For more information on Frank Buchman, and his connection to Alcoholics Anonymous, as well as the many other problems with A.A., read the first chapters of the following three excellent books:

Alcoholics Anonymous: Cult or Cure?     Charles Bufe, 1998.
See Sharp Press, PO Box 1731, Tucson AZ 85702-1731
ISBN: 1-884365-12-4
Dewey: 362.29286 B929a 1998
(This is the second edition; it has noticeably more information than the first edition.)

More Revealed: A Critical Analysis of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Twelve Steps     Ken Ragge, 1992.
ALERT! Publishing, P.O. Box 50233, Henderson, Nevada 89016-0233
The first chapter of More Revealed, which specifically covers Frank Buchman and the earliest days of A.A., is available free on the Internet, at
http://www.morerevealed.com/
It is very good; highly recommended.

A History of Addiction & Recovery in the United States     Michael Lemanski
See Sharp Press, PO Box 1731, Tucson AZ 85702-1731, 2001.
ISBN: 1-884365-26-4
Dewey: 362.29180973 or 362.2918 L547h
Also from See Sharp Press, another excellent critical analysis of the whole recovery industry, including A.A., treatment centers, and "codependency therapy".
Quotes: Mental health in A.A.

For the standard party line about everything, see "The Big Book", really:
Alcoholics Anonymous, Third Edition, 1976,     published as "anonymous", but really written by William G. Wilson, Henry Parkhurst, Joe Worth, and 31 or more other people.
Published by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
ISBN: 0-916856-00-3
Dewey: 362.29 A347 1976
or:
Alcoholics Anonymous, Fourth Edition, 2001,     published as "anonymous", but really written by William G. Wilson, Henry Parkhurst, Joe Worth, and many other people.
Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. New York, NY, 2001.
ISBN: 1-893007-16-2
Dewey: 362.29 A347 2001

Note that the earlier editions of the A.A. book are available for free on the Internet, in both HTML and plain text formats. It seems that somebody was too sober to remember to renew the copyrights...
http://www.recovery.org/aa/download/BB-plus.html

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
(written by William G. Wilson and Tom Powers, published as 'anonymous'.)
Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. New York, NY, 2000.
ISBN: 0-916856-06-2
Dewey: 362.2928 T969 1965
This is one of the most insane and vicious books around. It is right down there with Mein Kampf as far as its ratio of lies to truth, and hate content, is concerned. It is ostensibly Bill Wilson's explanation of his Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, but it is really something quite dark and evil, Bill Wilson's poisonous contempt for human nature masquerading as spirituality. It was written while Wilson was in the middle of his eleven-year-long bout of deep clinical depression, and it shows. It is really a brutal, hateful assault on the character of people who happen to have a drinking problem. Bill Wilson hated himself and his own character flaws, so he projected all of his own weaknesses and character flaws onto the alcoholics around him, and also onto a mythical stereotypical alcoholic, and then said, "Look at him. Look at how disgusting he is. We are all like that." This whole book is non-stop guilt induction.

Lois Remembers: Memoirs of the Co-Founder of Al-Anon and Wife of the Co-Founder of Alcoholics Anonymous     Lois Wilson
Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc. 1991.
ISBN: 0-910034-23-0
Lois' book is pretty pathetic: it was probably ghost-written for her, somebody else putting words into her mouth, yet again, because it came out in 1979, long after Bill's death, when she was also very old and frail. The Lois Remembers book parrots much of the standard party line in the Big Book, including the "jealous of God and A.A." story:

Slowly I recognized that because I had not been able to "cure" Bill of his alcoholism, I resented the fact that someone else had done so, and I was jealous of his newfound friends...
      God, through the Oxford Group, had accomplished in a twinkling what I had failed to do in seventeen years.
— Lois Remembers, page 99.

That book doesn't say a word about Lois being angry with Bill for refusing to get a job (leaving her to support the family), and just spending all of his time going to A.A. meetings, chain-smoking, and philandering.

Children Of The Healer: The Story of Dr. Bob's Kids     Bob Smith and Sue Smith Windows, As Told to Christine Brewer
First publication: Parkside Publishing Corp., Park Ridge, IL, 1992.
ISBN: 0-942421-48-5
2nd Printing, paperback: Hazelden Information Services, Center City, MN, 1994.
ISBN: 1-56838-3126
Applicable to both printings:
Dewey: 362.292 SM52C or 362.2923
LC: HV5132
LCCN: 92-64114
Two children of Doctor Bob describe an alcoholic father who created a dysfunctional family.
Doctor Bob pressured his daughter Sue to spurn her high-school sweetheart and marry A.A. number four, Ernie Galbraith. The marriage was a disaster, because Ernie was habitually unfaithful (just like Bill Wilson), and relapsed often. Ernie's story was quietly removed from the second edition of the Big Book in 1955, but she didn't get to divorce Ernie until 1965. Then she finally married Ray Windows, her old high-school sweetheart.

The Akron Genesis of Alcoholics Anonymous     Dick B., 1992, 1998.
Paradise Research Publications, Inc., Box 959, Kihei, HI 96753-0959.
ISBN: 1-885803-17-6
Dewey: 362.2928 B111a 1998
See Dick's web site at: http://www.dickb.com/index.shtml
He has a good selection of books about the early days of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Also see more history at: http://www.dickb.com/archives/history.shtml

Bill W.     Robert Thomsen
Harper & Rowe, New York, 1975.
ISBN: 0-06-014267-7
Dewey: 362.29 W112t
This is a good biography of William G. Wilson, even if it is very positively slanted towards Mr. Wilson, because the author knew Mr. Wilson and worked beside him for the last 12 years of Mr. Wilson's life. This book will still tell you about some of Bill Wilson's warts, his fat ego, his publicity-hound behavior, and his years-long "dry drunks"...

Alcoholics Anonymous Comes Of Age     William G. Wilson
Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (AAWS), New York, 1957, 1986.
Harper, New York, 1957.
ISBN: 0-91-685602-X
LC: HV5278 .A78A4
Dewey: 178.1 A1c
This is Bill Wilson's version of the history of Alcoholics Anonymous. It suspiciously differs from known history here and there.

'PASS IT ON'; The story of Bill Wilson and how the A.A. message reached the world     'anonymous'
Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (AAWS), New York, 1984.
ISBN: 0-916856-12-7
LCCN: 84-072766
LC: HV5032.W19P37x 1984
Dewey: 362.29/286/O92
This is the official, council-approved version of the history of Alcoholics Anonymous. A lot of it is lies and distortions and re-writing history, and Bill Wilson's tall tales. Strangely enough, there is also some very interesting stuff in here, including chapter 16, which describes Bill's spook sessions and séances, talking with the spirits of the dead, and communicating with spirits through spirit rapping and the Ouija board. See pages 275 to 285.

