Cults, Culture & Coercion with Dr. Steve Hassan Podcast By MeidasTouch Network Dr. Steven Hassan cover art

Cults, Culture & Coercion with Dr. Steve Hassan

Cults, Culture & Coercion with Dr. Steve Hassan

By: MeidasTouch Network Dr. Steven Hassan
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Steven Hassan, PhD, is one of the leading experts on cults and undue influence in the world. A former member of the right-wing Moonie cult, Hassan was deprogrammed 45 years ago and has dedicated his life to helping people out of cults and destructive situations. Dr. Hassan is a licensed mental health professional and has written four books, including The Cult of Trump and the seminal book Combating Cult Mind Control. On this podcast, Steve will explain HOW mind-control works, and how to protect yourself from its grips. He will also address ethical influence as the podcast will address the entire Influence Continuum. He’ll interview the biggest names in this field.© 2023 Meidas Media Network, Dr. Steven Hassan Personal Development Personal Success Social Sciences
Episodes
  • The Olive Leaf Network: Public Testimony to the Parliament of Victoria on Children in Cults and High-demand Religious Groups with Psychologist Maria Esguerra

    The Olive Leaf Network: Public Testimony to the Parliament of Victoria on Children in Cults and High-demand Religious Groups with Psychologist Maria Esguerra
    Apr 20 2026
    As the United States remains stalled on full disclosure and holding Epstein file perpetrators accountable, the Parliament of Victoria, Australia, has launched an inquiry into the recruitment methods and societal impacts of cults and organized fringe groups. Maria Esguerra is one of the directors of The Olive Leaf Network who testified and presented a written submission at the public hearing of this inquiry in November 2025, alongside her co-directors Mirriam Francis and Dani Sorensen. Maria is a Queensland-based registered psychologist with over 15 years of experience working with people with disabilities. Bringing her professional expertise as well as personal insight from being a Second-Generation Adult (SGA) cult survivor, she is a leading voice for those harmed by high-control groups in Australia, as well as her global advocacy. Maria was born into and raised in the Children of God cult, one of the most abusive cults. The cult rebranded as “The Family” (one of numerous cults calling themselves this). She escaped at age 22 with her two young children. The Core Argument stated in The Olive Leaf Network’s written submission to the Parliament of Victoria inquiry, titled Children in Cults, is “Children in high-demand groups are victims of systemic coercive control”, not “recruits.” They are captives placed into systems of abuse by manipulated caregivers.” This leads to their Central Thesis statement, “The fundamental rights and safety of a child must supersede the claimed religious freedoms of any group or parent.” In our discussion, Maria emphasized, “My care is always for the most marginalized and the victims.” She noted the unique importance of focusing on the survivors, especially in SGA conversations, versus empathizing with adults who may have brought these children into the cult for a variety of reasons.In our discussion, Maria noted the importance of not remaining neutral in the face of harm against children, as “it’s important to look at the impact over the intent.” I agreed and noted that, while I was coerced into certain modes of thinking during my time in the Moonies, I would still expect to be held accountable for any criminal behavior committed during that time. Maria cautioned against protecting perpetrators or people who have harmed children or destroyed their lives. She noted that in addition to the mental, physical, or sexual abuses that children may experience during their time in a cult, they may lack even the most basic paperwork to document citizenship or necessary identification later. “We’re not talking about the same thing here. We’re not talking about an adult being coerced into something and having sort of a psychological moral injury, versus a child who’s had serious crimes,” she said. “Just because you are sort of coerced into it doesn’t negate the harm of that person,” she later followed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 2 mins
  • American Dominion: The Rise and Radicalization of a New Christendom with Keri Ladner, PhD

