Snapping: America's Epidemic of Sudden Personality Change     Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman
J.B. Lippencott Company, Philadelphia and New York, 1978.
ISBN: 0-397-01258-6
LC: 698.2.C66
LCCN: 78-6627
Dewey: 155.25 C767s
Interesting, and makes some good points. The authors concentrate on the psychological phenomenon of "snapping" — sudden, dramatic personality changes accompanied by hallucinatory or unreal or otherworldly experiences and feelings, which are often called "religious experiences" (like Bill Wilson called his). The authors build up a theoretical foundation for the phenomenon, and then they do a good job of exploring how a variety of cults induce and use snapping experiences to convert people into true believer cult members. They also describe the array of mind-control techniques used on the victims of Scientology, the Moonies' Unification Church, the Love Family, Transcendental Meditation, the Hari Krishnas, Charles Manson, and the Symbionese Liberation Army (who kidnapped and converted Patricia Hearst), to induce such conversion experiences. Unfortunately, the authors deal with this "snapping" phenomenon in a very inconsistent way — they regard it as bad when a cult uses snapping to flip somebody out and make him into a cult member, but they praise the use of the technique when a deprogrammer uses it to "deprogram" a cult member and "snap" a cult member "out of it" (and convert the young person into whatever the paying parents wish...)
      I have a major disagreement with the authors over their praise of Ted Patrick ("Black Lightning") the deprogrammer, whose methods were brutal and sadistic, and who was, in my opinion, just a vicious brainwasher for hire, someone who was hired by the parents of young cult members to reverse program their kids' minds.
      The authors praised Patrick as the only man with a working system to deprogram cult members, which was simply not true at all.
      They reported that Patrick would do things like cut the ponytails off of Hari Krishna members, an assault on their persons that served no purpose but to torment and humiliate Patrick's victims, but the authors rationalized such behavior by saying that the victim's parents had given their permission for Patrick to do it. (As if the parents had such a right.)
      And, "On occasion, Patrick told us, he may thrust a battling cult member into a chair or against a wall, not to harm the individual, he insisted, but simply to demonstrate his capacity to match his opponent's strength and determination. During deprogramming, however, Patrick has no qualms about employing a variety of shock tactics designed to jar his subjects out of their otherwise impenetrable bliss" See page 66.
      So the authors glossed over Patrick's violent abuse of his subjects (but the courts did not).
      The authors were basically blind to Patrick's real methods. They wrote: "As far as we could see, Patrick's clients showed no scars, either physical or mental, from their deprogramming experience. Almost without exception, they seemed to be healthy, happy, fully rehabilitated, and completely free of the effects of cult life." (See page 69.)
      (Fully rehabilitated? That is quite a euphemism.)
      What studies have been done of Ted Patrick's work have shown that he left his victims in an even more traumatized and mentally-damaged state than the cults did. Far too many of his subjects were left traumatized, numb, and in shock, with bad cases of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), sometimes for months or years, like one victim who spent the next year just staring out of her bedroom window after Ted Patrick brutally "fixed" her mind.
      Experience has shown that the best way to deprogram cult members is to let them come out of it themselves, which they almost always eventually do. Now that the cult scare is over, and we have had 30 years to see what happens with cults, we can see that most all of the cults suffered from very high drop-out rates. Eventually, the kids do learn that the phony guru really is a phony and a criminal, and become disillusioned with him all on their own, without having a brutal drill sergeant to torture and "deprogram" them.
      I cannot overlook the fact that Ted Patrick was a big black guy who seems to have thoroughly enjoyed beating up on wimpy white kids, and he even got paid by their stupid parents for doing it. He was just another con man, and a very cruel one at that. Ted Patrick got out of the deprogramming business when the criminal charges of kidnapping, false imprisonment, and assault piled up, and he started serving hard time in prison, and he also started losing large civil lawsuits filed by his victims, as well.
Eventually, Ted Patrick was convicted on felony charges of kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment, and sentenced to a year in prison. See the Wikipedia web page on Ted Patrick, here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Patrick
And note that Wikipedia does not allow really harsh or vicious attacks on people — they call that an "attack page" and delete it. One of the editors of the Wiki page on Ted Patrick said this on the "talk page" about the Ted Patrick page:

The truth is that this guy is an intellectually deficient, morally corrupt, speech impedimented organized crime boss who preyed on the fears and wallets of scared families. People would literally mortgage their houses to pay exorbitant fees to Patrick and other blood suckers like him. I personally know two people that had large amounts of money stolen (each) by these vampires (not Patrick in those cases). I also personally know someone who was "deprogrammed" by Teddy himself, and was force fed meat and was aggressively sexually "enticed" by a prostitute hired by Patrick for that purpose. The deprogramming was unsuccessful.

But we can't say all that on Wikipedia. My "dim-witted, inarticulate wack job" comment was quite mild. ZipaDeeDooDa (talk) 03:28, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

      Thank goodness you didn't say all that on Wikipedia. :-) Rumiton (talk) 07:55, 20 December 2007 (UTC) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ted_Patrick

The False Messiahs     Jack Gratus
Taplinger Publishing Company, New York, 1976.
ISBN: 0-8008-2588-8
LCCN: 75-29890
Dewey: 291 G768f
Covers the earlier cults; that is, before the 'sixties and 'seventies. Much earlier, like 307 BC to 1921. The last chapter describes Charles Manson, and just mentions David Berg's Children of God cult, the Moonies, and a few other modern frauds.

Rogue Messiahs: Tales of Self-Proclaimed Saviors     Colin Wilson
Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Charlottesville, VA, 2000.
ISBN: 1-57174-175-5
LCCN: 99-91473
Dewey: 291.61 W747r 2000
Covers 25 false prophets who have arisen over the last 300 years, including Vernon Howell ("David Koresh"), Jim Jones, Ervil LeBaron, and Paul Brunton.

Feet of Clay; Saints, Sinners, and Madmen: A Study of Gurus     Anthony Storr
The Free Press, New York and London, 1996.
ISBN: 0-684-82818-9
LC: BL72.S76 1996
LCCN: 96-11884
Dewey: 291.61 S886f
Covers the psychology of both the guru and the follower, as exemplified by a dozen modern characters like Rajneesh, David Koresh, Jung, Steiner, Gurdjieff, and others. Explores our need for certitude, and desire for a simple universe. Fascinating. Well researched and documented.

Understanding Cults and New Religions     Irving Hexham & Karla Poewe
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, MI. 1986.
ISBN: 0-8028-0170-6
Dewey: 299 H614u

Combatting Cult Mind Control     Steven Hassan, 1988.
Park Street Press, One Park Street, Rochester, Vermont, 05767
ISBN: 0-89281-243-5
Dewey: 291.0973 H353c
This one is good. It is one of the fairest and most balanced of the anti-cult books that came out in the 'eighties. It also does not recommend the use of forceful abductions and reverse-brainwashing "deprogramming" that gave exit counselors a bad name.

Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves     Steve Hassan
Freedom of Mind Press, Somerville, MA, 2000
ISBN: 0-9670688-0-0
LC: BP603.H37 2000
LCCN: 99-68918
Dewey: 291 H353r 2000 or 305.62999
This is good. This is the kind of book you want to have if you discover that a friend or relative has gotten sucked into a cult, and you want to know how to get them back alive.
Quotes: here and here and here.

Steve Hassan's web site: http://www.FreedomOfMind.com

The Cult Movement     Joan Johnson
Franklin Watts, New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, 1984.
ISBN: 0-531-04767-9
Dewey: 291.0973 J0h
LC: BL2525.J64 1984
This is easy reading, interesting, a gives a quick, fair, over-view of the nature of cults. Unfortunately, she just gives deprogrammers like Ted Patrick a quick nod of approval, without mentioning the negative side of deprogramming, which is that too many deprogrammers are nothing but vicious bullies who practice "brainwashing for the other side" — just grab the kids, and brainwash them into believing whatever the paying parents want them to believe, instead of what the cult has brainwashed them into believing. That can cause a lot of psychological damage.

My Father's Guru     Jeffrey Masson
Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, New York, 1993.
ISBN: 0-201-56778-4
Dewey: 291 B911m
This is the story of another phony guru, Paul Brunton. The viewpoint of the author is unusual: Jeffrey Masson was a child in the Masson household while the "guru" lived with and free-loaded on the Masson family. In other words, Brunton was the guru of Jeffrey Masson's father. Young Jeffrey was also the spiritual heir apparent of the guru, but Jeffrey decided that Brunton was a fake, and decided not to follow in the "guru's" footsteps.

Against Therapy; Emotional Tyranny and the Myth of Psychological Healing     Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
Atheneum, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1988.
ISBN: 0-689-11929-1
LC: RC437.5.M38 1988
Dewey: 616.89
LCCN: 88-3509
Excellent. Recommended. Exposes the sordid, unethical roots of psychotherapy. Masson makes it clear that in his opinion, the scandals that he exposes are not just flukes or exceptional cases, but rather that psychotherapy is inherently corrupt. After describing the horrendous physical, psychological and sexual abuse to which a Dr. Rosen subjected his patients, Masson asked,

The point of this book is to raise precisely this question: Is Rosen an exception, or is there something about psychotherapy, something in the very nature of psychotherapy, that tends toward such abuses? Are these abuses or simply the use that is made of psychotherapy? A prison warden, a slaveholder, and a psychotherapist have in common the desire to control another person. (The analogy may appear inexact, for the person in therapy, many believe, is free to leave or quit. I don't believe this is true, though it would require a discussion of the concept of "informed consent." Nevertheless, the parallels are striking. We know for a fact that many slaveholders thought of themselves as kindly and argued that slaves were lucky to have them as masters, for others would be worse. Medical doctors at Auschwitz argued that if they didn't do what they did, others would do it more brutally. People who participate in causing suffering to others often employ this argument.)
(Page 147.)

The Tyranny of the Group,     Andrew Malcolm, M.D.
Littlefield, Adams & Co., Totowa, New Jersey, 1975.
ISBN 0-8226-0294-6
LC: HM134.M33 1975
Dewey: 301.11
LCCN: 75-1278

Mainstream Cults, Cardigan.
http://www.bee.net/cardigan/attic/021399.htm

On the Psychology of Spiritual Movements,     http://www.xs4all.nl
or:
http://www.nedstat.nl

The Gospel Time Bomb, Ultrafundamentalism and the Future of America     Lowell D. Streiker
Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY. 1984.
ISBN: 0-87975-259-9
Dewey: 291.0973 S915g
Quote here.

Mind Bending, Brainwashing, Cults, and Deprogramming in the '80's     Lowell D. Streiker
Doubleday & Company, Garden City, New York, 1984.
ISBN: 0-385-19275-4
Dewey: 291 S915m

Cults In Our Midst, The Hidden Menace In Our Everyday Lives     Margaret Thaler Singer with Janja Lalich
Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco, 1995.
ISBN: 0-7879-0051-6
LC: BP503.S56
Dewey: 291.9 S617c
This book is very good. It gives lots of good general background information on cults, and particularly exposes, in the chapter "Intruding into the Workplace", how some cults have insinuated themselves into the very fabric of our society, like how Werner Erhard's est hoax morphed into The Landmark Forum (and similar organizations) and sold "motivation enhancement seminars" to corporate America.
(I wish she had paid a lot more attention to the grandchildren of Synanon, the abusive "confrontational attack therapy" drug-and-alcohol rehabilitation programs like The Seed and Straight, Inc., and the children's boot camps today, and how they have insinuated themselves into the fabric of our society, and pass off their fascist torture of children as beneficial to America...)

I just have one bone to pick with her. She says on page 97 that Alcoholics Anonymous is not a cult, because

• A.A. does not recruit deceptively.
• A.A. does not hide what membership eventually will entail. (Also, see "Teaspoons, Not Buckets".)
• Members can leave at any point.
• A.A. focuses on helping people grow, while cults use their members to promote the growth of the cult and increase the cult leader's power and wealth.