Language Of The Heart     William G. Wilson
A.A. Grapevine, New York, 1988.
ISBN: 0-933-68516-5
LC: HV5278 .W15 1988
LCCN: 88-71930
This is a collection of Bill's writings, speeches, and letters, assembled after his death.

The Language Of The Heart: Step 12     Hazelden
Hazelden Educational Materials, Center City, MN 55012-0176, 1983.
ISBN: 0-89486-167-0
Dewey: 362.2928 M135L
Don't confuse this pamphlet with the above book. This is just a short piece of 12-Step propaganda from Hazelden, 16 pages of advice on how to do Step Twelve.

Bill W. My First 40 Years     'An Autobiography By The Cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous'
Hazelden, Center City, Minnesota 55012-0176, 2000.
ISBN: 1-56838-373-8
Dewey: B W11w 2000
This is Bill Wilson's autobiography, supposedly published anonymously. It was assembled by Hazelden ghost writers from a set of autobiographical tape recordings made by Wilson before his death.

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 Assuming 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). Still, this book is required reading for the serious student of alcoholism and its treatment.
See the bibliography for more on this book.

On the Tail of a Comet; The Life of Frank Buchman; A Small Town American Who Awakened The Conscience Of The World     Garth Lean
Helmers & Howard, Colorado Springs, CO 80933, 1988.
Originally published in Great Britain by Constable and Co. Ltd. under the title Frank Buchman, A Life, 1985.
ISBN: 0-939443-07-4
LC: BJ10.M6B834 1988
Dewey: B Bu853L
LCCN: 87-32740
This book is a total white-wash of Frank Buchman, and large parts of it are complete fabrications, like the author's account of how Buchman tried to warn America about the dangers of fascism and Hitler before World War II, rather than actually praising and admiring Hitler, which Buchman really did.
See a review of the book here.

Frank Buchman: a life     Garth Lean
Constable and Company Ltd, London, 1985.
ISBN: 0-09-466650-4
LC: BV3785.B8 or BJ10.M6B834 1985
Dewey: B Bu853L or 269.20924
This book is the same as the one above, On the Tail of a Comet, The Life of Frank Buchman. This appears to be an identical printing, just done in Great Britain and released with a different title (the same text is on the same-numbered pages).

Remaking the World     Frank N. D. Buchman
Robert M. McBride & Company, New York, 1949.
LC: BJ10M6B8
Dewey: 170 B919r
This is the collected speeches and sermons of Frank Buchman, probably the single most complete collection of the thoughts and statements of Buchman.

Frank Buchman As I Knew Him     H. W. 'Bunny' Austin
Grosvenor Books, London, 1975.
ISBN 0-901269-16-6
Dewey: 248.2 Au76
Another grovelling true believer praises Frank Buchman. Bunny Austin was the former famous Davis Cup tennis player (and draft dodger) whom Buchman used as a decoration at so many Oxford Group house parties and conventions.

The Message of Frank Buchman     R. C. Mowat (Formerly Scholar of Hertford College, Oxford; Lecturer in History, Royal Naval College, Greenwich)
Blandford Press, London, 1951.
If it was printed by Blandford Press, you know it's pro-MRA propaganda, and this small 58-page booklet is no exception. It only uses eight other MRA books for its source material. It abounds with such double-talk as, "Moral Re-Armament is the ideology of inspired democracy" (page 14) without seeing any problem with the total lack of elections in MRA — nobody ever elected Frank Buchman or any of the other leaders of the Oxford Group or MRA. To the Buchmanites, absolute dictatorships were "inspired democracy".
      The back cover sums up the author's attitude:

      After more than 6,000 years of development, civilization is faced with collapse. The only alternative to catastrophe, barbarism and a Dark Age — possibly to the extinction of mankind — would seem to be the coming of a type of society more advanced than civilization as we know it.   ...
      The author maintains that significant experiments in building such a society have taken place during the last 2,000 years. He traces their effect on the social relations and culture of the world around, and concludes that there is a pattern of society which could be carried into effect by a 'creative minority' with a global strategy and the necessary dynamism to overcome the challenge of materialistic totalitarian forces. The author believes that an examination of the world scene reveals that through Moral Re-Armament this is already taking place.

For Sinners Only     Arthur James "A. J." Russell
Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York and London, 1932.
Dewey: 248 R96
More Oxford Group propaganda, written by a true believer in the cult. This book is especially good for the glimpse into Buchman's world that it gives. Just don't expect the stories to be entirely accurate or honest.
Quotes: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

One Thing I Know     A. J. Russell
Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York, 1933.
Dewey: 248 R96o
Describes the author's conversion to Buchmanism. Gives a first-hand glimpse of Frank Buchman.
Quotes: here, here, here, here, and here.

God Calling     A. J. Russell
This is a very different book by Russell. This book is the collected delusions of a couple of old ladies who believed that they were hearing the voice of Jesus Christ when they conducted séances. This book is their record of all of the 'messages' that they allegedly received from Jesus Chist. Quotes: here.

The Quiet Time     Howard J. Rose
Herford College, Oxford University, Oxford, U.K., year unknown, probably late 1920's or early 1930's.
Dewey: 248
This is a classic Oxford Group book. This one teaches the Buchmanite practice of receiving "Guidance" — i.e., channelling God.

Frank Buchman's Secret     Peter Howard
Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 1961.
Dewey: 248 H85f
Peter Howard was the British fascist who took over the leadership of Moral Re-Armament after Frank Buchman died. As you can imagine, he was a true believer, and had nothing but praise for Frank Buchman and his cult. This book is some of the most outrageous and grandiose propaganda that you will find — cult propaganda written by one of the cult leaders.

Britain and the Beast     Peter Howard
Heinemann, London, 1963.
LC: BJ10.M6
LCCN: 76-232657
Dewey: 248.25
This is some of Howard's most hateful and vicious writing. He devotes two whole chapters, out of the 14 in the book, to raving about homosexuals.

Remaking Men     Paul Campbell, M.D. and Peter Howard
Arrowhead Books, Inc., New York, 1954.
LC: BJ10.M6C3 1954a
Pure Buchmanite propaganda. Really crazy, perverted and hateful stuff that even tells us that married couples should not 'indulge' in making love or having sex (except to create children). In this book Peter Howard explains and rationalizes Buchman's odd theology like the Four Absolutes, and then praises Frank Buchman and Moral Re-Armament, and then gives us some anti-Communist and anti-labor arguments, and then gives a few proof-by-anecdote stories like the conversion of Bill Pickle the Bootlegger into Bill the Bootlicker — "The Making of a Miracle". This book actually purports to teach us how to diagnose "the sexually driven" — both heterosexual and homosexual. Pages 60 to 62 reprint the ridiculous MRA stereotype of "the homosexual" as someone who wears suede shoes and favors green clothes. And the authors teach us that "A most reliable sign of sexual defeat is piosity. Men who are unctuous and unreal are licked by impurity."
Quotes: here, and here, and here, and here, and here.

