Most people think they would never fall for a cult.

I used to think that too.

When I thought about cults, I imagine bonfires, rituals, and robes.

I never imagine kindness, or small rules, or loyalty that slowly rewrites your mind.

But the truth is, no one thinks they're joining a cult.

You think you're joining a family, a group that promises purpose and belonging.

You give yourself to it because it feels right, and somewhere along the way you stop realizing how much of you it's taken.

And then when you're there, you say, because it feels safer inside than outside, because if you leave, it means losing everything you've built around that, all the people you love, your sense of self.

Today's episode is the second of our two Bonus Conversations.

If the last one explored how the Legion built power through the media, this one looks inward at what happens inside a person when they're part of a high control group, how brainwashing actually works in everyday life, and how it hides under routines, prayers, and good intentions.

We'll hear from doctor Stephen Hasen, a mental health counselor and a former member of the Moonies, one of the most recognized high control religious movements in the world.

His story is different from mind but the patterns are familiar.

The promises, the fear, the slow shift in who you believe you are.

My name is Helena Sadah and this is Secret Scandal, Episode twelve interview with Steve Hassen.

This interview was conducted by Alvaro Sespdes, one of the writers and producers of Sacred Scandal The Many Secrets of Marcelle Marseille.

You'll hear his voice guiding the interview.

Okay, so, doctor Hassen, I would like to begin by asking you the most basic question, who are you and what do you do?

Yeah, my name is doctor Stephen Hassen.

I am a licensed mental health counselor.

I am a former member of the Moonies cult that I was involved with in the nineteen seventies, and I've spent forty nine years helping people understand brainwashing and mind control.

I've written five books, I've done four TEDx talks, and my doctorate is on my model of the bite model of authoritarian control as a way to evaluate destructive cults.

So, I mean you've done obviously a lot of research into cults, but I guess that nothing compares to the actual experience of being in one, right.

Can you tell us a little bit about that part of your life when you were a part of the Moonies.

Yes.

So my experience growing up was with a very close, loving family.

I was an extra honor student.

I was not a joiner, but I got deceptively recruited by women flirting with me after my girlfriend and dumped me while a college student, and within a few weeks, I was believing that Sun Young Moon was the messiah, that the world was coming to World War three, that I was being chosen by God, and I was told to drop out of college, throw out my original poetry.

I was a creative writing major, and I became a right wing fascist for about two and a half years and was fanatical and was promoted to leadership.

Not that I had any power, but I was very useful to recruit and indoctrinate people.

And it was that experience of being in the cult that I really wanted to understand.

Man, how did they get to me and how did they convince me to be completely a different person than I was and turn my back on my country and my religion.

My family in my chosen passion, which was writing poetry.

And what was it like for you to the process of getting out?

Was it an easy process in any way?

Not at all.

It was horrible, actually, So I nearly died in a van crash because I fell asleep at the wheel.

I drove into the back of a tractor trailer truck at high speed.

So I was in a lot of pain in the hospital for weeks kneading surgery on my ankle.

And it was though in that period that I was no longer being constantly controlled by the group, and I was sleeping a lot, and I reached out to my sister, who was the only person in my life who didn't say I was brainwashed in a cult, so I didn't think she was Satan like I did with my parents and my oldest sister.

And she convinced me to come busy at her during my rehabilitation, and I got permission to do that, and I made her promise not to tell my family that I was visiting, because I was afraid of deprogramming, because that's part of how the group keeps people in fear.

But she did tell my parents and they did hire x Moonies and begged me to talk with them so at least I could have an informed decision whether I wanted to stay in the group or not.

Okay, and you decided obviously you didn't want to belong to that group anymore.

Well, I was fanatical, so I blocked a lot of the information for days.

But I finally had a realization that Moon was a liar, and if he was a liar, then he couldn't be the Messiah, and he couldn't be a man of God, and he wasn't going to be someone I could trust if he was a liar.

