Warren Adler Book Shelf - Cult: A Novel of Brainwashing and Death

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Author of "The War of the Roses" journeys into the dark heart of evil with...
Cult

A novel of brainwashing and death

by Warren Adler

"Cult" is now available in hardcover, trade paperback and as an eBook in all formats. See below for details.

People Can Be Brainwashed and Programmed to Kill. September 11th taught us that.

Under our new Stonehouse imprint, Three Ponds Press, we are making available Warren Adler's new novel, Cult.

Cult, subtitled "A Novel of Brainwashing and Death," is the suspenseful and gritty story of a man’s increasingly desperate attempt to rescue his brainwashed wife from a religious death cult. In the light of the World Trade Center horror, "Cult" provides a timely insight into the dangers posed by these destructive and sinister organizations.

We are hopeful that, in addition to being entertaining, Cult will add to the body of knowledge about cults, alert people to the dangers posed by them, and contribute to their understanding of this sinister phenomenon.

Why I Wrote "Cult"
by Warren Adler

When John Walker's mother was told of her son's involvement with Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, her first reaction was that he had been brainwashed. It is a reaction typical of someone whose loved one has been captured by a cult. The cult phenomenon and the concept of brainwashing usually go hand in hand. It is difficult to understand one without the other. Indeed, how can one possibly comprehend why a human being would be willing to deliberately kill himself and innocent people for a cause based on hearsay and a dubious logic promoted by a self-appointed guru whose only credibility lies in his unique powers of persuasion? My novel "Cult" comes out of long experience studying the cult phenomenon since the sixties when the media first directed its attention to the subject. Stories of young people captured by cult groups, rescue attempts by parents, lawsuits, deprogramming, and investigative reports of cult manipulated businesses and bizarre practices became daily fare in the media.

Like the loving husband in my novel who attempts to rescue his wife from a cult, I have known many a parent, a sibling, or spouse who have made similar attempts; some successful, some not. Each attempt is a horror story in itself - painful, agonizing and profoundly disturbing, largely because the laws are often more protective of the cult leaders than they are of the rights of victims and the families involved.

The character of Naomi in my novel is, unfortunately, all too typical of many people who are ill informed about cults and their methods. She doubts that brainwashing actually exists and is a firm believer in free choice. She joins her old lover on his rescue mission with a healthy dose of skepticism, but she soon comes to see the truth about cults and their destructive power. Her mental journey offers some telling insights into the ignorance most people have about cults as she learns of their corrosive appeal to the unsuspecting innocents who fall into their clutches. The searing memory of Jonestown, where nearly a thousand people ingested poisonous Kool-Aid on the premise promoted by their twisted leader Jim Jones that they would pass over into a better world, offers a glaring example of what now seems a common and repetitive occurrence. We have seen similar death cults like the one run by David Koresh in Waco, the Hale-Bopp suicides, the cult inspired mass-suicides in France and Africa and, of course, the Islamic terrorist cells, run by sinister fanatics who cynically exploit a mainstream religion for their nefarious purposes.

Because the media no longer focuses much attention on the horrors of domestic cults they have seemed to disappear from the scene. Not so. There are actually more than 3,000 groups that could be classified as cults in the United States alone. And they all follow a similar pattern: they recruit and prey on young, confused or otherwise alienated people, then through devious and calculated methods of persuasion, brainwash them into doing the cult leader's bidding. The goals of these evil manipulators are the acquisition of power and money, sentencing their poor unsuspecting victims to a lifetime of mental slavery.

One only has to browse the internet to find anti-cult websites by the thousands, created by distraught people whose loved ones have disappeared into the oblivion of the cult world, their lives wasted in the service of cynical leaders. Unfortunately, many of these cults are able to hide behind the legal veil of faux religions. Indeed, it is quite easy to create a religion in the United States and apply to the IRS for tax avoidance.

For many years, mainstream publishers, for whatever reason, have shied away from the subject of cults. My new novel is not a polemic, but a suspenseful story of characters that undergo the traumatic horrors entailed in trying to rescue a loved one from a ruined life in an evil cult. I am hopeful that the novel will give readers a better understanding into the twisted machinations of those who gave up their own lives while murdering thousands of innocent people for the dubious privilege of entering a fictional paradise studded with black-eyed virgins, a grossly absurd premise, which would be laughable if it hadn't destroyed so many lives.