Newsletter: Ringing in the New Year with Thanks for Your Support!
A fond look back before moving forward
We will resume our livestream this week at 2pm Eastern Time. Please feel free to bring your questions and comments!
As I look forward to the new year, I am filled with gratitude for all my subscribers who have been so kind in supporting my work. Your support has helped me further my efforts to educate the public about predatory manipulation, coercive control, and undue influence in all its forms. I also fondly remember the many wonderful and impressive guests I have had the pleasure of interviewing on my podcast.
As a special New Year’s salute to my past interviews, I’m pulling three of my most popular archived posts out from behind the paywall; so, today, these three posts are free for everyone’s enjoyment!
Deconstructing Christian Nationalist Upbringing, Alt-Right Doctrine, and Abusive Religious Parenting - my talk with songwriter Monte Mader, who left behind a restrictive childhood in a dominionist Christian church and has become an active voice in sharing her artistic talent and complex views to dispel widely believed radical Republican doctrine
The Much More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump - my talk with Dr. Bandy X. Lee, M.D., M.Div., exploring the psychological state of Donald Trump and his followers
A Billion Years: My Escape From a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology - my interview with ex-top leader in Scientology, Mike Rinder, who passed away from cancer and who is sorely missed
This past year also marked the passing of my friend and mentor, Dr. Robert Jay Lifton. My team and I have set up a memorial page for him and his remarkable work on my website, including a list of his books and a playlist of all the interviews I did with him.
Although we did not do our regularly scheduled livestream during the holiday weeks, I did manage to hop on to Substack live twice. If you missed them, you can check out my Thoughts on The Cult of Trump and 2026 and what is needed, and my New Year’s Eve Spontaneous Livestream.
I’m pleased to announce that the documentary ‘Cult of the Real Housewife,’ for which I was interviewed, is now available for streaming on HBO Max. It investigates allegations against Mary Cosby, a star from “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City,” focusing on claims of financial abuse and cult-like practices within her church, Faith Temple Pentecostal Church. You’ll find it a fascinating watch.
Propaganda and Communication
Last but certainly not least, in this week’s interview on my Cults, Culture & Coercion podcast, Propaganda and Algorithmically Driven Persuasive Communication, I talk with author and expert on authoritarianism, Alex Alvarová, about her experiences seeing how Russia used the 2013 presidential election in the Czech Republic as a trial run to perfect its hybrid-warfare aggression for altering the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. It’s a provocative and wide-ranging talk with deep implications for what is happening to our democracy today, and you won’t want to miss it!
Listen on Apple | Spotify | Watch on YouTube
Or read the full blog post version:
Propaganda and Algorithmically Driven Persuasive Communication
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!
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Thank you Dr. Hassan.