So once I started questioning Moon himself, then the whole indoctrination fell apart in my head and I cried for hours, and I was just so ashamed, embarrassed, confused because everyone had been telling me I was in a cult and I was brainwashed, but I didn't think I was in a cult, and I didn't feel brainwashed.

Moments like that are what break the spill, when doubt finally cuts three years of control.

Nobody thinks they're being brainwashed, nobody thinks their whole life might be a lie.

It's a hard idea to face.

It shatters everything you thought was real.

I remember what that feels like, and how long it takes for the truth to stop feeling like betrayal.

Back after a short break, you're listening to Sacred Scandal, the Many Secrets of Marcelle Masille.

Now we move from Stevens's story to what he spent his life trying to understand how groups like this take over your mind.

So my next question would be like, what actually constitutes a cult regarding your own research and your own life experience.

Well, over the forty nine years, I've evolved my perspective on things.

You can be a fanatical.

Sports fan or love a movie that you watch over and over again, and these things are described as cult classics or you know, having fan bases.

But there's no deception, there's no intimidation, fear programming of a new identity.

If you get.

Tired or you don't want to be involved anymore, nobody's going to come after you or threaten you.

And as a mental health professional, I teach that is best understood as a dissociative disorder, and it's named as brainwashing, thought reform, coercive control cults, as a disruption of identity, and these authoritarian cults create this new identity that's in the image of the group or following the leader, or both.

And this new identity is viewed as your real self for your higher self, and your who you are before is your satanic self for your lower self.

And so there's the split.

And it's important for me to explain it this way because brainwashing does not.

Erase who you were before.

It creates this new identity that is takes you over and replaces your operating system, not unlike how a computer gets taken over by malware, but the operating code is still there.

You just have to get rid of the malware.

And so that is what I do.

I don't try to persuade people to leave cults.

I teach them about how the mind works, and I ask people to question their experience.

But I guess most people associate cults with like fringe movements, right, like deities from outer space or mass suicides or far away places.

But how can we start to think of parts of the Catholic Church, which is an organization with millions of followers around the world that has existed for thousands of years now, how can these parts of the Catholic Church or mainstream religions be considered cults, like how is different a religion from a cult?

So there are many variations.

There are political cults, therapy cults, multi level marketing cults, commercial cults like trafficking labor and sex trafficking.

And so what I focus on is the skeleton or the bones of what the group is actually doing to subvert people's individuality and ability.

To think for themselves.

And when it comes to the Catholic Church, you know, what.

I also emphasize is that we need to focus on the here and now, and we can look at an organization and how they may have acted two thousand years ago or three hundred years ago.

And when it comes to the Catholic Church, one could argue back in the sixteenth century that the Pope was with his Doctrine of Discovery telling explorers to go forth and conquer indigenous tribes and convert them or kill them, and that this was a sacred plan of God and people did it.

But it is not the current teaching, or one would argue, is not Jesus's teachings.

Would you consider the Legion of Christ to be like on the cult side of the Catholic Church.

So the answer is I was not a member of these groups.

So I'm dependent on people who've studied these groups, especially former members, and when I interview them, I want them to explicitly go over the behavior control, the information and thought and emotional control elements and teach me whether or not they think it fits the authoritarian mind control cult model.

And in the case of the Legionaries of Christ, I've heard from enough former members that I take the position that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, and has feathers like a duck, then it's likely a duck.

You know.

Elena Sada, our host who's narrating this series, she was raised in a legionary environment, right, how can that play a part in becoming like from being raised in a certain environment to actually becoming a part of that certain environment, regardless if it's a toxic environment or not.

With folks born or raised in groups, they don't know what it's normal or healthy because they only know their experience.

And it's only.

When they get out of the group and start learning about other groups and what also learning about what was healthy?

What's healthy Christianity?

What does the Bible actually say that they realize how abused they were in their childhood.

