All episodes of The Michael Shermer Show

The Michael Shermer Show · 2026-03-31 · 77 min · 14,704 words

The Psychology of Gaslighting, Bullying, Cults, and Coercion

Listen to the original audio · Transcribed with NVIDIA Parakeet · Why times can differ in your player

So what is gaslighting? Take us through that movie since you opened your book with that. It's a great story. And then uh, you know, how where does it happen at work and school and wherever? So gaslighting back in the day when it entered into popular consciousness in the 40s and 50s was in this this Hollywood movie.

How do you think about, you know, abuse, uh, gaslighting and religion? I've been studying abuse culture and how it works. And you know, my answer to that would be, abuse culture is so boring. It's the most textbook thing on the planet. It has a playbook.

It doesn't matter if it's a church, an institution, a government, a dictatorship, a family, a school, it's the same. Sports, it's the sick. What about churches? I would say, what about them? It's this same pattern.

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