Religious Cults

Evil in Our Midst provides a chilling glimpse of 50 dark angels, each of which represents a culture’s greatest fears. Every section opens with a story that shares the legend of a demon, and then offers fascinating information on the culture that, in many cases, perpetuates this belief. For those who believe in these creatures, this audiobook gives reason to fear the unknown. For those who do not believe in demons, it provides terrifying listen for a stormy night.

In the 1980s, Erika Bornman’s family join, and ultimately move to, KwaSizabantu, a Christian mission based in KwaZulu-Natal, which is touted as a nirvana, founded on egalitarian values. But something sinister lurks beneath ‘the place where people are helped’. Life at KwaSizabantu is hard. Christianity is used to justify harsh punishments, and congregants are forced to repent for their sins. Threats of physical violence ensure adherence to stringent rules. Parents are pitted against children. Friendships are discouraged.

For decades, Asaram Bapu presided over a politically influential empire built on blind faith. Along with his son and heir, Narayan Sai, he has now become an example of everything that is wrong with self-styled godmen and the cults they spawn. God of Sin pieces together Asaram's journey to spiritual godhood, his fall from grace, and the long and arduous road to bring him to justice.

Kidnapped by a cult of religious fanatics, an Austin school bus driver and 11 of his young charges have been held underground at the group's highly fortified compound for 46 days. While a team of federal negotiators begins to lose all hope of rescuing the hostages, crime reporter Molly Cates sets out to discover everything she can about the cult's iron-willed leader, Samuel Mordecai.

These gruesome stories have peppered the pages of newspapers and history books over the centuries. Some are well-known. Some aren’t. They rest in that murky place between true crime and horror. All will make your blood run cold.

Sir David the Bard, or David, was an ex-temple worker for the Mormon church. Being an active member for 50 years, he married six times and bore 13 children while completing nearly two masters' degrees at BYU. This is a compilation of his rants, raves, funny stories, and crazy experiences being an ex-Mormon in a totally dominant Mormon society. His views may seem unbelievable, but they are actually true and really happened to him.

Raised by powerful women in a restrictive, sheltered Christian community in New England, Ryan Dostie never imagined herself on the front lines of a war halfway around the world. But then a conversation with an Army recruiter in high school changes the course of her life. Hired as a linguist, she quickly has to find a space for herself in the testosterone-filled world of the Army barracks, and has been holding her own until the unthinkable happens: she is raped by a fellow soldier. Struggling with PTSD and commanders who don't trust her story, Dostie finds herself....

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.

Understandably, most people struggle with irrational fear at the mere mention of supernatural beings and concepts, including witches and ghosts based on what is portrayed about them in folklore, movies, scientific journals, fiction books, classical and contemporary art, and TV programs. But you’d be surprised by how much people’s minds are changed when they actually study the world of ghosts, witches and supernatural beings in general and gain insight.

Misery loves company and the Magus is miserable. His demise, compromises all those around him or attached to him. He drags them all down by his own death sentence. It's his alone; yet, but by the sheer weight of his height held in the Order, all below will end beyond mend. His sentence fences in all who stray his way. He makes you sign your soul away. Back in the day, every member of that cult come Order is initiated in almost the same way. Upon completion of the initiation ceremony, the initiate is surprised by the sudden presentation of a black book: crooked like a nook on whoever partook.

Investigators and Central Florida residents were horrified when 16-year-old vampire cult leader Rod Ferrell was arrested and charged with bludgeoning a cult member's parents. When they realized the slain couple's 15-year-old daughter was missing, they feared she was a victim, too. Detectives and journalists swarming over three states soon uncovered a web of blood-drinking occult rituals, illicit sex, wildly dysfunctional families, and spiritual warfare.

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.

God Bless America lifts the veil on strange and unusual religious beliefs and practices in the modern-day United States. Do Satanists really sacrifice babies? Do exorcisms involve swearing and spinning heads? Are the Amish allowed to drive cars and use computers? Offering a close look at snake handling, new age spirituality, Santeria spells, and satanic rituals, this book offers more than mere armchair research.

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?

All that Pearl knows can be encapsulated in one word: seed. It is the isolated community that she was born into. It is the land that she sows and reaps. It is the center of her family and everything that means home. And it is all kept under the watchful eye of Papa S.

Stephen Mansfield, the acclaimed New York Times best-selling author, has highlighted the growing popularity of Mormonism—a belief system with cultic roots—and the implications of its critical rise. Mormons are moving into the spotlight in pop culture, politics, sports, and entertainment via presidential candidates like Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman, media personality Glenn Beck, mega-bestselling Twilight author Stephenie Meyer, and The Book of Mormon, the hottest show on Broadway.

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 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 book came out of a life-changing episode of "perfect storm" dimensions. As a 65-year-old man, life as I had known it became a force-10 gale. My career had crashed, my marriage of 27 years had ended suddenly, and I was nearly broke. AA was no longer the help it had been for me - no longer the flotation device or life preserver tossed to a victim who had washed overboard. Instead, it offered virtually no solutions at all - because I had finally outgrown it - and according to AA, you're not supposed to do that.

You say that love and hate are one; but I see more hate in the world than love. At the same time, you say that enlightenment is neither love nor hate. Are you speaking of two different qualities of love? How does this fit with your message of love?