Steven Hassan - Background

Background

Hassan became a member of the Unification Church in the 1970s, at the age of 19, while studying at Queens College. He describes what he terms as his "recruitment" in his first book, Combatting Cult Mind Control, asserting that this recruitment was the result of the unethical use of powerful psychological influence techniques by members of the Church. He subsequently spent over two years recruiting and indoctrinating new members, as well as performing fundraising and campaigning duties, and ultimately rose to the rank of Assistant Director of the Unification Church at its National Headquarters. In that capacity he met personally with Sun Myung Moon.

Hassan has given an account of his leaving the Unification Church in his 1998 book Combatting Cult Mind Control and on his personal website: After having been awake for two days as the head of a fundraising team, he caused a traffic accident when he fell asleep at the wheel of the Church's van and drove into the back of a truck. He ended up with a broken leg, surgery and a full-leg cast. During his recuperation he was given permission by his superiors in the Church to visit his parents. His parents contacted former members of the Unification Church who engaged in a deprogramming session with Hassan. Because of his cast he was not able to run or drive away, but he resisted to the point that he states that he had an impulse to "escape by reaching over and snapping my father's neck", rather than to potentially succumb to the deprogramming and betray "The Messiah". His father convinced him to stay for five days and talk to the former Church members who were conducting the deprogramming, after which time Hassan would be free to make the choice to return to the Church. Hassan agreed to this. He subsequently decided to leave the Church.

In 1979, following the Jonestown tragedy, Hassan founded a non-profit organization called "Ex-Moon Inc.", whose membership consisted of over four hundred former members of the Unification Church.

According to his biography, "During the 1977-78 Congressional Subcommittee Investigation into South Korean CIA activities in the United States, he consulted as an expert on the Moon organization and provided information and internal documents regarding Moon's desire to influence politics in his bid to 'take over the world.'"

Around 1980, Hassan began investigating methods of persuasion, mind control and indoctrination. He first studied the thought reform theories of Robert Lifton, and was "able to see clearly that the Moon organization uses all eight" of the thought reform methods described by Lifton.

He later attended a seminar on hypnosis with Richard Bandler, which was based on the work that he and transformational grammarian John Grinder had done in developing Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). Hassan felt that this seminar gave him "a handle on techniques of mind control, and how to combat them." He spent "nearly two years studying NLP with everyone involved in its formulation and presentation." During this period, Hassan moved to Santa Cruz, California for an apprenticeship with Grinder. He became concerned about the marketing of NLP as a tool for "power enhancement", left his association with Grinder, and "began to study the works of Milton Erickson M.D., Virginia Satir, and Gregory Bateson, on which NLP is based." His studies gave him the basis for the development of his theories on mind control.

Hassan continued to study hypnosis and is a member of the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis and The International Society of Hypnosis.

In 1999, Hassan founded the Freedom of Mind Resource Center. It is registered as a domestic profit corporation in the state of Massachusetts. He is president and treasurer.

In Combatting Cult Mind Control Hassan describes his personal experiences with the Unification Church, as well as his theory of the four components of mind control. The sociologist Eileen Barker, who has studied the Unification Church, has commented on the book. She expressed several concerns but nevertheless recommended the book. The book has been reviewed in the American Journal of Psychiatry, and in the The Lancet, and has been favorably reviewed by Philip Zimbardo and Margaret Singer.

In his second book, Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves (2000), Hassan presents what he terms "a much more refined method to help family and friends, called the Strategic Interaction Approach. This non-coercive, completely legal approach is far better than deprogramming, and even exit counseling"

Hassan, who is Jewish and belongs to a Temple that teaches Kabbalah warns us that the actions of the Kabbalah Centre have little in common with traditional or even responsible Jewish renewal Kabbalah teachers. He describes himself as an "activist who fights to protect people's right to believe whatever they want to believe", and states that his work has the broad support of religious leaders from a variety of spiritual orientations. He further states that "many unorthodox religions have expressed their gratitude to me for my books because it clearly shows them NOT to be a destructive cult."

His wife Aureet Bar-Yam died in 1991 after falling through ice while trying to save their dog.