Cult Classics: 32 Fascinating Books About Cults

Cult leaders use insidious methods to recruit. But founding a cult aimed at people struggling with addiction is surely one of the more despicable tactics. Mikel Jollett, lead singer for the band The Airborne Toxic Event, was born into the Church of Synanon. There, he was removed from his mother’s care at six months old to be raised communally. He and his mother escaped, but life outside the cult was a struggle for them as well, as this heartbreaking and poetic memoir details.

One of the stranger cult stories in recent years was that of the students at Sarah Lawrence who fell under the control of one of their fellow student’s fathers. A story in New York magazine in 2019 finally resulted in leader Larry Ray’s recent conviction. The author of Slonim Woods 9 was one of the students living in the communal house, especially vulnerable to Ray’s manipulation because of a tough break-up. He shares the details of the escalating abuse he suffered while no one else seemed to notice.

Doomsday cults have a unique terror factor to me. My off-the-cuff theory is that the stress of thinking an apocalypse is imminent must wear down people’s ability to cope with basically anything else. That makes them especially susceptible to a cult leader’s whims. It’s obviously cruel to raise a child with that mindset, but it happened to people in the Children of God cult, as is detailed in this book. Compared to many books about cults, this one has a relatively gentle touch.

As if growing up in a doomsday cult weren’t bad enough, Worldwide Church of God segregated its members. Why would Black people be involved with such an organization? In this case, the author’s parents both became blind as the result of childhood accidents, and a leader who promised sight lured them in. Many cults try to isolate themselves from the rest of the society. But kids in the Worldwide Church of God went to non-church-affiliated schools even though the apocalypse was supposedly nigh. In fact, one of the moments of levity in the book comes from the author’s account of his attempt to recruit a friend into the cult as a child.

This memoir uses a graphic format to share the story of author Marianne Boucher. She gave up her figure skating dreams when she joined a cult that promised her purpose and an authentic life. She was a part of the Unification Church, colloquially called the “Moonies” and known for their mass wedding ceremonies. It’s a quick ride through her recruitment and eventual escape, and gives a vivid account of the recruitment tactics cult members use.

While most of the nonfiction books about cults published in English I’ve come across have examined cults in the United States, cults are not an exclusively American phenomenon. Gloriavale, for example, is a fundamentalist Christian cult in New Zealand whose members endure beatings and forced marriages, among other abuse. For a sample of the story told in Lilia Tarawa’s memoir, you can first watch her popular TEDx talk detailing some of her experiences.

The story of Jonestown is honestly incredibly heartbreaking and complex. In larger culture, it’s been reduced to “drinking the Kool-aid,” which is a ghoulish thing to say flippantly when 918 people died. I do recommend (with some reservations) The Road to Jonestown as a recently written, deeply researched book. But if you’re looking for a survivor’s story, this one originally published in 1997 chronicles life for someone high up in the Peoples Temple whose pleas for help went unheard.

Many know Haruki Murakami as one of the foremost living authors of literary fiction, but he has written nonfiction as well. In this book on the 1995 poison gas attack in the Tokyo subway, Murakami speaks with many survivors of the attack to gain insight into what led to the attack and how it affected the Japanese psyche. The doomsday cult that carried out the attack, Aum Shinrikyo, has been recognized as a terrorist organization by both the United States and the European Union.

The Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints is a rogue sect who believe the mainstream Mormon church’s rejection of polygamy was a mistake. Numerous nonfiction works investigate their crimes. The private investigator whose work led to Warren Jeffs’s arrest wrote Prophet’s Prey. Under the Banner of Heaven, with a recent television adaptation, zooms in on a double murder committed by members. And Breaking Free details the abuse the author, the daughter of Warren Jeffs, suffered.

Like the aforementioned Talking to Strangers, this book deals with the Unification Church, AKA the Moonies. Where that book delves into recruitment tactics, this gives an account of being born into a cult and witnessing the corruption at the highest levels from very close. Hong was made to marry Sun Myung Moon’s son when she was only 15. Her story includes both abuse she endured and her escape after 14 years of marriage.

The documentary Wild Wild Country introduced many a true crime and cult enthusiast to the Rajneeshpuram community in Oregon, a seemingly utopian community led by guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. But a true utopian community would never have to resort to bioterror and assassination attempts. My Life in Orange is the account of someone brought to Rajneeshpuram at age six. There’s always something especially heartbreaking about children being brought into an organization whose rules they can’t consent to, as this memoir emphasizes.

