10 Best Cults Books
Cults is a popular category for many book lovers. Our team at Speechify has curated a list of the top Cults audiobooks everyone must read.
See the top 10 Cults audiobooks below.
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The Cult of Trump
- By: Steven Hassan
- Narrator: Steven Hassan
- Length: 10 hours 42 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2019
- Language: English
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4.06(1401 ratings)
4.06(1401 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0023.99 USDA masterful and eye-opening examination of Trump and the coercive control tactics he uses to build a fanatical devotion in his supporters written by “an authority on breaking away from cults…an argument that…bears consideration asA masterful and eye-opening examination of Trump and the coercive control tactics he uses to build a fanatical devotion in his supporters written by “an authority on breaking away from cults…an argument that…bears consideration as the next election cycle heats up” (Kirkus Reviews).
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Since the 2016 election, Donald Trump’s behavior has become both more disturbing and yet increasingly familiar. He relies on phrases like, “fake news,” “build the wall,” and continues to spread the divisive mentality of us-vs.-them. He lies constantly, has no conscience, never admits when he is wrong, and projects all of his shortcomings on to others. He has become more authoritarian, more outrageous, and yet many of his followers remain blindly devoted. Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert and a major Trump supporter, calls him one of the most persuasive people living. His need to squash alternate information and his insistence of constant ego stroking are all characteristics of other famous leaders–cult leaders.
In The Cult of Trump, mind control and licensed mental health expert Steven Hassan draws parallels between our current president and people like Jim Jones, David Koresh, Ron Hubbard, and Sun Myung Moon, arguing that this presidency is in many ways like a destructive cult. He specifically details the ways in which people are influenced through an array of social psychology methods and how they become fiercely loyal and obedient. Hassan was a former “Moonie” himself, and he presents a “thoughtful and well-researched analysis of some of the most puzzling aspects of the current presidency, including the remarkable passivity of fellow Republicans [and] the gross pandering of many members of the press” (Thomas G. Gutheil, MD and professor of psychiatry, Harvard Medical School).
The Cult of Trump is an accessible and in-depth analysis of the president, showing that under the right circumstances, even sane, rational, well-adjusted people can be persuaded to believe the most outrageous ideas. “This book is a must for anyone who wants to understand the current political climate” (Judith Stevens-Long, PhD and author of Living Well, Dying Well). -
The Amityville Horror
- By: Jay Anson
- Narrator: Ray Porter
- Length: 6 hours 28 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2009
- Language: English
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3.84(116633 ratings)
3.84(116633 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0013.95 USDIn December 1975, the Lutz family moved into their new home on suburban Long Island. George and Kathleen Lutz knew that, one year earlier, Ronald DeFeo had murdered his parents, brothers, and sisters in the house, but the property—completeIn December 1975, the Lutz family moved into their new home on suburban Long Island. George and Kathleen Lutz knew that, one year earlier, Ronald DeFeo had murdered his parents, brothers, and sisters in the house, but the property—complete with boathouse and swimming pool—and the price were too good to pass up.
Twenty-eight days later, the entire Lutz family fled in terror.
This is the spellbinding, bestselling true story that gripped the nation, the story of a house possessed by evil spirits, haunted by psychic phenomena almost too terrible to describe.
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Beautiful Revolutionary
- By: Laura Elizabeth Woollett
- Narrator: Nick O'Rourke
- Length: 12 hours 58 minutes
- Publisher: Dreamscape Media
- Publish date: June 10, 2021
- Language: English
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3.73(525 ratings)
3.73(525 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0017.99 USDIt’s the summer of 1968, and Evelyn Lynden is a woman at war with herself–minister’s daughter, atheist, independent woman, frustrated wife, bitch with a bleeding heart. Following her conscientious-objector husband Lenny to theIt’s the summer of 1968, and Evelyn Lynden is a woman at war with herself–minister’s daughter, atheist, independent woman, frustrated wife, bitch with a bleeding heart. Following her conscientious-objector husband Lenny to the rural Eden of Evergreen Valley, California, Evelyn wants to be happy with their new life. Yet she finds herself disillusioned with Lenny’s passive ways-and anxious for a savior. Enter the Reverend Jim Jones, the dynamic leader of a revolutionary church…. Meticulously researched and masterfully written, Beautiful Revolutionary explores the allure of the real-life charismatic leader who would destroy so many. It follows Evelyn as she is pulled into Jones’s orbit-an orbit it would prove impossible for her to leave.
