Cult Scare [Kindle Edition]

Kirsten Nielsen (Author)

 

Product Description

A true story, "Cult Scare" is a firsthand account of the shocking kidnapping of Kirsten Nielsen.

The year was 1976. Kirsten was a rebellious seventeen-year-old Californian who had just run away from home. She hit the road, hitchhiking across the country, looking for love and a place to belong. She found what she was looking for in a community in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Two years later in 1978, the infamous Jonestown mass suicide happened in Guyana. Mass hysteria and a "cult scare" analogous to the anti-Communist "Red Scare" of the previous generation began springing up everywhere.

In the late '70s, the method used by anti-cultists to "bust cults" was through deprogramming. Several members of the Chattanooga Community were violently seized from the peace of the community only to be harangued, harassed, threatened, and humiliated for adherence to their chosen religious beliefs. The most publicized deprogramming was that of Kirsten Nielsen in 1979, who at the age of 21 and on the day of the wedding of her twin sister, was kidnapped by her parents and associates of Ted Patrick, the notorious Cult Awareness Network deprogrammer.

This is Kirsten's story.


Note from Louise Ayr:
The book includes some other people's experiences of joining a community which they were happy to be with, and how some other people intevened, thinking it was in their best interests. It often cost a lot of money for "cult experts". Deprogramming from cults got a bad name partly because of this.

It is difficult to know how best to advise anyone who loses a family member to a cult-like organisation. Some cults are based on double-standards, and do not let members leave.

This book appears here because it shows a different viewpoint, not just the experiences of the main author Kirsten Nielson, but there are other accounts too. Internet links are provided for further information.

Prophets, Cults and Madness [Hardcover]

Anthony Stevens

Anthony Stevens

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Cult leaders inspire intense loyalty among their followers, yet they strike outsiders as loathsome. Why are there so many of them and why do they persist throughout history despite the fact that most cults disintegrate completely under the strain of their mad ideas? In this study of the thin partitions that separate cult leaders from full-blown schizophrenia, this book argues that the answer lies in our gene pool. The sexual charisma of schizotypal leaders - from Hitler, David Koresh and Jim Jones on the one side and Jesus on the other side of the spectrum - play a vital role when groups split and this is in turn vital for the survival of the species.

Feet of Clay: Study of Gurus [Paperback]

Anthony Storr

Anthony Storr

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Product Description

There are many reports of strange cults which enthral their followers and cut themselves off from the world. Invariably led by gurus, or "spiritual leaders", the fruit of these cults are mass suicides in the South American jungle or the self-immolation of hundreds in besieged fortresses. This study provides an examination of these men and women and of those who follow them. It takes as example some of those considered to be modern gurus - James Jones, David Koresh, the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, Gurdjieff and others - and establishes what each of them has in common. It then examines what they share with other gurus whose teachings are accepted or at least respected - Jung, Freud, Ignatius Loyola, Jesus himself - and finds some startling continuities.

 

About the Author

The editor, Anthony Storr, is a doctor, psychiatrist and analyst (trained in the school of C.G.) and author of 'Jung' (a Fontana Modern Master,1973) amongst many others.

Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults [Paperback]

Janja Lalich

Janja Lalich

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Heaven's Gate, a secretive group of celibate 'monks' awaiting pickup by a UFO, captured intense public attention in 1997 when its members committed collective suicide. As a way of understanding such perplexing events, many have seen those who join cults as needy, lost souls, unable to think for themselves. This book, a compelling look at the cult phenomenon written for a wide audience, dispels such simple formulations by explaining how normal, intelligent people can give up years of their lives - and sometimes their very lives - to groups and beliefs that appear bizarre and irrational. Looking closely at Heaven's Gate and at the Democratic Workers Party, a radical political group of the 1970s and 1980s, Janja Lalich gives us a rare insider's look at these two cults and advances a new theoretical framework that will reshape our understanding of those who join such groups.

Lalich's fascinating discussion includes her in-depth interviews with cult devotees as well as reflections gained from her own experience as a high-ranking member of the Democratic Workers Party. Incorporating classical sociological concepts such as 'charisma' and 'commitment' with more recent work on the social psychology of influence and control, she develops a new approach for understanding how charismatic cult leaders are able to dominate their devotees. She shows how members are led into a state of 'bounded choice', in which they make seemingly irrational decisions within a context that makes perfect sense to them and is, in fact, consistent with their highest aspirations. In addition to illuminating the cult phenomenon in the United States and around the world, this important book also addresses our pressing need to know more about the mentality of those true believers who take extreme or violent measures in the name of a cause.

 

About the Author

Janja Lalich is Assistant Professor of Sociology at California State University, Chico. She is coauthor of "Crazy" Therapies: What Are They? Do They Work? (1996) and Captive Hearts, Captive Minds: Freedom and Recovery from Cults and Abusive Relationships (1994).