Religious Cults

Born into the Church of Immortal Consciousness, Danny Rensch spent his childhood navigating the isolated confines of a cult. Despite psychological manipulation, physical abuse, and neglect, he persevered. An international chess master and world-class commentator, Rensch's remarkable journey led him to being the face of Chess.com, one of the largest online gaming platforms in the world. With unflinching honesty, Rensch recounts his life, starting from the moment he discovered chess in the summer of 1995, all the way up to being at the center of the most explosive cheating scandal in history.

🔥 They call me a rebel. A traitor. A threat to their perfect world. But I’ll show them what real danger looks like. On Halcyon, questioning the faith isn’t just forbidden—it’s deadly. Now I’m paying the price for a crime I didn’t commit, sentenced to the kind of “reintegration” that breaks minds and buries souls. But I’d rather take my chances with the sharks than spend another second as their prisoner. So I jump. When the icy water drags me down, I think it’s over—until a stranger pulls me from the depths. He’s dark and dangerous, with secrets swirling in his ...

Imagine a place where you are accepted and loved, where there is complete honesty and transparency, where you can be yourself and no longer have to strive to be someone else. Envision a safe haven where you could live in perfect peace and have everything you needed and wanted. That was the dream - the hope - that Trinity Foundation offered and that we naively believed. I Can’t Hear God Anymore is an inspiring and instructive example of how normal people caught in the skillful manipulations of an abusive cult can find their way back to spiritual and psychological health.

Harrison Mooney was born to a West African mother and adopted as an infant by a white evangelical family. Growing up as a Black child, Harry’s racial identity is mocked and derided, while at the same time he is made to participate in the fervour of his family’s revivalist church. Confused and crushed by fundamentalist dogma and consistently abused for his colour, Harry must transition from child to young adult while navigating and surviving zealotry, paranoia and prejudice.

It's an exciting new suspense trilogy about a cult! Three women fight against the Sanctuary of the Prophet in three separate stories. She Lied - Kara King was asked by the Sanctuary eight years earlier to set up a journalist, Jim Hollis, due to his negative articles about the prophet. Because of what she did, he served seven years in prison and now wants justice. He wants her to tell the truth. A Suitable Pawn - Rachel King is asked to help the Sanctuary bring a wayward parishioner, Donovan Boomer back into the fold. He's a millionaire and they want his money. With his help she finds out a ...

🔥 Escape was just the beginning. Welcome to Halcyon—paradise in name, prison in truth. They preach faith and purity, but the only thing holy about this place is how well they hide their lies. I washed up here, accused of crimes I didn’t commit, and now I’m trapped on an island where desire is a sin—and questioning the rules makes you a target. Connor wasn’t supposed to be part of the plan. With his dangerous eyes and rebel grin, he’s everything I shouldn’t want—and exactly who I need. He says we can take down the people in power. He says freedom is within reach. But every...

One woman’s search for affirmation and significance trapped her and caused her to lose everything of value in her life. Deceived by Scientology, mysticism, and years in a toxic and restrictive cult, she lost her marriage, relationships, home, her publishing company, and her reputation. In this candid and heartfelt memoir, Athena’s Dean Holtz tells how her eyes were opened and how God restored all that had been lost, and gave her the desires of her heart, including a loving, godly husband.

This book is the second in a series. It's a continuation of the best of the best true stories about Sir David, as he prefers to be called. His stories are very funny, interesting, and captivating - mostly about the Mormon church and its crazy ways, history, and beliefs, as well as his experiences being both in and out of the church, having resigned twice. He has been married six times and raised 14 children; most of them are still LDS and have rejected him because he resigned.

This audiobook will document the rise to power of the most notorious cult leader of all time. Jim Jones was directly responsible for the deaths of over 900 of his followers. Many of them children. The story of the Jonestown is one of betrayed hope. Jones offered poor and needed people a promised land and in return for giving him their resources and trust, he took their lives.

In 1994, 14-year-old Stefanie Hinrichs dreamed of owning a horse, leaving school and marrying Keanu Reeves. But God had other plans for the teenager. Her family belonged to a controversial Doomsday cult led by self-proclaimed Messiah William Kamm, also known as the 'Little Pebble', who was building a new promised land for his followers deep in the Australian bush. Stefanie was forced to become the false prophet's child bride - one of 84 mystical spouses chosen by the Lord to bear 27 children for his new heavenly dynasty.