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Greetings from Utopia Park
- By: Claire Hoffman
- Narrator: Andi Arndt
- Length: 8 hours 1 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: June 07, 2016
- Language: English
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3.71(785 ratings)
3.71(785 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.004.99 USDIn this engrossing, provocative, and intimate memoir, a young journalist reflects on her childhood in the heartland, growing up in an increasingly isolated meditation community in the 1980s and ’90s–a fascinating, disturbing look at aIn this engrossing, provocative, and intimate memoir, a young journalist reflects on her childhood in the heartland, growing up in an increasingly isolated meditation community in the 1980s and ’90s–a fascinating, disturbing look at a fringe culture and its true believers.
When Claire Hoffman’s alcoholic father abandons his family, his desperate wife, Liz, tells five-year-old Claire and her seven-year-old brother, Stacey, that they are going to heaven–Iowa–to live in Maharishi’s national headquarters for Heaven on Earth. For Claire’s mother, Transcendental Meditation–the Maharishi’s method of meditation and his approach to living the fullest possible life–was a salvo that promised world peace and enlightenment just as their family fell apart.
At first this secluded utopia offers warmth and support, and makes these outsiders feel calm, secure, and connected to the world. At the Maharishi School, Claire learns Maharishi’s philosophy for living and meditates with her class. With the promise of peace and enlightenment constantly on the horizon, every day is infused with magic and meaning. But as Claire and Stacey mature, their adolescent skepticism kicks in, drawing them away from the community and into delinquency and drugs. To save herself, Claire moves to California with her father and breaks from Maharishi completely. After a decade of working in journalism and academia, the challenges of adulthood propel her back to Iowa, where she reexamines her spiritual upbringing and tries to reconnect with the magic of her childhood.
Greetings from Utopia Park takes us deep into this complex, unusual world, illuminating its joys and comforts, and its disturbing problems. While there is no utopia on earth, Hoffman reveals, there are noble goals worth striving for: believing in belief, inner peace, and a firm understanding that there is a larger fabric of the universe to which we all belong.
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Captive
- By: Catherine Oxenberg
- Narrator: Catherine Oxenberg
- Length: 10 hours 47 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2018
- Language: English
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3.69(1273 ratings)
3.69(1273 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0017.99 USDNow updated with a new afterword, Captive is an emotional, ripped-from-the-headlines expose that lays bare the secretive cult that shocked the world–for fans of Leah Remini’s Troublemaker and Lawrence Wright’s Going Clear.I am aNow updated with a new afterword, Captive is an emotional, ripped-from-the-headlines expose that lays bare the secretive cult that shocked the world–for fans of Leah Remini’s Troublemaker and Lawrence Wright’s Going Clear.
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I am a mother whose child is being abused and exploited. And I am not alone.
In 2011, former Dynasty star Catherine Oxenberg joined her daughter, India, at a leadership seminar for a new organization called NXIVM. Her then twenty-year-old daughter was on the threshold of starting her own professional life and they both thought this program might help her achieve her dream. But quickly, Catherine saw a sinister side to the program that claimed to simply want to help its clients become the best versions of themselves.
Catherine watched in horror as her daughter fell further and further down the rabbit hole, falling under the spell of NXIVM’s hypnotic leader, Keith Raniere. Despite Catherine’s best efforts, India was drawn deeper into the cult, eventually joining an elite “sorority” of women members who were ordered to maintain a restricted diet, recruit other women as “slaves,” and were branded with their leader’s initials.
