Joanne has too much class to tell you she
rocked at this year’s Sunstone Symposium.
I, having no such compunction, will
flat-out tell you. She rocked.
—Steve Cuno
Joanne’s as-told-to author
Joanne’s as-told-to author
| It was SRO—Standing Room Only—at Joanne Hanks’s presentation at this year’s Sunstone Symposium. The turnout surprised Joanne, who does not suffer from even the tiniest of delusions of self-importance. It is one of her many endearing traits. As for me, I am never surprised when she draws a crowd. If you attended, thank you, and I need hardly tell you that Joanne was engaging, entertaining, and informative. If you weren’t able to attend, not to worry: we are at work on recording the presentation so that we can post it to this site. |  Lousy photo from Steve’s iPhone, which was hanging upside-down from a fire sprinkler head. |
The symposium’s theme, “The Mormon Mind,” was an ideal fit. While Joanne enjoys sharing crazy beliefs and practices from her polygamist past, her real goal is to expose the dangers of cults and arm people against falling prey. “If my book leaves you at once amused and outraged, and on the lookout for how we dupe ourselves,” she writes on the bio page of this website, “I will have accomplished something worthwhile.”
The title of Joanne’s presentation was This Is Your Brain on a Cult. “I’m going to discuss what cults are, why people join them, and what we can do to protect against them,” she said in her opening remarks. Accordingly, after sharing tales of her former cult’s “nutty beliefs,” Joanne took on cultism itself. “It’s not beliefs that make a cult a cult,” she said “but certain behaviors, and how strictly those behaviors are practiced or enforced.” She shared six common cultish traits, followed by 11 ways people unwittingly set themselves up to become what she called “cult bait.”
I tried recording the presentation using my iPhone. From the lack of quality in the above screen grab, you can tell it didn’t work out too well. As I mentioned above, we’re going to post the slides with her comments on this website soon.
The title of Joanne’s presentation was This Is Your Brain on a Cult. “I’m going to discuss what cults are, why people join them, and what we can do to protect against them,” she said in her opening remarks. Accordingly, after sharing tales of her former cult’s “nutty beliefs,” Joanne took on cultism itself. “It’s not beliefs that make a cult a cult,” she said “but certain behaviors, and how strictly those behaviors are practiced or enforced.” She shared six common cultish traits, followed by 11 ways people unwittingly set themselves up to become what she called “cult bait.”
I tried recording the presentation using my iPhone. From the lack of quality in the above screen grab, you can tell it didn’t work out too well. As I mentioned above, we’re going to post the slides with her comments on this website soon.
—Steve Cuno
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