Download or read book The Suicide Cult written by Marshall Kilduff and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Homosexuality (negative) on p. 56-57.--Misha Schutt.
Download or read book Heaven s Gate written by Bill Hoffmann and published by HarperCollins Publishers. This book was released on 1997 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Reunion of the Good Weather Suicide Cult written by Kyle Mccord and published by Atmosphere Press. This book was released on 2021-07-26 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This gripping drama follows Tom Duncan, the sole survivor of the largest cult mass suicide in U.S. history, as he works to rebuild his shattered life. After a Netflix documentary accuses Tom of masterminding the plot that led to the deaths of one hundred thirty-seven people, including his wife, he finds himself exiled from his home and family. Tom seeks redemption through a weekend memorial with other cult members who escaped before the grisly end. In Reunion of the Good Weather Suicide Cult by Kyle McCord, we see how well-meaning people seeking spiritual community can become ensnared in webs of intrigue and deadly manipulation. Through the lens of a Netflix documentary as well as Tom's personal struggle, this book takes readers on a journey through the dark heart of a simple Iowa commune gone horribly wrong.
Download or read book Cults Religion and Violence written by David G. Bromley and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-05-13 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This explores the question of when and why violence by and against new religious cults erupts and whether and how such dramatic conflicts can be foreseen, managed and averted. The authors, leading international experts on religious movements and violent behavior, focus on the four major episodes of cult violence during the last decade: the tragic conflagration that engulfed the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas; the deadly sarin gas attack by the Aum Shinrikyo in Tokyo; the murder-suicides by the Solar Temple in Switzerland and Canada; and the collective suicide by the members of Heaven's Gate. They explore the dynamics leading to these dramatic episodes in North America, Europe, and Asia, and offer insights into the general relationship between violence and religious cults in contemporary society. The authors conclude that these events usually involve some combination of internal and external dynamics through which a new religious movement and society become polarized.
Download or read book Revisiting Jonestown written by Domenico Arturo Nesci and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2017-12-13 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revisiting Jonestown covers three main topics: the psycho-biography of Jim Jones (the leader of the suicidal community) from the new perspective of Prenatal Psychology and transgenerational trauma, the story of his Peoples Temple, with emphasis on what kind of leadership and membership were responsible for their tragic end, and the interpretation of death rituals by religious cults as regression to primordial stages of human evolution, when a series of genetic mutations changed the destiny of Homo Sapiens, at the dawn of religion and human awareness. A pattern of collective suicide is finally identified, making it possible to foresee and try to prevent its tragic repetition. At the same time, through an artistic editorial work on original images from the Peoples Temple files, a sort of Multimedia Psychotherapy is subliminally delivered in order to help the mourning of the victims of Jonestown, to whose memory the book is dedicated.
Download or read book The Jonestown Massacre written by Jim Jones and published by Temple Press (UK). This book was released on 1993-01-01 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new edition includes an introduction by Karl Eden putting events in Waco, Texas into context.
Download or read book New Age Neopagan and New Religious Movements written by Hugh B. Urban and published by University of California Press. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New Age, Neopagan, and New Religious Movements is the most extensive study to date of modern American alternative spiritual currents. Hugh B. Urban covers a range of emerging religions from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, including the Nation of Islam, Mormonism, Scientology, ISKCON, Wicca, the Church of Satan, Peoples Temple, and the Branch Davidians. This essential text engages students by addressing major theoretical and methodological issues in the study of new religions and is organized to guide students in their learning. Each chapter focuses on one important issue involving a particular faith group, providing readers with examples that illustrate larger issues in the study of religion and American culture. Urban addresses such questions as, Why has there been such a tremendous proliferation of new spiritual forms in the past 150 years, even as our society has become increasingly rational, scientific, technological, and secular? Why has the United States become the heartland for the explosion of new religious movements? How do we deal with complex legal debates, such as the use of peyote by the Native American Church or the practice of plural marriage by some Mormon communities? And how do we navigate issues of religious freedom and privacy in an age of religious violence, terrorism, and government surveillance?
Download or read book Salvation and Suicide written by David Chidester and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2003-10-16 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Praise for the first edition: "[This] ambitious and courageous book [is a] benchmark of theology by which questions about the meaningful history of the Peoples Temple may be measured." —Journal of the American Academy of Religion Re-issued in recognition of the 25th anniversary of the mass suicides at Jonestown, this revised edition of David Chidester's pathbreaking book features a new prologue that considers the meaning of the tragedy for a post-Waco, post-9/11 world. For Chidester, Jonestown recalls the American religious commitment to redemptive sacrifice, which for Jim Jones meant saving his followers from the evils of capitalist society. "Jonestown is ancient history," writes Chidester, but it does provide us with an opportunity "to reflect upon the strangeness of familiar . . . promises of redemption through sacrifice."
