alt.hn

8/23/2026 at 1:51:10 PM

My favorite nonfiction books about cults, scams, and schemes

 https://bookdna.com/best-books/nonfiction-about-cults-scams-and-schemes

by bwb

8/24/2026 at 3:44:01 AM

Going Clear is a wonderful book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_Clear_(book)

I loved the break down of how Scientology finds people. The simplicity is stunning.

People need connection, they need to feel important and that they have agency. Feeling "smart", better than, a member of... feels good.

Promises of a simple, easy, known path to getting what you want will always be appealing.

Figuring it out for yourself will always be harder.

It's no surprise that people take the easy route.

by JennyWeston

8/24/2026 at 8:32:15 AM

From my observation Scientology starts by teaching you to be selfish, more self assertish, in the process you end up pushing your friends and family away, but guess what, you have some new friends in the 'church'

Just in case anyone here finds themselves falling into their world I'll save you $0.5M: all your problems are caused by you being infested with murdered space aliens

by Taniwha

8/24/2026 at 12:51:41 PM

>People need connection, they need to feel important and that they have agency. Feeling "smart", better than, a member of... feels good.

Doesn't sound much different from the Abrahamic religions.

by p_j_w

8/24/2026 at 1:17:06 PM

Or Silicon Valley.

by codechicago277

8/24/2026 at 12:54:45 PM

Going Clear is probably one of my top ten books EVER.

If you enjoyed it, please note that Lawrence Wright has written several other equally fantastic books. He also wrote The Looming Tower, on the runup to 9/11. It covers the geopolitics that led to Islamic fanaticism as well as the intelligence failures in the US that allowed the attacks to happen. I believe fully and unironically that it ought to be required reading.

by ubermonkey

8/24/2026 at 1:31:46 PM

I'd seen and enjoyed the film adaptation, didn't realise it was based on a book

by barbs

8/23/2026 at 9:42:20 PM

If you want to know about the ins and outs of more personal cons and scams, the Howdunit series of books are great. Ostensibly meant to help writers get details correct, they are fascinating reads. Dating from the 1990's they predate scams and cons using the web, mobile phones, and other tech, but so many cons even today have roots going back to even the 1800's.

https://www.goodreads.com/series/76228-howdunit-series

by encyclic

8/23/2026 at 3:15:11 PM

No literature list on MLM scams can be complete without Bridget Read's meticulously researched 2025 book "Little Bosses Everywhere".

by Hackbraten

8/24/2026 at 3:13:22 AM

MLMs have to be up there with the biggest scams, ever. My mother was scammed over and over under the guise of friendship. As a kid I remember there was very little money but there was always enough to buy another order of whatever. The ugliest part is that once you become a member you fall into the trap, you become part of the scam and become a scammer too. It's ultimately very sad once you learn it's a legal pyramid that eventually collapses and you're left holding the bag. And your "friends" led you to it.

by WheelsAtLarge

8/24/2026 at 3:25:43 PM

I was approached by people trying to get me into a pyramid scheme at least thrice in my life.

One was a friend who got into it in high school and said I could get in on it too for 100 USD (~2004). Another was a random stranger I struck up a conversation with at a bookstore in around 2011. The last was an old boss, who attributes his drastic weight loss to a strange drug that he's peddling and says I can get in on.

It's crazy. I was 17, 24 and 37 and all 3 times I knew there was something super suspicious about these and never engaged.

by stonecharioteer

8/24/2026 at 11:40:31 AM

I would like to add to the list the excellent history of frauds "Lying for Money", by Dan Davies.

by pjc50

8/23/2026 at 4:42:43 PM

sound like you lead a cult called "MERLBE" make everyone read little bosses everywhere.

by dackdel

8/24/2026 at 6:32:53 PM

In a very different vein, I have read a number of books recently that feature a surprising amount of "scam and schemes":

- The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan, about the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression. A lot of people were scammed into settling the high plains by railroad salesmanship and other "real estate" scams.

- The Indifferent Stars Above by Daniel James Brown. A book about the harrowing Donner Party. Scamming and scheming are what draw them out to that expedition.

- The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman. WW1 history but it boils down to the scheming of various men in the respective countries.