In addition, in her earlier book, "Crazy Therapies", which criticized various fad therapies of the nineteen-sixties through the -eighties, she warned of some common characteristics of fraudulent treatments:

• The "Procrustean Bed" — an all-purpose diagnosis that can be stretched to fit any problem. That's A.A. and its Twelve Steps, which are the snake-oil that will cure anything.
• "Unrealistic Expectations". That's A.A. again, which teaches that a 12-Step panacea — listing and confessing your sins, and feeling powerless and guilty about everything — will fix alcoholism, keep you from drinking, remove all of your sins, and give you Sobriety, Recovery, Serenity, Gratitude, and even "Spirituality". Also see The Promises for more unrealistic expectations.
• "Unexplained Workings" — the promoter cannot explain the theoretical basis of the treatment or its purported successes. That's A.A. yet again. There is no medical or scientific explanation for how the 12 steps are supposed to cure or treat alcoholism, or make alcoholics stop drinking. It's all vague hand-waving and claims that God will really like you and you will become "spiritual" if you do Bill Wilson's 12 steps, so then God will do a bunch of favors for you, like make you quit drinking and solve all of your problems for you.

Crazy Therapies; What are They? Do They Work?     Margaret Thaler Singer and Janja Lalich
Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco, 1996
ISBN: 0-7879-0278-0 (alk. paper)
LC: RC480.515.S56 1996
LCCN: 96-16107
Dewey: 616.89'14—dc20 or 616.8914 S6175c
Quite good. Describes and criticizes various fad therapies which were popular from the nineteen-sixties and through the -eighties.

Take Back Your Life; Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships, Janja Lalich and Madeline Tobias
Bay Tree Publishing, Berkeley, California, 2006.
LC: BP603.T62 2006
Dewey: 362.2—dc22
Another anti-cult book from Janja Lalich. Good. Unfortunately, Prof. Margaret Thaler Singer has died, but Lalich is still continuing the good work with a new collaboration. This book is loaded with valuable information on how to deprogram and free yourself. Recommmended. Here is a sample:

Frequently, at gatherings of former cult members, a lively exchange takes place when participants compare their respective groups and leaders. As people begin to describe their special, enlightened, and unique leader — whether a pastor, therapist, political leader, teacher, lover, or swami — those present are often surprised to learn that their once-revered leaders are actually quite similar in temperament and personality. It seems as if those leaders come from a common mold, sometimes light-heartedly called the "Cookie-Cutter Messiah School."
Take Back Your Life; Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships, Janja Lalich and Madeline Tobias.

The Wrong Way Home, Uncovering the Patterns of Cult Behavior in American Society     Arthur J. Deikman, M.D.
Beacon Press, Boston, MA, 1990.
ISBN: 0-8070-2914-9
LC: BL2525.D55 1990
Dewey: 302.3—dc20 or 302.3 D327w
      Fascinating. Recommended. Exposes how cult-like behavior and attitudes permeate a lot of our institutions, including our churches, corporations, and government. Dr. Deikman was on a Congressional committee that studied cults after the Jonestown mass suicide and the murder of Congressman Leo J. Ryan, and one of the disturbing facts that he noticed was: The question of whether any particular group is a cult is not a black-or-white, yes-or-no, question. It's all shades of gray, and many of our organizations, institutions, and government agencies exhibit cultish behavior to some extent or other. This book is useful on two levels: First, it describes cults and cultish behavior in a clear and concise way. And secondly, it finds that cultish behavior, to varying degrees, in many of our common institutions.
      Deikman saw cults as pushing extreme degrees of these four behaviors:

• Compliance with the group,
• Dependence on a leader,
• Devaluing the outsider, and
• Avoiding dissent.

Soul Snatchers, The Mechanics of Cults     Jean-Marie Abgrall
Algora Publishing, New York, 2000.
ISBN: 1-892941-04-X
Dewey: 291.9 A147s
Just what it says: "the mechanics of cults." Covers mental manipulation, the guru, how cults are organized, recruitment, coercive persuasion, psychic conditioning, physical conditioning (like sleep-, nutrition-, and sensory- deprivation), and mental pathologies pre-dating the cult. Lots of good information.

Cult Controversies, The Societal Response to the New Religious Movements     James A. Beckford
Tavistock Publications, London and New York, 1985.
ISBN: 0-422-79630-1 (hardcover), ISBN: 0-422-79640-9 (paperback).
Dewey: 291.0973 B396c
LC: BL98.B4 1985 291
LCCN: 84-26833
A sociological and psychological study of the phenomenon.

Mystics and Messiahs, Cults and New Religions in American History     Philip Jenkins
Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York, and others, 2000.
ISBN: 0-19-512744-7
Dewey: 200.973 J52m 2000

The Jung Cult, Origins of a Charismatic Movement     Richard Noll
Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. 1994.
ISBN: 0-691-03724-8
Dewey: 150.1954 N793j

The Aryan Christ: The Secret Life of Carl Jung     Richard Noll
Random House, New York, 1997.
ISBN: 0-679-44945-0
LC: BF109.J8N24 1997
LCCN: 96-51605
Dewey: 150.19'54'092—dc21 or 150.1954 N793a
A fascinating biography of Carl Jung. Scholarly, heavily documented, and interesting nevertheless. I came to the conclusion that Carl Jung was a lunatic who foisted pseudo-science on the world, as well as being a fascist, a racist, and a Nazi sympathizer.
Quotes here, and discusssed here.

Encyclopedic Handbook of Cults in America     J. Gordon Melton
Garland Publishing Inc., New York & London, 1986.
ISBN: 0-8240-9036-5
LC: BL2525.M45 1986
LCCN: 83-48227
Dewey: 291.0973 M528e
This book is indeed encyclopedic in organization, but not in size. See The New Believers by David Barrett for a real encyclopedia. Still, it covers a dozen old, established cults, and 15 new ones. And the chapter on the anti-cult movement is good. Most authors miss the fact that the "anti-cult movement", as exemplified by Ted Patrick — the "Black Lightning" deprogrammer — and his assistants, was just another vicious, coercive brainwashing cult, too. Patrick just brainwashed kids "the other way", for the paying parents... That has pretty much ended, due to lawsuits and criminal kidnapping charges. (See "Snapping".)

The New Believers; A Survey of Sects, Cults, and Alternative Religions     David V. Barrett
Cassell & Co., Wellington House, London, 2001.
ISBN: 0-304-35592-5
Dewey 291 B27n 2001
Huge, encyclopedic, 544 pages of small type. If you want one reference book about every cult in the world, this is it. Covers both the cults, and the phenomenon of cults, starting with the question, "What is an alternative religion, and what is a cult?"

The Concise Encyclopedia of Living Faiths     R.C. Zaehner, Ed.
Beacon Press, Boston, 1959.
Dewey: 290 Z17c
Not nearly as encyclopedic as the one above. This book is about large, mainstream faiths, rather than cults.

The Kingdom of the Cults     Walter Martin
Bethany House Publishers, Minneapolis, MN 55438, 1965, 1985.
1965 edition: ISBN: 0-87123-300-2, LCCN: 64-22840
1985 edition: ISBN: 0-87123-796-2
LC: BL80.2.M289 1985
LCCN: 85-7410
Dewey: 291.0973 M383k or (sugg.) 291.9
This is an encyclopedia of cults from a Christian believer's point of view. (Of course the 1965 edition does not cover the new cults that started up in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The 1985 edition does cover many of them.) Much of the criticism of cults is based on how they depart from standard Christian theology. For example, the author faults Transcendental Meditation like this:

Jesus Christ. TM ignores Jesus Christ almost totally, although Maharishi teaches that anyone can become as enlightened as Jesus Christ through the application of TM techniques. It is clear from his neglect of Jesus Christ and from his world view that he does not consider Jesus Christ to be the unique Son of God, God manifest in the flesh.
(page 363.)

Blind Faith; Recognizing and Recovering From Dysfunctional Religious Groups     Kay Marie Porterfield, M.A.
CompCare Publishers, Minneapolis, MN 55447, 1993.
ISBN: 0-89638-291-5
Dewey: 291.4'2—dc20 or 291.0973 P849b
LC: BP603.P67 1993
LCCN: 92-39636
An interesting and informative general overview of religious cults.

In Search of Heaven on Earth     Rachel Storm
Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd, 2 Soho Square, London W1V 5DE, 1991
ISBN: 0-7475-0550-0
Dewey: 299.93 S885i

Cults of Unreason     Dr. Christopher Evans
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, New York, 1973
ISBN: 0-374-13324-7
LCCN: 73-87694
Dewey: 290 E92c
Interesting, good. Covers a variety of subjects from very ancient cults to modern ones, from religious cults to pseudo-scientific ones like the flying saucer cults and Scientology.

Longing For The End; A History Of Millenialism In Western Civilization     Frederic J. Baumgartner
St. Martin's Press, New York, NY, 1999.
ISBN: 0-312-21092-2
LC: BT891.B38 1999
Dewey: 236.9—dc21 or 236.9 B348L 1999
From the Jesus Cult to Charles Manson. Includes Jehovah's Witnesses, Jim Jones and Jonestown, and the Solar Temple.

Cults in America; Programmed for Paradise     Willa Appel
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1983.
ISBN: 0-03-054836-5
LC: BL2530.U6A66 1983
LCCN: 82-15538
Dewey: 291.0973 A646c
Good. A more scientific description of the phenomenon of cults than most other books supply. Includes chapters on

• Who Joins Cults
• The First Steps of Indoctrination
• Breaking the Will
• The Physiology of Brainwashing
• Getting Out

The Cult Around the Corner; A Handbook on Dealing with Other People's Religions     Nancy O'Meara and Stan Koehler
Foundation for Religious Freedom International, Los Angeles, 2003.
ISBN: 1-928575-10-2
LC: BL640.T65 2002
Dewey: 291.1772 or 200.973 O55c 2002
A very small book (86 pages) that contains a lot of good, common-sense advice on how to deal with cults and a loved one who has joined one. Basically adopts a tolerant, 'let them work it out' attitude. The authors recognize the fact that most bad cults suffer from very high drop-out rates without any outside help. Most cult members eventually wise up and vote with their feet — they walk out. Some of the best advice: "Never pay money to anyone to get a loved one out of a cult. Kidnapping is a felony. Never pay for deprogramming. You won't find anyone who isn't a criminal who will do a deprogramming today." (Pages 43-45.)

Religious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America     Robert S. Ellwood, Jr.
Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1973.
ISBN: 0-13-773317-8; 0-13-773309-7 (pbk.)
Dewey: 290 E47r
— This one is fun, a real smorgas-bord of nuts and fruits, from the flying-saucer people to the Satan-worshippers.

The Confusion of Tongues, A Review of Modern Isms     Charles W. Ferguson
Doubleday, Doran, & Company, Inc., Garden City, NY, 1928
Dewey: 289 F35
Fascinating; this book covers a lot of groups and cults seldom heard of today, like the "Dukhobors" or "Russellism". The chapter on the Ku Klux Klan as a dogmatic, cultish religion is thought-provoking. This book only covers the early period of the Oxford Group Movement, up to 1927.

American Saints & Seers; American-Born Religions & the Genius Behind Them     Edward Rice
Four Winds Press, New York, 1982.
ISBN: 0-590-07581-0
Dewey: 291.9 R495a
LC: BR516.5.R53
LCCN: 81-15293
Describes many churches that have been founded in America: Shakers, Mormons, Christian Science, Adventists, Pentecostals, 'American Indian' Religions, Muslims, and others.

