A must-read for anyone seeking to understand how cults operate and view themselves in relation to the world.
Page-turning account of growing up at the heart of a fringe religion.
The Church Universal and Triumphant, which Prophet estimates to have had 40,000 followers worldwide at its peak, was an offshoot of earlier New Age movements combining Christian teachings, Eastern religious concepts and the channeling of messages from “ascended masters.” Starting in the early 1970s, the author’s mother, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, was at the center of the church and wielded autocratic power over her followers. Best known for ordering hundreds of adherents into underground Montana shelters in preparation for a prophesied nuclear war, the church and the Prophet family were often in the news during the early ’90s. Viewed as a spiritual heir-apparent, the author was encouraged to take up her mother’s mantel as a seer and visionary; she took on an increasingly active role in the church’s decisions, though often behind the scenes. Elizabeth Prophet’s control over her daughter’s life was complete, even down to how often she spent the night with her husband. Over time, a series of insights into her mother’s imperfections, from moral peccadilloes to frail and failing health, opened Prophet’s eyes to the inconsistencies in her teachings, leading in the end to the author’s independence. Looking back, Prophet dispassionately explores not only the cult but also her role in its day-to-day activities. Her memoir is lucidly written and entirely approachable, providing all the necessary background for understanding the story without belaboring New Age history. The author puts to good use her training as a sociologist in a text that demonstrates close reflection without wandering into self-pity or false excuses.
A must-read for anyone seeking to understand how cults operate and view themselves in relation to the world.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-59921-425-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Lyons Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2008
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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