- The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power, Daniel Yergin. The oil rush from America to the World. Scheming features prominently to say the least.

by zshrdlu

8/23/2026 at 7:03:21 PM

One definition of a cult I've liked is "A cult is a group you can't leave with your dignity intact". You can really get a good understanding if something is a cult by the way they talk about their ex members. A healthy organization will pretty much just say "Sad to see you go, come back anytime". Unhealthy organizations spend a fair amount of time warning members about how how dangerous/bad/sinful/sad/miserable their ex members are.

And yes, I'd call several mainstream religions cults because of this. I'd not argue that something isn't a cult if they don't fit this definition, but a very large number of the most damaging cults do have this behavior.

by cogman10

8/23/2026 at 7:54:45 PM

Apostasy is treated very severely by many (most?) religions. The cults have just borrowed that concept.

by jcsager

8/23/2026 at 8:19:22 PM

I'd disagree. Most religions don't love apostasy but they also don't actively tell their members to go out of their way to punish or avoid non-believers.

The reason cults severely punish ex members is to protect the flock. They don't want their members to learn from ex members real criticisms of the cult.

It's precisely so when books like mentioned in this thread come up, the cult can say "oh, that's just a bad ex member who's lying".

The idea of "forbidden knowledge" is pretty unique to cults. You won't find, for example, a Methodist church that tells you not to read exmethodist books (do they even exist?). Heck, they probably wouldn't even get upset if you read something like "The god delusion".

by cogman10

8/24/2026 at 5:04:51 AM

There is at least one very important exception.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy_in_Islam

by senderista

8/24/2026 at 6:53:02 AM

This is hardly unique to Islam, many of the more hard-line Christian sects (Jehovahs, Christian Brethren, etc) as well as Haredi Jews also shun apostates.

The main difference is that in countries with shariah, apostasy is not just a sin, it's a criminal offense.

by decimalenough

8/24/2026 at 8:22:28 AM

There's very few Muslim countries without legal Shariah... Turkey, 4 stans, Albania/Bosnia, and that's about it. Many of them are only "Muslim" as far as majority religion, locals might not even agree with that classification

There's a bunch of Muslim countries with Sharia not in criminal law but in marriage, maybe that's what you mean.

by ShinyLeftPad

8/24/2026 at 12:37:07 PM

Based on the wiki about it

> among Islamic jurists, the majority of them continue to regard apostasy as a crime which should be punishable by death

How many mainstream Jewish or Christian groups advocate for that?

by rdtsc

8/24/2026 at 1:10:01 PM

If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, "Let us go and worship other gods" (gods that neither you nor your fathers have known, gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. You must certainly put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people. Stone him to death, because he tried to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again.

Deuteronomy 13:6–11

by decimalenough

8/24/2026 at 1:26:49 PM

That was not the question, but what actual christian person of influence today believe that to be taken literal?

I am one of those apostates and there is some social shaming that I can mostly ignore, but so far no one called for my murder or imprisonment.

by lukan

8/24/2026 at 4:00:07 PM

Which Islamic jurists? The citation talks about stuff in 1967.

by skinfaxi

8/24/2026 at 6:49:41 PM

Do I know them by name? No I don't. It's a quote from wikipedia. Feel free to dispute it if you feel it's incorrect. I was commenting on the wiki link content GP posted.

by rdtsc

8/24/2026 at 12:10:46 AM

> One definition of a cult I've liked is "A cult is a group you can't leave with your dignity intact". You can really get a good understanding if something is a cult by the way they talk about their ex members. A healthy organization will pretty much just say "Sad to see you go, come back anytime". Unhealthy organizations spend a fair amount of time warning members about how how dangerous/bad/sinful/sad/miserable their ex members are.

OK but those without dignity here are the ones acting like that, not the person leaving.

> And yes, I'd call several mainstream religions cults because of this.

Oh definitely. And it's disgusting that their hate speech is protected because it's religious.

by TacticalCoder

8/23/2026 at 7:11:49 PM

> And yes, I'd call several mainstream religions cults because of this

Which ones ? Not something I have seen myself

I do like your definition. Its a pretty clear and meaningful distinction and linked to other cult behaviours such as encouraging members to cease contact with ex-members.

by graemep

8/23/2026 at 7:23:27 PM

People I know personally were strongly ostracized after leaving Jehovah's Witnesses (in the US) and the Catholic church (in Latin America). Cut out of their existing social circles, immediate family members refusing to attend their wedding over it, etc.

by CrazyStat

8/23/2026 at 7:43:04 PM

JW was the first one I thought of by that definition.

