Newsletter: This Holiday, Give Yourself and Others the Gift of Freedom from Undue Influence
From tech and AI to toxic groups, only YOU should control your mind!
Whatever holiday you and your loved ones celebrate this festive season, my best wish for you is that you can live your best life free from unethical, harmful influence and control of your own mind. Although there is much to be disturbed about in the coming year, I still have hope that 2025 will be a year of promise, learning, and fulfillment for all of us. Humans need each other in real life. Moving into 2025, we all should ensure we are not lonely but connect with healthy others for support, meaning, and purpose. The survivor community has tens of millions of us, and wouldn't it be great if we could lift each other up and support and encourage each other?
This week’s Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum podcast features privacy and cyber defense expert Dustin Rozario Steinhagen, PhD. His doctoral dissertation involved a fascinating study on how people view thought control and manipulation; I’m sure you’ll find our discussion intriguing and compelling.
Next week’s podcast will feature a fascinating discussion with Professor Eli Somer about Maladaptive Daydreaming, dissociation, trauma, hypnosis, and more. It will be available on my podcast and on my Substack on December 30th, with the video interview embedded.
The cult-like nature of technology has been a big focus for me lately as I speak with more experts in AI and cybersecurity. Harvard/ MIT humanist chaplain Gregory E. Epstein, who has appeared on my podcast, wrote a piece in the MIT Technology Review entitled: “The cult of tech: Some technology companies have found manipulative ways to inspire irrational levels of devotion. Should we be worried?” The article references my cult expertise and is an excellent introduction for people to get motivated to read his important book, Tech Agnostic: How Technology Became the World’s Most Powerful Religion and Why It Desperately Needs a Reformation.
My latest blog post in Psychology Today, So You’ve Been Brainwashed Without Realizing It: What Now?, was published this week. In it, I discuss the transformative journey of escaping cult influence.
As a 2024/2025 Fielding Fellow, my research project, a 40-question version of my full BITE Model research that is free and anonymous, offers an actual number on the Influence Continuum. It also asks where on the Authoritarian pyramid you were for your answers. The new BITE Model© Survey has received over 200 responses! If you haven’t tried it out yet, please do so. You can now share the results on your social media if you wish. If you were involved in a destructive group and want to help “put it on the map,” help us collect hundreds and thousands of responses. This way, we can publish academic papers detailing the harms. If you wish to help demonstrate that the group is authoritarian and you are active in any survivor groups online, for example, on Facebook or Reddit, I urge you to fill it out. Let’s destigmatize survivorhood!
Last week, I hosted a multi-social media livestream from 3 to 4 p.m. EST; if you missed it, you can see the replay here. Due to the holiday season and work commitments, we will skip a few weeks and return to our regularly scheduled livestream on January 15th, 2025. We might do some livestreaming on other days and times between now and the 15th. Stay tuned.
I am excited that my new Course Workbook will be sent for formatting and publishing after the holiday. While it can be used as a stand-alone resource, it is intended to augment the online course I have created for clinicians, ex-members, and families wishing to help a loved one.
For folks who live in western Massachusetts, I agreed to do a talk at the Forbes Library in Northampton at 6 pm on January 15th. I will do a short talk as I wish to answer people’s questions. I really like interacting with folks.
Dustin Rozario Steinhagen, PhD is a privacy expert who recently graduated with his doctorate degree in Cyber Defense from Dakota State University. His dissertation is titled “Defending the security of the mind: A mail survey of thought-reform literacy in South Dakota.” This quantitative analysis measured “what everyday people know about thought reform and psychologically manipulative groups.” The results were fascinating, and Dustin plans to continue his research in this area, noting a great need for further societal focus on this topic.
Read the blog post or listen to the podcast below:
Brainwashing doesn’t always look dramatic; it often employs subtle tactics to bypass critical thinking and reshape beliefs and identities. Indeed, various models have been proposed over the years to describe it. While the term is often vaguely defined or poorly understood, I frequently opt for its usage to educate and to lead the discussion toward understanding the systematic social influence process in a legal context.
How can you tell if that group your family member has joined is safe? Is your relationship hitting a “rough patch,” or is there actual cause for concern? With this anonymous, easy-to-use diagnostic tool, you can answer simple questions and determine if any group is beneficial or destructive, ethical or unethical, healthy or unhealthy. And now, you can share your results on your social media if you wish!
As always, please let us know what you think about these pieces or what you’d like to see us discuss in the future. Thanks so much!
Given both good and bad aspects of human nature, I believe we will never finish learning enough about undue influence and how to teach ourselves how0