Cults in Our Midst: The Continuing Fight Against Their Hidden Menace (Paperback)

Professor Singer is a psychologist with over fifty years of research and clinical experience, and her collaborator Janja Lalich is a former cult member. Together they have produced a well-written text describing 'What Are Cults' and 'How Do They Work'. This very readable text is filled with specific examples describing how cults affect their membership, and examples describing the obstacles that former cult members face if they return to overall society. The discussion describes the use and effects of extreme motivational psychology within cults. The discussion also assists understanding motivational psychology use and effects within overall society.

"Cults In Our Midst: ..." was written in 1995. Since 1995 the United States' sexual mores (reflected by the entertainment media) have liberalized, sexually transmitted disease has increased, and societal affluence has lessened. If this text was revised in 2003, I believe that additional discussion of (lack of, or unconventional) sexuality and (lack of) food as motivators and punishment would be warranted.

The information found in this book is very valuable in helping each of us assess our own vulnerabilities to charismatic and interesting people and causes. That should not frighten us away from striving for those experiences, only warning us to approach with caution, with our eyes wide open and our radar screens well lit!

Part two details the methods used by these cults. And it is in this area that the distinction between legitimate groups are distinguished from manipulative groups whose ultimate goal is to serve the will of the cult leader without criticism, rather than a beneficial goal beyond the personal service of the cult leadership.

A true self-help group, like Alcoholics Anonymous or a local church, will allow for the possibility that the convert might leave, and will not view it as a threat to the organization. As detailed by the anecdotal evidence in the book, the lengths to which the (malignant) cult leadership will stifle internal dissent and outside criticism, demonstrates the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of these cults and their inherent distrust of an individual's self-determination. This, I can tell you, is *not* what goes on in your normal neighborhood church.

The final part is instructive as it is heartbreaking, as it emphasizes the loss of children's life, and on how to get people out of the cult. As Singer's anecdotal stories about ex-cult members compound upon the reader, the proper reaction to these types of groups should be growing contempt, as many of the members seem unable to formulate any mental or spiritual foundation after having been manipulated so perversely.