I was raised Southern Baptist. When I stopped going, the church contacted me a couple of times to say they missed us and asked if everything was OK, and to say they'd love to have us back if we wanted to come back sometime. My parents weren't thrilled but that's less religion, more family dynamics: it was much the same when they found out I didn't support their preferred political party anymore. That was about it, though. The church didn't lean on us in any way, or tell people to stop talking to us, or use any other means to cajole or punish us.

My thinking on cults is very similar to all this, plus another distinguisher. A cult typically requires you to join before you get all the information about what you're signing up for. I've never been a Muslim, but know that if you walk into a mosque, someone will cheerfully greet you and load you up with a Koran and all kinds of other reading material. Same with any mainstream Protestant church, or the Catholic church, or Hindu, or Buddhist, etc. In fact, many/most churches won't let you join until you've shown that you understand that church's beliefs. Compare and contrast with, say, Scientology, which is notoriously different.

by kstrauser

8/24/2026 at 12:46:21 AM

>The church didn't lean on us in any way, or tell people to stop talking to us, or use any other means to cajole or punish us

Southern Baptists officially teach that eternal damnation is a literal, conscious, and everlasting punishment in Hell for anyone who dies without personal faith and salvation in Jesus Christ. If the threat of eternal torment is not coercive control, I'm not sure what is.

I also disagree that Catholic church happily gives you all the information upfront. I didn't grow up Catholic but my parents did, and at least back then Catholic teachings (they both went to Catholic school) very heavily discouraged individuals from reading the Bible. My parents also grew up going to mass in Latin, a language they don't understand. Things are different nowadays.

by astura

8/24/2026 at 1:42:46 AM

Southern Baptists don't specifically believe you have to be a Southern Baptist to be saved though, do they? And they believe in salvation by grace alone. Plus, the whole "once saved, always saved" thing. It's hard to argue it is coercion if they say you can be saved independent of being a Southern Baptist or obeying them, because they don't seem to be holding a whole lot of power then.

by prussia

8/24/2026 at 1:35:00 PM

Correct. There is no such doctrine.

I was raised in an SBC church, though I've long since come to my senses. I have plenty of issues with such places, but your average Baptist church -- even ones still proudly tied to the SBC -- does not meet any of the criteria usually offered for cult status.

by ubermonkey

8/24/2026 at 3:17:28 AM

astura says ..."Catholic teachings (they both went to Catholic school) very heavily discouraged individuals from reading the Bible. My parents also grew up going to mass in Latin, a language they don't understand. Things are different nowadays.

" Almost completely wrong (ask your parents, astura).

It is true that the Catholic Church did not emphasize the Old Testament (OT). They instead emphasized the New Testament (NT) (both NT and OT are parts of the Bible). We were educated about the Protestant Reformation and the differences in faiths. I think the problem is that the Catholic Church has generated so much structure and associated doctrine that they barely have time for OT! In any case, much of this fell into one or more of my Church History classes, hardly my favorite subject.

FWIW I had a completely Catholic education from grade school thru university and nobody ever refrained from referencing the Bible. I've long since left the faith but I kept my sense of humor. Here's my favorite OT joke:

Q: Who's the strongest man man in the Bible (hint: it isn't Samson)?

A: Abraham. He tied his ass to a tree and walked up a mountain!

As for the Latin mass, yes it was there, and if you wanted to know what was said then you could always find out - nobody was hiding anything. I was an "altar boy" (assisted the priest in the rituals) so I learned the Latin mass and, since I went to Catholic schools, I later studied Latin. Latin is a useful language to know as an English speaker and it helps in understanding the so-called "romance languages" (it even aids in understanding English - many word roots are from Latin).

FWIW the traditional Latin mass is still celebrated! Some have stuck to the old Latin rites b/c of their love of the old rituals, the music is better in Latin (got to agree on this one!), etc.

by giardini

8/24/2026 at 10:45:50 AM

Its more accessible nowadays, as everything is on the web for free, but the Catholic Church has a long history of publishing its doctrines. I agree the Latin mass was an impediment, but everything else was very open and public.

> If the threat of eternal torment is not coercive control, I'm not sure what is.

