Religious Cults

William Branham was an influential Pentecostal minister of the mid-20th century who began a cult following known as The Message. This ground breaking book examines the history of The Message movement in the years after Branham's death.

As the adopted son of two cult leaders, Benjamin Risha was raised to someday assume a place of leadership in the Tony and Susan Alamo Christian Foundation with the Bible, and his parents’ interpretation of it, as his guide. He believed the prophecies of his adoptive mother and father. However, when none of it happened, and the foundation slid from bucolic communal lifestyle to insufferable criminality that included absolute obedience to the Alamos, Benjamin knew he had to escape.

Africa may have given rise to the first human beings, and Egypt probably gave rise to the first great civilizations, which continue to fascinate modern societies across the globe nearly 5,000 years later. From the Library and Lighthouse of Alexandria to the Great Pyramid at Giza, the Ancient Egyptians produced several wonders of the world, revolutionized architecture and construction, created some of the world’s first systems of mathematics and medicine, and established language and art that spread across the known world.

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.

Many have heard of NXIVM and its creator, Keith Raniere, the unassuming Albany man now prosecuted for ensnaring tens of thousands of people in the US, Mexico, Canada, and elsewhere to do his bidding and pay millions of dollars to participate in his self-improvement methodology. But where did Keith Raniere begin? Enter Toni Natalie, Keith's Patient Zero, the first one indoctrinated into Raniere's methodology and the first one to escape.

An indispensable guide, Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies connects the dots and sets the record straight on a host of greedy gurus and murderous messiahs, crepuscular cabals, and suspicious coincidences. Some topics are familiar - the Kennedy assassinations, the Bilderberg Group, the Illuminati, the People's Temple and Heaven's Gate - and some surprising, like Oulipo, a select group of intellectuals who created wild formulas for creating literary masterpieces, and the Chauffeurs, an 18th-century society of French home invaders, who set fire to their victims' feet.

Tom Cruise and John Travolta say the Church of Scientology is a force for good. Others disagree. Award-winning journalist John Sweeney investigated the Church for more than half a decade. During that time he was intimidated, spied on, and followed, and the results were spectacular: Sweeney lost his temper with the Church's spokesman on camera, and his infamous 'exploding tomato' clip was seen by millions around the world.

Something terrible has happened in the snowbound village of Kingdom Come, Wyoming, where 12 eerily identical houses stand dark and abandoned. Meals remain untouched on dining room tables, cars are still in garages, and the town's residents have vanished into thin air. This is the disturbing setting where vacationing medical examiner Maura Isles and her traveling companions find themselves trapped during a ferocious snowstorm.

Teenager Lucas Leonard made shocking admissions in front of the altar - he'd practiced witchcraft, conspired to murder his parents, and committed unspeakable crimes. The confessions earned him a brutal beating by a gang of angry church members, including his parents and sister. Lucas was brought to the hospital dead, awakening the sleepy community of Chadwicks, New York, to the horror that had been lurking next door. Nine members of Lucas' church would eventually find themselves facing murder-related charges. But how did they get to that point? And what made Lucas confess?

A sparklingly strange odyssey through the kaleidoscope of America's new spirituality: the cults, practices, high priests, and prophets of our supposedly post-religion age.

This is the story of a young man who was raised as a Jehovah's Witness, seemingly destined to spend the rest of his life following the instruction of God's "Spirit Directed Organization". He soon came to discover, however, that things were not as they had first seemed. Following a patch of doubt and subsequent in-depth investigation into the religion, the young man began to realize that the things he had previously accepted without question no longer made sense.

The Latter Rain Movement of the late 1940s and 1950s created a new breed of Pentecostalism that dramatically impacted Christianity in the United States, as well as many other countries around the world. Initially viewed as a movement by God, a number of well-respected men and women participated in the movement during its early years.

In 1971 Paulette Cooper wrote a scathing book about the Church of Scientology. Desperate to shut the book down, Scientology unleashed on her one of the most sinister personal campaigns the free world has ever known. The onslaught, which lasted years, ruined her life and drove her to the brink of suicide. The story of Paulette's terrifying ordeal is told in full for the first time in The Unbreakable Miss Lovely.

When Claire Hoffman's alcoholic father abandons his family, his desperate wife, Liz, tells five-year-old Claire and her seven-year-old brother, Stacey, that they are going to heaven - Iowa - to live in Maharishi's national headquarters for Heaven on Earth. For Claire's mother, Transcendental Meditation - the Maharishi's method of meditation and his approach to living the fullest possible life - was a salvo that promised world peace and enlightenment just as their family fell apart.

When he first met the man who called himself David Koresh, David Thibodeau was a drummer in a local a rock band. Though he had never been religious in the slightest, Thibodeau gradually became a follower and moved to the Branch Davidian compound in Waco. He remained there until April 19, 1993, when the compound was stormed and burned to the ground after a 51-day standoff with government authorities. In this compelling account - now with an updated epilogue that revisits remaining survivors - Thibodeau explores why so many people came to believe that Koresh was divinely inspired.

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.

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.

As a secular exorcist, Rachel H. Stavis has cleansed thousands of tormented people, from small children and Hollywood moguls to stay-at-home moms and politicians. But for many years, the horror screenwriter and novelist denied her gift. As a little girl, she began to see "monsters" floating around her bedroom or attached to other children. Told it was only her imagination, Rachel learned to ignore the things she saw. But a series of events in adulthood forced her to acknowledge her unique ability and embrace her power to heal.

An in-depth look into the creation of the post-WWII Healing Revival focusing on the historical perspective of William Marrion Branham, who has been credited by some as the evangelist who both initiated and led the movement. From his involvement with the Kardashian family in California to his politically-charged sermons supporting the revival of the Ku Klux Klan, William Branham lived a fascinating and unbelievable history connected to the collaboration, influence, and power of recognized public figures and events in American history.

In A Thousand Lives, the New York Times best-selling memoirist Julia Scheeres traces the fates of five individuals who followed Jim Jones to South America as they struggled to first build their paradise, and then survive it. Each went for different reasons - some were drawn to Jones for his progressive attitudes towards racial equality, others were dazzled by his claims to be a faith healer. But once in Guyana, Jones' drug addiction, mental decay, and sexual depredations quickly eroded the idealistic community.