Church of Lies     Flora Jessop and Paul T. Brown
Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint (www.josseybass.com), San Francisco, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-7879-9462-4
LC: BX8645.C48 2009
Dewey: 289.3'3—dc22 or 306.8423 JES
This is the story of a young woman who escaped from the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, the cult of Warren Jeffs, and then devoted her life to rescuing other girls. The FLDS believes in polygamy, and they routinely rape underage girls, forcing them into marriages with old men, where the girls may be the fourth or sixth wife of some church elder. This book presents a great example of an extreme cult. The cult teachings border on the unbelievable: "Women are not allowed to have lawyers." "Women are not allowed to disobey men, who are all members of the priesthood." The teachings on sex were: "Sex is for procreation only. If she is enjoying the sex, you aren't doing it right." Eventually, the leader of the cult, Warren Jeffs, was convicted of aiding and abetting rape, and will probably spend the rest of his life in jail. The cult, however, is still doing just fine. They are now solidly established in Utah, Arizona, Texas, and Canada.

The Camino; A Journey of the Spirit     Shirley MacLaine
Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, New York and London, 2000.
ISBN: 0-7434-0072-0
LC: PN2287.M18 A3 2000
Dewey: 791.43'028'092—dc21
All kinds of interesting stuff about "channelling" and communicating with spirits. This book is just the kind of thing for Steppers who are doing their Eleventh Step, and "making conscious contact with God."

Going Within; A Guide for Inner Transformation     Shirley MacLaine
Bantam Books, New York, 1989.
ISBN: 0-553-05367-1
LC: BF1031.M342 1989
LCCN: 88-47942
More spiritual guidance from Ms. MacLaine.

Fake It Til You Make It!     Phil Kerns
Victory Press, Carlton, Oregon 97111, 1982.
ISBN: 0-9609908-0-1
LC: HD9999.S742K4 1982
      An interesting exposé of Amway as a commercial cult, coming from a Christian viewpoint. The author calls Amway a modern Baal. (The author is himself a very interesting person — he survived Jim Jones' People's Temple cult, although some of his other family members did not — and he wrote a book about that too, "People's Temple, People's Tomb".)
The title of this book — "Fake It Til You Make It!" — is an Amway slogan. It is also a common Alcoholics Anonymous slogan, which is not a coincidence. Both cults exhort people to pretend that they are successful when they are not, and "act as if" the cult's program is working great, in order to deceive the newcomers and make them believe that the program is really working for everybody who works the program. Such behavior also helps to retain the current members who are wavering and thinking of leaving the organization.
      Kerns shows that the average Amway distributor actually loses a few hundred dollars per year by working as a distributor. The average distributor makes several hundred dollars per year in commissions from selling soap and other Amway products, but he spends more than that on "motivational" books, tapes, rally tickets and other such "sales tools". (Which is easy to do at $280 per ticket and $70 for a set of tapes, and then there are incidental expenses like travel, lodging, and food.) (Page 117.)
      Kerns also criticized the cultish behavior that he saw: blind obedience of upline leaders' orders, demands for total commitment, suppression of dissent, devaluing the outsider, obsession with 'the program', hyper-emotionalism, brainwashing/mind-control techniques used, and grossly distorting Biblical teachings to make it sound like Amway is a Christian organization.
      Kerns also does the math and shows how it is impossible for the majority of the rank and file Amway distributors to get rich: Amway's total profits in 1982 were estimated to be $350 million. But there were one million Amway distributors that year. Even if Amway Corporation were to distribute ALL of its profits to the distributors and keep nothing for itself (unlikely), that would still only give the distributors $350 each. Or Amway could manufacture 350 new millionaires and give nothing to the other 999,650 distributors. (Pages 112-114.) But no way can everybody get rich, no matter how hard they "work the program".
      In addition, the largest amount that any Amway distributor ever made in one year was $416,000. But at Amway distributors' rallies, top distributors were declared to be making fantastic amounts of money, like $70 million per year. How could that be? Easy. By selling large quantities of motivational books, tapes, and rally tickets to the rank and file Amway distributors all over the country. (Page 85.)
      Easy, good reading.
      Quotes: here

CULTS: Faith, Healing, and Coercion     Marc Galanter
Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York, Toronto, Melbourne, and more.
First edition, 1989. ISBN: 0-19-505631-0 hardcover
Second edition, 1999. ISBN: 0-19-512369-7 hardcover; ISBN: 0-19-512370-0 pbk.
LC: BP603.G35 1989
LCCN: 88-25277
Dewey: 291.6 G146c or 291.019—dc19
A real mixed bag of good and bad. Galanter's basic assumption is that cults are bad, but A.A. is a good cult. See a detailed book review here.

Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why     Bart D. Ehrman
Harper Collins Books, New York, 2005.
ISBN: 0060738170 (cloth)
ISBN: 9780060738174
LCCN: 2005046326
This is not a book about a cult. It is, rather, a scholarly study of how the Christian Bible was written, and rewritten, and changed, over the years, and who did it. The author is far from a skeptic; he is a professor of theology, and Chairman of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in the heart of the Bible Belt. He is one of those rare souls who knows the truth about the Bible and early Christianity, and who will tell the truth — and without grinding an ax for some particular sect, or coming off as a fundamentalist.
The author reveals some stunning facts, like that there are so many variations and differences in the existing historical fragments of the Bible that there are actually more possible versions of the Bible than there are words in the Bible.
This book is thus very impressive, and important to anyone wanting to know the truth about a lot of erroneous doctrines. What is especially appalling is how many Bible-beating fundamentalist churches pick out a few lines of the Bible and emphasize them and base their entire theology on their interpretation of those lines, when in fact the lines are erroneous, or fraudulent inserts or changes, done by some well-meaning fool who thought that he would "correct errors" and fix things.
Strongly recommended for anyone who wants a better understanding of the history of the Bible, or who wants to know what the Bible really says, or did once say.

Synanon:

Escape From Utopia: My Ten Years in Synanon     William F. Olin
Unity Press, Santa Clara, CA, 1980.
ISBN: 0-913-30053-5
Dewey: 362.293 O46e
— This is the story of Synanon, as it degenerated from a utopian social organization and also a successful drug and alcohol rehabilitation program, into a vicious nightmarish cult, ending with the arrest of the cult's leader Charles "Chuck" Dederich on charges of conspiracy to commit murder.
This story is especially good because it is told by a man who was an idealist, a successful architect seeking a utopia, one of the "life-stylers" who joined Synanon purely out of choice, rather than one of the addicts desperately fleeing from death by drugs. It gives his story a certain credibility, and it also means that it is the story of a life gradually going down-hill towards Hell over a ten-year period, as the organization gradually turned into a really bad cult, rather than the story of someone coming up from the bottom. Where some of the ex-addicts might have seen even the worst parts of Synanon as improvements in their lives, Olin didn't. He had a good bit more perspective on things than that.

The Tunnel Back, Synanon     Lewis Yablonsky
The Macmillan Company, New York, 1965.
LCC 65-10664
Dewey: 362.29 Y12t
This is an earlier book about Synanon, from a very positive viewpoint. This book ended before Synanon went really crazy, so it has nothing but good things to say about Synanon and Chuck Dederich.
Actually, that is a gross understatement. Yablonsky is a fawning hero-worshipper, and acts like a starry-eyed teenage girl adoring a rock star. Yablonsky hangs on "Chuck" Dederich's every bombastic declaration as the ultimate in human wisdom. The U.C.L.A. sociologist Dr. Lewis Yablonsky was one of those people who came to investigate Synanon, and got completely converted to believing in the cult, much like Dr. Harry Tiebout when he saw Alcoholics Anonymous.

It is interesting to read this book second, and Olin's book listed above first, and note the contrasts, and know what the things that started in this book led to in Olin's story, like how the much-praised "tough love" treatment of newcomers and non-conforming members described in this book eventually led to the brutal beatings of members and their children by the "Imperial Marines" goon squad later.
It is especially interesting to see how this author exposes the growing cultishness of Synanon without even realizing it. Many of the standard cult characteristics are there:

• grovelling worship of the leader Chuck Dederich, he's always right and "you are always wrong",
• mentoring — which means that the more senior members "guide" the newcomers — which really means the senior members constantly berate and attack the newcomers, and Yablonsky has high praise for all of the creative and clever ways in which the old-timers brutally verbally assaulted the newcomers,
• and "newcomers can't think right" because they are just addicts,
• Sacred Science — "Chuck Dederich has discovered a great new social organization",
  And:
  "The development which takes place is best described as a 'resocialization process.' The individual is, in a fashion, 'brainwashed' to give up his old deviant patterns."
  — Yablonsky commenting on the process of attacking old patterns in a 'synanon' a.k.a. a "confrontational-type" therapeutic community. From The Tunnel Back, page 261.
• We are special,
• Arrogant, bombastic existence: We are going to transform the world because we are smarter than everybody else who has ever tried to solve these problems...
• and more...

One example is on page 397, talking about why the leader Chuck Dederich didn't like professional evaluations of Synanon as a drug rehab program:

Another factor that would tend to invalidate standard research practice for Synanon is that unless the researcher understood the new social organization called Synanon, he would be inclined to project onto it concepts that apply to the traditional institutions. Since Synanon is not a prison, a "halfway house," a hospital, or A.A., it would be inappropriate to evaluate it by many of the traditional research methods.

Besides, a properly-trained, experienced, professional psychologist might have recognized that the wonderful "new social organization" was really just standard old cult organization in new clothes.

The book arrogantly ends with:

The belief of some professionals in their exclusive right to treat human problems is no longer logical or practical in the light of Synanon's success. Greater cooperation between the professionals and the Synanon community of "professionals" seems clearly needed. A first step in this potentially productive cooperation would be for the orthodox professional and the public to understand Synanon, not as an extension of older institutional models, but as a new therapeutic system with a viable structure and integrity of its own. From this more logical starting point, the public and the professional community, in cooperation with Synanon, can forward the natural thrust of this vital new social movement.

Alas, would that it were so. Note that Yablonsky's book has Sacred Science written all over it. Cults are as old as the hills, and yet, many of them claim to be the very first people on Earth to discover some great new principle or invention, or the first to receive some great new revelation from God. In the end, Synanon was just one more cult, unfortunately.

The Rise and Fall of Synanon, A California Utopia     Rod Janzen
The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 2001.
ISBN: 0-8018-6583-2
Dewey: 362.2938 J35r 2001
http://www.press.jhu.edu
Scholarly, heavily documented.
Quotes: here and here.

The Light on Synanon: How a Country Weekly Exposed a Corporate Cult — And Won the Pulitzer Prize     Dave Mitchell, Cathy Mitchell, and Richard Ofshe
Seaview Books, New York, 1980.
ISBN: 0-87223-613-7
Dewey: 071.947 M681L
Fascinating, easy reading. This is the story of how a little weekly newspaper, run by the Mitchell husband-and-wife team, and the U.C. Berkeley professor Richard Ofshe, managed to bring down the Synanon cult and win the Pulitzer prize in the process. What is really disturbing is how reluctant the California officials were to actually enforce the laws. For years, their attitude was, "Well okay, we'll file a report. But we can't press charges, or get a conviction, because it's just your word against theirs, and they have a thousand people, and 40 lawyers..." The authorities didn't raid Synanon, or make any arrests, until after Jim Jones' cult (also from northern California) committed mass suicide in Guyana. Only then did the authorities get scared and do something.

Aum Shinrikyo:

Destroying the World to Save It, Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence, and the New Global Terrorism     Robert Jay Lifton.
Metropolitan Books, New York, 1999.
ISBN: 0805052909
Note that the author is the same Dr. Robert J. Lifton as gained fame as the author of the first good study of Chinese Communist brainwashing of American, British, and other U.N. soldiers during the Korean War: Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of 'Brainwashing' in China. And he's still alive and working — he was on the Charlie Rose show on Public Television the week of October 20, 2002, talking about the mind-set of the Americans regarding going to war with Iraq.

ISKCON, the Hari Krishna cult:

Betrayal of the Spirit: My Life behind the Headlines of the Hare Krishna Movement     Nori J. Muster
University of Illinois Press, Urbana, IL, 1997.
ISBN: 025-202-2637
This is the story of one survivor of the Hari Krishna cult, ISKCON.
What is especially curious about this book is that the authoress still has not discarded her belief in the founder, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. She just thinks that his followers destroyed the church after his death, and that he wasn't aware of things like the child abuse and unethical fund-raising that went on while he was alive.
She wrote a whole book documenting the evils of the organization, and the gross misconduct and crimes of Prabhupada's disciples — the dishonest fund-raising, the drug dealing, the guns, and the murder of a critic — and she just did not seem to be capable of waking up and realizing who trained those disgusting junior "zone gurus", and made them into the despicable creeps that they really are.
Hint:
You will know a tree by the fruit that it bears.
Jesus said that.