In Captive, Catherine shares every parent’s worst nightmare, and the lengths that a mother will go to save her child. Catherine’s efforts finally led the FBI to take notice–and the journey is not yet over. A powerful depiction of a mother’s love and determination, and with horrifying insider details never revealed in any news story, Captive will keep you reading until the very last page. -
The Polygamist’s Daughter
- By: Anna LeBaron
- Narrator: Anna LeBaron
- Length: 8 hours 54 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2017
- Language: English
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3.65(8361 ratings)
3.65(8361 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USD“My father had more than fifty children.” So begins the haunting memoir of Anna LeBaron, daughter of the notorious polygamist and murderer Ervil LeBaron. With her father wanted by the FBI for killing anyone who tried to leave his“My father had more than fifty children.”
So begins the haunting memoir of Anna LeBaron, daughter of the notorious polygamist and murderer Ervil LeBaron. With her father wanted by the FBI for killing anyone who tried to leave his cult–a radical branch of Mormonism–Anna and her siblings were constantly on the run with the other sister-wives. Often starving and always desperate, the children lived in terror. Even though there were dozens of them together, Anna always felt alone.
She escaped when she was thirteen–but the nightmare was far from over.
A shocking true story of murder, fear, and betrayal, The Polygamist’s Daughter is also the heart-cry of a fatherless girl and her search for love, faith, and a safe place to call home.
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The World in Flames
- By: Jerald Walker
- Narrator: C.S. Treadway
- Length: 5 hours 39 minutes
- Publisher: Beacon Press
- Publish date: November 09, 2017
- Language: English
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3.6(285 ratings)
3.6(285 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0017.99 USDIn 1970, Jerry Walker is six years old. His consciousness revolves around being a member of Herbert W. Armstrong’s Worldwide Church of God, whose beliefs he finds not only confusing but terrifying. For Jerry’s parents, the promise ofIn 1970, Jerry Walker is six years old. His consciousness revolves around being a member of Herbert W. Armstrong’s Worldwide Church of God, whose beliefs he finds not only confusing but terrifying. For Jerry’s parents, the promise of relief from the world’s hardships provides comfort and hope for a divine future where they might regain the sight they each lost as children. The next life would arrive in 1975, three years after the start of the Great Tribulation where all nonbelievers would perish in rivers of flames. When the prophecy of the 1972 Great Tribulation does not materialize, Jerry is considerably less disappointed than relieved. When the 1975 end-time prophecy also fails, he finally begins to question his faith and imagine the possibility of choosing a destiny of his own.
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Manhattan Cult Story
- By: Spencer Schneider
- Narrator: Austin Rising
- Length: 8 hours 1 minutes
- Publisher: Dreamscape Media
- Publish date: July 05, 2022
- Language: English
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3.59(335 ratings)
3.59(335 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0017.99 USDRight under the noses of neighbors, clients, spouses, children, and friends, a secret society, simply called School–a cult of snared Manhattan professionals–has been led by the charismatic, sociopathic, and dangerous leader Sharon GansRight under the noses of neighbors, clients, spouses, children, and friends, a secret society, simply called School–a cult of snared Manhattan professionals–has been led by the charismatic, sociopathic, and dangerous leader Sharon Gans for decades. Spencer Schneider was recruited in the eighties, and he stayed for more than twenty-three years as his life disintegrated, his self-esteem eroded, and he lined the pockets of Gans and her cult. Cult members met twice weekly, though they never acknowledged one another outside of meetings or gatherings. In the name of inner development, they endured the horrors of mental, sexual, and physical abuse, forced labor, arranged marriages, swindled inheritances and savings, and systematic terrorizing. Some of them broke the law. All for Gans. “During those years,” Schneider writes, “my world was School. That’s what it’s like when you’re in a cult, even one that preys on and caters to New York’s educated elite. This is my story of how I got entangled in School and how I got out.” At its core, Manhattan Cult Story is a cautionary tale of how hundreds of well-educated, savvy, and prosperous New Yorkers became fervent followers of a brilliant but demented cult leader who posed as a teacher of ancient knowledge. It’s about double-lives, the power of group psychology, and how easy it is to be radicalized–all too relevant in today’s atmosphere of conspiracy and ideologue worship.