If you cease to believe in it why would it bother you? If they do not try to cut you off etc. after you leave its very different from cults that order you family to cease contact.

by graemep

8/24/2026 at 1:33:15 PM

"Southern Baptists officially teach that eternal damnation is a literal, conscious, and everlasting punishment in Hell for anyone who dies without personal faith and salvation in Jesus Christ. If the threat of eternal torment is not coercive control, I'm not sure what is."

You have to be careful with blanket statements like this. Southern Baptist churches are entirely self-run enterprises with no top-down doctrinal control from anyone else. Consequently, there are congregations who would qualify as high-control, culty organizations and there are congregations who welcome LGBTQ folks and such (although it's increasingly true that welcoming / progressive congregations are self-sorting into their own categories/groupings such as the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship).

I don't know of any SB churches that preach specifically that THEIR church is the One True Church, which is usually what that kind of control requires.

Certainly many folks in the SBC church of my youth moved from church to church, or even to other denominations, and nobody thought that was soul-risking behavior. A central tenet of MOST Baptist churches is the primacy of the adherent's personal relationship to the almighty, which is unknowable to others by default, so this tracks.

by ubermonkey

8/24/2026 at 6:43:24 PM

Furthermore, the SBC believes that you have to have a personal relationship with God, but doesn't obligate you to join any church. If you go there and "get saved", then never return, they'll still be delighted that they helped to get you into Heaven (in their beliefs). Their main goal is to get you on the right foot religiously, not to get you to join their church.

by kstrauser

8/24/2026 at 10:35:52 AM

JWs do i as a matter of policy, but I would not call them mainstream.

Not my experience of the Catholic Church at all, having left it myself (and getting married in a registry office etc.), and having friends who have done so in more than one country. Not one of us as had any friend or relative hold it against us.

It might be a feature of a particular region or culture, or reflective of controlling family, but not of the Catholic Church in general.

by graemep

8/24/2026 at 1:24:29 PM

My ex-Catholic's friend's mother refused to speak to him until his first child was born, at which point the draw of a grandchild overcame her aversion I guess. They've (mostly) reconciled now.

by CrazyStat

8/23/2026 at 7:45:03 PM

If that’s the definition both political parties are included.

by groundzeros2015

8/24/2026 at 3:13:52 AM

I think a difference would be a Cult focuses on making the cult congregation member feel like their real family is the Cult, which could or could not be related to your biological family.

Leaving whatever you define as your family is always difficult.

The rhetoric from the DNC and Republicans can get pretty out there but I don't think anyone thinks of DNC or Republican party members as their actual family ( I hope )

by etc-hosts

8/23/2026 at 7:55:13 PM

Not really. Both mainstream political parties don't like each other, but by and large they don't attack someone for leaving the party (from what I've seen).

Perhaps if you are saying attacks of politicians switching parties, which I could see. But I don't think I've ever heard of republicans talking about exrepublicans or democrats talking about exdemocrats. I personally have switched from voting republican to voting democrat. It's not something my family really cares about and I still have good relations with them even though a number of them are pretty MAGA.

Cults will actually have lessons and classes about the evils of ex members. Someone brought up JWs and that's a pretty good example of what I'm thinking of.

by cogman10

8/23/2026 at 8:09:55 PM

I think you’re correct that mainstream leaders of the parties try not to talk about each other in that way and mostly succeed. But I absolutely do know family members and friends treat it with that level of zeal.

by groundzeros2015

8/23/2026 at 10:08:28 PM

I think that's true of just darn near everything. People are tribal and tend to get uncomfortable when people around them change:

* Their political parties

* Their religions

* Their diets (meat => vegan, or vice versa)

* Their music

* Their computer OS

None of those compare to cult shunning, which is more systematic and absolute. I mentioned in another comment that my parents were sad when I stopped going to church. That's got nothing on having one's entire family and support groups ceasing to publicly acknowledge their existence.

by kstrauser

8/23/2026 at 11:56:52 PM

> None of those compare to cult shunning

I absolutely disagree. I’ve seen cult shunning and if there is a version which has mass appeal now it’s politics.

by groundzeros2015

8/24/2026 at 4:18:12 AM

Born and raised JW, and yup they're the first that popped to mind.

by piperflatline

8/23/2026 at 9:40:40 PM

Try telling your friends and family that you've decided to not pay taxes anymore and you'll see.

