thank you very much well you must be
wondering what is a brainwashing
mind-control expert talking at a TEDx
conference on emerging technology right
or not does everybody understand how
important our world is and our minds are
and just the unprecedented amount of
influence that’s coming at us I can tell
you as a mental health professional
someone who has been helping people get
out of cults and mind control and
brainwashing situations for 40 years
constantly people are confused what is a
cult what is mind control what is
brainwashing oh my my boss brainwashes
me Oh advertising brainwashes me the
government brainwashes me etc but what
I’m here to say is actually I want to
present a model for you to think about a
spectrum from healthy to unhealthy
influence healthy influence
there’s informed consent you know what
you’re getting involved with you know
about the person
there’s choice on the destructive side
there’s deception
there’s manipulation on the healthy side
it respects your freewill it respects
your conscience where the unhealthy side
is using guilt manipulation fear
manipulation and wanting you to become
tranced out obedient slaves and we have
on this continuum some themes again this
is not a binary of all or nothing this
is a spectrum and my call to action is
your minds are precious and only you
should control your mind
I’m calling for people to take
responsibility for their own lives their
own minds and realize just how
vulnerable we really all are
on this chart we have leaders talking
about healthy leaders that are
transparent and accountable and
responsible and on the other side the
destructive side narcissistic
psychopathological
elitist never omits they do anything
wrong secretive deceptive and they want
loyalty and they want dependency and in
terms of organizations there needs to be
checks and balances there needs to be
individual diversity and the means
actually helped to create the ends on
the destructive sign people justify the
ends justify the means we’re gonna save
the world different cults say and
therefore we justify all kinds of
unethical behavior and the biggest
vulnerability if I was sitting there I’d
be going I’m too smart it would never
happen to me I’m too together I know
myself I have but family good education
and what I’m saying is it happened to me
so I’m standing in front of you as
someone who in 1974 was going to Queens
College I was a Creative Writing major
writing poetry was was my life goal I
wanted to become a professor and teach
writing and then I get into the moon
cult through a deceptive recruitment
after my my girlfriend dumped me and
three women were pretending to be
college students deceptively recruited
me at a college campus and I wound up
spending two and a half years in a
fascist right-wing cult where I turned
my back on my Jewish upbringing I was
raised in in Flushing Queens I turned my
back on my family I turned my back on my
values and I came to believe the Messiah
was on the earth and and I needed to
follow him blindly and and and kill
myself if I had to for the cult so my
question to you is how would you know if
you were under mind control
how would anybody know because when I
got into the Moon cult my friends try to
talk me out of it my family try to talk
me out they said Steve you’re
brainwashed your mind control wake up
he’s disgusting he’s a fat Korean
billionaire he’s not the Messiah come on
and I was like you just don’t understand
time will tell how great a leader he is
and such so there really is a formula
I’ve been spending my life helping the
program I don’t like that term call it
strategic interactive approach to help
coach family and friends on how to
ethically influence to wake up and get
out of of cults but there is a formula
but it really depends on Unknowing this
model and being able to be clear about
it and what I refer to as the bite model
of mind control which I’m coming to in a
moment but first I want to just talk
about this is a scientific reality this
is the diagnostic Statistical Manual of
the American Psychiatric Association
this is version 5 and the criteria of
being in a mind-control cult has existed
in Version three four and five and it’s
an identity disturb disturbance
literally the Steve Hasson that wanted
to write poetry and and and loved
reading and love my family and love my
my my values and the values of democracy
was suppressed by a cult identity a
pseudo identity that was programmed into
me this is validated by all kinds of
research from former military
intelligence experts like robert jay
lifton margot singer lois west Edgar
Schein so what I’m talking to you about
today about emerging technology is that
the Internet is giving unprecedented
opportunity to bad people
to take over our lives take over our
minds influence our elections and in
particular trafficking is a major world
problem there’s an estimated 25 million
people who are being trafficked and
terrorist cults like daesh isis i’ve