Google “Scientology,” and you’ll find of books vilifying or lionizing the practice. Former members, current members, investigative reporters; many people have their hat in the “I am an expert on this subject!” ring. Nathan Timmel is no expert; he’s just a man who has had a couple brushes with the practice and wanted to share his tale. In 1991—with no Internet available to quickly look up the practice made famous by Tom Cruise and John Travolta—a person needed hands on experiences to determine whether or not a religion was for them. Nathan and a couple of his college friends ...

Jim Jones convinced his 1000 followers they would all have to commit suicide since he was going to die. Shoko Asahara convinced his followers to release a weapon of mass destruction, the deadly sarin gas, on a Tokyo subway. These are a few of the doomsday cults examined in this audiobook by best-selling author Alan R. Warren. Its focus is on cults whose destructive behavior was due in large part to their apocalyptic beliefs or doomsday movements. This audiobook examines how a social movement grows into a full religion and when it does not.

One of the first books ever published to objectively study the life and work of Franklin Jones, also known as Bubba Free John, Da Free John, Adi Da, an infamous cult leader who attracted both devotees and detractors. Contains original essays by Professor Scott Lowe (University of Wisconsin) and Professor David Lane (Mt. San Antonio College).

次は、どこだ?なぜ人は眉を顰められながらも、カルトにひかれるのか? 2022年7月8日に起こった安倍晋三元首相の狙撃殺害事件以来、改めて旧統一教会(現・世界平和統一家庭連合)をはじめとする…

Cassie True returns from her grandmother’s funeral to a warm welcome by the rehab program staff and participants—and condemnation from the cult leaders. Furious that Cassie slipped through their fingers, the leaders have no sympathy for her loss or the injuries she sustained in an accident. When they learn Corban Dahlstrom helped Cassie escape, their fury escalates and they pressure Cassie to confess sins she didn’t commit. At the same time, the head leader’s son becomes more aggressive in his pursuit of Cassie. Then the unthinkable happens, and she has to choose. Does she focus her...

How did Charles Manson inspire his 'family' to launch a campaign of murder? What twisted ideology lay behind horrific events like the Waco Siege, Aum Shinrikyo's poison-gas attack on the Tokyo metro and the mass suicides and murders of Jonestown? Why did the suicidal adherents of Heaven's Gate believe doomsday was at hand? How did the idealistic commune of Rajneeshpuram collapse into shocking controversies, involving biological terrorism and attempted murder? The shocking truth about some of the most disturbing criminal cults that have ever existed are discussed in this audiobook.

"Time is that in which we live - it is horizontal. It is from A to B to C to D; it is in a line. Eternity is vertical. It is not from A to B and from B to C. It is from A to more A to still more A. It goes on upwards. The moment is rare because it happens only when meditation has reached ripening, maturity, when you have touched your innermost core." The vertical line opens a door to eternity.

Faith Jones was raised to be part of an elite army preparing for the End Times. Isolated on a farm in Macau, she practised devotions and read letters of prophecy written by her grandfather, the leader of the now infamous cult The Children of God. A direct decedent of the founding family, Faith featured in international media coverage - she was celebrated as extraordinary and then published doubly as a sharp reminder that she was not. With indomitable grit, Faith created a world of her own, pilfering books and educating herself in secret.

At a new age festival in Byron Bay, journalist Anke Richter is finding her spiritual awakening when she meets a woman - a survivor of the Auckland cult Centrepoint - who will change the course of her life and career. Over the next ten years, Anke pursues a labyrinthine investigation into how and why cults attract, entrap and destroy otherwise ordinary people, asking what the line is between tribe and cult, participant and perpetrator, seduction and sexual abuse.

In this poignant and disturbing memoir of lost innocence, coercion, survival, and healing, Dianne Lake chronicles her years with Charles Manson, revealing for the first time how she became the youngest member of his Family and offering new insights into one of the 20th century's most notorious criminals and life as one of his 'girls'.