Newsletter: We Have Hope When We Stand Together
We must prioritize winning the 2026 midterms by building a broad coalition
The Freedom of Mind Community is growing. Help us spread the word! Invite one new person to get involved. This week’s livestream will be tomorrow, Wednesday, September 3rd, at 3-4 p.m. EDT. We plan to livestream on YouTube, Substack, Instagram, Facebook, and perhaps some others! I welcome everyone to tune in with questions and comments! Last week’s livestream was a great success; you can see the recording here if you missed it. Also, I did a bonus livestream on the tragic Church shooting incident in Minnesota; the video of that can be found here.
In this week’s episode of Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum, we have Anne Nelson, author of The Shadow Network and her documentary Bad Faith, which is a must-see. This episode includes learning about the little-known resistance movement during Hitler’s reign of terror– “Red Orchestra: The Story of the Berlin Underground and the Circle of Friends Who Resisted Hitler.” She and I discussed how vitally important it is to stand up against tyranny NOW, before there is a total takeover by The Cult of Trump. You can listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Of course, the video of the interview is on our YouTube channel and is embedded in the Substack post.
In next week’s episode of my Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum podcast, I interview Dr. Bandy X. Lee, a forensic psychiatrist, on “The Much More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.” She is the editor of several books, including The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, The More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, The Much More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, and The Psychology of Trump Contagion: An Existential Danger to American Democracy and All Humankind.
Last week, we posted a special blog post for our paid Substack members titled “Ministering or Monitoring? Mormons and Long-Term Surveillance Culture.” In it, we look at the LDS church’s “surveillance culture,” evidenced by the monitoring and management of members while maintaining records on their activities and whereabouts. Paid subscribers receive deep dive investigative analyses, case studies, timely commentary, special guest collaboration posts, and in-depth subscriber-only responses. So if the free posts have helped you understand more about destructive cults, influence, and control, please consider supporting my work and becoming a paid subscriber.
We also posted a free article, “It’s Time We Stop Arguing About the Word “Cult” and Start Measuring Control.” I discuss how the term “cult” has become a cultural “Swiss Army knife” for describing groups—or even opinions—we don’t like. It’s much more important to focus on how much control is being exerted upon members and whether or not that control is ethical, healthy, or destructive.
We are happy to announce the paperback publication of the Spanish version of my classic book, Combating Cult Mind Control, entitled Combatiendo el Control Mental de las Sectas.
Equally exciting news is that the new study on destructive and controlling groups is now live! This study can help you measure how much authoritarian control is in any group, from a country, a workplace, a church, or even a family or relationship. We encourage people to take the survey, even for healthy groups. Especially if you’ve done the study before, these are significantly shorter, and the wording has been changed. In addition, we now ask for feedback specifically on your experience answering both the 20-question and the 40-question surveys. Our aim is that we can eventually collect enough data to create a scientifically robust model of manipulative control. Please set aside a few minutes, go to bitemodel.com, and let us know what you think. And get a number on the Influence Continuum!
Networks of media conglomerates have been targeting evangelical Christians for decades. They thrive via a vast network of extremist billionaires and pastors manipulating people’s realities, ready to profit from control and influence. These networks include familiar names like Fox News, The Heritage Foundation, Sinclair Broadcast Group, and perhaps less familiar names to many, such as Council for National Policy. Anne Nelson expertly spoke about these topics the last time she was on Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum. We discussed her 2019 book Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right. I invited her back to speak more on these topics and provide listeners with essential updates and specific recommendations for the fascist authoritarian power Trump is exerting by putting only people sworn to do what he tells them to do.
Read the blog post or listen to the podcast, below:
One group that often comes up in discussions of undue influence is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon Church or LDS church. I wish to share my observations about what I call the LDS church’s “surveillance culture,” that is, the ways it monitors and manages members and maintains records on their activities and whereabouts.
Read the paid subscriber article now!
The word cult has become a cultural Swiss Army knife used by many as a hatchet job explanation for any group they don’t like. Is the label correct? It may very well be. However, I would much prefer people ask whether its members are unduly influenced. Were they systematically steered in ways that bypassed informed consent and eroded their autonomy? These are the questions we should be asking and there is a very good reason for this distinction.
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!
It's no coincidence that malignant narcissists, sociopaths & psychopaths try to isolate prey.
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