Quotes: here and here and here.

Later Update: Nori Muster later stated: "When I wrote that, I was half-in and half-out of ISKCON. Now I'm totally out."

Later later Update: Further discussions of the beliefs and experiences of Nori Muster later on, here and here.

Sri Isopanisad     A. C. Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada
The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Los Angeles, CA, 1969.
ISBN: 0-89213-280-9
LC: BL1124.7.I762E5 1993
Dewey: 294.5'9218—dc20
Pure cult garbage. Prabhupada's interpretation of ancient Vedantic teachings. Includes Prabhupada's goofy cosmology, like that there are higher living beings on the sun and moon, and people who don't believe in his religion are fools and asses.
Quotes: here.

Patty Hearst and The Symbionese Liberation Army:

Every Secret Thing     Patricia Campbell Hearst, with Alvin Moscow
Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 1982.
ISBN: 0-385-17056-4
LC: F866.4 .H42A34
LCCN: 81-43253
Dewey: 322.4'2'0924 [B] or 322.42092 Hearst
This is the story of the kidnapping and brainwashing of Patricia Hearst. This book is must reading for those who insist that there is no such thing as brainwashing, and nobody can be brainwashed into doing things they don't want to do, like rob banks.

Scientology:

The Scandal of Scientology     Paulette Cooper
Tower Publications, Inc., New York, 1971.
LC: BP605.S2 C661 1971
Very good. Required reading for the sincere student of cults or Scientology. This book was the first important, thorough exposé of Scientology, and the Scientology organization was vicious in its response. They actually planted a boyfriend/lover in her life, a man who pretended to be her friend, a man with whom she shared all of the intimate secrets of her life, as well as her bed. Little did she know that he was xeroxing off her personal diaries and reporting everything about her to the Scientology headquarters. Then, an agent for Scientology stole pages of her personal stationery that she had touched and which bore her fingerprints, and then the Scientologists typed fake bomb threats against Scientology on the paper, and charged Paulette Cooper with threatening Scientology. Ms. Cooper was arrested and indicted. Fortunately for her, the FBI discovered that Scientologists were burglarizing U.S. Government offices and stealing files on thousands of people, so the FBI raided the Scientology headquarters in several cities. When they did, they found plenty of evidence that the whole case against Ms. Cooper was a total fraud and a complete frame-up. But the Scientologists still didn't stop. Ms. Cooper reported that even five years later, they began out sending pages of her teenage diaries to various people, anonymously.
Note: This book is now a free download at:
http://www.clambake.org/archive/books/tsos/sos-get.html
Also see other free downloads of anti-Scientology books here:
http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-links.html#clambake

A Piece of Blue Sky; Scientology, Dianetics, and L. Ron Hubbard Exposed     Jon Atack
A Lyle Stuart Book, Published by Carol Publishing Group, 600 Madison Ave., New York, NY, 1990.
ISBN: 0-8184-0499-X
Dewey: 299.936 A862p
— Very good, complete, chilling, and disgusting. I alternated between feeling sorry for the members for the abuse they suffered, and feeling contempt for their massive stupidity and blindness as they turned around and did it all to somebody else. Required reading for the sincere student of cults or Scientology.
Note: This book is now a free download at:
http://www.clambake.org/archive/books/apobs/
Also see other free downloads of anti-Scientology books here:
http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-links.html#clambake

Bare-Faced Messiah; The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard     Russel Miller
Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1987.
ISBN: 0-8050-0654-0
LC: BP605.S2M55 1988
LCCN: 88-2005
Dewey: 299.9360924
Excellent. Complete, detailed, thorough, and very interesting. Highly recommended.
Note: This book is now a free download at:
http://www.clambake.org/archive/books/bfm/bfmconte.htm
Also see other free downloads of anti-Scientology books here:
http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-links.html#clambake

L. Ron Hubbard, Messiah or Madman?     Bent Corydon and L. Ron Hubbard, Jr.
Lyle Stuart Inc., Secaucus, New Jersey, 1987.
ISBN: 0-8184-0444-2
LC: BP605.S2C67 1987
LCCN: 87-10252
Dewey: 299.9360924
Also excellent. This book's particular claim to fame is that L. Ron Hubbard's own son, who defected from Scientology, is a co-author. Well-researched and well-documented. It is obvious that the younger Hubbard had access to materials no one else could get, and he also knew things that outsiders did not. One chapter explores the older Hubbard's dabbling in the magic of Aleister Crowley, and another is "Freaking Out on Paulette", which describes the reaction of Hubbard and Scientology to the book that Paulette Cooper wrote.

Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, & the Prison of Belief     Lawrence Wright
Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2013.
ISBN:
LC:
LCCN:
Also excellent. This book is more modern than the others, and has more information about Scientology under the new leader David Miscavige. The author, Lawrence Wright, is a staff writer for The New Yorker, and his book about the 9/11 attack, Looming Tower, won the Pulitzer Prize.

What Is Scientology? Based on the Works of L. Ron Hubbard     Compiled by Staff of the Church of Scientology International
Bridge Publications, Inc. 4751 Fountain Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90029, 1993, 1998.
ISBN: 1-57318-122-6 (USA)
ISBN: 87-7336-945-4 (Foreign countries)
Dewey: 299.936 W555 1998
This is official Scientology propaganda, total lies from cover to cover.

What Is Scientology? A guidebook to the world's fastest growing religion     Compiled by Staff of the Church of Scientology International
Bridge Publications, Inc. 4751 Fountain Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90029, 1993.
ISBN: 0-88404-850-0 (USA)
ISBN: 87-7336-945-4 ? (Foreign countries) (The reason for the question mark is because the international ISBN: number is the same as on the preceding book, but they aren't the same book at all. They are only somewhat similar; the first is 835 pages, and the second is 593 pages.)
Dewey: 299.936 W5554
This is more official Scientology propaganda, total lies from cover to cover.

The Moonies, the Unification Church:

The Advent of Sun Myung Moon     George D. Chryssides
St. Martin's Press, New York, 1991.
ISBN: 0-312-05347-9
Dewey: 289.9 C558a

Hostage to Heaven     Barbara Underwood and Betty Underwood
Clarkson N. Potter, Inc. Publishers, New York, 1979.
ISBN: 0-517-53975-X
Dewey: 289.9 U56h
— A two-person account of life in Moon's Unification Church.

Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church; An In-Depth Investigation of the Man and the Movement     Frederick Sontag
Abingdon, Nashville, 1977
ISBN: 0-687-40622-6
Dewey: 289.9 S699s

The Making Of A Moonie: Brainwashing Or Choice?     Eileen Barker
Basil Blackwell Publisher Ltd., Oxford, UK, 1984.
ISBN: 0-631-13246-5
LC: BX9750.S4B37 1984
LCCN: 84-12414
Dewey: 289.9 B225m
Quite good. Rather than just sensationalizing the Moonies, or grandly proclaiming that cults can brainwash people in a few days, like some extremist anti-cult people and professional "deprogrammers" do, the author really delves into how the recruiting and indoctrination mind games work, and how much the victim cooperates with the program (or doesn't cooperate). The author also reveals things like that the actual recruiters' success rate is about 0.005% (page 147). The author even gets into psychoanalyzing the members, revealing that many of them had mental problems before joining the Moonies, and suggesting that that was why they joined. This book is a breath of sanity in a field that needs more.

Jim Jones and the People's Temple:

Six Years with God     Jeanne Mills
A & W Publishers, New York, 1979.
ISBN: 0-894-79046-3
LC: BP605.P46M54
This book is sickening. It is very good, but it is still sickening. This book borders on the unbelievable — the depths of Jim Jones' depravity and evil are almost unimagineable. The continuous lies, vicious hatred, terrorism, physical and mental torture that Jones inflicted on his followers was so sickening that I didn't actually finish reading the whole book. I had to stop. And it is mind-boggling how many followers stayed for more abuse.
      Jeanne Mills, her husband, and their young daughter were all murdered in their home in Berkeley, California, in March of 1980, by People's Temple cult members, just months after she published this book exposing the inner workings of the cult. That happened shortly after the mass suicide in Guyana, and the murders were apparently done by a few surviving members of the Temple goon squad, "The Angels", who then committed suicide.

Awake In A Nightmare     Ethan Feinsod
W.W. Norton & Company, New York, NY, 1981.
ISBN: 0-393-01431-2
Dewey: 289.9 F299a
This is a fascinating story that starts with life in VietNam, Detroit, and San Francisco, and continues through life in Jim Jones' People's Temple commune in Guyana, down to the bitter end.

Journey to Nowhere, A New World Tragedy     Shiva Naipaul
Simon and Schuster, New York, 1980.
ISBN: 0-671-42471-8
Dewey: 289.9 N157j
A rather depressing, but very accurate and colorful view of Guyana and The People's Temple of Jim Jones.

Seductive Poison, A Jonestown Survivor's Story of Life and Death in the People's Temple Deborah Layton
Anchor Books, Doubleday, New York, 1998.
ISBN: 0-385-48983-8
Dewey: B La 4547s 1998
The Layton family got hit hard by the cult. Deborah's mother died of lung cancer at Jonestown while Jim Jones gobbled up all of her pain pills and pretended to have cured her with faith healing. Her brother Larry was part of the assassination team that killed Congressman Leo J. Ryan and the others at the landing strip in Guyana. I hear that he's now doing life in a Federal penitentiary. Deborah was smart enough to get out earlier, so she was left alive to write the book.

In My Father's House, The Story of The Layton Family and the Reverend Jim Jones     Min S. Yee & Thomas N. Layton
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1981
ISBN: 0-03-053396-1
Dewey: B La455y
This is the story of the Layton family, told from the viewpoint of the father of the family. He refused to join the People's Temple and go to Guyana, but he couldn't stop the rest of his family from going.

Snake Dance, Unraveling the Mysteries of Jonestown     Laurie Efrein Kahalas
Red Robin Press, New York, 1998.
ISBN: 1-55212-207-7
Dewey: 289.9 K12s
This book is very pro-Jim-Jones. It is a disorganized mess of scraps of information mixed with conspiracy theories. It is a frightening example of the mind of a true believer, someone who believes in the Big Lie so intensely that not even the deaths of 914 innocent people will make the author see that Jones was evil. The author still maintains that Jones was a saint. The author chooses to believe that it was all a big plot by the CIA, and Jonestown was a paradise, and "a peaceful community was targeted for destruction" because the U.S. Government didn't like Jim Jones' radical left-wing politics. The author just will not face one simple fact: It was Jim Jones, and not the CIA or the U.S. Government, who ordered 914 men, women, children and babies to drink cyanide kool-aid.

The Strongest Poison     Mark Lane
Hawthorn Books, a division of Elsevier-Dutton, New York, 1980.
ISBN: 0-8015-3206-X
Dewey: 988.103 L266s
This is another apology for Jim Jones. Mark Lane is the same author as the one who gained some fame for Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories. (Alas, my opinion of those theories just went down a notch, because if Lane is representative of the lot, then there isn't much there.) Lane was hired as a publicist for Jim Jones' People's Temple in the last days of the cult, and Lane is still doing his job. Lane, like the previous author, blames the U.S. government for bothering Jim Jones and pushing him over the edge, and making him order his followers to drink cyanide. To Mark Lane, the "strongest poison" was not the cyanide that Jim Jones ordered fed to the children, it was the U.S. government saying nasty things about Jim Jones. Pathetic, really pathetic. I guess some people will do anything to sell a book.
On the bright side, the book is voluminous, and will give you Jim Jones' arguments, rationalizations, and excuses on every issue.