And regarding you know, leaving a certain movement or a cult or part of an organized religion, what are the psychological mechanisms that get activated when you begin to think of living a cult, and what are the outside responses of the group, of the members of this group.

What people need to understand is that as humans, we are programmed to avoid anything that is toxic or dangerous, So we don't want to get harmed, we don't want to die.

But most people don't think about the fact that people can be indoctrinated with irrational fears that if they question the group or the leader or want to leave the group, terrible things are going to happen to them.

And these mind control cults tell stories about people who wanted to leave and they got run over by a car, or they committed suicide, or they became a prostitute or a drug addict.

In other words, when you have a phobia against leaving an authoritarian group, you can't imagine leaving and being happy and fulfilled.

You can only imagine tragedy and terrible, miserable future, and that keeps many people trapped for years.

I remember that fear in the Legion, it didn't sound like a thread.

It sounded like love and sacrifice.

We were taught that the world outside was empty, selfish, dangerous, that living men, turning your back on God, on everything that gave your life meaning.

So you stay.

You convince yourself that staying is safer, And even when you leave, the fierce days with you whispering that maybe they were right, it takes time to realize that voice isn't yours anymore more.

After the break, when I loved the Legion, I didn't tell anyone, not my friends, not even my mother.

She still believed in Massiel and thought I was making a mistake.

I just left.

I rented a small apartment and slept for days.

I couldn't eat or think.

It felt like my body was finally reacting to everything I had ignored for years.

I wasn't angry or even sad.

I was just tired, too tired to explain myself to anyone.

But living is only the first part.

What comes after is harder.

There's a backlash, the phone calls, the guilt.

People you loved stop talking to you.

Some say you've turned your back on God, that you've been manipulated by the outside world, and for a while you almost believe them.

The programming doesn't happen in a day.

It's low, confusing work.

It took me a long time to understand that living isn't freedom, it's only the start of it.

Doctor Hasen knows that part well.

He explains what comes next, what happens when someone finally walks away on the long road that follows.

Something that we have you know, noticed and encountered during the whole research process of the series is that people who leave the group aren't necessarily immediately happier, Right.

It takes years for them to actually retake, like regain control of their lives.

Right.

How can being a part of a cult scar your memories or your life and makes it harder, you know, to actually becoming part of society again.

So if you're born or raised in a cult and you have not had a normal exposure, it's a huge adjustment.

We call it socialization.

Is necessary to learn, like what is applying for a job look like?

Or going on a date or kissing someone is an extraordinarily fear provoking thing, especially if you leave as an adult, And so it takes time and ideally a great support network of former members.

When you're coming out of a cult, you're like, I don't know who I am, and so I have to talk to my clients about I understand, and I believe if you really go inside, you can ask yourself the question when do I.

Feel the most me?

And when I ask clients that question, I often think about it for a long time and then say when I'm playing guitar, or when I'm dancing, or when I'm teaching children, or when I'm with animals, or when I'm surfing.

I mean, I've heard it all, but it's a starting point for people to when I say to them, you get to create your own identity now that you're out.

You get to choose who you want to be.

And they often because they were raised.

In an authoritarian cult or used to somebody tell them telling them who they are or what to believe or what to do, and so it's a journey, it's a process.

But I can tell you that people are, for the most part, so grateful to be free.

Part of the confusion with religious cults is the human institution gets confused with God.

So people think being in the group means they're serving God, and when they realize people can leave and still have a relationship with God, or have a relationship with the Catholic Church and.

Not with the group.

It opens up doors to possibilities.

How can you explain from a like a sociological perspective, maybe that the Legion of Christ there's still running schools, there's still gaining followers, and they're still growing numbers after it has been repeatedly proven that its founder was a criminal, m he was an abuser of children, right, he was a junkie, he was a he laundered money, and not only himself, but that dozens of other priests from disorder have become abusers as well.

How can they still be able to manipulate thousands of people in order to still, you know, run this organization.

I can only say that the more former members pull back the veil and expose what it's really like inside this organization, that I hope that the current administration and the Catholic Church will take steps.

