September 11, 2025: Robert Jay Lifton (1926-2025) on Cults and Apocalyptic Violence

Bookwaves/Artwaves is produced and hosted by Richard Wolinsky. Links to assorted local theater & book venues   Robert Jay Lifton (1926-2025), “Destroying the World to Save It,” 1999 Robert Jay Lifton, who died on September 4, 2025 at the age of 99., was a psychiatrist and author who studied the psychological causes and effects of wars and political violence. In the 1960s, he was part of a group that applied psychology and psychoanalysis to the study of history. By the 1980s and 1990s, he’d began exploring the survivors of atrocities and war in such books as The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide, and moved on to the study of cults and what he called “totalism,” a term for the characteristics of ideological movements and organizations that desire total control over human behavior and thought. At the time of his death, he’d written or co-authored 23 books. On November, 2, 1999, Richard A. Lupoff and Richard Wolinsky had the opportunity to speak with Robert Jay Lifton about his book, Destroying the World To Save It: Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence, and the New Global Terrorism, which focuses on the Japanese Cult that released sarin nerve bas into the Tokyo Subway System. While the interview serves as a time capsule for pre-9/11 America and the world, it also gives insight into the present day and how we’e gotten from there to here. Regarding Donald Trump, in Losing Reality: On Cults, Cultism, and the Mindset of Political and Religious Zealotry, published in 2019, Dr, Lifton wrote this: “Donald Trump is a special kind of cultist. He is in no way totalistic—his beliefs can be remarkably fluid—nor is he the leader of a sealed-off cultic community. Rather, his cultism is inseparable from his solipsistic reality.A considerable portion of his base can be understood as cultist, as followers of a guru who is teacher, guide, and master. From my studies of cults and cultlike behavior, I recognize this aspect of Trump’s relationship to his followers, Trump does not directly express an apocalyptic narrative, but his presence has an apocalyptic aura. He tells us that, as not only a “genius” but a “very stable genius,” he alone can “fix” the terrible problems of our society. To be sure these are bizarre expressions of his extreme grandiosity, but also of a man who would be a savior to a disintegrating world.” This interview was digitized, remastered and edited in September 2025 by Richard Wolinsky and is heard in its entirety for the first time.   Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (1942-2025)  was an award-winning horror and fantasy writer who died at the age of 82 on August 31st, 2025. She is best known for her series featuring a vampire hero, Count Saint-Germain, which began with the novel Hotel Transylvania, which was published in 1978. These are excerpts from an undated interview that was likely recorded in late 1978 or early 1979.   Review of “Eureka Day”  at Marin Theatre extended through September 28, 2025. The post September 11, 2025: Robert Jay Lifton (1926-2025) on Cults and Apocalyptic Violence appeared first on KPFA.