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A review by boomwormbrittany
Cults: Inside the World's Most Notorious Groups and Understanding the People Who Joined Them by Max Cutler
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.0
Cults is a nonfiction book that discuss various cults and the reasons why people join them.
I picked up this book on a whim when I saw one of my favorite true crime YouTuber's reading it. I thought it was a really interesting read evne as someone who has studied a lot of cults. I listen to a podcast called Cult Podcast that talks about cults in depth and so I had heard of most, if not all, of these cults.
I think this book would be a great one to read if you don't know as much about cults and want to start off by learning about some of the big ones. It was a really interesting read to get the backstory of the cult leaders and how they were able to influence people to join their groups. This discuss how cults meet a certain need that people are looking for and their, usually, charismatic leaders are able to pull them in with the promise of meeting those needs and more. Once the person is in, it's hard for them to leave due to that need being met and not wanting to lose everything they feel they have dedicated to the cults.
I also liked that this book talked about some of the bigger cults but also interspersed smaller cults. While some cults were originally in the United States, it also discusses cults from other countries and showed how different belief systems were used to create a basis for the cults. I also liked that with cults that took from certain belief systems, they wanted to make it clear that not every person in that belief system practices the way that certain cults did and actually condemned how certain cults acted.
The reason this got four stars is that it talks about the psychology of cult leaders mostly. I don't like the self-diagnosis of cult leaders using psychologists previous papers that discussed narcissism and megalomania that didn't reference those cult leaders. I, personally, don't like self-diagnosing and while we can agree what these cult leaders did was egregious, I don't think we have a right to diagnose them without having a degree or background in psychology.
Overall though, I think this is great book to pick up if you are just learning about cults. It's a great jumping point to learn about their leaders, beliefs and get a general overview of cults.
I picked up this book on a whim when I saw one of my favorite true crime YouTuber's reading it. I thought it was a really interesting read evne as someone who has studied a lot of cults. I listen to a podcast called Cult Podcast that talks about cults in depth and so I had heard of most, if not all, of these cults.
I think this book would be a great one to read if you don't know as much about cults and want to start off by learning about some of the big ones. It was a really interesting read to get the backstory of the cult leaders and how they were able to influence people to join their groups. This discuss how cults meet a certain need that people are looking for and their, usually, charismatic leaders are able to pull them in with the promise of meeting those needs and more. Once the person is in, it's hard for them to leave due to that need being met and not wanting to lose everything they feel they have dedicated to the cults.
I also liked that this book talked about some of the bigger cults but also interspersed smaller cults. While some cults were originally in the United States, it also discusses cults from other countries and showed how different belief systems were used to create a basis for the cults. I also liked that with cults that took from certain belief systems, they wanted to make it clear that not every person in that belief system practices the way that certain cults did and actually condemned how certain cults acted.
The reason this got four stars is that it talks about the psychology of cult leaders mostly. I don't like the self-diagnosis of cult leaders using psychologists previous papers that discussed narcissism and megalomania that didn't reference those cult leaders. I, personally, don't like self-diagnosing and while we can agree what these cult leaders did was egregious, I don't think we have a right to diagnose them without having a degree or background in psychology.
Overall though, I think this is great book to pick up if you are just learning about cults. It's a great jumping point to learn about their leaders, beliefs and get a general overview of cults.
Content Warnings
Minor: Child abuse, Child death, Suicide, and Murder