Absolutely, And I guess you know, probably my last question is, you know something that we have learned through these years of research is that some legionary priests that were abused by Marcel Mattiel actually became abusers themselves.

Like, how can you explain a pattern of repetition from a psychological perspective of something that's just universally condemned.

What I think psychologically is happening is that a very small percentage of people who were thevictims of child sexual abuse go on to become predators themselves, because it's a defense mechanism to identify with the aggressor.

And much of what.

We now know about the mind and about psychology is that we have a desire.

We as humans have a desire to heal from trauma and from wounds that we have, and we often don't have the right healing techniques or mechanisms for resolving and healing a trauma.

And when you're a child and you're powerless and some adult is forcing themselves and it's causing pain and trauma.

Again, there's a small percentage of people who go on to become predators because now they're imposing that fear and trauma on someone else.

So it enables them to feel less.

Traumatized because they have the power now to do it.

But it's not a satisfying resolution of trauma.

It's an acting out that is antisocial.

I don't know if there's anything that you would like to add, any message that you would like to, you know, give out to you know, any former members or actual members that could be listening to us.

So I want to say that for me, I salute and.

Applaud former members who have exited and who want to shed a light on the destructive aspects of any destructive cult.

It takes a lot of courage and it takes a lot of ethics to realize I don't want anyone else to have to be subjected to what I was subjected to, and I'd like to help my friends or family that are still stuck in the group to help others.

I also believe that we want to do what we can to undermine stigma that's attached to having been born, or raised or recruited into a cult, because the public doesn't understand that it's not our fault that this happened to us.

It's a human thing to adapt to authority, to conform to rules and regulations that we believe are legitimate authority.

And so the.

More people who speak out about their own cult experience, it will cause destigmatization of it for everybody else.

So I think that's really really important.

So I like to say, it's your mind and only you should control it.

You should have an internal locus of control for who you are and be in your body.

You know, because brainwashing is a dissociative disorder.

It doesn't want you to be in your body listening to your intuition.

And I think our intuition tells us often that something's not right, and we should listen to it.

My experience inside the Legion taught me the hardest lessons.

For years, I thought all it left me with was silence and confusion, But over time I realized it also left me with discipline, resilience, and the ability to start over.

What I lost there taught me how to listen to my body, to my intuition, to that inner compass that warns me with something feels wrong.

For years, I silenced it.

Now I know it's the one voice I can trust.

Doctor Hassen says that brainwashing doesn't erase who you are, it just bears you.

He's right, because underneath it all, there's still a self that remembers and refuses to disappear.

Telling this story has made me see how much of that's trand survived.

It isn't the way I move through the world now slower, but present isn't the way I listen, the way I stay close to my family, the way I pay attention to what's real.

Maybe that's the gift of going through something like this.

You stop taking clarity for granted, you stop confusing control with faith, and you learn that resilience isn't about never falling.

It's about knowing how to get up and keep going.

I'm Eleno Sada, and this has been Circus Scandal The Many Secrets of Marcel Massil Sacres Scandal.

The Many Secrets of Marcel Masil is a production of a half podcast in partnership with Iheartmichael Tura podcast Network and is hosted by me Elena Sada, written by Menissa Hendrix and Alvaro sz Pedes, Produced by Alvao Pedes and ROBERTA Garza, Research and reporting by Robert Tagarza, edited by Jasmine Romeo with the help of Carmen Graterol in fact checking by Annapla Tovar.

The vocal coach for me Elena Sada is in A Tapia.

Executive producers at AHA Podcast are Carmen Gratterol, Isaac Lee, and j H kr mixing and sound designed by Patrick and Jones.

Original ms by Darko and I Am based on Patrick Hart's original composition.

Executive producers that I Heard are Leo Gomez and Arlene Santana.

Alexis Cardosa also serves as producer.

Sircars Scandal was created by Melanie Bartley and Paula Varos