Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Photo
Topics: Psychology, Mental Health
Callum Jones
Do you think you'd be susceptible to 'brainwashing'? Well, an expert has explained when you could be more than likely at risk.
Steven Hassan knows first hand what it's like after he was recruited to a cult while at college in the 1970s.
As a result of joining a cult known as the 'Moonies', Hassan said that he quickly came to believe that Armageddon and World War III were imminent.
Recalling his experience in 2018, as per CNN, Hassan said: "It only took a few weeks to get me convinced that the Messiah was on the Earth, even though I’m Jewish."
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The group’s leader, Sun Myung Moon, was referred to as the Father, with Hassan adding: "I was an off-the-charts, fly-a-plane-into-the-World-Trade-Center-if-Father-ordered-you-to Moonie.
"I was sure they wouldn’t be able to make me betray Father. I wanted to prove to my parents that I was not brainwashed or mind-controlled."
It took close to two-and-a-half years for Hassan to leave the cult after meeting a group of ex-members of the Moonies.
Following his experience, he is now helps others as a mental health counsellor, and has a particular focus on helping former cult members get their life back on track.
And while you might assume that cults only target extremely vulnerable people, according to Hassan, anyone is susceptible to their influence - especially during times of 'situational vulnerabilities'.
“Any human being is going to have situational vulnerabilities throughout their lives," he added.
"Whether it’s the death of a loved one or some illness or moving to a (new) city … that’s going to create a vulnerability that then a cult recruiter can deceptively appeal to."
Hassan went on to say that cults don't want people who are 'disturbed' because they can be harder to control - rather, they want someone who can be productive to earn money for the cult.
Social psychologist Alexandra Stein joined a political cult in Minneapolis at the age of 26, with group controlling her life throughout the 1980s.
She also states that vulnerabilities are 'situational not dispositional'.
What both of these former cult members believe can happen to people is their lack of critical thinking after being recruited.
“We can be programmed with specific mind control techniques and methods to shut off critical thinking, to have irrational fears or phobias implanted in our minds that take away our choices,” Hassan said.
While Stein admits her critical thinking 'clicked back' straight away after she left the cult, but it wasn't all smooth sailing after she left.
"The nature of these groups, of isolating you, means that you have no friends on the outside,” no job, no housing," she said.
"You certainly don’t have an identity that’s separate from the group when you leave."