by carlosjobim

8/23/2026 at 3:01:09 PM

The author alluded to it, but I really think the BITE model of authoritarian control[0] is something everyone should know about. BITE stands for Behavioral, Information, Thought, and Emotional, which describes the 4 categories of controlling behaviors used by authoritarian groups (from religious cults, to the Maoist movement in post-war China, to multilevel marketing schemes). They really are surprisingly consistent, from controlling what members wear or how they cut their hair and encouraging sleep deprivation on the Behavioral side, to discouraging access to external sources of information, punishing people for asking questions or engaging in struggle sessions to get people to confess to false beliefs, and isolating people from the other people in their life that may love and care for them.

Not everyone or every group that exhibits some of these behaviors is going to be a cult. But the warning signs are something everyone should be aware of.

[0] https://freedomofmind.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/The-BIT...

by derektank

8/23/2026 at 8:22:37 PM

I always thought the below was much simpler:

1. love bombing

- make you feel welcome/loved/accepted

- lots of attention etc

2. isolation

- "you weren't appreciated before so why hang out with those people"

- "your family didn't understand you, but we do so stay with us"

3. control

- "we have your best interests at heart so you should do X"

- etc

by alexpotato

8/23/2026 at 6:59:46 PM

> Not everyone or every group that exhibits some of these behaviors is going to be a cult. But the warning signs are something everyone should be aware of.

I agree, but I'd say a lot of the BITE attributes can be damaging regardless of whether or not the group rises to the level of cult. If your group is doing stuff in BITE you really should be questioning "why" and thinking about whether or not the group policing is actually good for you.

by cogman10

8/23/2026 at 3:13:50 PM

Steven Hassan, who developed the BITE model, is really missing on that list. You're absolutely correct, not everything that checks the boxes of the model necessarily is a cult, but more often than not it's only a small step to transform into one.

by linohh

8/23/2026 at 3:38:10 PM

Hassan’s own account of being recruited into the Moonies while he was in college really highlights an important point too, almost anybody can fall into a cult. They prey on nearly universal human traits. I wish we had an effort to equip everyone with this knowledge in the same way we teach kids to stop, drop, and roll if they ever catch fire. Especially in our hyper-connected age where anyone with an internet connection might be exposed to a cult.

by derektank

8/23/2026 at 9:46:43 PM

There should also be training on how to avoid scams. They have gotten so common on the internet and it is easy for anyone to fall for greed or fear. I wonder if being wary about scams would help with cults.

by ianburrell

8/23/2026 at 5:00:49 PM

Never read Michael Lewis's book about SBF. It's so bad it permanently ruined him as an author in my mind, I doubt the verity of any of the other books he wrote as a result of it.

by int32_64

8/23/2026 at 9:58:35 PM

Lewis has a weakness for characters with lots of chutzpah and self-confidence. Morry Taylor, SBF, John McCain, numerous Wall Street guys—he seems to lose perspective when he writes about them.

by xhevahir

8/23/2026 at 5:50:14 PM

It really revealed how much he relied on the gift of hindsight when writing his earlier books. Nothing wrong with that per se, but it's something he should have been aware of when doing a book on an ongoing event.

by hingler36

8/23/2026 at 6:11:32 PM

Why? I really enjoyed the book, over-colorized, probably written to be made into a movie. He never portrayed SBF in a good or bad light, but he showed the mess SBF and his companions made.

by kmac_

8/24/2026 at 3:20:21 AM

Lewis wrote about and gave plenty of interviews outside of the book about how incredibly inciteful SBF was... basically up until the moment of his arrest.

by etc-hosts

8/24/2026 at 2:45:38 PM

I got the impression of an "Elizabeth Holmes is wonderful" vibe from those interviews, showing how people perceived SBF. The overall image of SBF from the book is pretty bad, but it's never stated directly.

by kmac_

8/23/2026 at 2:28:53 PM

Underground, by Murakami, was one of the better books I've read. It mostly covers victims, but the later chapters are interviews with various members of the Aum cult. It does a pretty decent job of presenting the psyche of the type of person who joins, stays, and some that leave. Although mostly relevant for what he calls the "Japanese psyche" I still found it very insightful.