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Cults
- By: Max Cutler
- Narrator: Pete Simonelli
- Length: 15 hours 9 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2022
- Language: English
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3.59(985 ratings)
3.59(985 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.99 USDMystery. Manipulation. Murder. Cults are associated with all of these. But what really goes on inside them? More specifically, what goes on inside the minds of cult leaders and the people who join them? Based on the hit podcast Cults, this isMystery. Manipulation. Murder. Cults are associated with all of these. But what really goes on inside them? More specifically, what goes on inside the minds of cult leaders and the people who join them? Based on the hit podcast Cults, this is essential reading for any true crime fan.
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Cults prey on the very attributes that make us human: our desire to belong, to find a deeper meaning in life, to live everyday with divine purpose. Their existence creates a sense that any one of us, at any time, could step off the cliff’s edge and fall into that daunting abyss of manipulation and unhinged dedication to a misplaced cause. Perhaps it’s this mindset that keeps us so utterly obsessed and desperate to learn more, or it’s that the stories are so bizarre and unsettling that we are simply in awe of the mechanics that make these infamous groups tick.
The premier storytelling podcast studio Parcast has been focusing on unearthing these mechanics–the cult leaders and followers, and the world and culture that gave birth to both. Parcast’s work in analyzing dozens of case studies has revealed patterns: distinct ways that cult leaders from different generations resemble one another. What links the ten notorious figures profiled in Cults are as disturbing as they are stunning–from Manson to Applewhite, Koresh to Rael, the stories woven here are both spellbinding and disturbing.
Cults is more than just a compilation of grisly biographies, however. In these pages, Parcast’s founder Max Cutler and national bestselling author Kevin Conley look closely at the lives of some of the most disreputable cult figures and tell the stories of their rise to power and fall from grace, sanity, and decency. Beyond that, it is a study of humanity, an unflinching look at what happens when the most vulnerable recesses of the mind are manipulated and how the things we hold most sacred can be twisted into the lowest form of malevolence. -
Banished
- By: Lauren Drain
- Length: 8 hours 5 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: March 05, 2013
- Language: English
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3.55(3388 ratings)
3.55(3388 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.98 USDBanished is an eye-opening, deeply personal account of life inside the cult known as the Westboro Baptist Church, as well as a fascinating story of adaptation and perseverance.You’ve likely heard of the Westboro Baptist Church. PerhapsBanished is an eye-opening, deeply personal account of life inside the cult known as the Westboro Baptist Church, as well as a fascinating story of adaptation and perseverance.... Read more
You’ve likely heard of the Westboro Baptist Church. Perhaps you’ve seen their pickets on the news, the members holding signs with messages that are too offensive to copy here, protesting at events such as the funerals of soldiers, the 9-year old victim of the recent Tucson shooting, and Elizabeth Edwards, all in front of their grieving families. The WBC is fervently anti-gay, anti-Semitic, and anti- practically everything and everyone. And they aren’t going anywhere: in March, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the WBC’s right to picket funerals.
Since no organized religion will claim affiliation with the WBC, it’s perhaps more accurate to think of them as a cult. Lauren Drain was thrust into that cult at the age of 15, and then spat back out again seven years later.
Lauren spent her early years enjoying a normal life with her family in Florida. But when her formerly liberal and secular father set out to produce a documentary about the WBC, his detached interest gradually evolved into fascination, and he moved the entire family to Kansas to join the church and live on their compound. Over the next seven years, Lauren fully assimilated their extreme beliefs, and became a member of the church and an active and vocal picketer. But as she matured and began to challenge some of the church’s tenets, she was unceremoniously cast out from the church and permanently cut off from her family and from everyone else she knew and loved.
Banished is the story of Lauren’s fight to find herself amidst dramatic changes in a world of extremists and a life in exile.
Cliff Weitzman
Cliff Weitzman is a dyslexia advocate and the CEO and founder of Speechify, the #1 text-to-speech app in the world, totaling over 100,000 5-star reviews and ranking first place in the App Store for the News & Magazines category. In 2017, Weitzman was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list for his work making the internet more accessible to people with learning disabilities. Cliff Weitzman has been featured in EdSurge, Inc., PC Mag, Entrepreneur, Mashable, among other leading outlets.
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