studied how they recruit on the internet
and it’s very sophisticated
this pimp wrote a book on how to
brainwash the hoes i know it’s
disgusting but the methodology is just
being taught openly on the internet for
anyone who wants to abuse people this is
a high-profile case right now in federal
court in new york it’s a cult called
nexium and this is a victim who was
branded with the initials of the cult
leader keith Ranieri and and and the
defense of keith Ranieri and claire
Bronfman who is a billionaire heiress
has been funding this particular cult
are saying people voluntarily chose to
be branded and give up collateral where
they could be blackmailed if they ever
wanted to leave the group so I’m hoping
this will be a precedent-setting case so
I want I wanted to tell you cults and
mind-control groups come in many
different shapes sizes political cults
therapy called spiritual cults
multi-level marketing large group
awareness and pseudos therapeutic ones
and I really want people to understand
that there are behavioral variables that
can demonstrate where in the continuum
any relationship could be a controlling
husband or wife could be a controlling
company could be controlling group is
I’m in 63 years of age I’ve entered a
doctoral program at the encouragement of
professor at the the program in
psychiatry in the law at Harvard Medical
School because I got involved with this
forensic think tank as I realized we
need to change the legal system
we need to have clarity of thinking that
there is unethical influence and there’s
ethical influence and by going through
this I’ve did my first research project
with over a thousand respondents and we
got significance any group in any
relationship that’s just depriving
you’re asleep is doing behavior
modification techniques is demanding
obedience to Authority as I mentioned
before deceptive recruitment or lack of
informed consent is a huge criteria of a
destructive cult propaganda confession
spying turning people in and in terms of
thought control totalus ideology loaded
language fought terminating cliches and
I want to talk for a minute about
hypnosis I was in a cult for two and a
half years by the way I was deprogrammed
out of the Moon cult if you were
wondering how did you get out of this
you were so fanatical I fell asleep at
the wheel of a van and drove into the
back of a tractor-trailer truck at 80
miles an hour which got me away from
physically from the group visiting my
sister and my family did a deprogramming
intervention which took five days before
I could start thinking maybe moon wasn’t
the Messiah and it was four years after
that that I saw a stage hypnotist do a
hypnosis demonstration and I went that’s
what I used to do when I was a leader
doing lectures for the Moonies and
that’s another TED talk all about the
dark side of hypnosis but my controllers
know how to use it and by the way when
young people especially are at the
screens for hours and hours and hours
binge watching radicalizing YouTube
videos this is a very destructive
combination the universal mind control
technique and all my research is what I
call phobia indoctrination
it’s the indoctrination of irrational
fears that if you ever question the the
leader or the group terrible things will
happen to you and in
my case I was brought to see The
Exorcist movie in 1974 with a hundred
other Muniz we were bused up to hear
moon give a speech about God made the
Exorcist movie and this was a prophecy
of what would happen to you if you ever
leave the unification Church and there I
was a young Jewish man 19 years old
didn’t believe in Satan at all afraid of
Eve invisible entities invading my mind
if I didn’t do exactly as I was
indoctrinated to do and I did not have a
negative thought until my deprogramming
so I talked about a lot of these points
already in the byte model and I just
want to talk for a minute about just how
much the Internet is being manipulated
now when when the internet began it was
the greatest thing for people like
myself former members who are trying to
share our knowledge and experience with
others we could disseminate the
information and and and cults like
Scientology in the Moonies and such you
know we’re trying to suppress
information but it was a wonderful thing
now things are buried the search engine
manipulation is taking place
Wikipedia has been co-opted up
fortunately to to the chagrin of so many
folks fake websites false news and
what’s coming down the pike is
incredible positive things can come out
of the internet but also incredible
programming opportunities for despot
sand dictators and cult leaders and
traffickers when I was being recruited
by these women they flirted with me and
I gave them I answered all their
questions about my background
but now Veda is being collected in Mass
about us making us much more vulnerable
and susceptible to mind control and I
just mentioned some of some of the the
internet games etc that groups like Isis
