Ex-Mormons Ask Cult Expert Steven Hassan Questions. Eyes Get Teary. 

It’s that time of year again. I post my links and everyone totally runs to my side to aid and support this channel! ✦ Support this channel on Donor Box to keep the content coming weekly! donorbox.org/fund-and-keep-nuancehoe-content-alive ✦Support me on Patreon and come be my hoes. It would mean the world. www.patreon.com/nuancehoe ✦ Tip Jar (Venmo: CarahB): account.venmo.com/u/CarahB

I did the thought experiment as Steven Hassan said, I paused the video. I put myself in the temple, I ripped the temple clothing off, ran out of the temple crying and screaming, straight into the arms of my best friend waiting outside. I literally, physically reacted to this, I sobbed.

When I watched Turning Red (the Pixar movie) and the scene where she chose not to complete the ritual, but to be herself, I sobbed and sobbed...because that's not what happened to me. I promised not to be myself. I stayed. I shoved myself into the closet to stay there. And I don't know how to take it back now.

I love his face when you’re describing the ceremony 😂 even the cult expert is like WHAAAATTT 😂

I knew this was gonna be good so I got out my journal to take notes. (Ya know, like good old general conference style. Old habits are hard to break. 😆) I freaking am writing down about 90% of everything said…this is so good.

I agree with Dr. Hassan: there is a soul inside of us that doesn't want to be constrained. 🍂

I remember a voice screaming get out of here. But I just assumed it was Satan. That's the problem with believing your thoughts either come from God or Satan. You don't even know which thoughts belong to you. Also how can you separate mind and body. They are literally all connected. Very good point.

Steven Hassan is the GOAT. Glad to have him on your podcast. Wise choice!

The process of going back to early experiences and reframing it to claim your liberty is soooo real. I literally play these scenarios out when I’m cleaning. Or driving. Or whenever the come to mind. I’m talking OUT LOUD W INFLECTION AND SASSSSSS! It’s the BEST. REALLY enjoyed this!

This is marvelous. ❤ for anyone deconstructing or diving deeply or recovering, the work you are doing is profoundly nourishing. Thank you. ❤️✊🏼

The most interesting thing about this video is when Steve asked Cara and Kyle what they would do differently if they could go back in time to their endowment knowing what they know now and NEITHER of them could actually even understand the question. Guys, if I went back in time to the endowment knowing what I know now, I would have immediately walked out of the room. Like, NO WAY AM I DOING THAT. Even understanding all of the consequences, there's NO WAY IN HELL I'm doing that. I wonder why it was so hard for Kyle & Cara to understand what he was asking them to do? Even when Cara finally did give an answer it was her current self giving advice to her old self. You don't get the healing effect if you can't visualize yourself making the alternate choice.

So its not just a coincidence so many MLMs have mormon / ex mormon leadership ? Maybe another topic for another day.

Loved the thought experiment. I have thought a lot about what I wish I would have done during or after my experience. I wish I would have told the lady feeling me up to keep her hands to herself. I wish I would have rolled my eyes when I was given the veil and Eve apron. I wish I would have cracked up when I was chanting and said refused to cover my face. Finally, when I was given the super secret handshake to get into heaven, I would have said exactly what I was thinking, "You can't be serious." Made every excuse never to return to the temple, sadly, it took another 3 years before I threw those garments in the trash. Only regret is that I didn't do it the minute I walked out of the temple, and didn't talk to my friend who was with me and ask her that she can't be taking this seriously..

Thank you so much for that all of you! I've listened to all the interviews from the doctor over the past week and each of them have helped me to heal and gain insights, tools and so many things from to help me overcome the really dark experience I had in the Mormon cult. I was baptized at age 9 so kind of grew up but still treated different because even 9 yrs. Of not being there was a stigma. It has really helped me with all of this. ❤️

Kudos!👍🏻❤️ Indeed, it'll be great when all children, young adults, and adults are encouraged to: question ALL things, investigate, discern, scrutinze, and search for truth.

Thank you for taking the time and trouble to explain these matters in layman terms. I found your conversation very soothing and enlightening. I felt as though I kind of knew this already but hearing others cover the same issues is what is helping set me free from my own prison.

It almost sounds like EMDR therapy but you know I'm thankful for this and I can relate to this in domestic violence also with narcissistic abuse and everything else so thank you so much for sharing and I'm still working on my healing❤

I got to spend this past Sunday with Dr Hassan. What a rich treat. So wise and so insightful. Loved every minute. Will be getting into his books. ❤

Oh my gosh. I’m so grateful for this.

This was really great, thank you all!

Wait, this is the human who put the words to the B.I.T.E. Model?!?!?!?!

