Excerpts of Interview with Steven Hassan in DER SPIEGEL

Excerpts of an interview with Steven Hassan in DER SPIEGEL, found in CompuServe. I'll check monday to see ff the article is available in WWW.

costs: about $10,000 for a case in germany ($1500 a day for him, $200 - $500 per day for an ex-cultie to help, plus hotel and airline ticket). He says that he only takes one or two cases per month, after this he needs several days to rest. Sometimes, he does it for free.

how many: about 400 in 18 years, less that 12 stays in the cult.

how he works: he says he is not a deprogrammer. Those are people who kidnap culties and then humiliate them until they leave the cult. He prepares the intervention long before, talks with the parents, etc. He introduces himself as exit counselor or as a neighbour. The actual work is to recover what's left from the former identity of the cultie and to help it to come out.

impossible cases: no, only very difficult ones, like the scientologists, one of the most dangerous cults.

what the cults do: libeling him on TV, or visit his neighbours "did you know that a criminal lives in your house ?" or write him that he will die soon.

who could be caught by cults: people who have a lot of stress, travel a lot, get divorces, change their job. The cult members are trained to catch them. The people that are the easiest targets are those who think that cults are only for morons.

advice for parents without money: tell their cultie children that they are their parents and that they love them. Try to build a relationship.

Steven Hassan is author of "Combatting Cult Mind Control" (in german sold as "Ausbruch aus dem Bann der Sekten") and the most successful exit counselor.

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The magazine also has an article about Exit-Counseling in general, but
this has already been told here, so I leave it out. The only news is
that Jeanette Schweitzer is now an Exit-Counselor - she made newspaper
headlines a few years ago, when she blew the whistle about Gerhard Haag
(now living in Clearwater, FL), a scientologist who tried to infiltrate
the german steel industry. She was also the first person who told what
happened when a company is headed by a scientologist - it was not
amusing.








--- Tilman Hausherr       [Awards: KoX, DB, Koos "seal of approval"]

Praise Xenu, Mozilla and "Bob"! (and say "Hi" to Warren McShane !)