are using so things like confusion
technique sleep deprivation subliminal
programming is taking place right now on
the internet there are there are people
teaching hypnosis if you want to rape
somebody they’ll teach you techniques
for covert hypnosis and it’s just there
I know the news right now is about speed
a 3d printing of guns but mind control
techniques are freely being taught on
the Internet and it’s very very
dangerous so as I sum up I want to just
say avoid black and white all or nothing
good versus evil mindsets and that
people can interact with people who’ve
been indoctrinated and help them to wake
up because deep down inside I believe
people want to be free and they wanna
know the truth and they don’t like to be
manipulated and suffocating and remember
there is a model for how to discern and
going forward we need massive education
in schools not just both anti-bullying
programs but how to protect yourself
from from people who are manipulating
and mind controlling you we need to
teach critical thinking skills we need
to teach Social Psychology and I want to
do a shout out to one of my mentors
Philip Zimbardo
who has a program called the heroic
imagination project which has small
video vignettes of social psychology
demonstrations that will help create a
career it creates a curriculum to help
young people understand just how
vulnerable we are to groups to peer
pressure to authority figures as well as
other psychology social psychology
things I just came from a complex
systems conference and I realized that
as we’re developing AI we need to teach
our our computer systems this model to
be able to look at behavior specifically
of what anybody’s doing and such it’s
going to be very very important and we
need trustworthy portals for
formation and I want to do a call to
action for former members this includes
abused women who had of abuse of
narcissistic husbands the me to movement
if you look through the bite control it
fits that situation too destructive
families can fit that situation I want
people who’ve had this experience to say
yes I was vulnerable it happened to me
and let’s move on which is what I’ve
been trying to do with my life and my
last message is it’s your mind it’s
precious and only you should control it
because we have this beautiful world and
we want to live together and and and and
help each other in love and truth and
goodness and I just love TEDx I’m in the
cult of TEDx happily [Applause]
wondering what is a brainwashing
mind-control expert talking at a TEDx
conference on emerging technology right
or not does everybody understand how
important our world is and our minds are
and just the unprecedented amount of
influence that’s coming at us I can tell
you as a mental health professional
someone who has been helping people get
out of cults and mind control and
brainwashing situations for 40 years
constantly people are confused what is a
cult what is mind control what is
brainwashing oh my my boss brainwashes
me Oh advertising brainwashes me the
government brainwashes me etc but what
I’m here to say is actually I want to
present a model for you to think about a
spectrum from healthy to unhealthy
influence healthy influence
there’s informed consent you know what
you’re getting involved with you know
about the person
there’s choice on the destructive side
there’s deception
there’s manipulation on the healthy side
it respects your freewill it respects
your conscience where the unhealthy side
is using guilt manipulation fear
manipulation and wanting you to become
tranced out obedient slaves and we have
on this continuum some themes again this
is not a binary of all or nothing this
is a spectrum and my call to action is
your minds are precious and only you
should control your mind
I’m calling for people to take
responsibility for their own lives their
own minds and realize just how
vulnerable we really all are
on this chart we have leaders talking
about healthy leaders that are
transparent and accountable and
responsible and on the other side the
destructive side narcissistic
psychopathological
elitist never omits they do anything
wrong secretive deceptive and they want
loyalty and they want dependency and in
terms of organizations there needs to be
checks and balances there needs to be
individual diversity and the means
actually helped to create the ends on
the destructive sign people justify the
ends justify the means we’re gonna save
the world different cults say and
therefore we justify all kinds of
unethical behavior and the biggest
vulnerability if I was sitting there I’d
be going I’m too smart it would never
happen to me I’m too together I know
myself I have but family good education
and what I’m saying is it happened to me
so I’m standing in front of you as
someone who in 1974 was going to Queens
College I was a Creative Writing major
writing poetry was was my life goal I
wanted to become a professor and teach
