Margaret Mead put it: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.” Acknowledgments To Misia Landau—anthropologist, science writer, artist, photographer, and my loving wife, who is strong enough to deal with all the stresses of life with an activist—thank you for all your incredible support on many levels. You have helped me write, strategize, and cope. You have been my number one. Special thanks for putting your own writing projects and art classes aside to help me ready this book for publication by editing and advising every step of the way. Thank you in ways far more than words could ever communicate. To our son Matthew, who is the joy of our lives: what a gift you have been. Thank you for being you. With heartfelt gratitude, I thank my parents, Milton and Estelle Hassan, for all their love and support. Whenever I needed them, they were there for me. They risked everything to rescue me from the Moonies, and I will be forever grateful that they did. I wish to thank my sisters, Thea and Stephanie, as well as my brothers-inlaw, Doug and Ken, for all they have done throughout the years. Thea and Doug helped save me more than once. They also did much to take care of my folks in their waning years. To their sons, Michael and Scott, and their families: thank you. My aunt and uncle, Phyllis and Mort Slotnick, and their children Debbie and Mark, whom I grew up with, have always provided strong support. To Misia’s sisters, Lauren Broch and Ricki Grossman; their husbands, Danny and Dennis; and my niece Sarah and my nephews Ben, Noah, and David: thanks for being my extended family. I wish to thank Gary Rosenberg, Michael Strom, Nestor Garcia, and Gladys Gonzalez for their willingness to spend five very difficult days in 1976 counseling me back to reality. Without their help, I might have spent many more years in the Moonies. I have recently rediscovered Nestor on LinkedIn; he is now a psychiatrist in Florida. Gladys also lives in Florida and is a social worker. Gary, unfortunately, passed away. Mike, where are you? Special acknowledgments go to my first wife of seven years, Aureet Bar-Yam, who lived through the creation and the original publication of this book. She died in a tragic accident, trying to rescue our Golden Retriever from an icy pond in 1991. I will always remember her for her love, talent, intelligence, and willingness to help others. Her parents, Drs. Zvi and Miriam Bar-Yam, and their children Sageet and Yaneer and their families, have continued to be sources of much love, inspiration, and help, in ways too numerous to recount. A special thanks to Eric Rayman and his wife, Sue Horton. As an attorney, Eric gets all the credit for helping me reacquire the rights to this book so it could have a second life. He has also helped over many years with legal support and advice in getting my work to the broader public. Susan, thanks for being a friend. I would also like to thank a few other friends: Marc and Elyse Hirschorn, Monica Weiss and Dan Hanson, Elissa Weitzman, Shepherd Doeleman, Karen Magarian, Gary Birns, Russell Backer and Susan Mayer, Michael Stone, Ron Cooper, Steve Morse, Chris Kilham, Hoyt Richards, Taryn Southern, Josh Baran, Masoud Banisadr, and others too numerous to mention here. They know who they are. Some individuals have been my teachers and, at times, my inspiration. I would like to thank Robert Jay Lifton, M.D., Alan W. Scheflin, Daniel Brown, Ph.D., Bill and Lorna Goldberg and Stephen Lankton. Thank you, Christopher Sonn, for your teaching, healing, and guidance on web issues—and for your friendship. I wish to also thank Jorge Carballo, Cathy Colman, Karen Kaplan, and Rebecca Johnston for all of their support. You helped me transform my pain into creativity, flexibility, and creative energy. Special thanks to Dr. Philip Zimbardo, my hero, who taught a course at Stanford University called The Psychology of Mind Control for 15 years. The class uses two chapters of the original _CCMC_ as part of its required reading. Zimbardo has been my mentor and one of my biggest supporters. His Heroic Imagination Project deserves to become a standard curriculum used around the world. Thanks so much to my personal board of advisors: Hank Greenberg, Richard E. Kelly, who put in many hours helping me with this book, Jay Livingston, Ellen Krause Grossman who have helped be my business coach. Jon Atack has been a friend and a source of enormous assistance. He helped me a great deal with this book. Thank you forensic psychologist teacher of mine for decades, Daniel Brown. Thank you Alan Scheflin for your friendship and advice over the years and for ideas to make the final chapter stronger. Thank you Fred Clarkson for all your assistance and clarity with the religious freedom issue and the Moonies. Cell Whitman gets über kudos for sending me Moonie material. My work at Freedom of Mind Resource Center has led me to many