Download or read book The Children of Red Peak written by Craig DiLouie and published by Redhook. This book was released on 2020-11-17 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most intense novel yet from an unmissable voice in horror fiction, Bram Stoker award-nominated author Craig DiLouie. "Horror readers will be hooked." (Publishers Weekly) "A heart-wrenching, thought-provoking, terrifying tale about the meaning of life . . . A great choice for fans of Stephen Graham Jones' The Only Good Indians (2020), Paul Tremblay's Disappearance at Devil's Rock (2016), or Alma Katsu's The Hunger (2018)." - Booklist They escaped the cult, but are they free? David Young, Deacon Price, and Beth Harris live with a dark secret. They grew up in an isolated religious community in the shadow of the mountain Red Peak, and they are among the few who survived its horrific last days. Years later, the trauma of what they experienced never feels far behind. And when a fellow survivor commits suicide, they reunite to confront their past and share their memories of that final night. But discovering the terrifying truth might put them on a path back to Red Peak, and escaping a second time could be almost impossible.... "A subtle character story and a chilling tale of horror. It goes deep into the heart of people caught up in terrifying events." - Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author. For more from Craig DiLouie, check out: Our War One of Us
Download or read book Heaven s Gate written by Benjamin E. Zeller and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2014-10-31 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In March 1997, thirty-nine people in Rancho Santa Fe, California, ritually terminated their lives. To outsiders, it was a mass suicide. To insiders, it was a graduation. The author explores the question of why the members of Heaven's Gate committed ritual suicides, and examines the origin and evolution of the religion, its appeal, and practices.
Download or read book Heaven s Gate written by George D. Chryssides and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2011 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Heaven's Gate suicides were part of a series of major violent incidents involving New Religions in the 1990s. Despite the major attention that Heaven's Gate attracted, there have been few scholarly studies. This anthology on Heaven's Gate includes a combination of articles previously published in academic journals, some new writings from experts in the field, and some original Heavens Gate documents. All the material is expertly brought together under the editorship of George Chryssides.
Download or read book A Thousand Lives written by Julia Scheeres and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-10-11 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1954, a pastor named Jim Jones opened a church in Indianapolis called Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church. He was a charismatic preacher with idealistic beliefs, and he quickly filled his pews with an audience eager to hear his sermons on social justice. As Jones’s behavior became erratic and his message more ominous, his followers leaned on each other to recapture the sense of equality that had drawn them to his church. But even as the congregation thrived, Jones made it increasingly difficult for members to leave. By the time Jones moved his congregation to a remote jungle in Guyana and the US government began to investigate allegations of abuse and false imprisonment in Jonestown, it was too late. A Thousand Lives is the story of Jonestown as it has never been told. New York Times bestselling author Julia Scheeres drew from tens of thousands of recently declassified FBI documents and audiotapes, as well as rare videos and interviews, to piece together an unprecedented and compelling history of the doomed camp, focusing on the people who lived there. The people who built Jonestown wanted to forge a better life for themselves and their children. In South America, however, they found themselves trapped in Jonestown and cut off from the outside world as their leader goaded them toward committing “revolutionary suicide” and deprived them of food, sleep, and hope. Vividly written and impossible to forget, A Thousand Lives is a story of blind loyalty and daring escapes, of corrupted ideals and senseless, haunting loss.
Download or read book Cult City written by Daniel J. Flynn and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2018-10-16 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recounting the fascinating, intersecting stories of Jim Jones and Harvey Milk, Cult City tells the story of a great city gone horribly wrong. November 1978. Reverend Jim Jones, the darling of the San Francisco political establishment, orchestrates the murders and suicides of 918 people at a remote jungle outpost in South America. Days later, Harvey Milk, one of America’s first openly gay elected officials—and one of Jim Jones’s most vocal supporters—is assassinated in San Francisco’s City Hall. This horrifying sequence of events shocked the world. Almost immediately, the lives and deaths of Jim Jones and Harvey Milk became shrouded in myth. Now, forty years later, this book corrects the record. The product of a decade of research, including extensive archival work and dozens of exclusive interviews, Cult City reveals just how confused our understanding has become. In life, Jim Jones enjoyed the support of prominent politicians and Hollywood stars even as he preached atheism and communism from the pulpit; in death, he transformed into a fringe figure, a “fundamentalist Christian” and a “fascist.” In life, Harvey Milk faked hate crimes, outed friends, and falsely claimed that the US Navy dishonorably discharged him over his homosexuality; in death, he is honored in an Oscar-winning movie, with a California state holiday, and a US Navy ship named after him. His assassin, a blue-collar Democrat who often voted with Milk in support of gay issues, is remembered as a right-winger and a homophobe. But the story extends far beyond Jones and Milk. Author Daniel J. Flynn vividly portrays the strange intersection of mainstream politics and murderous extremism in 1970s San Francisco—the hangover after the high of the Summer of Love.