    American Dominion: The Rise and Radicalization of a New Christendom with Keri Ladner, PhD
    Apr 13 2026
    Tracing the roots of Christian Nationalism and the New Apostolic Reformation is no longer a fringe concern. It has become one of the most urgent forces reshaping American political life, and most people still do not understand where it came from, how it operates, or what it ultimately wants. Keri Ladner, PhD, does. A scholar of fundamentalist politics, she has spent years tracing the theological roots of movements like the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) and documenting how they moved from the margins of American religious life into the centers of government and policy. Her new book, American Dominion: The Rise and Radicalization of a New Christendom (Bloomsbury Academic, official release April 16, 2026), offers one of the most carefully researched accounts yet of how we arrived at this moment. Keri has been a guest on this podcast before. In our first conversation, we explored her 2024 book End-Time Politics: From the Moral Majority to QAnon, tracing the ideological line from Jerry Falwell through the movements that helped bring Donald Trump to power. I encourage you to listen to that episode. In this second conversation, we went deeper: into the theological architecture behind the New Apostolic Reformation, the manipulation of faith healing, the alleged sexual abuse inside NAR-affiliated churches, and what the so-called Seven Mountain Mandate has to do with your children's school curriculum. Why “Christendom” and Not “Christianity” One of the first things Keri established was her word choice in the title of American Dominion. She did not write “Christianity.” She wrote “Christendom,” and the distinction matters. “When we're talking about Christendom, we're really talking about power structures,” she told me. “The term has historically been used to describe the Church-State relations in Europe, particularly medieval Europe. What I'm trying to show is that we are looking at an age of very heightened Church-State relations, to the point that the church is pursuing a level of power that we have not seen really since the Middle Ages.” This is not a story about religion. It is a story about control. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 3 mins
  • Holy Disobedience: Sex, Sin, and Secrets in the Biggest Church No One Knows with Melissa Duge Spiers

    Holy Disobedience: Sex, Sin, and Secrets in the Biggest Church No One Knows with Melissa Duge Spiers
    Apr 6 2026
    Melissa Duge Spiers was raised as a several generations Seventh-day Adventist. It wasn’t until years later, when she discovered information about her father, who had been both a youth pastor within the Adventist church and a Loma Linda-educated doctor, that Melissa would be called to deconstruct her entire relationship with the organization. “In my early middle age, I found out that my father, during his youth Co-founded by Ellen G. White, who claimed to possess the power of prophecy, the Seventh-day Adventist Church often emphasizes annihilationism (a belief in the Judgment Day) and the second coming of Christ. “Basically, it is at heart an end times cult still,” Melissa said, “It is severely high control in so many ways. And a lot of what they think makes them special, the true remnant, etc., is based on Ellen White, and it’s not biblical.” Melissa noted the strict focus on a “great fear of sex” in the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s founding. “That was one of the biggest control things, and purity culture, of course, is a control thing. But some of Ellen White’s first writings were admonitions for mothers on preventing masturbation in children, in babies, and I know that was sort of a Victorian obsession, you know, very puritanical,” she said. Melissa also noted the association with John Harvey Kellogg and the Battle Creek Sanitarium, which was founded by the Adventists. Of Kellogg, she related, “He was big into the health message, which, of course, Ellen White carried on. But his huge obsession was preventing sex and lust … He himself never had sex his entire life. He was married, but never had children, never consummated the marriage. He was even obsessed with preventing masturbation, or anything like lust itself was the big sin, and so you just had to shut that down no matter what.” She also noted his theories that a high fiber diet, like that found in Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, would supposedly help prevent sexual impulses. To this day, many Adventists choose vegetarian diets largely based on White’s visions of the proper way to eat. Once Melissa was able to reconcile some of her own trauma around finding out about her father’s past, she noted the patterns of abuse cover-ups within the church. “This is an organization that does this. They are practiced at this. This is what they do. And so, I started speaking out on social media,” she said. It’s at this point that more abuse victims began to contact her. “At first, I just started saying I was raised in this really weird religion, and people started talking to me, and my DMs would fill up every day. I was abused. I was abused. I was abused. And so, I started interviewing survivors, and I started telling their stories,” she said. After accumulating lists of survivors, she had helped start a mass tort lawsuit through the law group Pintas & Mullins. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    55 mins
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