Our Father Who Art in Hell, The Life and Death of Jim Jones     James Reston, Jr.
Times Books, New York, 1981.
ISBN: 0-8129-0963-1
Dewey: 289.9 R439o

The Children of Jonestown     Kenneth Wooden
McGraw-Hill, New York, 1981.
ISBN: 0-07-071641-2
Dewey: 362.7044 W886c
Pays particular attention to the children whom the Temple collected and killed. The Temple went into the foster parents business, and got a lot of kids off of drugs, permanently. 267 children were given cyanide on the orders of Jim Jones.

White Night, The Untold Story of What Happened Before — And Beyond — Jonestown     John Peer Nugent
Rawson, Wade Publishers, Inc., New York, 1979.
ISBN: 0-89256-116-5
Dewey: B Jo7178n
Very good, fascinating, detailed, interesting, easy reading, and informative.

Gone From the Promised Land, Jonestown in American Cultural History     John R. Hall
Transaction Books, New Brunswick USA and Oxford UK, 1987
ISBN: 0-88738-124-3
Dewey: 289.9 H177g

Hearing the Voices of Jonestown     Mary McCormick Maaga
Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, New York, 1998
ISBN: 0-8156-0515-3
Dewey: 289.9 M111h 1998

Father Cares: The Last of Jonestown     National Public Radio staff
National Public Radio, 1981.
Program tape numbers SP-810423.01/02-C and SP-810423.02/02-C
This is a program that includes the last tapes of Jim Jones, as they killed themselves at Jonestown.

David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and Waco:

Why Waco?     James D. Tabor and Eugene V. Gallagher
University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1995.
ISBN: 0-520-20186-8
Dewey: 289.9 T114w
A less sensational attempt at objectivity.

A Place Called Waco, A Survivor's Story     David Thibodeau
Public Affairs, Perseus Book Group, New York, 1999.
ISBN: 1-891620-42-8
Dewey: 976.4284 T427p
Another true believer's story. The author still believes that Vernon Howell, aka. David Koresh, was a prophet and a man of God. But unlike the previous nut (Snake Dance), this true believer brings up a lot of hot points about the tragic bungling and gross dishonesty of the [B]ATF, Janet Reno, and the FBI.

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and the Rajneeshees:

The Ultimate Game: The Rise and Fall of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh     Kate Strelley with Robert D. San Souci
Harper & Rowe, Publishers, San Francisco, 1987.
ISBN: 0-06-250821-0
LC: BP605.R344S77 1987
LCCN: 86-43021
Dewey: 299.93 STR
Fascinating, very well written. Quotes here.

Bhagwan; The God That Failed     Hugh Milne
St. Martin's Press, New York, 1987.
ISBN: 0-312-00106-1
LC: BP605.R343M55 1987
LCCN: 86-24832
Dewey: 299.93 MIL

Riders of the Cosmic Circuit; Rajneesh, Sai Baba, Muktananda... Gods of the New Age     Tal Brooke
A Lion Paperback, Lion Publishing plc., Tring, Herts, England, 1986.
ISBN: 0-7459-1217-6
LC: BL625
Dewey: 291.4'2
This is a book from what I call a "spiritual Pollyanna". Such Pollyannas are people who mindlessly jabber things like, "Oh isn't is so wonderful that these wonderful gurus come from India to teach us all such wonderful things?" The author was incapable of recognizing a con artist at work. He raved about how they brought us "a new consciousness".
I can't say anthing about Sai Baba one way or the other, but the "wonderful" teachings of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh were a total con that ended with his followers at Antelope Valley, Oregon, waging germ warfare against the local residents, trying to make them too sick to vote, to that Rajneesh could take over the county, and Rajneesh fled the country to avoid being put in prison.
And Muktananda set up a commune where he specialized in using his yogic powers to screw all of the 14-year-old girls for an hour each. Afterwards, he would hold up one finger to the girl and say, "Remember. One hour."
The moral of the story is, for every real teacher who came over from the East, ten phonies came over to cash in.

David Berg and The Children of God cult:

The Children of God: The Inside Story; by the daughter of the Founder Moses David Berg     Deborah (Linda Berg) Davis with Bill Davis
The Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Missouri: 1984.
ISBN: 0-310-27840-6
Dewey: 289.9 D261c
This is an insider account of David Berg's Children of God cult — a very insider account, because it was written by David Berg's daughter. She says straight out front that he was a criminal and a monster. His idea of "true spiritual freedom" and "perfect love", for instance, was that all of the women, including his daughter, should freely have sex with him. (Pages 9-12 and 99-101.) And more: all of the women must practice Flirty Fishing, prostitution to bring in more members and money, and their husbands should work as their pimps... Unbelievable, but true. Needless to say, fascinating.

Heaven's Harlots; My Fifteen Years as a Sacred Prostitute in the Children of God Cult     Miriam Williams
Eagle Brook, an imprint of William Morrow and Company, Inc., New York, 1998.
ISBN: 0-688-15504-9 (alk. paper)
LC: BR605.C38W55 1998
LCCN: 97-48644
Dewey: 299.93 W725h
Engrossing, good reading. Easily the most engrossing and readable of this bunch of books about the Children of God cult.

Final Report on the Activities of the Children of God to Honorable Louis J. Lefkowitz, Attorney General of the State of New York,     Herbert J. Wallerstein, Charity Frauds Bureau, Sept. 30, 1974.

Not for a Million Dollars, Una McManus and John C. Cooper
Impact Books, 1976.
Zondervan Publishing House, 1980.
ISBN: 0310140072
More on the Children of God cult.

EST and Werner Erhard:

est, 60 hours that transform your life, erhard seminars training     Adelaide Bry
Avon Books, a division of The Hearst Corporation, New York, 1976.
ISBN: 0-380-00697-9
LCCN: 75-30329
This is just lying propaganda, pure and simple, a piece of junk designed to convince you to give your money to Werner Erhard. See quotes here and here.

Outrageous Betrayal, The Dark Journey of Werner Erhard from est to Exile,     Steven Pressman
St. Martin's Press, New York, 1993.
Dewey: B Er39p
ISBN: 0-312-09296-2
LC: RC489.E7P74 1993
This is good, detailed and descriptive, fascinating reading, and gives a frightening look at the ease with which an unscrupulous man can make himself into a "guru" and the millionaire leader of a dishonest, exploitative cult. See quotes describing Werner Erhard

• stealing from the poor here,
• intrusion into people's sex lives here,
• abusing women here, and
• Erhard's megalomania here.

Arthur Janov and his Primal Scream:

The New Primal Scream: Primal Therapy After 20 Years     Arthur Janov
Enterprise Publishing, Wilmington, DE, 1991.
ISBN: 0-942103-23-8
Dewey: 132 J34n
Back in the late 'sixties, Janov published his original Primal Scream, which featured patients saying things like, "Well, if I add up how much money I spend on cigarettes over a period of several years, it is many thousands of dollars. But if I give $5000 of it to Arthur instead, for him to teach me how to scream and quit smoking, I'll be so much healthier, and I'll actually save money. So that's what I'll do — I'll give Dr. Janov $5000."
      Well, Janov managed to polish his act a little in the following 20 years, but it's still the same old garbage. Now the back cover of this book says,
"Scientific Research World-Wide Proves Primal Therapy May Prolong Life by Reducing Stress".
Yep, the Baby Boomers are all middle-aged now, and trying to live forever...
Notice the broken logic:
Scientific blah-blah PROVES that Janov's garbage MAY work.
We get an absolute certainty — "proof" — followed by a vague, uncertain, maybe.
Yes, and the discovery of the coelacanth PROVES that Nessie the Loch Ness sea monster MIGHT be real too, but it's extremely unlikely. I'm not holding my breath.
Note that the opposite logic is equally valid:
Scientific blah-blah PROVES that Janov's garbage MAY NOT work.

Non-cult Spiritual books:

The Christian Bible, any version.

All Men Are Brothers; Autobiographical Reflections     Gandhi; compiled and edited by Krishna Kripalani
Continuum, New York, 1990.
ISBN: 0-8264-0003-5
LCCN: 79-56684
Dewey: B G195am
A fine book of quotes from Gandhi.

Life is an inspiration. Its mission is to strive after perfection, which is self-realization. The ideal must not be lowered because of our weaknesses and imperfections.
(June 22, 1935, p. 91.)

I see and find beauty in Truth or through Truth. All Truth, not merely true ideas, but truthful faces, truthful pictures or songs are highly beautiful. People generally fail to see beauty in Truth, the ordinary man runs away from and becomes blind to the beauty in it. Whenever men begin to see beauty in Truth, then true art will arise.
(Nov. 13, 1925, p. 68.)

Miracle of Love: Stories About Neem Karoli Baba     Ram Dass
E. P. Dutton, New York, 1979.
ISBN: 0-525-47611-3
LC: BL1175 .N43R35
LCCN: 79-10745
Dewey: 294.561 N379r
This is a beautiful book. Something high and positive, some genuine spirituality, just for a change.

Be Here Now     Baba Ram Dass
Hanuman Foundation, 1971.
This is the original, first, book that Ram Dass published about the teachings he had received from Neem Karoli Baba.
The very first printing was a boxed edition the size of a 33 1/3 RPM phonograph record, and the box contained such a record, and the book was printed on recycled brown grocery bag paper in very large type. Alas, the later editions are not so neat. But it's still a great book.

Mind Control, Brainwashing, Other Psychology, and Propaganda:

Brainwashing, From Pavlov to Powers     Edward Hunter
Originally published by Farrar, Straus, & Cudahy, Inc., 1951, 1956.
Reprinted by The Bookmailer, Inc., 30 West Price Street, Linden, New Jersey, 1958, 1965.
LC: 56-7817 and 60-53397
Dewey: 131.33 H91
This book is very good. It is a classic. And the book is fascinating and a good read. It really gives you the feeling of being there and going through the brainwashing to which the American, British, and other United Nations soldiers were subjected during the Korean War. It also clearly explains just how the brainwashing worked and how some men succumbed to it, and some successfully resisted it. It also turns out that this was the first book on Communist brainwashing published, and Hunter was actually the author who coined the term "brainwashing" — it's just a translation of the Chinese phrase Hsi Nao, which Mao Tse Tung (aka Mao Zhe Dhong) and gang used to denote the idea of washing away the vestiges of the old system (literally "cleansing the mind") in the process of being re-educated to assume one's place in the new Communist society.

Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of 'Brainwashing' in China     Robert Jay Lifton.
The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC, and London, 1961 and 1989.
Reprinted by The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC, 1989.
ISBN: 0807842532
This is Lifton's classic study of "brainwashing" in Communist China.
Also see Lifton's newer book about the Aum Shinrikyo cult.

Coercive Persuasion: A Socio-psychological Analysis of the "Brainwashing" of American Civilian Prisoners by the Chinese Communists     Edgar H. Schein with Inge Schneier and Curtis H. Barker
W.W. Norton, New York, 1961.
LC: BF633
LCCN: 61-7483
Dewey: 131.333
In some ways this book complements Edward Hunter's book "Brainwashing, From Pavlov to Powers", because this book concentrates its attention on American civilians who happened to be in China when Mao took over, and were arrested by Mao's forces and subjected to "thought reform" in prison.
The author states (p.21) that he checked his hypotheses with others like Lifton and Barnett, and drew heavily from Hunter, so obviously that small group of pioneers were in communication with each other, trading ideas and information.
This book and the previous two by Hunter and Lifton are the classics of the field, and are simply must reading for students of brainwashing and mind-control programs.
Dr. Schein saw "thought reform" programs as working in stages:

1. Unfreezing — Make the subject lose his previous identity. Shatter his self-confidence and belief in himself, his moral standards, and his previous philosophy. Make his personality fluid and changeable.
2. Changing — Change the subject into whatever is desired.
3. Refreezing — Make the subject lock in the changes by solidifying his new personality.

