Religious Cults

One woman's experience with a destructive organization that manipulates and coerces members. This is the story of her journey towards recognizing the group's abusive practices, eventually leaving, and then learning how to replace their lies with the truth.

Tim Reiterman's Raven provides the seminal history of the Rev. Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and the murderous ordeal at Jonestown in 1978. This PEN Award-winning work explores the ideals gone wrong, the intrigue, and the grim realities behind the Peoples Temple and its implosion in the jungle of South America.

A satirical story/script that explores mass formation psychosis in relation to a "killer" virus that threatens to destroy all human life on the planet.

The shocking and subversive memoir of a 12-year-NXIVM-member-turned-whistleblower, and her inspiring true story of abuse, escape, and redemption. "Master, would you brand me? It would be an honor." Scarred follows actress Sarah Edmondson's account of her recruitment into the NXIVM cult, founded by Keith Raniere. It narrates in detail the 12 years she spent within the organization, during which she enrolled over 2,000 members, chronicling her breaking point and her harrowing fight to get out, help others, and heal.

Behind the tall, foreboding gates of a commune in Brazil, Daniella Mestyanek Young was raised in the religious cult The Children of God, also known as The Family, as the daughter of high-ranking members. Her great-grandmother donated land for one of The Family’s first communes in Texas. Her mother, at thirteen, was forced to marry the leader and served as his secretary for many years. Beholden to The Family’s strict rules, Daniella suffers physical, emotional, and sexual abuse—masked as godly discipline and divine love—and is forbidden from getting a traditional education.

Four years after his father died a hero's death fighting a fire, Tim Ginocchetti was behind bars for killing his mother. How one tragedy led to another is a true story that puts a horrifying twist on the familiar one of bullied gay teens. In this case, the bully was the teen's own mother, and instead of harming himself he killed her in a momentary but irreversible explosion of rage.

A stand-alone novel, 3rd in the Extinction series. We may survive the fires of heaven, but can we escape ourselves? No one knows that Liam Collins is an android. How could they? He’s completely human in every aspect and fully self-aware. Like many others, he has recently taken refuge in a subterranean enclave high in the Rocky Mountains. War and famine have ravaged mankind, but he’s safe for the moment, but that won’t last for long. A massive solar flare is about to consume the surface of the planet, and a new religion is rising that worships the cleansing fire that will purge the ...

Christianity believes every religion, faith and religious organization — aside from Christianity - is a cult. In actuality, by its very definition, every religion is a cult, including the religion — the cult - of Christianity. In his bold, yet controversial new book, The Cult of Christianity, Mike Williams takes on the religious dogmas, oral traditions, borrowed myths and outright lies that make up so much of what Christians believe, and from which they need to be freed.

“As Mercury dwelleth near the Sun, so I abide in the heart of my Lord. My feet run upon His errands and by my mouth are His words spoken.” Thus wrote Brother XII in the preface to The Three Truths, describing his role as the divinely-ordained agent of an ancient mystical Brotherhood known as the Great White Lodge. As the agent of this mysterious fraternity, Edward Arthur Wilson, aka Brother XII, a slight, soft-spoken former English sea-captain, embarked on a dramatic and sensational career that established him as one of the most fascinating figures in the history of modern religion. ...

One-on-one with Satan. A chilling and highly convincing account of possession and exorcism in modern America, hailed by NBC Radio as "one of the most stirring books on the contemporary scene."

In the early Roman Empire, as Christianity struggled to gain a foothold and survive in the polytheistic pool of Roman theology, its greatest rivals weren't the Caesars or the Roman aristocracy but rather the faith and devotion of the common Roman legionary. The faith of these men was centered on the god Mithras, who, they believed, led them to victory upon the field of battle and had done so for nearly four centuries.

Jim Valekis’ The Christian in the Cult: And How I Discovered Humanity in Christ uses the author’s life story to take us deep inside the culture of the Greek Orthodox Church, Herbert Armstrong’s Worldwide Church of God, and modern Evangelicalism. After journeying through three versions of “the only true church,” Valekis deftly invites his listeners to join him in his ongoing discovery of humanity in Christ and what it can mean for the church and the world.

Whether you're a Christian Scientist searching for answers, a former follower still struggling to let go of confusing teachings, or a friend or ministry partner hoping to better understand the grips of this false faith, this book can help you on your search for truth. In these ten intensely personal narratives, former Christian Scientists bravely recount their journey out of the religion and into authentic, biblical faith in Jesus Christ. Each chapter addresses a different theme, shining light on theological inconsistencies taught by Mary Baker Eddy in her book Science and Health with Key ...

In this immersive, spell-binding memoir, an acclaimed screenwriter tells the story of her childhood growing up with the infamous Lyman Family cult—and the complicated and unexpected pain of leaving the only home she’d ever known.

In the middle of the Ozzie and Harriet 1950s, the birth control pill became available and a maverick psychoanalytic institute, the Sullivan Institute for Research in Psychoanalysis, opened its doors in New York City. Its founders wanted to start a revolution, one grounded in ideals of creative expression, sexual liberation, and freedom from societal norms, and the revolution needed to begin at home.

Still Learning is India Oxenberg’s intimate, first-person account of how she was lured into and, seven years later, escaped from the NXIVM cult, DOS. As the secret sorority within NXIVM's vast Ponzi network, DOS was created by Keith Raniere and his acolytes to serve as a source of "slaves" to Keith and the other “masters”. Despite the fantastical headlines, the focus of Still Learning reflects what many parents and age peers of India’s will recognize as a far more familiar 20-something conundrum - a new adult trying to discover who she is.

For the first time in thirty years, more than a dozen former ATF agents who participated in the initial February 28, 1993, raid speak on the record about the poor decisions of their commanders that led to this deadly confrontation. Revelations in this book include why the FBI chose to end the siege with the use of CS gas; how both ATF and FBI officials tried and failed to cover up their agencies’ mistakes; where David Koresh plagiarized his infamous prophecies; and direct links between the Branch Davidian tragedy and the modern militia movement in America.

In the Shadow of Enlightenment is the gripping story of Carroll’s childhood inside the Osho Rajneesh cult—one of the most controversial spiritual movements of the 20th century. While in the commune, Sarito was submerged in a world where devotion and freedom clashed with manipulation, sexual misconduct, and neglect. This was the life she knew until the movement collapsed amid scandal and criminal charges in 1985, when sixteen-year-old Sarito was thrust into a society she knew little about.

In Cult Following, Ocker sheds light on the terrifying attraction of cults, demonstrating the elasticity of belief, the desperateness of belonging, and the tragedy of trust.

In 1993, David Koresh and a band of heavily armed evangelical Christians took on the might of the US government. A two-month siege of their compound in Waco, Texas, ended in a firefight that killed seventy-six, including twenty-five children. America is still picking up the pieces, and we still haven't heard the full story.