I’ve seen at least one viral tumblr post argue for Steven Hassan’s BITE model for “mind control” to warn tumblr users for signs of a cult. And like, it’s a noble goal, but I don’t trust the BITE model one bit. For one thing, the concept of “brainwashing” or “thought reform” or “mind control” is very controversial and there is no scientific consensus that it’s real.
Now there are tons of abusive and authoritarian groups, let’s call them cults, who use tactics of socially isolating members from their previous family and friends and outside information. This is itself abusive and makes it harder for members to think critically about the group and leave. And children are easily influenced and can be indoctrinated, especially if they are raised in isolated circumstances.
Still, brainwashing theories do often make outlandish claims of a total “thought reform” that removes personal agency from adult members of cults in a way that is hard to prove or disprove. Scholars such as Rebecca Moore argue it’s even pseudoscientific.
It mainly functions as a comforting thought for friends and family of cult members, as it removes personal responsibility, the member becomes a victim instead of a willing participant, and it’s similarly useful for ex-members to absolve themselves of their actions. It was used more worryingly in the 70s and 80s to justify coercive “deprogramming”, which was family of cult members kidnapping them and attempting to reverse the claimed brainwashing of the cult.
This brings us to Steven Hassan, who I think might be the most visible advocate of “brainwashing” theories active today. He was a moonie for a couple of years in the 70s, before deprogramming and becoming a prominent member of the anti-cult movement of the 70s/80s. His BITE model seems credible at first glance. There are a lot of genuine signs of an abusive group environment on this list. If anything, some of the signs are too obvious, to the point of being facile. The model literally has “murder”, “torture” and “rape” on the list.
Hassan also places a lot on the idea of hypnosis being this super-effective method of controlling another person, which I don’t think the scientific evidence supports. And I have other reasons to think Hassan is a complete crank about hypnosis, more on that later.
A lot of these things are very general too, in a way that makes it easy to accuse almost any group of being a cult. A lot of these things are not in themselves abusive and just general human group behaviour. For example: “Extensive use of cult-generated information and propaganda, including... Newsletters, magazines, journals, audiotapes, videotapes, YouTube, movies and other media.“ This is literally just an aspect of being an organization in a society with mass media. The organization linked to above is set up by Hassan himself, and it has both a newsletter and a youtube channel. Another example is “Require members to internalize the group’s doctrine as truth.“ Basically any political and religious group has an underlying ideology which it expects its members to believe in.
So basically any group of people will hit many points on this model, which makes it liable to be misused to label any group the speaker doesn’t like as a cult. And Hassan himself likes to stretch his definition of “cult.” He has famously labelled the Trump movement as a cult. And not to defend Trumpists, but while Trump is an authoritarian fascist leader, in my view his movement lacks the rigid organization and cohesion to be an effective “cult” environment. Hassan’s idea of “mind control” also obscures the deeper societal reasons behind Trump’s success as a politician. The misogyny, racism, and transphobia of Trump’s ideology is rooted in systemic inequalities providing a material basis for such supremacist ideologies to prosper in USAian society.
Less famous, but more revealing, is his tweet thread from a few years ago where he comes to the conclusion that trans people are a cult, or at least a “cult-like situation.” You see, Steven discovered the world of forced feminization hypno porn youtube videos. Now that’s a weird subculture, and forced fem as a porn genre has problematic transmisogynist ideological baggage, as I’ve written about briefly here. But it’s porn, both the creators and audience know it’s not real. You can’t be hypnotized into becoming a trans woman against your will.
Except according to Steve Hassan, PhD and self-described “World-renowned expert on cults.”, they are wrong. As he explains “What I watched in Hypno porn IMO was weapons-grade mind control and if a person watches it...they could be profoundly influenced to, for example, believe they were a woman in a man's body.“
It’s a hilarious twitter breakdown, where Hassan destroys down any credibility he might have had in one go. His BITE model seems to be this sophisticated and realistic model of “mind control”, far removed from its depictions in literal cartoons and hollywood movies. But no, his idea of the power of hypnosis is identical to that of porn videos. The funniest thing about forced fem hypno videos are the transmisogynists who think it is real. Hassan has tried to explain his conversion to the moonies as a result of mind control, but I think the simpler explanation is that he is a very gullible person.
Of course, Hassan’s transphobia is worrying. He is a famous “exit counselor” for cults, an advocate of deprogramming and since he believes trans people are essentially a cult, the twitter thread is essentially advocating for conversion therapy for trans people. He explicitly disavows conversion therapy, but he is essentially advocating it by another name. He has similarly mostly disavowed the coercive “deprogramming” of the 70s and 80s anti-cult movement, except as a “last resort.” We should keep in mind that the “father of deprogramming”, Ted Patrick was involved in efforts to kidnap women to cure them of “leftism” (in the case of Susan Wirth in 1980) and lesbianism (in the 1981 case of Stephanie Riethmiller, which included corrective rape). Deprogramming and conversion therapy turned out to be the same thing.
It is legitimately funny when people like Steven Hassan think hypno porn is “weapons-grade mind control”. Yet there are many monstrous acts you can justify when you argue that people lack personal agency and need to be rescued.