writing and then I get into the moon
cult through a deceptive recruitment
after my my girlfriend dumped me and
three women were pretending to be
college students deceptively recruited
me at a college campus and I wound up
spending two and a half years in a
fascist right-wing cult where I turned
my back on my Jewish upbringing I was
raised in in Flushing Queens I turned my
back on my family I turned my back on my
values and I came to believe the Messiah
was on the earth and and I needed to
follow him blindly and and and kill
myself if I had to for the cult so my
question to you is how would you know if
you were under mind control
how would anybody know because when I
got into the Moon cult my friends try to
talk me out of it my family try to talk
me out they said Steve you’re
brainwashed your mind control wake up
he’s disgusting he’s a fat Korean
billionaire he’s not the Messiah come on
and I was like you just don’t understand
time will tell how great a leader he is
and such so there really is a formula
I’ve been spending my life helping the
program I don’t like that term call it
strategic interactive approach to help
coach family and friends on how to
ethically influence to wake up and get
out of of cults but there is a formula
but it really depends on Unknowing this
model and being able to be clear about
it and what I refer to as the bite model
of mind control which I’m coming to in a
moment but first I want to just talk
about this is a scientific reality this
is the diagnostic Statistical Manual of
the American Psychiatric Association
this is version 5 and the criteria of
being in a mind-control cult has existed
in Version three four and five and it’s
an identity disturb disturbance
literally the Steve Hasson that wanted
to write poetry and and and loved
reading and love my family and love my
my my values and the values of democracy
was suppressed by a cult identity a
pseudo identity that was programmed into
me this is validated by all kinds of
research from former military
intelligence experts like robert jay
lifton margot singer lois west Edgar
Schein so what I’m talking to you about
today about emerging technology is that
the Internet is giving unprecedented
opportunity to bad people
to take over our lives take over our
minds influence our elections and in
particular trafficking is a major world
problem there’s an estimated 25 million
people who are being trafficked and
terrorist cults like daesh isis i’ve
studied how they recruit on the internet
and it’s very sophisticated
this pimp wrote a book on how to
brainwash the hoes i know it’s
disgusting but the methodology is just
being taught openly on the internet for
anyone who wants to abuse people this is
a high-profile case right now in federal
court in new york it’s a cult called
nexium and this is a victim who was
branded with the initials of the cult
leader keith Ranieri and and and the
defense of keith Ranieri and claire
Bronfman who is a billionaire heiress
has been funding this particular cult
are saying people voluntarily chose to
be branded and give up collateral where
they could be blackmailed if they ever
wanted to leave the group so I’m hoping
this will be a precedent-setting case so
I want I wanted to tell you cults and
mind-control groups come in many
different shapes sizes political cults
therapy called spiritual cults
multi-level marketing large group
awareness and pseudos therapeutic ones
and I really want people to understand
that there are behavioral variables that
can demonstrate where in the continuum
any relationship could be a controlling
husband or wife could be a controlling
company could be controlling group is
I’m in 63 years of age I’ve entered a
doctoral program at the encouragement of
professor at the the program in
psychiatry in the law at Harvard Medical
School because I got involved with this
forensic think tank as I realized we
need to change the legal system
we need to have clarity of thinking that
there is unethical influence and there’s
ethical influence and by going through
this I’ve did my first research project
with over a thousand respondents and we
got significance any group in any
relationship that’s just depriving
you’re asleep is doing behavior
modification techniques is demanding
obedience to Authority as I mentioned
before deceptive recruitment or lack of
informed consent is a huge criteria of a
destructive cult propaganda confession
spying turning people in and in terms of
thought control totalus ideology loaded
language fought terminating cliches and
I want to talk for a minute about
hypnosis I was in a cult for two and a
half years by the way I was deprogrammed
out of the Moon cult if you were
wondering how did you get out of this
you were so fanatical I fell asleep at
the wheel of a van and drove into the
back of a tractor-trailer truck at 80
miles an hour which got me away from
physically from the group visiting my
sister and my family did a deprogramming