Ideas Have Legs     Peter Howard
Coward-McCann, Inc., New York, 1946.
LC: BV4915.H725 1946
More of Peter Howard's crazy opinions on everything. This book is more autobiographical than the others.

Innocent Men     Peter Howard
William Heinemann Ltd., London and Toronto, 1941.
First printing April 1941; reprinted May 1941.
LC: BV4915.H73
This is Peter Howard's first book, a book of praise of the Oxford Groups which attempts to refute all of the criticism and negative publicity which the Groups were receiving. This is the book of praise of Frank Buchman that Peter Howard wrote before he had ever met Frank Buchman.
Quotes: here and here and here and here and here and here.

Design For Dedication     Peter Howard
Henry Regnery Company, Chicago, 1964.
LCCN: 64-23017
Dewey: 248 H85d
Peter Howard is the man who took over leadership of the Moral Re-Armament organization after Frank Buchman's death. As you can imagine, he has nothing but praise for Buchmanism. This is a collection of his speeches on a variety of subjects, ranging from religion to anti-Communism.

Moral Re-Armament — What Is It?     Basil Entwistle and John McCook Roots
Pace Publications, Los Angeles, 1967.
LCCN: 67-20414
Dewey: 248 E62m
More pure propaganda from a couple of life-long members of Frank Buchman's cult. Basil Entwistle was a British draft dodger who came to the USA to avoid the British draft during World War II, and John McCook Roots was the son of Bishop Logan Roots, who threw Frank Buchman out of China in the nineteen-twenties, only to later become a true believer convert to Buchmanism.
Pace Publications was the publishing house of MRA in the USA.
Still, this book contains some interesting history, including a selection of speeches by Frank Buchman and Peter Howard, both of whom had died by the time this book was written. This book also covers the last days of the cult, including the Sing Out and Up With People productions.

Born To Upturn The World: The people who are making the Sing-Out explosion, "Up With People"     David Allen
Copyright Moral Re-Armament, Inc., 1967.
Pace Publications, 835 South Flower Street, Los Angeles, CA, 90017, 1967.
Dewey: 224.55 A425
This is a small booklet of propaganda that praises the Sing Out and Up With People shows.
Pace Publications was the publishing house of MRA in the USA.
This book is in possession of the Conception Abbey & Seminary Library, Conception, Missouri.
Inter-Library Loan number: 3 7200 00038 2153.

What Is Behind The Up With People! Movement?     Vince Conner
An unpublished term paper for a Moral Theology class, May 19, 1968.
I question some of the author's assumptions about how Moral Re-Armament was okay with the Catholic Church. In particular, he states that he wrote to the office of Bishop Noa of Marquette (Detroit, Michigan, USA), about the Bishop's criticism of MRA (published here), and was told that the Bishop had changed his mind completely and that MRA was okay now. Excuse me, but the Bishop of Marquette cannot change the Pope's mind for him. It was a Vatican ban on MRA, not the Bishop's ban.
This paper is in possession of the Conception Abbey & Seminary Library, Conception, Missouri, and is hidden inside the previous book, Born To Upturn The World.
Inter-Library Loan number: 3 7200 00038 2153.

Born To Live In the Future; Up With People at 25     Dr. Morris Martin
Copyright 1990, Up With People.
Up With People, 3103 North Campbell Avenue, Tucson AZ 85719.
Dewey: 780.601 M364bo
Another book about the Up With People show, written by one of the surviving life-long members of Frank Buchman's cult.

The Fool Hath Said     Beverly Nichols
Country Life Press, Garden City, N.Y., 1935 and 1936.
Dewey: 248 N62
This is a book of Nichols' religious philosophy. It includes a chapter of praise of Buchman's Oxford Groups that Nichols was basically deceived into writing and putting in this book. Nichols' next book, All I Could Never Be, explains how the deception was done.

All I Could Never Be     Beverly Nichols
E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1950.
Dewey: 828 N61a
A book of memoirs. Includes a chapter on his experiences with Buchman's Oxford Groups cult, and also experiences at a Nuremberg Nazi Party rally.

The Mystery of Moral Re-Armament, A Study of Frank Buchman and His Movement     Tom Driberg
Secker & Warberg, London, 1964.
Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1965.
LC: BJ10 .M6D7
LCCN: 64-19084
Dewey: 248.25 D831
This is a great book, one of the most detailed, well-documented, and complete sources of information about Frank Buchman and his religious movement. And it is easy, fascinating reading, written by a fellow who didn't pull his punches when criticizing Buchman. It was written by Tom Driberg, a fellow who was a colorful personality in his own right, starting as a newspaper reporter in London, and then becoming one of the first openly-gay Members of Parliament in history. And on top of that, he joined the Communist Party in Britain in the 1930s, and when he grew disgusted with it and was going to quit, was recruited as an agent by the British secret intelligence service, MI5, to spy on the Communists, which he did until his cover was blown in 1946 and the Communist Party kicked him out. In the early nineteen-sixties, the London publishing house of Secker & Warburg asked Driberg to do a book on Buchman and the MRA, since he had previously reported on them.

Ruling Passions     Tom Driberg
Secker & Warberg, London, 1978
Dewey: B Dr831r
This is the autobiography of Tom Driberg. He was everything from a newspaper reporter to a British Member of Parliament. He wrote the above book about Buchman and MRA.

Buchman — Surgeon of Souls     B.W. Smith, Jr.
American Magazine, 122:26-7+, November 1936.
This is an interesting and balanced article on Frank Buchman — meaning, they didn't hesitate to criticize or ridicule some of his foibles, like how he occasionally claimed that God "guided him" to pay less than the going rate for things.

Apostle to the Twentieth Century; Frank N. D. Buchman: Founder of the Oxford Group Movement     Henry P. van Dusen
The Atlantic Monthly magazine, 154:1-16, July 1934, vol 154, issue 1, pages 1-16.
A great article, very penetrating and perceptive.

The Oxford Groups Movement     Henry P. Van Dusen
The Atlantic Monthly magazine, 154:240-252, August 1934, vol 154, issue 2, pages 240-252.
The second in the 2-part series by Henry P. van Dusen. Also great.

House-Parties Across the Continent     Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr.
The Christian Century magazine, August 23, 1933, pages 1056-1059.
This is Rev. Sam Shoemaker bragging about the great work that his Oxford Group recruiting team was doing during a tour of Canada and the USA.

A Critique of Buchmanism     Douglas J. Wilson (Prof. in the University of Western Ontario)
The Christian Century magazine, August 23, 1933, pages 1059-1062.
This is a good rebuttal to Sam Shoemaker's article.

A God-Guided Dictator     editorial staff
The Christian Century magazine, September 9, 1936, pages 1182-1183
This is The Christian Century magazine's classic answer to Frank Buchman's "I thank heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler" remarks.