sources of help over the years. My private investigator, Larry Zilliox, has helped me with many cases and maintains the Moon front-group list. My friend and associate in Los Angeles, Rachel Bernstein. I also wish to thank Greta Ioug, my assistant who worked tirelessly to help me bring the 2015 book project to fruition. Thanks to Jane and Kimmy for helping me so much with FOM. Thanks to the folks at Artists for Humanity for helping me design my logo and book cover. Further thanks to my wife Misia, who oversaw the design development. Thank you Artists for Humanity for helping make the book trailer. Thanks to Mike White and Ghost River Images for helping to put the book together and publishing help. Special thanks to Sue Hall for PR assistance, and to Terri VandeVegte, Elise Hirschorn and Jefferson Hawkins who helped me proofread the galleys of this book. Thanks to James Elliott, P.I., who read the original Combatting Cult Mind Control book years ago and asked me to fly to California to help with the issue of human trafficking. He also introduced me to Carissa Phelps, who brought me out to assist with two trainings done by Runaway Girl for over 600 law enforcement personnel. At those trainings in the summer of 2013, I became acquainted with Rachel Thomas, D’lita Miller, and many other wonderful sex trafficking survivor/mentors. That meeting evolved into my first workshop for Lisa GoldblattGrace and the wonderful people at My Life, My Choice, which now uses my work to help human trafficking survivors. Thanks, too, to ICSA, the International Cultic Studies Association, for which I put together a panel on the theme of trafficking as a commercial cult phenomenon. At the ICSA meeting in Washington, D.C., Christina Meyer, Rachel Thomas, Christine Marie Katas, and I met Christina Arnold, a Children of God survivor and the founder of Prevent Human Trafficking. Rachel Thomas, Carissa Phelps, D’lita Miller and I created Ending the Game, a state of the art curriculum for helping trafficking survivors understand mind control and strategies for reclaiming their power. Thanks to Janet Heimlich and the Child Friendly Faith Project. I am proud to be on CFFP’s board of advisors. The organization works to ensure that children have medical treatment, are protected from pedophiles, and are not corporally punished. This work is crucially important. Deep thanks to all of CFFP’s wonderful board members. A special shout-out to Zainab AlSuwaij, president of the American Islamic Congress, for her pioneering work in supporting women’s and children’s rights, and in promoting peaceful, collaborative Islam. Masoud Banisadr gets special praise for his intelligence, humility and courage to educate the world about terrorist groups as mind control cults. Many other people have helped me substantially along the way, providing me with information, insight, and editorial comments. So I would also like to thank James and Marcia Rudin, Bob, Barbara and their son Paul Grosswald, Dave Spector, Pascal Zivi, Arnold Markowitz, Bernhard Trenkle, Michael Langone, Rod and Linda Dubrow-Marshall, Joe Szimhart, Sue Hall, Marc and Cora Latham, Bo Juel Jensen, Lee Marsh, Mickey Hudson, Lee Elder, Paul Grundy, and John Hoyle and all the people at AAWA, Advocates for Awareness of Watchtower Abuse. Special thanks to Randy Watters of Free Minds, who was the first former elder of the Watchtower who contacted me, educated me, and supported me through the decades. To friends, supporters, and heroes who are no longer alive—Herb Rosedale, Bob Minton, Denise Brennan, Milton H. Erickson, M.D., Margaret Singer, Ph.D., Louis Jolyon West, M.D., Dr. John Clark, and Carol Turnbull—thank you for all your support and contributions. Thank you Reb Moshe Waldoks and Rav Claudia Kreiman, and the amazing spiritual community of Temple Beth Zion in Brookline, Massachusetts. You have been my grounding for so many life events, including my bout with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2006, and the illnesses and passing of both Misia’s and my parents. Some people mentioned here—friends, colleagues, and former clients—were willing to share their stories of cult involvement, thereby enriching this book. I am most grateful for their assistance and encouragement. In the many years I have been involved in the field of cult awareness, I have met some of the best, most talented, and most caring people in the world. Thank you all. About the Author Steven A. Hassan, M.Ed., LMHC, NCC is one of the foremost authorities on cults and mind control. He has been involved in educating the public about mind control, controlling groups and destructive cults since 1976. He holds a master’s degree in counseling psychology from Cambridge College, is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and a Nationally Certified Counselor (NCC). Steve has written three books that have received extensive praise from former