by frankfrank13

8/23/2026 at 4:33:44 PM

No One Would Listen by Harry Markopolos about how he knew Bernie Madoff was a ponzi scheme is a great book in this genre. Markopolos went to the SEC with proof, multiple times, and each time the SEC blew him off.

by randycupertino

8/23/2026 at 6:20:46 PM

Cultish (by Amanda Montell) is great. It also defines really well how Claude speaks currently---avant la lettre, of course. Language is a big part of the book: one example is how Scientologists can recognize each other in the wild from the language they have unknowingly adopted even for everyday conversations.

by omsta

8/23/2026 at 7:00:23 PM

I’m native French speaker and do not understand what you mean with “avant la lettre”. That translates to “before the letter”, what do you mean?

by dgellow

8/23/2026 at 7:48:33 PM

> I’m native French speaker and do not understand what you mean with “avant la lettre”. That translates to “before the letter”, what do you mean?

Metaphorical language, of which French is a rich source, often prevents native speakers from understanding. Literal translations are of no avail.

> avant la lettre : before the letter : before the (specified) word or concept existed [0]

[0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/avant%20la%20lett...

by mistersquid

8/23/2026 at 7:51:15 PM

TIL, I should have just googled it, I assumed it was a bad auto complete

Thanks!

by dgellow

8/24/2026 at 3:16:24 AM

As a non-French speaker, I had assumed a native speaker would suspect that this was another instance of English taking something from French and mangling it into something worse.

by BuyMyBitcoins

8/24/2026 at 1:13:00 PM

You could say e.g. Spinoza was a punk avant-la-lettre, he was a punk before the word "punk" even existed. I think GP is using it exactly opposite to the normal usage.

by bondarchuk

8/24/2026 at 6:26:01 AM

Ha. In my defense, it is a common phrase in Dutch culture!

by omsta

8/23/2026 at 8:18:21 PM

I think they meant the same as the latin phrase "ante litteram"

by klez

8/23/2026 at 3:03:46 PM

"Seductive Poison" is a good one. It's a story about the "Koolaid suicide" cult. It's one lady's story about how she got indoctrinated, abused, and ultimately escaped from Jonestown. It's told from her perspective, and really does a good job of showing how a seemingly reasonable person can get wrapped up in that.

by gmiller123456

8/23/2026 at 10:12:50 PM

+1 I loved Seductive Poison and have it on my list to re-read.

by salutis

8/23/2026 at 8:43:27 PM

The podcast « Decoding the Gurus » covers the topic in an entertaining way: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/decoding-the-gurus/id1...

by dgellow

8/24/2026 at 3:17:18 AM

A lot of topics on that podcast are extremely relevant to my interests, but I just can't get past Christopher Kavanagh's accent. Maybe I can fix it with AI...

by etc-hosts

8/24/2026 at 5:05:56 AM

It’s an accent, there is nothing to fix, it’s something you familiarize yourself with

by dgellow

8/24/2026 at 5:56:59 AM

I've tried! have you tried? go listen to the podcast.

by etc-hosts

8/24/2026 at 9:03:14 AM

I’m a regular listener, that’s why I recommended it

by dgellow

8/24/2026 at 5:58:38 PM

also i am a 1.3X to 2.X podcast speed psycho

by etc-hosts

8/24/2026 at 10:35:20 AM

what is his accent? (I don't mind listening to it, but now I can't stop trying to place it, hehe)

by internet_points

8/24/2026 at 1:29:13 PM

He’s from Northern Ireland, lives in Japan. I assume a mix of both cultures? I cannot tell exactly, but it’s something you get used to quickly IMHO

by dgellow

8/23/2026 at 3:07:39 PM

If we are talking about scams an obvious one is Bad Blood, about the Theranos scam.

by ktallett

8/23/2026 at 2:58:18 PM

Not exactly a cult, but... "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" by Tom Wolfe. Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters. It sounds like fun, until it doesn't so much. Soundtrack by The Grateful Dead.

by zabzonk

8/23/2026 at 3:07:20 PM

If you haven't read it already, Fads and Fallacies by Martin Gardner is a great book. A bit more focused on pseudoscience than on cults but Scientology comes up for instance.

by ccppurcell

8/23/2026 at 3:34:45 PM

Interesting list! I really enjoyed "The Square and the Tower" by Niall Ferguson. Not exactly in the same realm as these, but pretty close and definitely eye-opening

by naniel

8/24/2026 at 7:51:40 PM

No one has mentioned Ishmael from Daniel Quinn, where they theorize how modern culture is a cult (has it's own mythology) ingrained to hate or antagonize indigenous cultures, and how even our founding stories (Adam and Eve) are probably adapted from earlier stories from indigenous peoples.

by jackbravo

8/23/2026 at 8:00:24 PM

I have no sympathy for group bullying, hazing, or manipulation, but the concept of a cult seems to only be possible post-enlightenment. We say there is a secular society outside that we always need to preserve and that sets limits on the level of fanaticism of our private group memberships.