Hitler and Buchman     Reinhold Niebuhr
The Christian Century magazine, October 7, 1936, pages 1315-1316.
This is Reinhold Niebuhr's classic answer to Frank Buchman's "I thank heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler" remarks.

Moral Re-Armament: A study of the movement; Prepared by the Social and Industrial Council of the Church Assembly, C.A.1129     Church of England, National Assembly, Social and Industrial Council
Church Information Board of the Church Assembly, Church House, Westminster, S.W.1, 1955.
Dewey: 170 M828c
A very small (49 pages) study of MRA, from the official Church of England viewpoint.
Quotes:

"No one could say that the movement is over modest, and some of the statements might lead one to think that love and unselfishness were the discovery of M.R.A., and that M.R.A. had a monopoly of these high ideals. But that is typical of their writing."
Page 34.

"[MRA] assumes that amelioration of the social order is the direct and automatic consequence of the interior personal 'change', that is of 'love'. It simply is not so."
Page 35.

Twice-Born Men, Narratives of a Recent Movement in the Spirit of Personal Religion     Harold Begbie
G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London, The Knickerbocker Press, 1923.
Dewey: 248 B41m
This book fawns over and glorifies Dr. Frank Buchman as a religious leader. For some strange reason, perhaps a conceit of modesty, Frank Buchman is never explicitly named; he is always referred to as "F.B.". This book is basically a collection of stories of Frank Buchman making converts. As a historical document, it does give a peek into another world.

The Eight Points of The Oxford Group, An Exposition for Christians and Pagans     C. Irving Benson
Humphrey Milford Oxford University Press, Cathedral Buildings, Melbourne, Australia, 1936.
Dewey: 248 B47
This is a very pro-Buchman book. It is practically a how-to manual for Buchmanism. As such, it sometimes degenerates into absurdity and double-talk, like this footnote on page 45. After asking, "Are absolute love, purity, honesty, and unselfishness possible?", Benson wrote:

There is no need to raise questions of metaphysics or philosophy and argue about the word 'absolute,' the real meaning of which nobody knows. 'Absolute' is used by the Group in the practical sense and means 'perfect.'

Funny, but all of my dictionaries know what the word "absolute" means... And it's odd that the author thinks that "perfect" is more practical and attainable than "absolute." The author overlooks the fact that both "absolute" and "perfect" are both ridiculous cultish demands for super-human perfection.

This advertising-slogan double-talk is good too:

The Oxford Group Movement is not a new religion; it is religion anew. Every upsurge of spiritual life in the history of Christianity has been the rediscovery and re-emphasis of neglected truths.
— Page 58.

Yes, like the forgotten and neglected truths that Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler were really great fellows.

Soul Surgery: Some Thoughts On Incisive Personal Work     H. A. Walter, M.A., Late Literary Secretary, National Council, Young Men's Christian Associations of India, Burma, and Ceylon
Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1932.
LC: BV4487.O9W35 1932
This book became the manual for Oxford Group recruiting practices. It teaches "The Five C's", including mind games for extracting confessions from "patients". Quotes here.

Experiment with God; Frank Buchman Reconsidered     Gösta Ekman
Translated from Swedish by Dr. John Morrison
Hodder and Stoughton, London, Sydney, Auckland, Toronto, 1972.
LC: BJ10.M6 E38
This pro-Buchmanite tract was written after Frank Buchman's death by a Swedish true believer. Lots of double talk and double-think. See quotes here and here.

The Oxford Group, Its History and Significance     Walter Houston Clark
Bookman Associates, New York, 1951
Dewey: 248 C614
The author tries to present a fair and objective description of Frank Buchman and the Oxford Group Movement. He does a fair job of it. He really minimized incidents like Buchman's getting kicked out of Princeton, praise for Hitler and the Nazis, appeasement of Hitler, and draft-dodging by Oxford Group members, but still, he gives a pretty good history.

Drawing Room Conversion; A Sociological Account of the Oxford Group Movement     Allan W. Eister
Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina, 1950.
LC: BV4915 .E35
My over-all impression of this otherwise fine book is that the author pulls his punches. The entire "I thank Heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler" flap is reduced to a footnote in fine print at the bottom of page 187, and is introduced only as a hearsay note, that Reinhold Niebuhr had written, in a Christian Century article, about a newsman writing about an interview with Buchman "in which the latter is reported to have said"... That was the only mention of Hitler or the Nazis that I could find in the whole book. While the facts seem generally true and accurate, and even plentiful, I couldn't escape the feeling that a lot of negative (towards Buchman) stuff was left out. The index actually has no entry for Adolf Hitler, Nazism, the Nazi Party, fascism, or even Germany. However, when former President Herbert Hoover spoke briefly and informally at an MRA luncheon, December 10 or 11, 1938, saying that he believed in 'ethics and morality', we learn about that in larger type (pages 48 & 49). And yes, ex-President Herbert Hoover is listed in the index, with four entries. Hmmm...

Inside Buchmanism: an independent inquiry into the Oxford Group Movement and Moral Re-Armament     Geoffrey Williamson
Philosophical Library, New York, c1954, published 1955.
LC: BJ10 .M6W5 1955
Excellent. Recommended. Good history. Extensive, fair, even-handed, and sane. The author was right there, doing a first-hand investigation of the Oxford Group — a.k.a. Moral Re-Armament — in both London and Caux, Switzerland. Obviously, this book only covers up to 1954, but that is the vast majority of the Oxford Groups / MRA period. The author gives several revealing glimpses into the cult mind-set, like when, on page 139, he reads from the writings of Benjamin Franklin, to some MRA members, that old Ben had advocated an international moral organization much like MRA, and the MRA members just gave him blank looks, and

"Much to my surprise, there was no great show of interest in this disclosure that a great figure in American history had undoubtedly thought of 'Moral Re-Armament' nearly two hundred years ago. Apparently for them there was no prophet but Frank Buchman!"

The Oxford Group Movement: Is it of God or Satan?     J. C. Brown
Produced for the author by Pickering & Inglis, Printers, Glasgow, Scotland, Great Britain, 1933.
LC: BV4915 .B72 1933
As the title implies, this book is highly critical of the theology of Frank Buchman.

The Open Secret of MRA; an examination of Mr. Driberg's 'critical examination' of Moral Re-Armament     J. P. Thornton-Duesbery, M.A. (Master of St. Peter's College, Oxford)
Blandford Press, London, 1964.
LC: BJ10 M6D68
This is MRA's answer to Tom Driberg's book on MRA. It sarcastically nit-picks everything in Driberg's book, and denies and tries to explain away everything.

Frank Buchman, Eighty     "by His Friends"
Blandford Press, London, 1958.
LC: BJ10.M6
LCCN: 59-47674
Dewey: 170 B919
A book of praise of Frank Buchman, put together by his followers for his 80th birthday. Note that Blandford Press was, for all practical purposes, just an in-house Oxford Group/Moral Re-Armament printing press.