HOW DID YOU GET STEVEN HASSAN ON YOUR SHOW?!?! *psychology fan girl scream right now* So I have C-PTSD and one of the things with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is that you're also involving the idea that you can re-parent yourself. When Steven says "If you could go back to little you and you had the ideal mother and father suited to you..." that's exactly the kind of therapy that you'd experience. Having that ideal parent(s) and imagining what they would have done during a traumatic event when you weren't kept safe... All of that is beautiful! It really helps to rewire the brain. PTSD changes the brain physically and you will teach yourself coping skills where at the time they made sense because you were in survival mode. But once you're out of it, you have to re-learn how to cope with life outside of survival mode.

It's so frustrating. I have a lot in common with Carah when it comes to our parents. I just don't see a way to breach that barrier and have a rational discussion about why they focus so much on one method of obtaining information. What are they afraid of? If they turned the channel for a week or two, what damage would that realistically do to them? It's like an obsession, they need to know daily who they need to hate and fear. There's so much more to life!!

Are you telling me a MAN anointed you in the temple?… WTAF??!! I was anointed by a “sister”. Which is “right”? Lol. EFF THAT. Telling a Bishop my inner most thoughts at 8yo, in a room all alone with him, was enough. I told my mom right afterwards that I was choosing to never go in there alone again. I WAS 8! She honored that. Dude had to have been a creeper. I already believed I was smarter than him! Lol 💪🏼

Love Dr. Hassan! He has a heart of gold! Excellent book! Also, he has a podcast too! 😎🎻♥️

I didn't find out until I was an adult that my mother was ALMOST taken away by Scientologists in 1977 after her first difficult academic year was her freshman year in college. I was allowed to try and believe in God, but when it turned out that I didn't she was very anti mind control and now I understand why it was a passion for her. Edit: While Predators are often narcissists, I do believe that they pray on people w/other personality disorders, especially in the Cluster C & B ranges, to get the most out of their work.

This is fantastic! I’m utterly fascinated about how us humans can be mind controlled; both individually, and en-masse, and Steven’s explanations, and in-depth knowledge, are so insightful and educational. I’m actually going to watch this again!

Thanks for this Carah, I hope it helps people!

Hi I live near the Mormon Temple of Toronto which is not anywhere near Toronto. It's in another city. I grew up near The Mormon Temple when it was just being built. I've been invited a couple of times since then. Both times I felt preyed upon as very quickly people approached me to join MLMS since then. I've always declined to engage the missionaries from any religions. I always got mad when my mother paid a dollar or two for a magazine that was problematic. I've met so many missionaries now. I accidentally came across your work from the algorithm. The missionaries are young good looking but clearly uneducated and ignorant men. While they may have university degrees they need to be challenged. Thanks for giving me the tools to challenge them to hopefully challenge them from staying in this destructive cult masquerading as a religion.

Hassan's work is very important and helpful, but since he wasn't raised in a cult, he truly cannot understand that those of us raised since infancy in a cult never had the same kind of True Self that he was privileged to have. I think unless you've lived it--having never had autonomy and power or conscience choice, it is understandable he can't exactly get the lack of choice and autonomy that is very real for those raised in a cult.

Wow this was so intense in such a good way. I learned so much

Love Dr. Hassan and his work! Great video! I would encourage you both to go back and listen again to his instructions about re-scripting events in the past. You were both focusing on what you would*say* to your younger self. That's not the exercise. He's asking you to re-interpret the event from the POV of your younger self *with* your current day knowledge and perspective. It's a valuable exercise and I think you'll recognize the distinction between what he instructed and your interpretation 👍👍

It's great to see the rapport between you guys.

Wow! Very helpful. So glad I have found this.

As a manager, I have found that some people do not want to think for themselves, the want others to be responsible for the decisions being made. I think it could be one of the reasons why some people we find to be intelligent would follow along with the church, even though the slightest bit of critical thinking would probably challenge their testimony. It’s easy to go along with the cult. Your days are planned out for you, your friends are the people in your ward, and you just generally don’t have to make half of the decisions put in front of you. I think for some folks it’s just a place to belong. Lots of people need something to belong to. How many people here would go to a restaurant alone, or do a vacation alone? Some of my family members attend because it’s the one place they feel important. They wear a suit, they have a leadership position that they don’t have in their careers. I feel sad for these folks that can’t seem to feel comfortable in their own skin, or find happiness outside of the LDS cult. Keep up the good work!

Beautiful! I loved the advice and discussion of experiences.. I have just started my deconstruction journey and I cannot wait to figure out who I am and how to be more healthy!

This video is such a great resource! It’s really need to hear about culty Mormon issues from a academic expert.

Brilliant Interview. I learned so much. Thank you!

I'm like... So nerded out that you got him on your channel??? Haha this is amazing!!

I enjoyed the “disassociation” process, and I followed the instructions. Thanks for the helpful message. 👍🏽

Really great content! Thank you.