cult members, families of former members, clergy, cult experts, and psychologists. _Combating Cult Mind Control: The #1 Best Selling Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults_ (1988, 1990, 2015), _Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves_ (2000), and in July 2012, he published the paperback and ebook, _Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults & Beliefs_, (Second Edition 2013). Hassan’s insightful perspective and expert commentary have made him a definitive source for hundreds of national, international and local media outlets including: USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, People Magazine, CNN, 60 Minutes, Dateline, NightLine, The Today Show, and Good Morning America. He has also appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Dr. Phil, Larry King Live, Dr. Drew and countless others. Mr. Hassan pioneered a new approach to helping victims of mind control called the Strategic Interactive Approach (SIA). Unlike the stressful and media-sensationalized approach known as deprogramming, this non-coercive approach is an effective and legal alternative to help cult members. It teaches family and friends how to strategically influence the individual involved in the group. Since 1976, Mr. Hassan has helped thousands of people who were victimized by cult-related mind control. He has led many workshops and seminars for mental health professionals, educators, and law enforcement officers, as well as for families of cult members. Mr. Hassan was deceptively recruited into Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church at the age of 19, while a student at Queens College. He spent the next 27 months recruiting and indoctrinating new members, fundraising, and doing political campaigning. He personally met with Sun Myung Moon on many occasions in leadership sessions. Mr. Hassan ultimately rose to the rank of Assistant Director of the Unification Church at National Headquarters. Following a serious automobile accident, he was deprogrammed by several former Moonies, at his parents’ request. Once he realized the insidious nature of the organization, he authorized police officials to take possession of his personal belongings, which included a massive set of private speeches documenting Moon’s secret plan to take over the world. During the 1977-78 Congressional Subcommittee Investigation into South Korean CIA activities in the United States, he consulted as an expert witness and turned over to the committee these private speeches. In 1979, following the Jonestown tragedy, Mr. Hassan founded ExMoon Inc., a non-profit educational organization composed of over 400 former members of the Moon group. Although now defunct, it was one of the first and largest ex-member organizations in the world. In 1999, Mr. Hassan founded the Freedom of Mind Resource Center, Inc. (freedomofmind.com), a consulting, counseling, and publishing organization dedicated to upholding human rights, promoting consumer awareness, and exposing abuses of undue influence, mind control, and destructive cults. He has co-developed a groundbreaking curriculum, Ending The Game, to help victims of sex trafficking to understand psychological coercion used by pimps and traffickers. He does trainings for mental health professionals and law enforcement groups including the Joint Regional Intelligence Organization (JRIC.org ). He has blogged for The Huffington Post and is often quoted in newspaper and magazine articles. He has addressed hundreds of religious, professional, and educational groups throughout the world. Mr. Hassan is a member of The Program in Psychiatry and the Law at Harvard, a forensic think tank. He has established a non-profit Freedom from Undue Influence, a division of Dare Association, where he is researching undue influence under the supervision of Dr. Michael Commons. He is a doctoral student at Fielding Graduate University and is seeking to do quantitative research on the BITE model of mind control as a potential forensic instrument. In his commitment to fight against destructive cults, Mr. Hassan devotes a major portion of his time and energy to actively consulting with individuals and organizations. Please see his websites at freedomofmind.com and freedomfromundueinfluence.org or on Facebook for updated information. Endnotes for Chapter 12 193. Words matter in ‘ISIS’ war, so use ‘Daesh”. http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/10/09/words-matter-isis-war-use-daes... 194. http://www.fbi.gov/?came_from=http%3a//www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publicatio... and Stephen A. Kent 2003 paper for the European Federation of Centres of Research and Information on Sectarianism FECRIS.org “FREEMEN, SOVEREIGN CITIZENS, AND THE THREAT TO PUBLIC ORDER IN BRITISH HERITAGE COUNTRIES” online at http://griess.st1.at/gsk/fecris/copenhagen/Kent_EN.pdf 195. CBS 60 