The bases for being judged guilty which he [the victim] must come to appreciate are the following:

1. Guilt by Association.
2. Guilt by Intention.
3. Guilt for Incorrect Attitudes.
4. Guilt for Incorrect Thoughts.
5. Guilt for Having Knowledge.
6. Guilt for Harmful Action.
7. Guilt for Failure to Act.
8. Guilt for Having a Characteristic Personal Fault or Faults.
9. Guilt for Having Dangerous Social Origins.

— pages 141-143.

Even back in 1960, Dr. Schein saw that Alcoholics Anonymous was a mind-control or thought-reform program:

Certain organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) do not deliberately unfreeze an individual but refuse to take anyone under their care who is not already unfrozen. Thus a person does not become eligible for care by AA unless he has really become desperate, is dissatisfied with himself, and is prepared to turn his fate over to some greater power.
— page 272.

The interesting question arises then, in what way are groups in fact used in the unfreezing of individuals in the parallel types of institutions which we have discussed? ... In AA the small discussion group plays a key therapeutic role; in mental hospitals there has been an increasing reliance on therapy groups, work groups of various sorts, and/or patient self-government groups, where in each case the assumption is made explicitly or implicitly that for the new group member the membership experience will produce influence of a kind desired by the institution; in educational workshops, like those concentrating on human relations training, the group experience is considered the key educational experience...
— page 274.

But what of those institutions which are entered voluntarily and from which the individual may withdraw voluntarily — educational institutions, religious orders, AA, psychoanalysis, revival meetings, fraternities, and so on? We believe that in such institutions the social pressures which can be generated can be as coercive as the physical constraints previously described. Not only is voluntary withdrawal generally defined as failure, but the act of entry into an institution may constitute a more or less irrevocable commitment in that the individual often cuts himself off from alternate paths when he makes his decision. In addition to these two forces there is acting perhaps an even more powerful one, the confirmation by fellow group members and by "back home" significant others of the emerging institutional identity. The young man who has entered a religious order and wishes after half a year to leave it will have a difficult time psychologically if he is considered by his peers and teachers to be a good student, if his parents have their hearts set on his becoming a priest, if his friends have already abandoned his old identity in their own eyes and treat him only in terms of his new one, and if his termination is defined by all concerned as an act of moral weakness. Obviously these pressures are not always as strong as we have implied, and obviously people do leave institutions like religious orders, but equally obviously it generally requires an act of great courage to do so. Such courage is not too dissimilar to the courage required to resist the pressures of thought reform.
— pages 275-276.

Also see the CIA's review of this book, here:
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol5no4/html/v05i4a10p_0005.htm

Also see the Wikipedia entry on brainwashing, which discusses all three of the books above:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainwashing

Battle For The Mind; A Physiology Of Conversion and Brain-Washing     William Sargant
Malor Books, POBox 381069, Cambridge, MA, 02238-1069, 1997.
ISBN: 1-883536-06-5
LC: BF633.S3 1997
LCCN: 97-10363
Dewey: 153.85 S245b 1997
Quite good. Includes:

• Experiments in Animals,
• Animal and Human Behavior Compared,
• The Use of Drugs in Psychotherapy,
• Psychoanalysis, Shock Treatments and Leucotomy,
• Techniques of Religious Conversion,
• Applications of Religious Techniques,
• Brain-washing in Religion and Politics,
• and The Eliciting of Confessions.

Mind Control     Peter Schrag
Pantheon Books, New York, NY, 1978.
ISBN: 0-394-40759-8
Dewey: 616.89 S377m

Blink: The Power Of Thinking Without Thinking     Malcolm Gladwell
Little, Brown and Company, New York and Boston, 2005.
ISBN: 0-316-17232-4
LC: BF448.G53 2005
Dewey: 153.44—dc22 or 153.44 G543b 2005
A fascinating book about how the human brain works, and how we form snap judgements. Covers both kinds of snap judgements — situations were the first intuitive impression is stunningly brilliantly correct, and situations where it is grossly disastrously wrong — and the author explains why that happens. This book is relevant to cultish behavior in that most cult members do not really think, they merely react to information in a mindless knee-jerk kind of reaction (either instant agreement or instant disapproval, depending on whether it supports their pre-conceived notions), and the author discusses such non-thinking behavior.

Propaganda     Edward Bernays (1891—1995)
Ig Publishing, Brooklyn, NY, 1928.
www.igpub.com
ISBN: 0-9703125-9-8 (alk. paper)
LC: HM1231.B47 2005
Dewey: 303.3'75—dc22
This book is a classic, and must-readng for the student of propaganda techniques. Edward Bernays was the godfather of propaganda. He basically invented the science of propaganda. Bernays was the nephew of Sigmund Freud, and he did a study of the human mind from the viewpoint of figuring out what would fool people into doing what he wanted. The word is, even the Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels learned a few tricks from Bernays.
Bernays considered skilled propagandists to be the highest of the high of the human race. (He was just a little bit self-congratulatory there, wasn't he?) Edward Bernays was such an arrogant elitist that he believed that propagandists should rule the world because they were the people who were smart enough and skilled enough and clever enough to get everybody else to do their bidding.
And Bernays did quite a bit of ruling himself. He contracted himself out to millionaires, and used his propaganda skills to make things go their way. Thus Bernays also invented the modern art of public relations, and his influence on Madison Avenue advertising was immense. One of Bernays' projects was working for the tobacco industry in the nineteen-twenties, convincing women that it was okay for them to smoke cigarettes.
As you can imagine, some people consider Edward Bernays to be the Devil incarnate.
Must reading.

The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark     Carl Sagan
Random House, New York, 1995.
ISBN: 0-394-53512-X
Dewey: 001.9 S129d
This book is a beauty. Carl Sagan always was easy to read, highly informative, and clear, and this book lives up to his reputation. This book includes "the baloney detector", which is a list of deceitful propaganda techniques that gave me the idea for the "Propaganda Techniques" web page.

Man For Himself; An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics, Erich Fromm
Fawcett Publications, Inc., Greenwich, Conn. and New York City, NY, 1947.
This book is typical of his work — deep, thoughtful, coherent, comprehensible, and interesting.
Quote: here.

Erich Fromm: The Courage to Be Human     Rainer Funk
Continuum, New York, NY, 1982.
Copyright 1978 Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt GmbH, Stuttgart.
ISBN: 0-8264-0061-2
LC: B945.F754F8613
LCCN: 81-22816
Dewey: 191 F93f
A study of the philosophy of Erich Fromm.

How To Lie With Statistics     Darrell Huff
W. W. Norton & Company, New York and London, 1954, 1982.
ISBN: 0-393-31072-8
Dewey: 519.5 H84
This is a beautiful little classic that explains a lot of the deceptions and propaganda stunts that you can pull with statistics, and some other methods, too, like "The Gee-Whiz Graph", "The One-Dimensional Picture", and "Post Hoc Rides Again". Recommended.

Proofiness : the dark arts of mathematical deception     Charles Seife.
New York : Viking, 2010.
Other Title: Title on 2011 pbk. ed. : Proofiness : how you're being fooled by the numbers
Description: The bestselling author of "Zero" shows how mathematical misinformation pervades — and shapes — our daily lives.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN: 9780670022168
9780143120070 (pbk.)
LCCN: 2010012127
Another beautiful books that explains how we are being fooled by mathematical tricks and deceptions and numerical sleight-of-hand. A modern companion to Darrel Huff's book How To Lie With Statistics. Must reading for those people who don't want to get fooled by con artists who are doing mental shell games on us by rapidly fumbling the numbers around.

Propaganda, the Formation of Men's Attitudes     Jacques Ellul
Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1965.
LCC 64-17708
Dewey: 301.1523 E47p

Propaganda Comes Of Age     Michael Choukas
Public Affairs Press, Washington, D.C., 1965.
LCC 65-27072
Dewey: 301.1523 C45

Beyond Hypocrisy: Decoding the News in an Age of Propaganda; including A Doublespeak Dictionary for the 1990s     Edward S. Herman; Illustrations by Matt Wuerker
South End Press, Boston, MA, 1992.
ISBN 0-89608-436 cloth; ISBN 0-89608-435-3 paper
LC: P96.L342U55 1992
LCCN: 92-2901
Dewey: 302.23014-dc20
This is one of those books that is both beautiful and maddening. It clearly tells the truth in an age when politicians routinely lie about everything; but then you get angry about the immensity of the pack of lies that they are foisting on us, and the immensity of the crimes that they try to hide with their lies. Recommended.

Untruth, Why the Conventional Wisdom is (Almost Always) Wrong     Robert J. Samuelson
Random House, Inc., New York, 2001.
ISBN: 0-8129-9164-8
Dewey: 303.375 S193u 2001
http://www.atrandom.com

Brave New World Revisited     Aldous Huxley
Harper & Rowe, New York, 1958.
Perennial Classics, HarperPerennial, HarperCollins Publishers, 2000.
ISBN: 0-06-095551-1
Dewey: 824 H986br

Letters of Aldous Huxley     edited by Grover Smith Harper & Row, New York, 1970,c1969
Contains a letter where Huxley described Bill Wilson's use of the experimental hallucinogenic drug leuco-adrenochrome, here: orange-Huxley_letter.pdf

Channels of Propaganda     J. Michael Sproule
EDINFO Press, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47407, 1994.
ISBN: 0-927516-34-9 (cloth)
ISBN: 0-927516-61-6 (paperback)
Dewey: 303.375 S771c

Plagues of the Mind, The New Epidemic of False Knowledge     Bruce S. Thornton
ISI Books, Wilmington, Delaware, 1999
ISBN: 1-882926-34-X
Dewey: 001.2 T513p 1999

Official Lies, How Washington Misleads Us     James T. Bennett & Thomas J. DiLorenzo
Groom Books, Alexandria, VA, 1992.
ISBN: 0-9632701-0-9
LCC 92-072083
Dewey: 351.00819 B471o

Total Propaganda, From Mass Culture to Popular Culture     Alex Edelstein
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, Mahwah, New Jersey, London, 1997.
ISBN: 0-8058-0891-4 (cloth)
ISBN: 0-8058-0892-2 (paperback)
Dewey: 302.23 E21t

The Hidden Persuaders     Vance Packard
David McKay Company, Inc., New York, 1957.
Dewey: 659.1 P12
This book is an old classic. It was quite revolutionary in its day. It particularly exposed how the modern mass media, like TV, were using sophisticated psychological manipulation of the audience's minds to sell products. (Gasp! You mean they do that?)

Age of Propaganda, The Everyday Use And Abuse of Persuasion     Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson
University of California at Santa Cruz.
W. H. Freeman and Co., New York, 1992.
ISBN: 0-7167-2210-0 (hardcover), ISBN: 0-7167-2211-9 (paperback)
Dewey: 303.375 P912a
This book is especially clear and readable. Recommended.

The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man     David W. Maurer
Anchor Books, a Division of Random House, New York, c1940, 1968, 1999.
ISBN: 0-385-49538-2
LC: HV6691.M3 1999
LCCN: 99-25494
Dewey: 364.163—dc21
A classic study of con men. Entertaining and informative. Quote here.

In the Sleep Room     Anne Collins
Key Porter Books Limited, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 1988, 1997.
ISBN: 1-55013-937-0
LC: RC339.52.C34C64
LCCN: C97-932042-9
Dewey: 616.89'0092 or 616.89 C712i 1997
Quite a blockbuster. Documents immoral and illegal research into mind control and brainwashing financed by the CIA in Canada during the 1950s and 1960s:

      Behind the doors of the so-called sleep room on Ward 2 South, Dr. Ewen Cameron, the director of Montreal's Allan Memorial Institute, exposed dozens of his own patients to barbaric treatments from which some have never recovered. Operating under the belief that he could wipe brains clean of "bad" behaviour and program in new behavior, Cameron kept patients in a chemical sleep for weeks and months at a time, exposed them to massive amounts of electro-shock and drugs such as LSD, and forced them to listen to tape-recorded messages repeated endlessly through headphones.
      Cameron was not alone in his desire to reprogram the human brain. The U.S. intelligence establishment found in him an eager collaborator, and funded his work substantially and covertly.
In the Sleep Room, Anne Collins, 1988, 1997, back cover.

