Communing with Local Cult Members
Steve Hassan, a counselor of cult victims, was hosted by Delaware Valley Action! at a recent meeting.
When Ed Gragert searched online for an expert on cults to talk to the group he leads, Delaware Valley Action!, he encountered someone familiar, he said, as he introduced the speaker, Steven Hassan, at the July DVA! meeting at the Waterwheel Cafe, in Milford.
Steven Hassan had been drawn into the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon in the early 1970’s, looking for love after a breakup, he explained in the Zoom presentation for DVA!. Women invited him to a weekend getaway that turned into a week of indoctrination. His family extricated him after two and a half years with an intervention that took five days. By that time, Hassan, who is Jewish, was professing Nazi views. He subsequently got a master’s degree in counseling psychology and made a career of counseling cult victims and their families, investigating cults and writing books about them.
He did not define “cult” in his presentation but apparently referred to groups whose leader convinces them of irrational and destructive ideas that they agree upon despite substantial contrary evidence. However, the Washington Post challenged the premise of his recent book, “The Cult of Trump,” asserting that political alliances differ from cult compliance.
How did Gragert first encounter Hassan?
“I was working as a Korean-language specialist investigator for a committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, investigating attempts to influence U.S. government and society by the Korean CIA, Unification Church and others from South Korea in 1977-78,” Gragert said.
DVA! attendees asked Hassan questions about how to interact with friends and community members who appear to be involved in cults.
One person asked how to respond when she expresses concern about local members of the Rod of Iron Ministries and is told that, “It’s just their religion. They’re nice people.”
The group, based in Wayne County, is led by Sean Moon, son of Sun Myung Moon. They include AR15 rifles in religious ceremonies, as they prepare for apocalyptic self-defense, following the preaching of Sean Moon. His brother, Justin Moon, owns a Pike County gun factory, Kahr Arms, in Blooming Grove, that makes AR15 rifles, among other guns. The brothers support Donald Trump and his contention that he won the 2020 presidential election and other right wing ideas. Sean Moon, who sometimes wears a crown of bullets, was observed with Trump at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
As for their followers being nice, said Hassan, “I’m nice. I was a Nazi with the Moonies. ‘Nice’ isn’t the criteria. I teach a strategic interactive approach, a goal oriented communication approach. Be respectful. Ask questions with curiosity. Wait for answers. Be patient. When people say, ‘It’s just their religion,’ do you understand that there’s what people know about the religion, the public version, that’s different from what goes on inside? I teach strategic interaction to learn about the dual identity. Evaluate the health of the group by what they believe and practice, what they spend time and money on. I explain the social psychology of cults and my own story. I was nineteen, an introvert. I wanted to meet women. These women invited me to dinner and then said, ‘Come with us for the weekend.’ That was 1974, the same year Patty Hearst was abducted.”
He was driven to an unknown location for a workshop with Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church that went on for several sleepless days, he said. “Then they took me home, but already in my head I thought God was working to save the planet.”
Two years later he was in a van crash and, for a change, ate and slept well. He called the only sister who had not attacked him for his cult-driven views. She called other family members, and they brought in an expert who sat with Hassan for five days.
“By the fourth day I said, ‘I’ll follow Hitler if Moon does,’” Hassan recalled.
But by the fifth day, what undid Hassan’s bulwark of beliefs, he said, was the counselor providing him with information demonstrating that Moon lied, that he publicly talked about Americans one way, saying he was surprised that people thought Koreans could brainwash them, while to Hassan he had described Americans as “idiots.”
Somehow, the conflicting views of Moon began to unravel Hassan’s faith in him.
What works to dismantle a cult mindset, according to Hassan, is to “respectfully, with curiosity, ask good questions in the right sequence.”
One attendee said she has a friend who was involved with Nxivm, described in the New York Times as “the cult-like organization in which a harem of sexual ‘slaves’ were branded with its founder’s initials on their pelvises and coerced into having sex with him.”
Hassan said that he had participated in developing a program to help sex trafficking victims, who often begin between the ages of 12 and 14.
“They may be caught by police but go back anyway,” said Hassan.
He advised meeting cult victims on points of mutual understanding and, from there redirecting their attention to “credible experts.”
“I was recruited with flirtation,” he said. “I didn’t realize the expectation of forced marriage. Smart people get mind hacked. Listen to your gut. ”
Asked how such groups develop influence with school boards and other civic organizations, Hassan said, “They’re nice to them. They offer help and donations. The Korean CIA used Moonies.”
Hassan said he was recruited as Moonies recruited students against communism to oppose students against the Vietnam War.
Moon’s influence persists, as the family owns the Washington Times, endorsed by Republicans, Hassan said. “This is a long play.”
Meanwhile, Hassan said of interactions with estranged friends, “Don’t call them names. Reach out. Say, ‘I miss you. You’re important to me.’ Rebuild a warm relationship. Truth is stranger than lies.”
At the Delaware Valley Action! (DVA!) August 9th monthly Get-Together the three Pike County Commissioners, Tony Waldron, Matt Osterberg and Ronald Schmalzle will discuss plans to open a 24/7 medical facility in Pike County. The event will be both in-person and via Zoom (https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5951220621) at the Waterwheel Café/Bar on Water Street in Milford on August 9, 2023 at 6-7:30 pm.
DVA! is a non-profit (501-c-4) educational and advocacy organization incorporated in Pennsylvania and not affiliated with any political party.
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A difficult but important discussion of a pressing issue. Thoughtfully done, balanced and brave. -Jim Blanton