Steve Hassan has tarnished his credibility as a cult expert. Go to cultnews.com and read Steve Hassan, the BITE model and Donald Trump. People went to rallies the way fans go to a concert. That’s not a cult. No one is bullied into giving money to Trump. No one is “fair-gamed” for leaving the Republican Party. Do you folks care about cult victims or just want to spin self-righteous political messages? I’m truly disappointed in Hassan, who seemed like a significant authority to me before he went down this Trump road.

I think this is remarkable TV and the much younger Steven is brilliant. You can see how he’s changed over the years but he ROCKS

It should be noted that these videos come from Linda Method’s YouTube channel, and she appears in the clips and is equally brilliant!

Richard, that may be what you got, but Hubbard hinted at bein godlike if not god, and a lot of his followers have certainly deified him to one extent or another. In particular, he claimed to be the reincarnation of Buddha:

“Am I Mettayya?” Hymn of Asia

“And what we have just talked about in terms of knowing the way to Knowingness, is very, very closely associated here with Buddha, or Lord Buddha, or Gautama Buddha, or the Blessed One, or the Enlightened one.” Phoenix Lectures

In 1974, Hymn of Asia was published as a hardcover book and from accounts, distributed and promoted to burnish Hubbard’s virtual deification.

“Maitreya (Sanskrit) or Metteyya (Pali) is regarded as a future Buddha of this world in Buddhist eschatology. … According to Buddhist tradition, Maitreya is a bodhisattva who will appear on Earth in the future, achieve complete enlightenment, and teach the pure dharma.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maitreya

I like this stuff

I could not agree with you more. It’s why I always refer people to The Social Dilemma doc. It explains this nuttiness that has engulfed the country.

Mike, my withdrawal is not meant to be a criticism of how you administer the blog or even that the post had that book in it. It is that political discourse leads to childish crap from both sides of the spectrum. I am politically a registered Independent, and generally politically moderate, and the discharges between opposite political poles here, as seemingly everywhere these days, is just stupid to me.

We had a moment there, but I have basically stopped anything further as I know people don’t want to read this here. Unfortunately, the guest on our podcast had written a book and some just can’t let something like that go…

A post containing about 30 words is too long? That’s cute.

You absolutely read it; you just didn’t like it.