Religious Cults

Any work about the mercurial Aleister Crowley is better off being labeled a “story” than a “biography” thanks to the impossibility of being sure that anything one reads about him is true. The basic recorded facts, including birth date, educational records, and published works, are reliable indicators that can be likened to stars guiding a lost desert traveler if the sky is clear. For the rest, one is wandering in the wilderness.

What if the founding of America’s strangest religion didn’t start with divine revelation—but with a teenager, a magic rock, and some very suspicious dirt holes? Before the Revelation is the book your bishop hoped you’d never read: a blisteringly funny, unapologetically irreverent deep dive into the early life of Joseph Smith—the man who went from failed treasure hunter to prophet of the Restoration, one vision, one disappearing set of gold plates, and one highly choreographed angel encounter at a time. 🔥 Inside you’ll find: Seer stones in hats (yes, really) Family dreams that...

This audiobook compares Christianity with the false religions of the world today that are based on the accuracy of fulfilled Bible prophecy. No other religion has used prophecy fulfilled in our lifetime to prove its authority, except the Bible. With more than 50 prophecies fulfilled since AD 1948 and Jesus’ teaching that he is the only way to salvation, we can conclude that we must be a Christian to gain eternal life. Jesus declares you must follow his teachings in order to obtain eternal life.

Randall Balmer's Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory is an insightful and engaging journey into the world of conservative Christians in America. Originally published 25 years ago and the basis for an award-winning PBS documentary, this timely new edition arrives just as recent elections have left an ever-growing number of secular Americans wondering exactly how the other half thinks.

やさしく、やわらかく、面白く日本経済に警鐘を鳴らす本。ザイム真理教はいかにして生まれ、どう国民生活を破壊してきたのか？

Brian has always been a devoted father who cherished his children, encouraging them to live a life of freedom. Nothing had prepared either his scientologist daughter or himself for the devastating shock when the Church of Scientology prohibited her from ever speaking or seeing him again - something that has become common in this cult.

It’s 1970, and Jerry Walker is six years old. His consciousness revolves around being a member of a church whose beliefs he finds not only confusing but terrifying. Composed of a hodgepodge of requirements and restrictions—including a prohibition against doctors and hospitals—the underpinning tenet of Herbert W. Armstrong’s Worldwide Church of God was that its members were divinely chosen and all others would soon perish in rivers of flames.

This is the story of a Canadian woman who was in the Advanced Training Institute, run by Bill Gothard, for fourteen years. The amazing thing is that she never knew she was in a cult until several years after she was out. That's what happened to Christine in 2014. She has spent the past nine years trying to deprogram and change the way she sees the world. Join her as she navigates the cult, goes through a divorce, finds out she was in a cult and subsequently has to unlearn all she believed to be true.

At the age of six, Tim Guest was taken by his mother to a commune modeled on the teachings of the notorious Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Tim and his mother were given Sanskrit names, dressed entirely in orange, and encouraged to surrender themselves into their new family. In 1985, the movement collapsed amid allegations of mass poisonings, attempted murder, and tax evasion, and Yogesh was once again Tim. In this extraordinary memoir, Tim Guest chronicles the heartbreaking experience of being left alone on earth while his mother hunted heaven.

Discover a story of healing and personal transformation. Marlena’s childhood was full of contradictions. Her father was both a heroic doctor for people with leprosy and an abusive parent. Her Mennonite missionary community was both a devoted tribe and a controlling society. And Marlena longed to both be accepted in Paraguay and escape to somewhere new. In Nothing Bad Between Us, follow Marlena’s journey as she takes control of her life and learns to be her authentic self, scars and imperfections included.

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.

Osho responds here to a question relating to meditation, a space of "no-mind": "...meditation covers a very long pilgrimage. When I say 'meditation is witnessing', it is the beginning of meditation. And when I say 'meditation is no-mind', it is the completion of the pilgrimage. Witnessing is the beginning, and no-mind is the fulfillment. Witnessing is the method to reach the no-mind. Naturally you will feel witnessing is easier. It is close to you. But witnessing is only like seeds, and then is the long waiting period."

As an adult, Lauren Hough has had many identities: an airman in the U.S. Air Force, a cable guy, a bouncer at a gay club. As a child, however, she had none. Growing up as a member of the infamous cult The Children of God, Hough had her own self robbed from her. The cult took her all over the globe - to Germany, Japan, Texas, Chile - but it wasn't until she finally left for good that Lauren understood she could have a life beyond 'The Family'. Along the way, she's loaded up her car and started over, trading one life for the next.

Simon was a monk, a priest, and later an abbot. Finally, he was a consecrated bishop of the Eastern Church, ordained before he graduated from high school. He came from a Slavic background and acquired a wide knowledge of numerous foreign languages, such as French, Italian, Spanish, Slavonic, Greek, Latin, and Mandarin Chinese.

Daniel Allen Cox grew up with firm lines around what his religion considered unacceptable: celebrating birthdays and holidays, voting in elections, pursuing higher education, and other forays into independent thought. Their opposition to blood transfusions would have consequences for his mother, just as their stance on homosexuality would for him. But even years after whispers of his sexual orientation reached his congregation’s presiding elder, catalyzing his disassociation, the distinction between “in” and “out” isn’t always clear.

At the heart of being human is the desire to belong. It can make us unspeakably vulnerable to the manipulations of others. Cult leaders prey on this desire, but so do many unscrupulous operators hiding in plain sight. Sarah Steel, the creator of the popular 'Let's Talk About Sects' podcast, has researched the cults you've heard of—and dozens you haven't. What strikes her most are not the differences between bizarre cult behaviour and 'normal' behaviour but the depressing similarities. Her work reveals that we are all susceptible to the power of cult dynamics.

The year is 1970. The horror soap opera Dark Shadows is all the rage, the Vietnam War is raging and nine-year-old Katie, an imaginative and independent latch-key kid, comes home from school to discover her mother’s suicide. Taken in by her older sister who has recently become a Jehovah’s Witness, Katie is shown an illustration from a bible picture book featuring wild animals peacefully lounging by a pool of water, surrounded by happy people picking fruit. An enticing offer is made: “Katie, this is Paradise. Do you want to see Mom again, happy and living forever?

One of the most fascinating talks by Osho on meditation. We gain a deeper understanding and an actual experience about meditation by listening to this talk which brings us into a space of meditation. "Meditation is the very center of my whole effort. It is the very womb out of which you are going to be re-born. But it is very difficult to verbalize it. To say something about meditation is a contradiction in terms. It is something which you can have, which you can be, but by its very nature you cannot say what it is."

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.

Radhia’s personal story and comprehensive knowledge along with her authentic, and unfiltered humorous style presents a compelling portrayal of both the political and cultural dynamics of group-think and mind control. After 25 years of her adult life in a cult under the influence of a narcissistic sociopath, she sought to understand why she made the choices she made in her life, so she could better understand why others make their choices.