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Where the Willow Weeps: The Inside Story of Growing Up in a Cult, and how I Found Freedom in Christ

Author: Charity Rissler

Publisher:

Published: 2019-07-07

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 9780578515670

I grew up in a homeschooled family in rural Pennsylvania, the 8th out of 13 children. From my earliest years I was raised in The Message, a legalistic, fundamentalist sect of Christianity. I followed a man who was dead long before I was born; William Branham, who I was taught and believed was the prophet for the end times. I'll share with you how my sin, and the lies I believed from The Message affected my everyday life from my childhood and on into my teenage years. I'll illustrate for you, in words and artwork, how Jesus came into my life and changed the plot of my story. By God's grace I was able to pick up the broken pieces and dissociate the lies about God I heard in the Message, from the reality of who He is. By God's grace, I am free from The Message, and from my sin. I invite you to join me on my story, to laugh with me, and cry with me. My prayer for these pages is two-fold; that you can see how God wove my broken story for His glory, and that you can find hope and gratitude for your own.

The Son of Seven Mothers

Author: Benjamin Risha

Publisher: WildBlue Press

Published: 2021-03-23

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 1952225078

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A man shares his story of growing up in a late 20th-century American cult—and how he escaped—in this gripping autobiography. As the adopted son of two cult leaders, Benjamin Risha was raised to someday assume a place of leadership in the Alamo Christian Foundation, with the Bible, and his parents’ interpretations of it, as his guide. He believed the prophecies of his adoptive mother and father, Tony and Susan Alamo, including them being the two prophets foretold in the Book of Revelations who precede the second coming of Jesus Christ, them rising from the dead after they died, and such dire warnings as the ground opening up to swallow non-believers into hell. And he was sure that Susan Alamo could raise the dead as promised. However, when none of it happened, and the foundation slid from bucolic communal lifestyle to insufferable criminality that included absolute obedience to the Alamos, and polygamous marriages with girls as young as eight years old, Benjamin knew he had to escape. If he were caught trying to escape, he would be severely beaten, forced to go without food and water for his sins, and shamed in the community. So, he embarked on a journey to locate his birth parents, discover the truth about a world he knew nothing about . . . and find himself. In The Son of Seven Mothers, Benjamin Risha takes readers on a harrowing journey that few in the United States can imagine. And eventually he must choose between the life he knows and was “chosen” to lead, and his freedom.

Culted Child: The True Story of a Daughter Disciple

Author: Maria Peregolise

Publisher: Culted Child, LLC

Published: 2021-07-18

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 9781736249710

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THE FIRST OF ITS KIND - Testimony from a 2nd Generation Adult, Born and Raised in, and Leaving a Cult Leader of The URANTIA Book. Culted Child is a memoir by the daughter of a Spiritual Prophet - a father who used the theology of The URANTIA Book as a framework for his secret conversations with her. These secrets shared his daily communications and miracles from God... Packed with research references and resources, Culted Child utilizes Peregolise's turbulent childhood experience as an opportunity to communicate the signs and symptoms of being raised in a Cultic or Manipulative Environment. "This harrowing and tragic story speaks to the mind-shattering complexity a child faces in surviving loving and being loved by a malignant narcissist . . . For the many, far more than we realize, who have grown up under the extraordinary control of a powerful, charismatic and deeply delusional parent, Peregolise's story of survival and ultimate freedom is a revelatory and inspiring gift of hope." -- Daniel Shaw, LCSW -- Traumatic Narcissism: Relational Systems of Subjugation, and Traumatic Narcissism and Recovery: Leaving the Prison of Shame and Fear "Culted Child does indeed read like a novel, made all the more frightening by the fact that it is real. It really happened." -- Ron Burks, PhD -- Damaged Disciples: Casualties of Authoritarian Churches and the Shepherding Movement "Vivid episodes from childhood frame her memories with rational insights she discovered through her research in the cult recovery field. Culted Child shows Maria's strength of spirit, and will validate others who grew up in coercive families or groups." -- Nori Muster -- Betrayal of the Spirit ". . . discusses the signs and symptoms of being raised in a cult or narcissistic environment, as well as the fantastical and outlandish content of the controversial book and the effects it has on its followers." -- Rachel Bernstein, LMFT -- IndoctriNATION Podcast ". . . a marvelous memoir of her heroic struggle to both emerge from her father's cult and to reveal the story behind the formation of The Urantia Book cult." -- Joe Szimhart, Cult Information Specialist -- Santa Fe, Bill Tate, and Me: How an Artist Became a Cult Interventionist https: //cultedchild.com/, Rachel Berstein, IndoctriNATION: Thought Adjusters w/ Maria Peregolise, iGotOut, Art Ascent, Gold Writer Award, ICSA Today.

Daughter of Gloriavale

Author: Lilia Tarawa

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2019-03-05

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1443459054

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One young woman’s true story of growing up in a repressive cult led by her charismatic grandfather, Hopeful Christian. In an idyllic valley in New Zealand, the Gloriavale Christian Community seemingly flourished. Founded by Lilia Tarawa’s grandfather, Hopeful Christian, Gloriavale was run according to an oppressive interpretation of fundamental Christianity and became a strictly controlled world of arranged marriages, religious control and spiritual abuse. Born into the cult that her grandfather had started, and surrounded by friends and family, Gloriavale seemed like paradise for Lila Tarawa at first. Her mother, Miracle, had grown up in there too and Lilia’s father managed a thriving moss export business, one of several companies owned by the community. As Lilia grew older, however, she began to see and experience the darker side of the cult, with its strict rules, tight control and shocking abuse. As Lilia and her family started to question Gloriavale’s beliefs and practices, Lilia was forced to make a desperate choice: stay with people she loved or flee to a world that she had always been told was evil. In Daughter of Gloriavale, Lilia Tarawa exposes the shocking world of the secretive cult and details her heart-wrenching journey to break free, find happiness and discover her own strength.