Memoirs by people born into cults or brought into them at a tender age can be tough reads, for sure. But when they include a healing journey, it can be inspiring to witness a damaged relationship being repaired. At age 2, N. Jamiyla Chisholm was brought into a Black Muslim cult in Brooklyn called Nuwaubian Nation, founded Dwight York, AKA Imam Isa. As is a persistent, almost defining characteristic of cults, this community had a leader who abused children. The author has come to terms with her mother’s choice to bring her into such an environment. Another thread of this narrative is the repugnant treatment of Muslims in New York following the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Believe it or not, books about cults can be funny, too. Loving Day is one such book, following Warren Duffy’s quest to understand racial identity. With a white dad and a Black mom, Warren identifies as Black. When he discovers a long lost daughter, Tal, who identifies as white, he aims to acquaint her with her true heritage. This brings them to the Mélange Center for Multiracial Life, which Tal dives right into, but Warren thinks might be a cult.

I don’t have to tell you to read Octavia E, Butler’s books. You already know this. If you haven’t read Parable of the Sower, it might feel a little uncanny, with its failing social fabric and the president who wants to “Make America Great Again.” But this is the book where you might be rooting for a cult leader. The protagonist, Laura, has a vision for how to save humanity through a new religion, and whether it’s a cult or not is a question I will leave for you to answer.

As I list this book I also highly endorse the television adaptation of this book made for HBO. The Leftovers asks the question of what happens when you’re not among the chosen ones, and it’s not clear what the chosen were chosen for. When a fraction of humanity suddenly vanishes without a clear pattern, the titular leftovers must figure out how to keep going. The silent, cigarette-smoking cult that springs up in the aftermath is a fascinating sort of anti-cult that embraces nihilism. Where cults can lull people with promises of answering the deep questions, this one aims to jostle people out of comfort at all times.

I’m fascinated by charisma, and what people who wield it choose to do with their lives. Trust Exercise is not a standard cult story. It’s more like a cult of personality story, centered on Mr. Kingsley, the acting teacher at a competitive performance arts high school. When the chemistry between two students becomes the teacher’s focus, things get weird. The dynamics between teacher and student are at the heart of how a cult operates, and they are central to this experimental and challenging novel. This one’s for the theater kids.

The dark academia sub-genre/aesthetic is perhaps inspired by The Secret History, a book about an outsider encountering a cadre of students with a charismatic professor who go overboard with their appreciation of the Classics. There are lots of parallels between elite educational institutions and cults: the power dynamics, the us/them mentality, the isolation from the larger world. Bunny has a similar vibe to The Secret History but goes for it even harder. In it, a student in an MFA program is drawn into a clique of rich girls who call each other “Bunny.” And it turns out they have a truly wild creative process.

Do not miss this gripping and passionate novel that uses a cult as a metaphor for what the United States does to Black bodies. After breaking free from Cainland, pregnant teenager Vern gives birth to twins in the woods. And then she begins to undergo a metamorphosis into something even more powerful. To protect her family, she will unravel the secrets of her compound, whose tentacles are far-reaching. It’s fierce, genre-defying, and unforgettable.

If K.M. Szpara’s provocative debut Docile was for you, check out his follow up, a standalone fantasy. The premise is honestly wild: what if you’d been raised to harness magic so that you could fight monsters when you came of age? Okay, but what if all of that was a lie and you were in a cult the whole time? Lark, whose story this is, decides to continue his quest and find the monsters he was taught were real. Like Docile, this book really goes for it with shocking content and a story that will definitely make you uncomfortable.

This is the second book in The Sixth World series, so you will probably want to pick up Trail of Lightning first. Once you’re immersed in the world where climate apocalypse has allowed the Dinétah (formerly the Navajo reservation) to be reborn, you’ll be ready for monster hunter Maggie’s latest adventure. She investigates a mysterious cult whose leader has roots in Navajo lore. If you like the idea of a cult story within the urban fantasy genre, you need to get on this series.

While many cult books include wild details — including the nonfiction books — there is certainly room for a subtler exploration of a religious community that may or may not have all the qualifications of a cult. Eden West is such a book, about Jacob, raised in Nodd, the land of Grace. When his faith is tested by peaks into the outside world, he has to grapple with his new knowledge. This is a book that will resonate with a lot of people who’ve left any sort of faith.

What if you’re in a doomsday cult, but you are also the doomsday weapon yourself? This is life for 16-year-old trans boy Benji, infected with a bioweapon turning him into a monster. He’s escaped his ecofascist cult and he’s looking for safety among a ragtag group of queer rebels. If you like the idea of unleashing righteous fury against oppressors, here you go. This is the apocalyptic cult body horror novel you’ve been waiting for.

It’s fascinating to see how our current pandemic affects how we read, given a book like coming out in the middle of it. Agnes at the End of the World presents an especially horrifying scenario: what if that world-ending event your prophet predicted might actually be happening? Turns out it won’t deter Agnes, who’s known for a while that prayer alone isn’t going to save her diabetic brother. She’s been bartering with the outside, and her doubt in her leader has been snowballing. When she realizes her connection to the virus ravaging the Earth, she has to decide between saving her family and saving humanity.