Acid Dreams: the CIA, LSD, and the sixties rebellion     Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain
Grove Press, 1985.
ISBN: 0394550137
ISBN: 039462081X (1st Evergreen ed.)
LC: HV5822 .L9L44 1985
and
Acid Dreams: the complete social history of LSD: the CIA, the sixties, and beyond     Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain
Evergreen Press, 1992.
ISBN: 0802130623
LC: HV5822 .L9L45 1992
This book is fascinating. It tells how the CIA was one of the first investigators of LSD. They hoped it would make a great truth serum, or at least a good incapacitating agent — something that would render enemy soldiers helpless, and give us "war without killing". They did a lot of experimenting with it, trying it on everybody from themselves to unaware civilians in San Francisco. They even gave Ken Kesey his first dose. So bone up on your history, kiddies. Before there was the Grateful Dead and the Merry Pranksters, there was the CIA.

Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream     Jay Stevens
The Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 1987.
ISBN: 0-87113-076-9
LC: HV5822.L9S74 1987
LCCN: 87-1191
Dewey: 306.1
A large and complete history, from a fair and balanced viewpoint. A fascinating stroll down memory lane for some of us.

Racial Hygiene, Medicine Under the Nazis     Robert N. Proctor
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., and London, England, 1988.
ISBN: 0-674-74580-9 (alk. paper)
LC: RA418.3.G3P76 1988
LCCN: 87-31116
Dewey: 174.2'0943—dc19
A powerful book. Documents the participation of doctors and scientists in creating the myth of the inferior Jew, and elimination of "lives not worth living."

The Nazi War on Cancer     Robert N. Proctor
Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1999.
ISBN: 0-691-00196-0
LC: RC268.P77 1999
LCCN: 98-49405
Dewey: 362.196994 P964n
Great stuff. Takes us into the Nazi system of health, which was far better than most people imagine. Hitler was actually a health nut, and was the first major world leader to implement a strong program against tobacco. German medicine under the Nazis was a strange mix of advanced science and advanced superstition (like rabid anti-Semitism).

Narcissism, Denial of the True Self     Alexander Lowen, M.D.
Macmillan Publishing Comany, New York, 1983, and
Collier Macmillan Publishers, London, 1983.
ISBN: 0-02-575890-X
LC: RC553.N36L38 1983
LCCN: 83-18794
This is a great book, a real classic. Dr. Lowen advances the idea that narcissism is not falling in love with one's self, but rather with a false image of one's self. That small subtle difference actually makes a very large difference. In the original Greek mythology, Narcissus died — starved to death — because he was obsessed with his own image and stared at it endlessly. But as Narcissus approached death, his real emaciated appearance could not have been very attractive. Narcissus was seeing an illusion, not his true appearance.
      Dr. Lowen advances the idea that narcissism is often caused by child abuse and prolonged humiliation and pain in childhood. The child adopts a persona where he feels no pain and is powerful and invulnerable. The child thinks, "When I grow up, I'll be so powerful and strong that no one can hurt me or humiliate me ever again." Then the child, who grows into adulthood, spends the rest of his life pursuing and defending an illusion. Narcissists are obsessed with defending and preserving their image — they can't stand it if somebody "makes them look bad" — they can't stand criticism. They deny their true feelings and put on a mask of unfeeling, because they imagine that it will keep them from being hurt again. Likewise, they completely disregard other people's feelings. They are obsessed with power and control, so that they can control the world around them and prevent anyone from humiliating them again. Narcissists are often extremely seductive and manipulative people, often charismatic charmers, and occasionally high achievers as well. They lie habitually, without giving it a second thought. They fear insanity.
      In other words, Dr. Lowen was describing Bill Wilson, the abused son of an alcoholic father and a neurotic mother.

Culture of Narcissism; American Life in An Age of Diminishing Expectatinos     Christopher Lasch
Warner Books, 1979.
© 1979 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York.
ISBN 0-446-93264-7

Emotional Vampires: Dealing with People Who Drain You Dry     Albert J. Bernstein, Ph.D.
McGraw-Hill, New York, 2001.
ISBN: 0-07-135259-7 (hard); ISBN: 0-07-135267-9 (pbk.)
Dewey: 158.2 B531e 2001
This is a wonderful little easy-to-read book on the psychology of exploitative personalities. It's easy to identify both Frank N. D. Buchman and William G. Wilson as Narcissistic vampires — "Legends in Their Own Minds" who could not tolerate the least little bit of criticism, and who felt entitled to take the best of everything for themselves because they were so special, and who threw screaming temper tantrums when the common rabble displeased them.
Quotes: here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here.

Loving the Self-Absorbed: How to Create a More Satisfying Relationship with a Narcissistic Partner     Nina W. Brown, Ed.D., LPC, NCC
New Harbinger Publications, Inc., Oakland, CA, 2003.
ISBN: 1-57224-354-6
Dewey: 158.2 B879L
This book tells you how to cope with being married to an obnoxious narcissist. The one thing I couldn't see was, "Why bother?" Nina Brown makes narcissists sound so bad that you really don't want to be married to one. But if you are some kind of long-suffering masochist who really wants to go through it all, read this book.
Quotes: here and here and here and here and here.

Working with the Self-Absorbed: How to Handle Narcissistic Personalities on the Job     Nina W. Brown, Ed.D., LPC, NCC
New Harbinger Publications, Inc., Oakland, CA, 2002.
ISBN: 1-57224-292-2
Dewey: 650.13 B879w
Like the book above, except that this one deals with being trapped in work situations where a co-worker, or worse, your boss, is a destructive narcissist. Unless you are financially desperate, go find another job.

Other Alcoholism and Addiction books, plus Miscellaneous

Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass     Lewis Carroll.
Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers. Kingsport Press, Inc. Kingsport, Tenn.
Yes, this is the classic. It is, I hear, one of the most-quoted books on Earth, perhaps second only to the major religions' holy books like the Bible, the Koran, and the Bhagavad Gita.

DSM-III-R == Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Third Edition Revised.
Published by the American Psychiatric Association, Washington, DC. 1987.
ISBN: 0-521-34509-X (casebound); ISBN: 0-521-36755-6 (soft cover).
Dewey: 616.89 D536 1987

DSM-IV == Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition.
Published by the American Psychiatric Association, Washington, DC. 1994, 1995, 1998.
ISBN: 0-89042-061-0 (casebound); ISBN: 0-89042-062-9 (soft cover).
Dewey: 616.89 D536 1994

DSM-IV-TR == Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision.
Published by the American Psychiatric Association, Washington, DC. 2000.
ISBN: 0-89042-024-6 (casebound); ISBN: 0-89042-025-4 (soft cover).
LC: RC455.2.C4 D536 2000
Dewey: 616.89 D536 2000 or 616.89'075—dc21
See page 323 for delusional disorders.

The Clinical Interview Using DSM-IV     Ekkehard Othmer, M.D., Ph.D. and Sieglinde C. Othmer, Ph.D.
American Psychiatric Press, Inc., 1994.
ISBN: 0-88048-541-8
Dewey: 616.8914 O87c 1994

Principles of Biology     Herbert Spencer
Williams and Norgate
14, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London;
20, South Frederick Street, Edinburgh.
1864.
Dewey: 570.1 S745
This is quite a classic, good for quotes. It really was published in 1864, in London, back when the USA was torn apart by civil war. It is a strong defense of Charles Darwin's new Theory of Evolution. It's really funny that the fundamentalist religious fanatic Bill Wilson, who demanded that we discard Reason and human intelligence, and just have blind faith in his grandiose religious proclamations, would be quoting Herbert Spencer in the Big Book (page 570 of the 3rd edition).

Addiction is a Choice     Jeffrey A. Schaler.
Open Court Publishing Company, 2000. phone: 1-800-815-2280
ISBN: 0-8126-9403-1 hardcover, 0-8126-9404-1 paperback.
Dewey: 362.29 S297a 2000
Quite good. This book makes a good case for the standard ideas of addiction and the A.A. idea of "powerlessness over alcohol" being myths. Must reading for anyone wishing to be well-informed in the alcoholism or addiction fields.
Also see Schaler's web site: http://www.schaler.net/fifth/cultbusting.html

Slaying The Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America     William L. White
Chestnut Health Systems/Lighthouse Institute, Bloomington, Illinois 61701, 1998.
ISBN: 0-938475-07-X
LC: HV5279.W48 1998
LCCN: 98-11879
Dewey: 362.29'18'0973—dc21 or 362.291809 WHI
This book is a mixed product. The beginning, the history of early alcoholism treatment is excellent. And the ending chapters, on the various alcoholism treatment programs, are informative.
      But the chapters on Alcoholics Anonymous (15 to 18) and the chapters on Hazelden and the "Minnesota Model" are just reprints of the standard A.A. P.R. handouts. The strongest criticism of A.A. that the author can muster is asking whether it will work as well for women and racial minoritites as it does with white men, without ever having established that it works on white men. (That's the propaganda trick of Assume The Major Premise.) In fact, he dodges the whole question of the effectiveness of A.A. treatment by saying that A.A. isn't a treatment program, and A.A. doesn't keep records (page 176).
      The author devotes only two pages, 156 and 157, to criticisms of A.A., and the author fails to take a single criticism of A.A. seriously. It's all a white-wash. For example:

2) A.A.'s relative effectiveness has not been scientifically validated. This is a relatively benign criticism that decries the lack of scientific study of A.A.'s effectiveness compared to that of other interventions.

Of alcoholics who came to A.A. and really tried, 50% got sober at once and remained that way; 25% sobered up after some relapses, and among the remainder, those who stayed on with A.A. showed improvement.

Confrontation in Addiction Treatment     William L. White
And analysis of the brutal confrontational methods of "treatment" of alcohol and drug abuse problems that were started by Bill Wilson's psychiatrist, Dr. Harry Tiebout.
http://www.williamwhitepapers.com/pr/2007ConfrontationinAddictionTreatment.pdf

Drug-Impaired Professionals     Robert Holman Coombs
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. & London, England, 1997.
ISBN: 0-674-21673-3 (alk. paper)
LC: RC564.5.P76C66 1997
LCCN: 96-37926
Dewey: 362.29'086'22—dc21 or 362.29 C775d 1997
A dead give-away of this book's attitude is that fact that it quotes Dr. G. Douglas Talbott as an authority on drug- or alcohol-impaired professionals, but never bothers to mention the fact that Talbott had a long history of torturing his patient-prisoners into committing suicide at his Atlanta, Georgia treatment facility. After this book was published, Talbott lost a $1.3 million lawsuit because of such extreme malpractice, fraud, and false imprisonment. But this book does not have a single paragraph criticizing abuse of Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) by employers or program administrators. This author seems to be unaware that it has ever happened, or could ever happen. (See Rebecca Fransway's book AA Horror Stories for more information on that.)

The author promotes the idea of addictions being a disease without even questioning the dogma:

"Addiction is a disease, and we treat it like any other medical illness. If you come to me and say, 'I have the illness of addiction and need treatment,' we'll give you a leave of absence just as if you had a broken leg and needed to be in traction for a while. But if you keep it a secret and endanger your health and the lives of your patients, you're out on your ass!" (Page 177.)

(And how did you get that broken leg?
"Well, I was just joy-popping leg-breaker pills at parties, only on weekends, you know...")

Much of this book is just a carbon copy of the standard A.A. religious dogma:

A.A. members agree that while it is not necessary to believe in a personal God, it is important for alcoholics to realize that they themselves are not God! That is, they are not the center of the universe, nor are they running the show.
(Page 217. Italics in original.)

This book also uncritically promotes the idea that A.A. and spiritual experiences will somehow magically solve all alcohol or drug problems.