Minutes flew me to Tokyo right after the sarin gas terrorist attack to be their “in the field” expert for the segment they aired. Dr. Robert Jay Lifton’s Destroying the World to Save It applies his 8 criteria in this book and is an excellent account of the Aum Shinrikyo mind control cult. 196. Fraser Report: https://freedomofmind.com//Info/docs/fraserport.pdf 197. US Navy Intelligence launched the first mind control program, Operation Bluebird, in the 1940s. There were various other programs, including MK Naomi. Curiously, the first mention of these sinister experiments was made by cult founder, Ron Hubbard, in his 1951 book Science of Survival, where he spoke of “pain-drug-hypnosis.” It is not impossible that Scientology itself was part of such a program. It would certainly explain the reluctance of the U.S. government to curtail its activities. 198. See Professor Christopher Simpson, Science of Coercion, Communication Research & Psychological Warfare 1945-1960, (1994), OUP, NY: ‘Military, intelligence, and propaganda agencies such as the Department of Defense and Central Intelligence Agency helped to bankroll substantially all of the post-World War II generation’s research into techniques of persuasion, opinion measurement, interrogation, political and military mobilization, propagation of ideology, and related questions. The persuasion studies, in particular, provided much of the scientific underpinning for modern advertising and motivational techniques. This government-financed communication research went well beyond what would have been possible with private sector money alone and often exploited military recruits, who comprised a unique pool of test subjects.’ pp.3-4. 199. Studying destructive cult behavior and its effects on human beings is a window into what should be impermissible scientific research experimentation. 200. http://dsm.psychiatryonline.org/doi/book/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425596 201. Mind Control: Psychological Reality or Mindless Rhetoric? By Dr. Philip G. Zimbardo (November 2002, Vol. 33, No. 10). 202. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APA_Task_Force_on_Deceptive_and_Indirect_Method... 203. Janja Lalich is professor of sociology at California State University, Chico and has authored many important books, including Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults (University of California Press, 2004). 204. Stephen Kent, Narcissistic Grandiosity and the Life of Sun Myung Moon, (July 5, 2014,International Cultic Studies Association, Silver Spring, Maryland). 205. Routledge Press, 2014. 206. Basic Books, 2003. Sam Vaknin, Ph.D., Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited. 207. Flavil R. Yeakley, The Discipling Dilemma (Nashville: Gospel Advocate Press, 1982). 208. The Discipling Dilemma is now available online at http://www.somis.org/tdd-01.html 209. Guochuan Tsai, Donald Condie, Ming-Ting Wue, and I-Wen Change. “Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Personality Switches in a Woman with Dissociative Identity Disorders.”Harvard Review of Psychiatry7 (1999): 119-22. 210. Dr. Burns’ web site is http://feelinggood.com/ He has an excellent and statistically valid set of measurement tools for evaluating people’s progress and for teaching people how to develop control over their thoughts, emotions and behavior. This is a totally ethical mind control approach emphasizing that people’s locus of control should be within themselves, not with some external authority figure. 211. There are videos of the CFFP annual conference in 2013 for free and the 2014 is available for purchase. I moderated an amazing panel of survivors of child abuse in 2013 and the video of that program is at http://childfriendlyfaith.org/conference-2013/videos-from-cffp-conference-20.... Bethany Brittain, a board member, spoke about being a victim of extreme corporal punishment by her Christian parents who were followers of Roy Lessing’s guidelines. Joel Engleman was a victim of a pedophile in the Satmar Hasidic group in New York. He is involved with an organization, Footsteps, which helps people leave the orthodox Jewish groups. Liz Heywood lost her leg as a member of Christian Science. Rev. Jaime Romo was a victim of a priest pedophile in the Catholic Church. 212. Alan W. Scheflin, “Supporting Human Rights by Testifying Against Human Wrongs,” 6 International Journal of Cultic Studies 69-82 (2015). 213. Loyola Law School Legal Studies Paper No. 2010-53 96 Iowa L.R. 409 (2011). 214. Alan W. Scheflin, Supporting Human Rights by Testifying Against Human Wrongs, International Journal of Cultic Studies 69-82 (2015). 215. William Borders, “Moon’s Church Loses a Libel Suit in London over Recruiting Tactics,” The New York Times (April 1, 1981).George Greig and Ted Oliver, “Daily Mail Wins Historic Libel Action: The Damning Verdict on the Moonies,” Daily Mail (April 1, 1981), London. Otto Friedrich, “Om… The New Age, Starring Shirley Maclaine, Faith Healers, Channelers, Space Travelers and Crystals Galore,” Time (Dec 7, 1987). 