But the unanswered philosophical problem is if you actually believe in those things doesn’t some level of fanaticism make sense?

In 2026 so we are so divorced from organizations and non-secular sources of information that I don’t think we can even talk about the subject. A 1950s neighborhood bowling club looks like a jihadist training camp from our completely detached ways of living.

by groundzeros2015

8/24/2026 at 12:47:07 PM

> A 1950s neighborhood bowling club looks like a jihadist training camp from our completely detached ways of living.

Why? There are still bowling clubs? People just organize themselves into more hobbies and sometimes even virtual communities than before.

by paulryanrogers

8/24/2026 at 3:03:38 PM

Because of the level of commitment, loyalty, and group sacrifice expected.

The article isn’t about subject matter.

Virtual communities require no group sacrifice. You join the lobby and you leave. Maybe there are some niche WOW guilds out there.

by groundzeros2015

8/24/2026 at 10:55:21 PM

People still commit to clubs, sports, and other hobbies. I enjoy an online DOS gaming club (IRC, video calls, forums, and podcast).

Time is still a sacrifice in any group activity.

by paulryanrogers

8/24/2026 at 11:08:37 PM

That’s great. They still don’t have 1950s ethics around organizational membership.

To give one example. The Boy Scouts is a relatively tame org. It has different offices, voting, treasury, awards, oaths, meeting notes. All of that is basically dead, but was in full swing at that time.

by groundzeros2015

8/23/2026 at 5:49:49 PM

Stripping the Gurus by Geoffrey Falk is an interesting survey in this vein, albeit covering a previous generation of problematic cults. Gurus like Chogyam Trungpa, Adi Da (or whatever name Franklin Jones was going by at the time), even reaching back to Paramahansa Yogananda and Ramakrishna. His take is perhaps a little juvenile at times, but I think the book is an interesting survey.

by pahool

8/23/2026 at 6:57:53 PM

Ok, now I want the fiction books about cults, scams and schemes.

by fabriceleal

8/23/2026 at 8:02:01 PM

"Illuminatus!" I read this while suffering from the worst attack of flu (fever, hallucinations, the works) I have ever had, Edinburgh circa 1975. I thought I was going mad. Never dared to read it again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illuminatus!_Trilogy

by zabzonk

8/24/2026 at 3:28:03 PM

Traumnovelle by Arthur Schnitzler (a novella that inspired the Eyes Wide Shut movie)

by acid_fish

8/23/2026 at 3:02:44 PM

I'm sure these are all entertaining and engaging and reveal some exciting insider details, but it's worth keeping in mind that memoirs like these are closer to fiction than most things we think of as "nonfiction".

They're individual testimonies, often nearly impossible to verify, and written in an era where "autofiction" and "creative non-fiction" are mature commercial genres with their own tropes, standards, forms, and conceits.

If you're intellectually curious about "cults, scams, and schemes", there's a whole other -- drier but more earnest -- world of nonfiction to be found in places like JSTOR or the catalogs of academic presses.

by swatcoder

8/23/2026 at 3:10:02 PM

As an academic, I wouldn't like to state papers are any different in regards to reliability of sources. They will just be testimonies and author viewpoint.

by ktallett

8/23/2026 at 3:23:34 PM

Well, there's certainly no objectivity in academic sociology or history, but there's a culture of trying to build narratives and justify viewpoints through richer collections of evidence: multiple testimonies, contemporaneous records and primary ephemera, prior publications, etc

In contrast, memoir is often simply held to the standard of "is there strong and ready evidence against this claim, or can it at least hold up as the author's subjective interpretation of some event" because it's purpose and history as a genre is entirely different. Its audiences aren't academic peers hungry for material against which they can safely anchor their own work, but tens of thousands of airplane readers who are hungry for titillation or personal relatability.

by swatcoder

8/23/2026 at 3:36:05 PM

+1 to Cultish.