The Oxford Group Movement     Herbert Hensley Henson, D.D.
Oxford University Press, New York, 1933.
LC: BV4915 H4
Very interesting. Another critical analysis of the theology of Buchman. In the introduction, Herbert Dunelm, the Bishop of Durham, finds three faults in Buchmanism:

1. It ignores the demands of the intellect in the high matter of religion. (page 3).
2. The Movement is too closely bound to the moods and claims of Adolescence (page 6).
3. The conception of Christianity which Groupism presents is far too meagre and limited (page 10).

The Oxford Groups; The Charge Delivered At The Third Quadrennial Visitation Of His Diocese Together With An Introduction     Herbert Hensley Henson, D.D.
Oxford University Press, Humphrey Milford, London, 1933.
LC: BV4915 H467 1933
Another sound criticism of the Oxford Groups.

Saints Run Mad; A Criticism of the "Oxford" Group Movement     Marjorie Harrison
John Lane The Bodley Head Ltd., London, 1934.
LC: BV4915.H37 1934
Dewey: 248 H24
Excellent, a fascinating exposé of Buchman's so-called "Oxford Group Movement" by a contemporary who attended their meetings and saw, first hand, Buchman at work.

The Groups Movement     The Most Rev. John A. Richardson
Morehouse Publishing Co., Milwaukee, Wis., 1935.
LC: BV4915.R5
Another objective but critical survey of the Oxford Groups, by a contemporary minister. The author found much to criticize in Buchman's religion, even before the praise of Hitler and fascist theocracies became public.

For Groupers Only; Being a Judgement concerning the Oxford Groups and contained in letters to Duncan Hyde, Undergraduate, sometimes Joyous Pagan and a recent convert at a House-Party     B. C. Plowright, B.A., B.D.
H. R. Allenson, Ltd., 7, Racquet Court, Fleet Street, London, E.C.4, 1932.
LC: BV4915.P53 1933
An entertaining and interesting set of letters from a critic of the Oxford Groups to a recently-converted student.

Oxford and the Groups; The Influence of the Groups considered by Rev. G. F. Allen, John Maud, Miss B. E. Gwyer, C. R. Morris, W. H. Auden, R. H. S. Crossman, Dr. L. P. Jacks, Rev. E. R. Micklem, Rev. J. W. C. Wand, Rev. M. C. D'Arcy, S.J., Professor L. W. Grensted     Edited by R. H. S. Crossman
Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1934.
LC: BV4915.C7
This is a great little book; very informative. It consists of essays from both leaders of the Oxford Groups like Rev. G. F. Allen, and criticisms of the Groups from critics like R. H. S. Crossman and Miss B. E. Gwyer. It gives you a first-hand look at the Groups from several viewpoints, a snap-shot in time of the thinking of contemporaries, before Frank Buchman's public praise of Adolf Hitler. All of the authors were somehow associated with Oxford University in 1934; most were faculty, a few were clergy.

He That Cometh; A Sequel to 'Tell John,' being further essays on the Message of Jesus and Present Day Religion     Geoffrey Allen, Fellow and Chaplain of Lincoln College, Oxford
The MacMillan Company, New York, 1933.
LC: A427 232
This is the theology of the Oxford Group Movement, by the same Geoffrey Allen as who contributed to the previous book. Rev. Allen was a leader and a true believer in the Oxford Group Movement. This is some very twisted theology; a radical departure from mainstream Christianity. It attempts to explain and rationalize all of the practices of the Oxford Groups, like receiving Guidance and "sharing" sins with others who are not priests or ministers. See quotes here.
      Allen also told people who were under the Guidance of God to be ready to break appointments at a moment's notice, because God may suddenly decide that they should go do something else instead. See quote here.

The Oxford Groups     Maisie Ward
Sheed & Ward, London, 1937.
LC: BV4915.W33 1937
Another criticism of the Oxford Groups, coming from the viewpoint of a Catholic. The author notes that: 1) The Buchmanite practice of public confession is at odds with Catholic doctrines, and 2) "Catholicism cannot be reduced to two or three jingles and a couple of anagrams." (Pages 30-33.) Quotes: here and here.

MORAL RE-ARMAMENT and the CATHOLIC LAY APOSTOLATE     Thomas L. Noa, D.D., Bishop of Marquette
Our Sunday Visitor, Inc., Huntington, Indiana, USA, 1961?.
LC: BJ10.M6N6
This is a small pamphlet where Bishop Noa explains that Moral Re-Armament is incompatible with the Roman Catholic faith.
Quote: here.

The Challenge of The Oxford Group Movement; An Attempt At Appraisal     by The Committee Of Thirty
Ryerson Essay number 58
The Ryerson Press, Toronto, 1933.
LC: BV4487.O9C49x
A tiny 15-page booklet that is another critical examination of the theology of Buchmanism. Many good points packed into a small space. For instance, (on page 14) he wrote of Buchman's practice of "receiving Guidance":

"There is some danger that the Christian conception of prayer as a solemn act of communication between man and God, which calls forth the highest qualities of man's intellectual and moral apprehension, will be degraded to a mere listening to and recording of the vagaries of the subconscious mind."

The Oxford Group Movement: Is It Scriptural?     H. A. Ironside
Loizeaux Brothers, Publishers, 19 West 21st Street, New York, 1943.
LC: WB231 I71
This is a very small volume, just 32 pages, a single sermon by Rev. Ironside, denouncing the Oxford Groups and Buchmanism for being unChristian. Rev. Ironside found that Buchmanism was not a Christian religion, because the entire practice of Buchmanism would still be possible even if Jesus Christ had never been born.
See the full text here

They Have Found A Faith     Marcus Bach
The Bobs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, New York, 1946.
Dewey: 289 B12
This book describes eight different non-mainstream religions or cults, of which The Oxford Group/Moral Re-Armament is one. The chapter on MRA is quite good, quite revealing and descriptive, written by a first-hand witness who knew his religions.

Dynamic Out Of Silence: Frank Buchman's relevance today     Theophil Spoerri
Grosvenor Books, London, 1976.
Originally published as Dynamik aus der Stille, Caux Verlag, Luzern, Switzerland, 1971.
ISBN: 0-901269-19-0
Pure propaganda. A falsified and sanitized history of Frank Buchman and his various "movements".
Grosvenor Books is the MRA publishing house in London.