intervention which took five days before
I could start thinking maybe moon wasn’t
the Messiah and it was four years after
that that I saw a stage hypnotist do a
hypnosis demonstration and I went that’s
what I used to do when I was a leader
doing lectures for the Moonies and
that’s another TED talk all about the
dark side of hypnosis but my controllers
know how to use it and by the way when
young people especially are at the
screens for hours and hours and hours
binge watching radicalizing YouTube
videos this is a very destructive
combination the universal mind control
technique and all my research is what I
call phobia indoctrination
it’s the indoctrination of irrational
fears that if you ever question the the
leader or the group terrible things will
happen to you and in
my case I was brought to see The
Exorcist movie in 1974 with a hundred
other Muniz we were bused up to hear
moon give a speech about God made the
Exorcist movie and this was a prophecy
of what would happen to you if you ever
leave the unification Church and there I
was a young Jewish man 19 years old
didn’t believe in Satan at all afraid of
Eve invisible entities invading my mind
if I didn’t do exactly as I was
indoctrinated to do and I did not have a
negative thought until my deprogramming
so I talked about a lot of these points
already in the byte model and I just
want to talk for a minute about just how
much the Internet is being manipulated
now when when the internet began it was
the greatest thing for people like
myself former members who are trying to
share our knowledge and experience with
others we could disseminate the
information and and and cults like
Scientology in the Moonies and such you
know we’re trying to suppress
information but it was a wonderful thing
now things are buried the search engine
manipulation is taking place
Wikipedia has been co-opted up
fortunately to to the chagrin of so many
folks fake websites false news and
what’s coming down the pike is
incredible positive things can come out
of the internet but also incredible
programming opportunities for despot
sand dictators and cult leaders and
traffickers when I was being recruited
by these women they flirted with me and
I gave them I answered all their
questions about my background
but now Veda is being collected in Mass
about us making us much more vulnerable
and susceptible to mind control and I
just mentioned some of some of the the
internet games etc that groups like Isis
are using so things like confusion
technique sleep deprivation subliminal
programming is taking place right now on
the internet there are there are people
teaching hypnosis if you want to rape
somebody they’ll teach you techniques
for covert hypnosis and it’s just there
I know the news right now is about speed
a 3d printing of guns but mind control
techniques are freely being taught on
the Internet and it’s very very
dangerous so as I sum up I want to just
say avoid black and white all or nothing
good versus evil mindsets and that
people can interact with people who’ve
been indoctrinated and help them to wake
up because deep down inside I believe
people want to be free and they wanna
know the truth and they don’t like to be
manipulated and suffocating and remember
there is a model for how to discern and
going forward we need massive education
in schools not just both anti-bullying
programs but how to protect yourself
from from people who are manipulating
and mind controlling you we need to
teach critical thinking skills we need
to teach Social Psychology and I want to
do a shout out to one of my mentors
Philip Zimbardo
who has a program called the heroic
imagination project which has small
video vignettes of social psychology
demonstrations that will help create a
career it creates a curriculum to help
young people understand just how
vulnerable we are to groups to peer
pressure to authority figures as well as
other psychology social psychology
things I just came from a complex
systems conference and I realized that
as we’re developing AI we need to teach
our our computer systems this model to
be able to look at behavior specifically
of what anybody’s doing and such it’s
going to be very very important and we
need trustworthy portals for
formation and I want to do a call to
action for former members this includes
abused women who had of abuse of
narcissistic husbands the me to movement
if you look through the bite control it
fits that situation too destructive
families can fit that situation I want
people who’ve had this experience to say
yes I was vulnerable it happened to me
and let’s move on which is what I’ve
been trying to do with my life and my
last message is it’s your mind it’s
precious and only you should control it
because we have this beautiful world and
we want to live together and and and and
help each other in love and truth and
goodness and I just love TEDx I’m in the
cult of TEDx happily [Applause]
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