A chilling documentary history of the most notorious cults of the past two thousand years, from the Celtic druids whose ritual sacrifices inspired the folk horror film A Penguin Classic The word “cult” conjures images of people in thrall to a charismatic leader who extracts obedience through lies and threats, and of apocalyptic prophecies, ritual sacrifices, sexual perversion, and mass suicide. Bringing to light little-known sources such as a “death tape” of Jonestown’s final hour, when Jim Jones led more than 900 of his followers to drink poison, and;a minute-by-minute log of the FBI’s final assault on the Branch Davidian headquarters, and including accounts of drinking the blood of sacrificed cats, theories that we are living inside a hollow earth, and reports that space brothers from Venus are coming to redeem us from the threat of nuclear war, this volume opens a fascinating window into cults and why some of them have ended in spectacular violence.

Autorentext
Joseph P. Laycock is an assistant professor of religious studies at Texas State University and a co-editor of the journal Nova Religio. He is the author or editor of several books about religion, including Speak of the Devil, Spirit Possession Around the World, and The Seer of Bayside, and has written for Quartz and The New Republic. He lives in Austin, Texas.

Klappentext

The word "cult" conjures images of people in thrall to a charismatic leader who extracts obedience through lies and threats, and of apocalyptic prophecies, sexual perversion, and mass suicide. From the Celtic druids, whose ritual sacrifices inspired the folk horror film The Wicker Man, all the way up to the Peoples Temple and Heaven's Gate, The Penguin Book of Cults charts the history of our fear of the religious other.

Bringing to light little-known sources such as a "death tape" of Jonestown's final hour, when Jim Jones led more than 900 of his followers to drink poison, and a minute-by-minute log of the FBI's final assault on the Branch Davidian headquarters, and including accounts of drinking the blood of sacrificed cats, theories that we are living inside a hollow earth, and reports that space brothers from Venus are coming to redeem us from the threat of nuclear war, this volume opens a fascinating window into cults and why some of them have ended in spectacular violence.

Leseprobe
CONTENTS

Introduction by Joseph P. Laycock
Suggestions for Further Reading

THE PENGUIN BOOK OF CULTS

Pre-Modern Era
The Bacchanalian Affair (186 BCE)
Legends of The Wicker Man (58 BCE-18 CE)
The Orgies of the Christians (Second Century CE)
The Narrations of Pseudo-Nilus **(Fourth to Sixth Century CE)
The Orléans Heresy (1022 CE)

Long Nineteenth Century
William Dorrell, The Invincible Vegetarian Messiah (1798)
The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk (1836)
“The Pathology and Treatment of Mediomania” (1874)
A Vampire Cult in Kansas City (1890)
Cyrus R. Teed, the Electro-Alchemical Messiah (1839-1908)
George J. Schweinfurth, the Failed Messiah of Winnebago County (1853-1910)

Twentieth Century
Invasion of the Yoga Cults (1911)
The Trial of Aleister Crowley (1934)
The Birth of Brainwashing (1950)
The Coming of the Saucer Religions (1955)
The Jonestown “Death Tape” (November 18, 1978)
Internal Documents from the Branch Davidian Siege (1992-April 19,1993)
The Sentencing of Shoko Asahara for the Aum Shinrikyo Attack (March 20, 1995)
The Departure of the Heaven’s Gate Group (March 26, 1997)
*NotesIndex*

Inhalt

Introduction by Joseph P. Laycock
Suggestions for Further Reading

THE PENGUIN BOOK OF CULTS

THE PREMODERN ERA
The Bacchanalian Affair (186 BCE)
Legends of the Wicker Man (58 BCE–18 CE)
The Orgies of the Christians (Second Century CE)
The Narrations of Pseudo-Nilus (Fourth to Sixth Century CE)
The Orléans Heresy (1022 CE)

THE LONG NINETEENTH CENTURY
William Dorrell, the Invincible Vegetarian Messiah (1798)
The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk (1836)
“The Pathology and Treatment of Mediomania” (1874)
A Vampire Cult in Kansas City (1890)
Cyrus R. Teed, the Electro-Alchemical Messiah (1839–1908)
George J. Schweinfurth, the Failed Messiah of Winnebago County (1853–1910)

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Invasion of the Yoga Cults (1911)
The Trial of Aleister Crowley (1934)
The Birth of Brainwashing (1950)
The Coming of the Saucer Religions (1955)
The Jonestown “Death Tape” (November 18, 1978)
Internal Documents from the Branch Davidian Siege (1992–April 19, 1993)
The Sentencing of Shoko Asahara for the Aum Shinrikyo Attack (March 20, 1995)
The Departure of the Heaven’s Gate Group (March 26, 1997)

Notes
Index