Preview Of A New World; How Frank Buchman Helped his country Move from isolation To world responsibility; USA 1939-1946     Arthur Strong
Privately printed.
Dewey: 267.16 P951
ILL (InterLibrary Loan) number: 3 1120 01925 1791
(Salt Lake City Public Library, 210 East 400 South, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84111)
This is a fascinating piece of history. It is a large collection of photographs and newspaper articles that come mostly from the period of time right around World War II. Arthur Strong was a British photographer who fell under the sway of Frank Buchman, and who travelled with Buchman's flag-waving pseudo-patriotic road shows during the period of 1939 to 1946. Arthur Strong assembled a travelogue of that period.
(Arthur Strong also apparently fell under Buchman's commandment not to serve in the military, because that British citizen stayed in the USA during the war years from 1939 to 1946, while Britain was begging all citizens to come home and help out. In fact, Arthur Strong was one of the British subjects named in the draft-tampering scandal.)
This book is hopelessly biased towards Frank Buchman and the Oxford Group/MRA — it was assembed by a die-hard true believer decades after Buchman's death, and he actually treated it as if it were some kind of a holy scripture, to be enshrined in a specially-made wooden box (see the photograph of the box in the beginning of the book) — but it is still a wealth of photographs and other historical documents for historians. There may not be any better collection of photographs of MRA in the world.

Come Wind, Come Weather     Daphne du Maurier
Printed in Great Britain in August 1940.
Printed in USA by Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc., New York, 1941.
LC: BV4915.D8
A book of short stories of Buchmanites coping with the early part of World War Two in Europe. The authoress displayed the usual grandiose exaggeration of the benefits of Buchman's teachings, along with minimization and denial of his total failure to prevent the war. This is only thinly-veiled Buchmanite propaganda — page 15 specifically endorsed Moral Re-Armament by name. We can also very clearly see the philosophical roots of Alcoholics Anonymous here. Du Maurier summarised several stories this way:

Megan saw she was a dictator in the home;
George saw that drink and dishonesty were only attempts to escape from his own defeat;
... Anna that misfortune is no excuse for bitterness and self-pity.
Page 74.

In other words,

• Megan needs to join Al-Anon and quit being such a domineering bitch.
• George needs to join A.A..
• Anna also needs to join Al-Anon and quit being so self-pitying and resentful.

Fresh Hope for the World: Moral Re-Armament in Action     Edited and Introduced by Gabriel Marcel; Translated from the French by Helen Hardinge
Longmans, Green And Co. Ltd., London, 1960.
LC: BJ10.M6M33 1960
Another book of propaganda that glorifies Frank Buchman and MRA. The majority of the book consists of autobiographical stories of being saved from adversity by being converted to belief in Buchmanism. Then the section called "The Universal Man — Frank Buchman" is a fawning piece of hero worship and glorification of the cult leader, on the level of:

One of the veterans of American Communism said, 'I trained 300 men in Communism, and most of them have left me. What is Frank Buchman's secret, that the men he has trained remain faithful?'
(page 159.)

That stubbornly ignores, of course, the fact that Frank Buchman's cult also had an immense drop-out rate. Buchman did not have any great "secret" training methods. Once again, the cult members are in denial.
(Besides, where was this secret Communist training camp in the USA that trained 300 revolutionaries?)
See another quote here.

World Changing Through Life Changing: The Story of Frank Buchman and Moral Re-Armament; A Thesis for the Degree of Master of Sacred Theology at Andover Newton Theological School     T. Willard Hunter
Self-published, 1977.
LC: BJ10.M6H8 1977
This is a strange document. It is a large piece of work, 200 pages, very well researched, and it is a source of obscure information that I've seen nowhere else, but unfortunately the author was a true believer in Buchmanism, and rarely criticized it. The author was a contemporary of Frank Buchman and a devoted Buchmanite. He was also a member of Moral Re-Armament for many years, and spent the war years of WWII touring the country with Buchman's jingoistic shows. He just rhapsodized about Buchman's "great accomplishments" and dismissed or minimized his faults and failings. He even wrote of his own judgement on the subject of Buchman:

The writer's claims to objectivity are slim. He knew and worked with Frank Buchman and became one of his good friends. He gave his entire time — his life, fortune, and sacred honor — to this work for eighteen years. A psychologist would say of such a person that it would be difficult for him to avoid seeking to justify himself.
(Page 5.)

See quotes here, here and here, and here and here, and here.

An Evaluation of Moral Rearmament, by Father John A. Hardon, S.J. Archives
http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Heresies_Heretics/Heresies_Heretics_008.htm

Fascism, British and Other:

Oswald Mosley     Robert Skidelsky
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1975.
ISBN 0-03-086580-8
LC: DA574.M6S55
LCCN: 74-6941
Dewey: 942.084'092'4 or B M9125s
A good, thorough biography of Sir Oswald Mosley, the British Fascist. Provides some information on Peter Howard, who eventually took over the leadership of the Oxford Groups and Moral Re-Armament after the death of Frank Buchman.

Rules of the Game; Beyond the Pale; Memoirs of Sir Oswald Mosley and Family     Nicholas Mosley
Dalkey Archive Press, Elmwood Park, IL 60635, 1982.
ISBN: 0-916583-75-9
LC: DA574.M6M67 1991
LCCN: 90-14042
Dewey: 941.082'092—dc20 or B M9125mo
Another biography of Sir Oswald Mosley and Peter Howard, written by Mosley's son Nicholas.

Diana Mosley     Jan Dalley
Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2000.
ISBN: 0-394-58736-7
LC: CT788.M66D35 2000
Dewey: 941.082092—dc21 or B Mo854d 2000
The most complete biography of Lady Diana Mosley to date.

History in Our Time     David Cannadine
Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1998.
ISBN: 0-300-07702-5
LCCN: 98-86268
Dewey: 941.081 C224h 1998
Includes a chapter on Sir Oswald Mosley and Lady Diana Mosley.

Unity Mitford: A Quest     David Pryce-Jones
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1976.
ISBN 0-297-77156-6
LC: CT788 M564J65
Also republished in the USA as:
Unity Mitford: An Enquiry into Her Life and the Frivolity of Evil     David Pryce-Jones
The Dial Press, James Wade, New York, 1977.
LC: CT788 M564P79 1977
An excellent biography of Unity Mitford, the frivolous mad-cap aristocratic blond English girl who enjoyed hanging out with Hitler and the Nazis, and she was the sister of Diana Mitford, who first married Bryan Guiness, of the Guiness Stout brewing family fortune, and then dropped him for Sir Oswald Mosley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists.
The above two books are nearly identical, other than the photographs, where some were cropped or had text inset in the New York reprint. The text of the two books is identical, but laid out differently, printed in different fonts and sizes, which results in very different page numbers for quotes.
Of particular interest here is the description of Dr. Frank Buchman attending the 1935 Nuremberg Nazi Party rally, and sitting with the Mitford sisters, Unity Mitford and Lady Diana Mosley, in the Ehrengäste (Honored Guests) section behind Adolf Hitler.
Quotes: here and here.

Fellow Travelers of the Right; British Enthusiasts for Nazi Germany 1933-9     Richard Griffiths
Oxford University Press, Oxford, c1980, 1983.
ISBN: 0-19-285116-0
Dewey: 335.60943
LC: DD256.5
An interesting book. Covers both the major and minor players. Quote here.