Steven Hyman, directory of Harvard University's Mind, Brain, Behavior Initiative, explains that "addiction is a form of adaptation" (Delbanco and Delbanco 1995, p.61). ... He adds, "I suspect that if I could compare scans of the brain of an alcoholic person before and after treatment in a twelve-step program, you would see clear changes."
(Page 221.)

"He suspects that the 12 steps do something to the brain..." That is the level of "scientific proof" of the efficacy of 12-Step treatment programs that this book provides. And yet the author enthusiastically endorses the idea of shoving any and all drinking or doping professionals into EAPs that practice the 12-Step cult religion.

American Drinking Practices     Don Cahalan, Ira H. Cisin and Helen M. Crossley
Publications Division, Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1969.
LCCN: 70-626701
SBN: 911290-37-0
LC: HV5292.C3 1969

Problem Drinkers     Don Cahalan
Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco, 1970.
ISBN: 0-0-87589-080-6
LCCN: 73-133617
Dewey: 178 C132p

Understanding America's Drinking Problem     Don Cahalan
Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco and London, 1988.
ISBN: 1-55542-057-5
LC: HV5292.C337 1987
LCCN: 87-45418
Dewey: 362.2928

An Ounce Of Prevention: Strategies for Solving Tobacco, Alcohol, and Drug Problems     Don Cahalan
Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco and Oxford, 1991.
ISBN: 1-55542-348-5
LC: RC565.C27 1991
LCCN: 90-15642
Dewey: 362.29'17'0973—dc20
Factual and accurate information about addiction prevention programs and treatment programs. Scholarly, well-researched, and realistic. Unfortunately, there isn't much evidence that the programs actually work. It's like this:

And as to whether treatment really works, the overseeing committee expresses a qualified "yes", but emphasizes that some improve without treatment and that some treatment can be harmful.
(Page 147.)

The author also includes a chapter on "Have We Lost The War On Drugs?", which summarizes many reports, most all of which end on a note like: "...with no apparent improvement in stemming the drug trade." (Page 196.)

Selling Serenity: Life Among the Recovery Stars     Andrew Meacham
Upton Books, a division of Sirs Mandarin, Inc., Boca Raton, FL, 1999.
ISBN: 0-89777-708-5
LC: HV5279 .M43 1999
LCCN: 97-44281
Dewey: 362.292'0973—dc21 or 362.292 MEACHAM 1999
This book is a blockbuster. It is must reading for anyone in the alcoholism or addictions treatment or rehabilitation field. It details a lot of the selling of the standard recovery myths, like selling the idea of codependency and turning its treatment into an industry, and "recovering" false memories, and "reparenting", and more. He describes "Codependency" as invent a non-existent disease, and then charge a fortune to treat it. And one chapter title is priceless: The Metastasizing of Metaphor.
Quotes: here and here. Also see Andrew Meacham's take on Grandchildren of Alcoholics.

Many Roads, One Journey: Moving Beyond the 12 Steps     Charlotte Davis Kasl, Ph.D.
Harper Perennial, A Division of HarperCollins Publishers Inc., New York, 1992.
ISBN: 0-06-055263-8 and ISBN: 0-06-096518-5 (pbk.)
LC: RC533 .K365 1992
LCCN: 90-56435
Dewey: 616.86'06—dc20 or 616.8606 K19m
This book is excellent. It definitely ends up in the Top 10 List of books that you must read if you are thinking about quitting (or perhaps if a loved one is trying to quit, or needs to quit).
She covers addiction and alcoholism from a lot of different viewpoints, including the need for improved nutrition and getting off of other addictions like nicotine, caffeine, or TV.
She is about the only one who addresses the issue of the narcissism inherent in A.A., which it got from the champion narcissist, Bill Wilson. (Pages 153-154.) She is also the only one to talk about Candida Albicans, a potentially-devastating yeast infection, in connection with alcoholism. Something that A.A. all too often fails to consider is that people kill their pain with alcohol because they are sick and in pain, not because they are sinful. Ms. Kasl has the brains to realize this.
She also covers recovery from the woman's viewpoint better than anybody else I've seen. This book is simply Must reading for women alcoholics and addicts.
She also has a good take on the inherently-patriarchal attitudes of A.A., and the fallacies of codependency.
An example of her perceptiveness: As a counselor and therapist who has had to repair a lot of refugees from A.A. and 12-Step programs, she has a lot to say about things like

"How to violate other people's boundaries with:"

• Slogans (Tell somebody whose mother just died: "God never gives you more than you can handle. Don't feel sorry for yourself. Get outside of yourself. Stuff your feelings. Don't dredge up the past. Take responsibility. Get off the pity pot. Let Go and Let God.")
• Giving unsolicited advice.
• Hugging members of the group without permission.
• Assuming friendship on the part of another member.
• Not accepting a member's saying "no" to phone calls, socializing, and so on.
• Trying to get a new member to talk.
• Preaching.
• Flirting with a group member.
• Seducing a group member.
• Telling sexist or racist jokes.
• Bringing sex into the conversation.
• Coming to group with the intent of finding a date rather than a sincere interest in personal growth.
• Disclosing lots of personal information without taking time to create a friendship or find out if the person wants to listen to you.

Her list of the characteristics of unhealthy groups is:

1. The group discourages or blocks outside involvement.
2. The group limits or discourages access to reading material or other forms of personal growth.
3. Expression of dissension is punished, squelched, or strongly discouraged.
4. The group becomes grandiose in its self-definition — "Ours is the one way, the road to salvation."
5. People get locked into stereotyped roles.
6. The group becomes paranoid about outsiders or those who question the norm.
7. People talk like robots.
8. In-group jargon predominates in conversations.
9. The group exerts pressure on people to stay.
10. People use the group for sexual needs.
11. The group is unable to reflect on itself, its history, and its values from a broad perspective.

Sober for Good: New Solutions for Drinking Problems — Advice from Those Who Have Succeeded     Anne M. Fletcher, MS., RD.
Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 2001.
The authoress interviewed 222 "masters" who had remained sober for 10 years or more, and learned from them. Almost 100 of them quit while attending A.A. meetings, but the others attended less-known groups like Women for Sobriety (WFS), SMART Recovery (Self Management and Recovery Training Recovery), and Secular Organizations for Sobriety (SOS), or simply did it alone, with no support group.

The Small Book     Jack Trimpey
Dell Publishing, 1992
ISBN: 0-440-50725-1
Dewey: 362.2918 T831s
This was one of the original calls to war against the Evil Empire of Alcoholics Anonymous. Note that Jack Trimpey has declared this book obsolete, and says that you should just read the next one, "Rational Recovery." The funny thing is, I don't find it to be obsolete. Trimpey borrowed some techniques from Doctors Maultsby and Ellis like the ABCs of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and did a good job of explaining them. Trimpey did a good job of collecting a variety of tools for quitting drinking and staying quit and working them together into a fair toolkit. This book does what A.A. only claims to do — "give you the tools you will need to maintain sobriety".

Rational Recovery     Jack Trimpey
Pocket Books, 1996
ISBN: 0-671-52858-0
Dewey: 362.2918 T831r
This is Trimpey's second book about quitting drinking using rational techniques. He changed his mind about a lot of things and decided that you only need one technique to defeat cravings — the ability to recognize and dispute the Addictive Voice as it cajoles, wheedles, and seduces you into having "just one". This book is worth reading just for the chapter in the back that describes a counselling session where Trimpey exposes "the Beast", the addiction monster that tries to con us into drinking or using again (really, the base brain).

The Thinking Person's Guide to Sobriety     Bert Pluymen
St. Martin's Press, New York, 1999.
ISBN: 0-312-20034-X
LC: HV5276.P58 1999
Dewey: 362.2928 P738t 1999

Coming Clean; Overcoming Addiction Without Treatment     Robert Granfield and William Cloud
New York University Press, New York and London, 1999
ISBN: 0-8147-1581-8 (cloth: alk. paper), ISBN: 0-8147-1582-6 (pbk.: alk. paper)
LC: HV4998.G73 1999
Dewey: 616.8606—dc21 or 616.8606 G756c 1999
LCCN: 99-6526
An excellent book that tells it straight. Dispenses with the myths about recovery, the disease theory, and the slogans about "Nobody can do it alone", and describes how a lot of people do in fact recover from addictions on their own, without treatment. This book makes the top ten list.

Recovery From Addiction; A Practical Guide to Treatment, Self-Help, and Quitting on Your Own     William Cloud and Robert Granfield
New York University Press, New York and London, 2001.
ISBN: 0-8147-1607-5 (alk. paper); 0-8147-1608-3 (pbk.: alk. paper)
LC: HV4998.C56 2001
Dewey: 362.2918-dc21 or 362.2918 C647r 2001
More good stuff from Granfield and Cloud.

Recovery Options; The Complete Guide; How You and Your Loved Ones Can Understand and Treat Alcohol and Other Drug Problems     Joseph Volpicelli, M.D.,Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, and Maia Szalavitz
John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York, 2000.
ISBN: 0-471-34575-X
LC: RC565.V63 2000
Dewey: 616.861 V932r 2000 or 616.861—dc21
Excellent, really covers the subject well. Actually, I knew it would be good when I saw that Maia Szalavitz was the co-author. I had not encountered Dr. Volpicelli before, but have enjoyed reading Maia's messages in newsgroup debates for years, and long ago came to the conclusion that she is one of those delightful people who has her head screwed on straight, and is intelligent, too, and knows what she is talking about. This book does not disappoint. Strongly recommended for those who are struggling to break out of addictions.

Help At Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids     Maia Szalavitz
Riverhead Books, New York, 2006.
ISBN: 1-59448-910-6
LC: HV1431.S97 2006
Dewey: 362.74'8'0830973—dc22
A great book. Takes up the thread of the web page Children's Gulags: Child Abuse for Fun and Profit and takes it much further. Includes "boots-on-the-ground" interviews with principle characters in the criminal enterprise called "tough love". This is absolutely must reading for anyone thinking of sending a child to a so-called "tough love" boot camp or "character-building" "disciplinary" "wilderness trek". Your child might die there. Many already have.
And the harm done often far outweighs any benefits. The liabilities of such programs include children who are scarred for life and spend many years — occasionally the rest of their lives — trying to overcome post-traumatic stress disorder. And many children who did not use drugs before being tortured by such a program did afterwards.

The Natural History of Alcoholism: Causes, Patterns, and Paths to Recovery     George Vaillant
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1983.
ISBN: 0-674-60375-3
LC: RC565 .V33 1983
Dewey: 616.861
In this book, Vaillant described his eight-year-long study of the use of A.A. as treatment for alcoholism, which showed that A.A. didn't work at all. Nevertheless, Vaillant is still a member of the Board of Trustees of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., and still wants to send all alcoholics to A.A. to confess their sins. Read excerpts and a discussion of them here.

The Natural History of Alcoholism Revisited     George Vaillant
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, and London, England, 1995.
ISBN: 0-674-60377-X (cloth); ISBN: 0-674-60378-8 (paperback).
Dewey: 616.861 V131n 1995
This book reprints most all of the information that was present in Vaillant's previous book, so if you can't get your hands on the first book, this one will do.
It turns out that Google books has this book online at:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr;=&id;=5t19rq4QRPsC&oi;=fnd&
pg=PR11&dq;=natural+history+of+alcoholism&ots;=MoVOl7jPoV&
sig=IVXi9r5MBbRWjejGXkLLvGTDJ-8#v=onepage&q;&f;=false

Heavy Drinking: The Myth of Alcoholism as a Disease     Herbert Fingarette
University of California Press, Berkely, Los Angeles, London, 1988.
ISBN: 0-520-06290-6, 0-520-06754-1 (alk. paper)
LC: HV5292.F56 1988
LCCN: 87-26692
Dewey: 362.2928
A block-buster book that dismissed the disease theory of alcoholism as a myth. It also examines "treatment" for that non-existent disease, and finds it to be an ineffective fraud. Herbert Fingarette is a distinguished professor at the University of California, and has been a consultant on alcoholism and addiction to the World Health Organization and a Fellow of the Stanford Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences.