Skip to content

Cults in Our Midst The Continuing Fight Against Their Hidden Menace

Best in textbook rentals since 2012!

ISBN-10: 0787967416

ISBN-13: 9780787967413

Edition: 2nd 2003 (Revised)

Authors: Margaret Thaler Singer, Robert Jay Lifton

List price: $27.00
Blue ribbon 30 day, 100% satisfaction guarantee!
what's this?
Rush Rewards U
Members Receive:
Carrot Coin icon
XP icon
You have reached 400 XP and carrot coins. That is the daily max!

Focusing specifically on the coercive persuasion techniques used by charismatic leaders seeking money and power, 'Cults in Our Midst' is an expose that reveals what cults really are and how they work.
Customers also bought

Book details

List price: $27.00
Edition: 2nd
Copyright year: 2003
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated
Publication date: 4/11/2003
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 432
Size: 5.98" wide x 9.02" long x 0.91" tall
Weight: 1.430
Language: English

A distinguished professor of psychology & psychiatry at John Jay College & the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Robert Jay Lifton is the author of many important works, including "The Nazis Doctors," winner of the "Los Angeles Times" Book Prize, & "Death in Life," winner of a National Book Award.

Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction to the Revised Edition
Introduction to the First Edition
What Are Cults?
Defining Cults
Definitions and Characteristics
Cult Types
Who Joins Cults?
Why Do They Join?
A Brief History of Cults
Cults in the 1800s
The 1960s: Fertile Ground for Cults
The 1970s: Cults to Expand Awareness
The 1980s: Psychological, Occult, and Prosperity Cults
Examples of New Cults
Cause for Concern
The Process of Brainwashing, Psychological Coercion, and Thought Reform
Historical Examples of Brainwashing
Packaged Persuasion
Attacking the Self
How Thought Reform Works
Producing a New Identity
Impermissible Experiments
What's Wrong with Cults?
Cults Threaten Legitimate Institutions
Cults Harm Our Children and Tear Apart Our Families
Cults Are Violent
Cults Engage in Conspiracy and Fraud
Small Cults Can Be Just as Harmful as Large
Cults Take Away Our Freedom
Cults Take Away Our Possessions
Cults Escape Scrutiny
What Is to Be Done?
How Do They Work?
Recruiting New Members
First Approach
Invitation
First Cult Contact
Follow-Up: Gaining Greater Commitment
Young and Old Alike Are Vulnerable
The Double Agenda
Physiological Persuasion Techniques
Mass Marketing of Experiential Exercises
Techniques Producing Predictable Physiological Responses
Meditation May Not Always Be Good for You
Psychological Persuasion Techniques
Trance and Hypnosis
Trickery
Revision of Personal History
Peer Pressure and Modeling
Emotional Manipulation
Psychotherapy Cults
Intruding into the Workplace
Clarification of New Age
A Clash in the Workplace
Violation of Civil Rights
What Goes On in an LGAT?
Development of a New Age Training Program: A Case Example
Problems with Being "Transformed" at Work
Psychological Casualties
Buyer Beware: Thought-Reform Processes at Work
The Threat of Intimidation
Co-opted Professionals
Intimidation and Harassment of Critics
How Can We Help Survivors to Escape and Recover?
Rescuing the Children
Children of Jonestown
Children of Waco
Children of Other Cults
Role of the Cult Leader
Role of Cult Parents
What Children Learn in Cults
After the Cult
Children Are Survivors
Leaving the Cult
Why It's Hard to Leave
Ways of Leaving the Cult
Deprogramming and Exit Counseling
Recovery: Coming Out of the Pseudopersonality
Recovering from Cult Aftereffects
Practical Issues
Psychological and Emotional Difficulties
Cognitive Inefficiencies
Social and Personal Relations
Philosophical and Attitudinal Issues
Helpful Tasks for Individuals Leaving Cults
There Is Life After the Cult
Postscript to the First Edition: The Millennium, Cults, and the End of the Century
Postscript to the Revised Edition
Chapter Notes
Resources and Organizations
Further Reading
The Author
Index