This is amazing!!!!!!! ❤

To apply the exercise in this video: I was raised mormon and I don't really regret my early childhood in the church but I would go back and change the moment I was 12 & with my mom at Desert Book. She was returning 'No Man Knows My History' & calling it Anti-Mormon lies. 😂 If a couple things had gone differently it would have saved me from 13 more years struggling to make the church work.

Gold. Thank you CB. ❤

Awesome collab 😍

Love the healing exercise suggestions!

Its so cool to see more peeps seeing you.

Oh wow. Karen Armstrong was my RE teacher at school in the seventies in London. So amazing to hear her name again. I was very lucky to go to a school with strong and progressive female teachers. Karen taught us about different religions and also we did ‘ethics’ including learning about topics such as abortion. I know later on she used to appear in Sunday religion/philosophy shows on TV.

Phobia “Where will you go? ! What will you do?” Brad Wilcox, te fearmonger

that was good! thank you

When I saw Kyle Bishop in the photo, I thought he was Kody from "Sister Wives."

If I were to do that thought experiment... I'm trying to think of a situation where it really mattered. Okay... In our cult, there was a holiday called the Feast of Unleavened Bread, taken from the Torah/Pentateuch. So we would refrain from eating anything with leaven (i.e. yeast) for a week. There was a time at a restaurant when the restaurant gave ice cream with cookies. Everyone politely took the cookies out and put them elsewhere. If I were the me of today, I would eat the cookie and just sit back and have my face like, "Go ahead. Ask me why I did."

It's interesting that we frequently use the examples of those that stayed vs those that left. We seldom recognize the hierarchy system that exists among those that stay in. Do the terms MORE righteous or MOST righteous strike a chord? If you pay 10% you are always behind those that pay 10.5%. If you attend the temple weekly there is someone doing it twice a week. And on, and on...

Well done!

Great interview. Thanks for using specific examples to explain everything.

Bring it OoOoooOoOoooOOn!

I just learned of an interesting, cultish practice: The 'breaking of the wand' - most recent I think was at Queen Elizabeth's funeral.

Excellent program, thank you so much. Btw Instagram link doesn't work.

Thanks!

I really enjoyed this. I have only seen your shorts...but I am committing to one video every day til i have fully watched your channel. My ex was a mormon. My family is in a different cult....Mexican catholicism. Lol. The hypocrisy, lies, secrets,, and need to be better than micheala and conchita at church, need to be pure, and 🎉considered a good catholic by the preist, (committing enough time volunteering, time in the women's groups praying, and money), and be considered as good as other women in your age group in the church, to feel worth...is insane. It us literally just beating yourself up to be worthy, or being scandalous to get ahead. That's it. That is catholicism, and most cults.

In my college social psychology class we had a cult expert come and discuss the aspects of a cult. I asked him how that differed from traditional religion and he hemmed and hawed and then said that traditional religions had been around long enough to be established. I then asked him if there were any other differences and after some more hesitation he finally, quietly, said no. So the difference between traditional religions and cults is how long they have been around.

I've paused at 42:43 having heard your hesitancy and feel like I can relate. My first time through the temple I don't think I could have said or done anything different with the knowledge that I have now, because it's only with that experience of the first time that I can know the things I've learned now.. but my second time I remember leaning over to the stranger next to me and asking her for help and I think I would have wanted to say instead what I really felt and so nearly asked, which would have been- this is weird right? and then I would have asked my grandma the questions I still would like to ask- if only I could be sure my revelation of leaving the church wouldn't send her to the grave. I went through the initiatory, endowment and sealing all the same day with my husband of a year without my children in 2015 and even getting there came with a pleading prayer that I could still be saved and that somehow I'd still be able to save my children. and I've tried desperately to live within that dissonance.. until about 6 months ago when I heard things again I wasn't previously able to understand and it all clicked. I fell down a rabbit hole and found my way out of wonderland... and now I'm in the thick of deconstructing and would be so lost without your videos and experience Carrah! (and soooo many others in the YT Exmormon space!)

lol Carah can't keep her hands still, i see you, fellow ADHD brain

Okay... I'm finally ready to watch my favorite YT people talking about my least favorite subject!

You’re so polite and sweet. :)

I have a very legitimate phobia of ketchup. Yes, the condiment. I'd love to take a closer look on what his view would be how to overcome

Went exactly twice. Only went back because I didn't believe the crap the first time. Didn't believe it the second time either. Trainload of horse manure.....

I didn't know the teacher from Ferris Bueller became a cult expert 🤔

Would you touch on the colonialistic practices of the church in other countries? Thank you for thi video is so good!!