Download or read book Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2015-09-22 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the cult and the massacre *Includes Jim Jones' quotes about his life and the massacre *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents "We didn't commit suicide; we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world." - Jim Jones The United States has never had a shortage of cults based on religious teachings and charismatic leaders, but perhaps none are as infamous as Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple, which remain notorious for the mass murder-suicide event in Jonestown, Guyana on November 18, 1978, during which nearly 900 people drank cyanide-laced Flavor Aid, including nearly 300 children. To this day, "drinking the Kool-Aid" is a popular phrase in America to refer to people who blindly follow a person or idea without thought, and the event at Jonestown was the deadliest deliberate act involving Americans in history until the 9/11 attacks. In addition to those deaths, Peoples Temple members also murdered a handful of others on the same day, including journalists, a member trying to leave Jonestown, and Congressman Leo Ryan. Almost from birth, Jones believed he had a higher calling, and after being immersed in various Christian churches and both political and religious doctrine, Jones founded the Peoples Temple in Indianapolis in 1955, when he was still in his mid-20s. While that might have been an unusual course in life for most Americans, Jones was hardly the first to take such a path, and indeed, his group expanded at a remarkable pace in the 1960s, which included a move to California after Jones claimed to foresee a nuclear attack on Chicago and the destruction of Indianapolis. By the 1970s, services at the group's Temple attracted thousands of visitors, even as Jones increasingly criticized Christianity and the Bible. Of course, none of the previous locations earned the notoriety of Jonestown, which the Peoples Temple established in Guyana along the northern coast of South America in the mid-'70s. Meant to be a "socialist paradise" and "sanctuary" from America's "creeping fascism," over 900 members headed to the new settlement by 1978. That November, Congressman Leo Ryan arrived in Jonestown to investigate various claims about the Peoples Temple and met with some members who wished to defect from the group. In response, Jones issued a tape decrying outsiders' efforts and directing members to commit suicide, and when some pushed back, he chided them: "Stop these hysterics. This is not the way for people who are socialists or communists to die. No way for us to die. We must die with some dignity." Survivors described the ensuing event, during which children drank the poison first and were followed by parents who lay down to die as a family. Others indicated that Jones had simulated mass suicides on a couple of other occasions before to test members' loyalty as well, so people remained unsure whether the event was real, even as Jones told them, "I tell you, I don't care how many screams you hear, I don't care how many anguished cries...death is a million times preferable to ten more days of this life. If you knew what was ahead of you - if you knew what was ahead of you, you'd be glad to be stepping over tonight." Although many began to worry once they saw the poison take effect in others, most of those who drank the poison were dead within 5 minutes, while Jones apparently shot himself in the head. Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple: The History of the Most Notorious Cult and Mass Murder-Suicide in American History chronicles the notorious cult and the mass murder-suicide. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Peoples Temple like never before.
Download or read book The Road to Jonestown written by Jeff Guinn and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-04-11 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A portrait of the cult leader behind the Jonestown Massacre examines his personal life, from his extramarital affairs and drug use to his fraudulent faith healing practices and his decision to move his followers to Guyana, sharing new details about the events leading to the 1978 tragedy.
Download or read book Seductive Poison written by Deborah Layton and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2010-08-18 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this haunting and riveting firsthand account, a survivor of Jim Jones's Peoples Temple opens up the shadowy world of cults and shows how anyone can fall under their spell. "A suspenseful tale of escape that reads like a satisfying thriller.... The most important personal testimony to emerge from the Jonestown tragedy." —Chicago Tribune A high-level member of Jim Jones's Peoples Temple for seven years, Deborah Layton escaped his infamous commune in the Guyanese jungle, leaving behind her mother, her older brother, and many friends. She returned to the United States with warnings of impending disaster, but her pleas for help fell on skeptical ears, and shortly thereafter, in November 1978, the Jonestown massacre shocked the world. Seductive Poison is both an unflinching historical document and a suspenseful story of intrigue, power, and murder.
Download or read book Suicide Club written by Rachel Heng and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2018-07-10 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A provocative new author. A fascinating debut novel. Read it!” —Jeff VanderMeer In Rachel Heng's debut set in near future New York City—where lives last three hundred years and the pursuit of immortality is all-consuming—Lea must choose between her estranged father and her chance to live forever. Lea Kirino is a “Lifer,” which means that a roll of the genetic dice has given her the potential to live forever—if she does everything right. And Lea is an overachiever. She’s a successful trader on the New York exchange—where instead of stocks, human organs are now bought and sold—she has a beautiful apartment, and a fiancé who rivals her in genetic perfection. And with the right balance of HealthTechTM, rigorous juicing, and low-impact exercise, she might never die. But Lea’s perfect life is turned upside down when she spots her estranged father on a crowded sidewalk. His return marks the beginning of her downfall as she is drawn into his mysterious world of the Suicide Club, a network of powerful individuals and rebels who reject society’s pursuit of immortality, and instead choose to live—and die—on their own terms. In this future world, death is not only taboo; it’s also highly illegal. Soon Lea is forced to choose between a sanitized immortal existence and a short, bittersweet time with a man she has never really known, but who is the only family she has left in the world.