Unheard Witness     Ernst "Putzi" Hanfstaengl
J.B. Lippencott Company, Philadelphia and New York, 1957.
Dewey: 943.085 H23u
LC: 57-11953
This is a great read, the fascinating inside story of the rise of an uncouth country bumpkin named Adolf Hitler to the leadership of his nation... What makes it unusual is that it is an insider's story that was written by someone who was relatively sane, and there weren't very many of them in the inner circle of Nazis and sycophants around Adolf. In the end, Putzi had to flee to the USA to escape from the wrath of Hitler and the Gestapo, for saying true and sensible things just too many times... (Or at least, that's the way Putzi tells his story...)

Goodbye West Country     Henry Williamson
Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1938.
LC: PR6045.I55Z53 1938
This is an interesting book of memoirs that is mostly nature writing, but he also gives us an account of his experiences in Germany at the 1935 Nuremberg Nazi Party rally, where he saw Dr. Frank Buchman, here.

These Germans; an estimate of their character seen in flashes from the drama 1918-1939     John Heygate
Hutchinson & Co., Publishers, Ltd., London. Printed by William Brendon & Son, Ltd., The Mayflower Press, Plymouth, Great Britain, 1940.
LC: DD76
LCCN: 40-31586
Dewey: 914.3
This book is a travelogue about Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. It includes a chapter about the 1935 Nuremberg Nazi Party rally, where John Heygate met the Mitford sisters and Frank Buchman.
Reference here and quote here.

The Rise and Rall of the Third Reich; A History of Nazi Germany     William L. Shirer
Simon & Schuster Inc., New York, London, etc., c. 1959, 1960, pub. 1990.
ISBN 0-671-72892-X (slipcased) ; ISBN 0-671-72869-5 (hardcover) ; ISBN 0-671-72868-7 (pbk)
LC: DD256.5.S48 1981
LCCN: 81-1072
Dewey: 943.006
This is the classic. What can I say? (Other than, "Also see Bill Shirer's Berlin Diaries — both the book and the movie.")

Hitler; 1889-1936 Hubris     Ian Kershaw
W. W. Norton & Company, New York and London, 1998.
ISBN: 0-393-32035-9 (pbk.)
LC: DD247.H5K462 1999
Dewey: 943.086092—dc21
LCCN: 98-29569
Another impressive biography of Hitler.

Hitler & Geli     Ronald Hayman
Bloomsbury Publishing, New York and London, 1997.
ISBN: 1-58234-008-0
Dewey: B H676hy 1998
Good, fascinating, and chilling. Geli Raubal was both Hitler's half-neice and his only true girlfriend and lover, She was found dead in Hitler's apartment in 1931, allegedly a suicide at the early age of 23. The descriptions of Hitler's sex life reveal an abused child who grew into a really sick sado-masochistic narcissist. The author presents a lot of evidence that supports the distinct possibility that Geli was murdered by the Nazis to keep her from disgracing Adolf Hitler and prematurely ending his political career.

Erik Jan Hanussen; Hitler's Jewish Clairvoyant     Mel Gordon
Feral House, Los Angeles, CA, 2001.
ISBN: 0-922915-68-7
Dewey: 133.8092 H251g 2001
A very interesting biography of an amusing fraud, or a successful showman and entertainer, depending on your viewpoint. He made quite a career of putting on faked psychic acts, and got a fair bit of success and wealth. Unfortunately, that included having some high-ranking Nazis owing him a lot of money, and attracting Adolf Hitler as a believer. Some of the Gestapo found killing Hanussen to be the easiest solution to the problems that Hanussen created for them, so they did.

Theology:

Courage to Change, An Introduction to the Life and Thought of Reinhold Niebuhr     June Bingham
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1961.
LCCN: 61-13362
Dewey: B N665b
This is a good biography of Reinhold Niebuhr, a theologian and minister, who currently has a modicum of fame from authoring The Serenity Prayer.

Christianity and Power Politics     Reinhold Niebuhr
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1940.
LC: BR115.P7N55
Reinhold Niebuhr was one of the leading theologians of the early 20th century, and is famed for being the author of the Serenity Prayer. This book contains the chapter "Hitler and Buchman" [full text here], which appears to be a reprint of an article first published in the Christian Century magazine. It is a no-holds-barred attack on Buchman and his goofy theology, after his "I thank Heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler" remarks.

The Serenity Prayer; Faith and Politics in Times of Peace and War     Elisabeth Sifton
W. W. Norton & Company, New York and London, 2003.
ISBN: 0-393-05746-1
LC: BV284.S47S54 2003
Dewey: 242.4—dc22 or 242.4 S573s 2003
This is a great biography of Reinhold Niebuhr, the author of the The Serenity Prayer, written by his daughter. Niebuhr was one of the leading theologians of the early 20th century, and a teacher at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City.
Quotes here.

Cults and Cultish Madness:

Prophets, Cults, and Madness     Anthony Stevens and John Price
First published by Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd., London, 2000.
Redwood Books Ltd, Trowbridge, Great Britain, 2000.
ISBN: 0-7156-2940-9
Dewey: 291.9 S844p 2000
Interesting, another good slant on the minds and thinking of cults and cult-like organizations, including Hitler and his Nazis.

The Confusion of Tongues, A Review of Modern Isms     Charles W. Ferguson
Doubleday, Doran, & Company, Inc., Garden City, NY, 1928
[Reprinted, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1940.]
Dewey: 289 F35
Fascinating; this book covers a lot of groups and cults seldom heard of today, like the "Dukhobors" or "Russellism". The author tried to show all of the described groups in as positive a light as he could. I guess he was just trying to avoid a religious war, but sometimes it can be very disconcerting, like when he almost sounds pro-KKK. The chapter on the Ku Klux Klan as a dogmatic, cultish religion that espouses high moral values is thought-provoking, to say the least. The chapter on Buchmanism is very interesting and informative. Unfortunately, it only covers Buchmanism up to 1927.

A Rumor About The Jews; Reflections on Antisemitism and the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion     Stephen Eric Bronner.
St. Martin's Press, New York, 2000.
ISBN: 0-312-21804-4
Dewey: 305.8924 B869r 2000
LC: DS145.P7B76 2000
LCCN: 99-42576
The story of the forgery called "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion". See this footnote.

A Doomsday Reader; Prophets, Predictors, and Hucksters of Salvation     editted by Ted Daniels
New York University Press, New York and London, 1999.
ISBN: 0-8147-1908-2 (alk. paper); 0-8147-1909-0 (pbk.: alk. paper)
LC: HM866.D66 1999
LCCN: 99-6337
Dewey: 301 D691 1999
Includes a chapter on the "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion", pages 99-107.