216. See, e.g., NXIVM Corp. v. Sutton, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 46471 (D.N.J. June 27, 2007) (the word “cult” is not actionable, nor is an article which compares the scholarly work of Robert Jay Lifton on cults and their common, shared characteristics with the materials distributed by NXIVM to its enrollees, because such statements constitute protected opinions); Nicosia v. De Rooy, 72 F. Supp. 2d 1093 (N.D. Cal. 1999) (statements accusing someone of being a manipulative “Svengali,” with “Napoleonic aspirations,” who carried on an “exploitative business relationship” are not actionable because they are protected opinion); Church of Scientology v. Siegelman, 475 F. Supp. 950 (S.D.N.Y. 1979) (statements in Snapping, a book about cults, are not actionable where they are “replete with opinions and conclusions about the methods and practices used by the Church of Scientology and the effect such methods and practices have . . . .”); Beaverton Grace Bible Church v. Smith, No. C1121174CV (Or. Cir. Ct. July 23, 2012) (blog posts saying that a pastor is a “cult leader” who “destroy[s] relationships” are not actionable because they constitute protected opinions); Harvest House Publishers v. Local Church, 190 S.W.3d 204 (Tex. App. 2006) (being labeled a “cult” is not actionable because the truth or falsity of the statement depends upon one’s religious beliefs); Sands v. Living Word Fellowship, 34 P.3d 955 (Alaska 2001) (statements that a group is a “cult” and that a person is a “cult recruiter” are not actionable because they are pronouncements of religious belief and opinion). But see Landmark Education Corporation v. Conde Nast Publication, No. 114814/93, 1994 WL 836356 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. July 7, 1993) (an allegation that a group is a “cult” can be actionable when presented as hard news by a reporter in a publication known for journalism). See World Mission Society, Church of God A NJ Nonprofit Corporation. v. Colón, No. BER-L-5274-12 (N.J. Sup. Ct. Feb. 9, 2015) (statements alleging that World Mission is a “cult” that uses “mind control” and “destroys families” are protected opinions and are not actionable). 217. Heather Kavan is a lecturer in the Department of Communication, Journalism and Marketing at Massey University. Her paper, “Falun Gong in the Media: What can we believe?” ANZCA08 Conference, Power and Place, Wellington, July 2008 online at https://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/fms/Colleges/College of Business/Communication and Journalism/ANZCA 2008/Refereed Papers/Kavan_ANZCA08.pdf 218. Available at http://pyramidschemealert.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/The-Pyram... 219. http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/15/liberty-fist-nose/ 220. Touro Synagogue National Historical Site, “George Washington and His Letter to the Jews of Newport,” http://www.tourosynagogue.org/history-learning/gw-letter 221. When Scientology was banned in two Australian states in the 1960s, it merely changed its name to The Church of the New Faith 222. The Documentary about the Jehovah’s Witnesses can be found at:http://buy.hereliesthetruth.com/ 223. The U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights is online at: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ 224. ISIS Is a Cult That Uses Terrorism: A Fresh New Strategy http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-hassan/isis-is-a-cult-that-uses-_b_6023... 225. It’s Time to End the Church of Scientology’s Tax-Exempt Status by Steven Hassan http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-hassan/its-time-to-end-the-churc_b_5558... Bibliography Allen, Charles. God’s Terrorists: The Wahhabi Cult and the Hidden Roots of Modern Jihad. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2007. Print. Atack, Jon. Let’s Sell These People a Piece of Blue Sky. Worthing, England: Richard Woods, 2013. Print. Atack, Jon. SCIENTOLOGY - The Cult of Greed. Worthing, England: Richard Woods, 2014. Print. Baker, Amy J. L., and Fine, Paul R. Co-parenting with a Toxic Ex: What to Do When Your Ex-spouse Tries to Turn the Kids Against You. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications, 2014. Print. Baker, Amy J. L., and Fine, Paul R. Surviving Parental Alienation: A Journey of Hope and Healing. Rowman and Littlefield, 2014. Print. Banisadr, Masoud. 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A more extensive bibliography can be found on our website: https://freedomofmind.com/Bibliography/ From Combating Cult Mind Control: The #1 Best-selling Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults Steven Hassan https://books.apple.com/us/book/combating-cult-mind-control-the-1-best-selli...