Love your channel, but the sound quality on this episode needed improvement. Just fyi for future episodes❤

Oh yes that saying THAT YOU GOT FROM ME

excellent

Yes

Why did you Kyle and John all have such a hard time answering the question “what would you do if you went back in time with what you know now?” It’s almost like the brain can’t reckon with that question very easily, there’s some kind of block, which seems bizarre to me. Or maybe you were just all too quick to abstractify the question? Or maybe I’m just overthinking it and you didn’t get the specific ask right away

❤❤❤❤❤

Jeepers JHC 😝😅 answer his damn question @40:50. . . A very healing practice My answer: get me the fuck out of here!! This is nuts

Hey! You could have had Bednar teach you about mind control... 😂

Wow! They can't travel back and change their most cult like experience in the church!!! Thats interesting.

The Vallow/Daybell trial is not going to be broadcast because they (the church) do not want the strange beliefs out to the general public. These horrible people (Chad, Lori and her brother Alex) did take their beliefs to the extreme, but they definitely got their ideas from the LDS church teachings. There was so much talk about going to the temple and the Celestrial room etc.

I think if I could go back to my young self experiencing the temple for the first time, I wouldn’t leave lol I’d still go through it because I’m a curious person and would want to know. Afterwards I’d tell literally anyone who would listen about it and show them the garments and everything. Because one of the things I think is gross and harmful is that they don’t tell you what’ll happen. Then I’d throw the garments away and never go back to church. Although now that I say this I think I’d have a problem being in the temple and making the covenants. Because I won’t do any of the things they tell you to say. So maybe I’d have to leave. Then I could still tell people what I saw before those things happened, throw away the garments, stop going to church, and find people who did go through the temple and have since left so I can hear about the rest of the ceremony.

I have listened to many videos from other religions as well as Mormon Stories and as a nevermo Episcopalian, something i have only heard on the mormon related stories is the question of this religion being “true”. That specific word. True. Is that a word in the creeds or statements you say or answers you must give? Honest curiosity here. Those who typically wonder if you are buying their story (“lie”) are the ones most concerned about you believing they are telling the truth. But just the word “true” kind of reminds me of the “keep sweet” comment, a word drilled in I guess.

I wish your videos had portuguese close captions. I need to talk expand the many insights with my “neighbour” and the are all brazilians and hardly ever speak English. The automatic cc won’t do the job.

I’ll marry Kyle!

I need to start helping my kids heal from my crappie mothering. I violently wake up. I have thrown a pillow at a scared child and I have almost punch a different 1.... I told them to stand in the door way and wake me up AND THEN come in the room. Poor kids probably think the boogie monster is safer then mom.

This man looked like his brain just fried and he couldn't handle the information he just herd.

The more RU-vid videos I watch about this stuff the more the commercials are getting more ridiculous and creepy

I really would like to hear about Brigham Young. Was he true beliver or scammer like Smith?

I went thru the Mormon temple in the 1970's. Every since that, I've figured it's BS. I eventually married a TBM, thinking she'd be more faithful. And it's ok . No kink, tho. Enemy though I'm into that....

In south America (Brazil in my case) we have strong influence of african and native americans (understanding América as the entire continent). I grew up lds hearing that non Christians were evil, with direct contact with de devil. Imagine being a kid being taught that your on culture os dangerous. I am talking about my ancestors religion and way of life. The lds church refrexed the concept of colonization. We are talking about colonization as a proxies, right?

Ditch the music😁

Is nuanceho ever going to stop looking at herself and fixing her blouse, hair, posture etc as if we can't see her. LOL! Great episode! Steven brings up many good points on the thought processes, both conscious and unconscious . Lots of members of the church think critically and still believe. If you completely abandon God, it's easier to walk away, but if you do believe in God, one is hard pressed to find something, anything, better. I find it interesting that as people do leave, they feel the need or the compulsion to wear their identity on their sleeve. It's like going to AA, Hi I'm Cara and I'm an ex-Mormon. They spend an awful lot of time talking about it. I sincerely ask why not move on? Why not Hi, I'm Cara. I do get there are comments here from others feeling a connection to your experiences so may be that's the answer? Community bonding? I don't know.

Yup crying at the question he asked y’all

11:30 it’s called cognitive dissonance.

If I didn't know better I would think you were talking phobia irrational fear from the last three years 😅

My experience in the temple is memorable, purposeful, and helpful. Not the cult you describe at all. ❤

It is so easy to point fingers and say they are a cult. So what do you believe in God, in Jesus, in the Bible what??

What is that? The First token of the schlobby dobber doo Has it a name? It has Will you give it to me? I will through the veil….Scooby dooby doo.

I just wish he would have treated this like a conversation rather than a lecture. He goes on for so long and loses the thread most of the time.

Why to bill keeps popping up on my RU-vid page church is true and I really don’t care what y’all think.