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. The title of the 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, in order to give newcomers the 'right idea'.
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 on 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.) (Page 117.)
Kerns also criticizes the cultish behavior that he saw: blind obedience of leaders' orders, demands for total commitment, suppression of dissent, devaluing the outsider, hyper-emotionalism and brainwashing 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 any Amway distributor ever made in one year was $416,000. But at Amway rallies, top distributors are declared to have made fantastic amounts, like $70 million a year. How could that be? Easy. By selling books, tapes, and rally tickets to the rank and file distributors. (Page 85.)
Easy, good reading.

The International Jew, The World's Foremost Problem     Henry Ford Sr.
A 1958 reprint of the articles "Appearing originally in the periodical published by the Ford Motor Co. 'The Dearborn Independent.'"
"Abridged from the original as published by the world renowned industrial leader Henry Ford Sr."
Copy prepared for the printer by Gerald K. Smith,
National Director, Christian Nationalist Crusade,
Post Office Box 27895, Los Angeles 27, California
LC: DS141.I582
This is the hateful anti-Semitic diatribe that the neo-Nazis love, described above. It is so extreme that it leads one to question the sanity of Henry Ford Sr.. Some of the chapters are so outrageous that they are funny:

• Jewish Jazz becomes Our National Music
  Yes, everybody knows how the Jews all moved out of New York and went to New Orleans and took over Basin Street...
• Liquor, Gambling, Vice, and Corruption.
  Ford says that Jews control all of the mobs. Silly me, I thought that Alfonso Caponé was an Italian name, but what do I know?

Jewish Influences in America; volume 3 of The International Jew     Henry Ford Sr.
The Dearborn Publishing Co., Dearborn, Mich. November, 1921.
LC: DS145.D5A32 vol 3.
This is the third volume of selections of Ford's anti-semitic articles that appeared in The Dearborn Independent. Some of this material also appears in the above condensation of Ford's articles. The subjects of these chapters are similarly insane:

• Are the Jews Victims or Persecutors?
• Jewish Gamblers Corrupt American Baseball
• Jewish Degredation of American Baseball [Henry Ford was very upset about "the commercialization of baseball". Some star baseball players were beginning to receive what Ford considered to be very large salaries ($125,000 for Babe Ruth's contract was mentioned), and Ford blamed the Jews for all of it. It is funny that the fabulously wealthy multi-millionaire Ford felt that Babe Ruth should work for peanuts, but that he, Henry Ford, should not.]
• Jewish Jazz Becomes Our National Music
• How the Jewish Song Trust Makes You Sing
• Jewish Hot-Beds of Bolshevism in the U.S.
• Jew Trades Link With World Revolutionaries
• Will Jewish Zionism Bring Armageddon?
• How the Jews Use Power — By an Eyewitness
• How Jews Ruled and Ruined Tammany Hall
• Jew Wires Direct Tammany's Gentile Puppets
• Dr. Levy, a Jew, Admits His People's Error
• Jewish Idea Molded Federal Reserve Plan
• Jewish Idea of Central Bank for America
• How Jewish International Finance Functions
• Jewish Power and America's Money Famine

'Why the tendency of the Jew to the "needle trades"? It is explained in his aversion to manual labor, his abhorrence of agricultural life, and his desire to arrange his own affairs.'
(Page 91, Jewish Hot-Beds of Bolshevism in the U.S.)
...the "needle trades" being exclusively Jewish, all their abuses are Jewish too. ... Bolshevism is not Russian but Jewish...
(Page 92, Jewish Hot-Beds of Bolshevism in the U.S.)

But in other chapters, Ford says that the Jews are controlling international banking and finance, not the garment industry. And I never noticed Henry Ford taking to the agricultural life either, out plowing the south forty behind his mule. And Ford sure insisted on arranging his own affairs...
      Why did a man of such wealth and power spend so much time, money, and energy attacking people who had apparently done nothing to him, and whose alleged world-wide conspiracies had not stopped Henry Ford from becoming as wealthy as King Midas? I have to seriously question Henry Ford Sr.'s sanity. (In his old age, he was in fact declared senile, but his strange behavior began decades before that.)

Henry Ford and the Jews; The Mass Production of Hate     Neil Baldwin
Public Affairs, New York, 2001.
ISBN 1-891620-52-5
LC: CT275.F68B28 2001
Dewey: B F699h 2001
Excellent, detailed, complete. Everything you never wanted to know about what a hateful, deceitful monster Henry Ford turned into.

The American Axis; Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and the Rise of the Third Reich     Max Wallace
St. Martin's Press, New York, 2003
ISBN: 0-312-29022-5
LC: DS146.U6W35 2003
Dewey: 305.892'4073'0904—dc21
Quite good, extensive, complete.

Radio Priest; Charles Coughlin, The Father of Hate Radio     Donald Warren
The Free Press, New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Singapore, 1996.
ISBN 0-684-82403-5
LC: BX4705.C7795W35 1996
LCCN: 96-15519
Dewey: 282.092—dc20
Quite good. Thorough and well-documented. The story of one of the more interesting characters in modern American history — the father of hate radio. Father Charles Coughlin invented Rush Limbaugh's game back when radio was a new medium. And Caughlin was a stereotypical rabid right-winger, raving about "The Jewish Conspiracy" and Communists, while parrotting Nazi propaganda. More details here.

Brainwashing, Propaganda, and Psychology:

The Fine Art of Propaganda: a study of Father Coughlin's Speeches     The Institute for Propaganda Analysis; editted by Alfred McClung Lee and Elizabeth Briant Lee
Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1939.
LC: HM263.I54
A great little book that disects the hate-mongering speeches of Father Coughlin and exposes the propaganda techniques that he used. They reduce the list of the many possible logical fallacies and propaganda tricks to just this short list that was in Father Coughlin's toolbox:

1. Name Calling — giving an idea or a person a bad name
2. Glittering Generality — create over-generalized positive images and stereotypes
3. Transfer (also known as Association) — gaining respectability or admiration by association with something else that is widely admired or respected
4. Testimonial — people tell stories that praise the propagandist's favorite cause
5. Plain Folks — it's just us regular plain good-old-boys; nothing to get upset about
6. Card Stacking — also called Monopolistic Card Stacking — it's stacking the odds in your favor by carefully arranging the "facts" while excluding undesired facts
7. Band Wagon — the same thing as "Everybody's doing it", or "Everybody knows", or "Everybody believes"...

Brainwashing, From Pavlov to Powers,     Edward Hunter
Originally published by Farrar, Straus, & Cudahy, Inc., 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 will probably become another classic. 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 others successfully resisted it. And the book is fascinating and a good read.

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.)

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.

Miscellaneous:

Fulness Of Days     The Earl of Halifax
Collins, St. James's Place, London, 1957.
LC: DA566.9 H28A3 1957
This is the memoirs of Lord Halifax. It includes a reference to Frank Buchman's "Oxford Groups", page 155.

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.

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