Synanon Kid

Author: C A Wittman

Publisher: Independently Published

Published: 2018-09-21

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 9781723906138

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"I told you mothers do not matter here. We are all your mothers. Isn't that better than just having one?" An ordinary weekend becomes surreal when Celena's mother, whom she has not seen for years, returns to claim her. Told that she is going to visit a place called Synanon, six-year-old Celena leaves her native Los Angeles on a bus for a secluded ranch setting in Northern California where the residents are strangely bald and dressed uniformly in overalls. Coming to realize this eerie institution is to be her new home, Celena is ultimately forced to develop a new strength of being to protect herself against the abusive school demonstrators, the troubled children, and the chilling thought that she and her mother might never leave. C.A. Wittman's daring memoir is a coming-of-age story about growing up in a cult, the unconditional love between a mother and daughter, and how that love helped a young girl to grow and flourish against the odds of her distorted childhood.

Pauperized My Broken Cross

Author: William Smith

Publisher:

Published: 2020-07-18

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 9781952894992

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William Smith grew up in a cult. He and others suffered sexual, verbal and mental abuse at the hands of the cult members. He dedicates this book to the children who were, and still are, victims of cults. It is especially dedicated those who now travel the same path of abuse and misery that his companions and he did on a daily basis. This book includes many stories of the abuses and cruelty the author endured as a member of the cult he grew up in. The names have been changed to protect both the innocent and the not-so-innocent. It is the author's hope that this book will give comfort to the broken-hearted, offer hope to the hopeless and give strength, courage and faith to you so that you may conquer your own battles of despair, sorry and anxiety. There is hope.

Albion's Seed

Author: David Hackett Fischer

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1991-03-14

Total Pages: 972

ISBN-13: 9780199743698

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This fascinating book is the first volume in a projected cultural history of the United States, from the earliest English settlements to our own time. It is a history of American folkways as they have changed through time, and it argues a thesis about the importance for the United States of having been British in its cultural origins. While most people in the United States today have no British ancestors, they have assimilated regional cultures which were created by British colonists, even while preserving ethnic identities at the same time. In this sense, nearly all Americans are "Albion's Seed," no matter what their ethnicity may be. The concluding section of this remarkable book explores the ways that regional cultures have continued to dominate national politics from 1789 to 1988, and still help to shape attitudes toward education, government, gender, and violence, on which differences between American regions are greater than between European nations.

Wild Swans

Author: Jung Chang

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2008-06-20

Total Pages: 592

ISBN-13: 1439106495

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The story of three generations in twentieth-century China that blends the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history—a bestselling classic in thirty languages with more than ten million copies sold around the world, now with a new introduction from the author. An engrossing record of Mao’s impact on China, an unusual window on the female experience in the modern world, and an inspiring tale of courage and love, Jung Chang describes the extraordinary lives and experiences of her family members: her grandmother, a warlord’s concubine; her mother’s struggles as a young idealistic Communist; and her parents’ experience as members of the Communist elite and their ordeal during the Cultural Revolution. Chang was a Red Guard briefly at the age of fourteen, then worked as a peasant, a “barefoot doctor,” a steelworker, and an electrician. As the story of each generation unfolds, Chang captures in gripping, moving—and ultimately uplifting—detail the cycles of violent drama visited on her own family and millions of others caught in the whirlwind of history.

Pictures and Tears

Author: James Elkins

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2005-08-02

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 113595013X

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This deeply personal account of emotion and vulnerability draws upon anecdotes related to individual works of art to present a chronicle of how people have shown emotion before works of art in the past.

A Voice from Inside

Author: Geoffrey Wallis

Publisher: Independently Published

Published: 2021-06-23

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13:

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"Wallis takes on all the shades of gray. He dissects the experience of this religion with laser precision" - Lisa, igotout.org "Wallis not only shines a light on the psychological turmoil caused by the organization's policies but does so with such intelligence, empathy, and personal understanding" - Allison Del Fium, What the Faith Podcast What is it like to suffer Religious Trauma Syndrome while still inside a High Demand Religious Organization? What causes Religious Trauma Syndrome and what are the risks that come with continuing participation? A Voice From Inside presents the rare voice of a critical insider of the Watch Tower Society, offering an account of the experience, how people are struggling, and what can be done to survive and move forward. Writing under a pseudonym, Geoffrey Wallis courageously explains what has led many to label the Jehovah's Witnesses as a Captive Organization and how the community's policies lead to the phenomenon of Physically-In-Mentally-Out (PIMO). With raw honesty, the author tells the gripping story of his journey through Religious Trauma Syndrome as an active Jehovah's Witness. He discusses the experience of stigmatized LGBTQ+ members, moral injury PTSD in the newly disillusioned, and what it's like to rise up the ranks of the organization's hierarchy. Along the way, he boldly speaks out about how to protect fellow members by calling for regulation to protect the religious freedoms of PIMOs and teaching others to reverse-engineer manipulative psychology with mindfulness practice. Written to help bring change to the Jehovah's Witness community as a whole, but also for anyone struggling with religious trauma, A Voice from Inside is both a witness to the experience of living in an HDRG as well as a clarion call for change and healing in a world that sorely needs it.