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PhilosophyFirst of all, in response to those reviewers who argue that "all religions practice mind control" and "Hassan is against freedom of religion," I would like to point out that Hassan states very plainly that just because a group is not mainstream does not make it a cult. He provides very detailed, specific criteria as to what makes a cult (including deception, attempts to isolate people from their friends and family, refusal...
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There are only a few books that I have ever read that have affected my life in such a tremendously profound way. This was one of them. I was raised in the cult known as Jehovah's Witnesses. For 27 years I was totally controlled and totally miserable and didn't know why. After reading this book all of the pieces fell into place. Forget the reviews you've read by self proclaimed "intellectuals" saying that this material...
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For four years I was a member of America's worse, criminal, abusive mind control organization (Scientology). During my fourth year I began to "wake up" from what Steve Hassen calls "the honeymoon phase," and I went seeking information about what had happened to me. I am highly intelligent, so my falling for a criminal cult was mystifying: Hassen's book helped explain what happened to me (and so many others), and was key to...
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Cults don't exist to people in them. A cult is always something you can point a finger at and say, "that is a cult," or, "they are in a cult." A person in a cult never can look at their own situation objectively and see that they themselves are in a cult. This book was very helpful for me in such a way that I could relate very well to a lot of the experiences and tecniques. It convinced me that I had spent all of my...
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As a former member of Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, I was convinced, even after I left, that there was no such thing as mind control. In fact, I even refused to read any books on the subject, nor would I read any of the first-hand accounts of former members. The reason for this was that I had a deep phobia about the very idea that mind control existed -- which I suppose is in itself a good argument that mind control...
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