Another great one: The Confidence Game by Maria Konnikova.

by meonkeys

8/23/2026 at 11:08:29 PM

I'm sure that these are good or even excellent books, but this topic is deep in my nerd wheelhouse and as a list it's alarmingly sparse on the titles people who are deeply into this stuff actually recommend.

The single most glaring omission is the absence of "Combating Cult Mind Control" by Steven Hassan. This is the first book to read or listen to about cults, full stop.

His other books ("The Cult of Trump" and "Freedom of Mind") are solid, too.

by peteforde

8/23/2026 at 3:33:17 PM

This list is incomplete without Eric Hoffer's True Believer, which is probably a reference/source for all of these other books. It's basically how to build a fanatic, a cult and a mass movement. It's also required reading for Terrorism studies classes, and CIA personnel, the latter, using it to conduct regime change in banarepublics and oil bearing nations.

Of course now it's used on everyone who uses smartphones and social media.

It's a Brave New World, and you're carrying the main tool to mind control you in your pocket. Bonus, you probably pay for it too!

by webdoodle

8/24/2026 at 1:04:35 AM

I tend to dislike most of these titles, as people read about one cult that has enough exposure such that a book can be written on it, then decide that everything they don't agree with is also a cult and stretch definitions around to confirm that bias. They don't, however, see coca-cola or a thousand other marketing schemes as "cultish" in any way.

by thataccount

8/24/2026 at 2:42:51 AM

What, since we can’t all be as smart as you we don’t get to read anything?

by LastTrain

8/24/2026 at 2:30:23 PM

I think what I'm saying here, if anything, is that people as "smart" as me don't read most of this garbage. So, the corollary to your question is that dumb people read dumb things.

by thataccount

8/24/2026 at 12:15:53 PM

How has a recommendation of 5 bestsellers from nobody in particular manage to sit on the front page for two days with 250 upvotes? Is HN being punked?

by pessimizer

8/24/2026 at 12:17:23 PM

It's an interesting topic and attacking the author as a "nobody" is very rude. If the content was recommended to you by paul graham or some other dork you guys worship would it be better?

by snapcaster

8/24/2026 at 2:18:30 PM

Weekends are a different vibe for hn

by nilamo

8/23/2026 at 3:27:21 PM

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds is a rollicking fun read

by _dain_

8/23/2026 at 7:05:27 PM

Just know that it isn’t considered a reliable historical record, a good amount of the book is exaggerated and some of the sources were newspaper parodies interpreted as facts. Still a good read though

by dgellow

8/23/2026 at 5:00:35 PM

Seconded. It's almost encyclopedic in scope. I'm almost embarrassed to admit that the hilarious chapter on English slang of the time was my favorite.

by jsrcout

8/23/2026 at 6:06:26 PM

Hoy, cocky!

by Uhhrrr

8/24/2026 at 9:39:27 AM

It just occurred to me that Trump is an excellent example of a cult leader.

He demands loyalty, acts as he wills and humiliates anyone who leaves.

by meigwilym

8/24/2026 at 9:49:39 PM

I'm still trying to grasp the dual nature of "cults".

These organizations can be an amazing vehicle for personal and spiritual transformation, and yet can be so dangerous and destructive if you let them override your personal judgment and recognition of what you actually want in life, and preventing you from looking outside...

I was in one such organization. I initially felt that my life improved greatly... but in the long term the "cultish" aspects ended up having negative effects on me (for one I got into debt thinking it would help me, and thinking that I "needed" them and couldn't see possibilities outside. At my "lowest" I remember walking into a library and being afraid of picking up any books not suggested by them )

Many people, coming from such "cults", report how early-on the techniques and teachings really helped them (which is what got them hooked). AND ALSO plenty of people stay their whole lives because they continue to find them highly beneficial! ... but not everyone

Something I came to understand is that different people have different spiritual and life paths -- and so the one-size-fits-all approach of these organizations might not be appropriate for everyone.

Yet, they basically tell you to "trust the process", to effectively suspend judgment (which actually kind of makes sense -- if you assume they indeed have "a path" very different from what you have done your whole life, maybe your current judgment might indeed not be able to grasp it...) But if you are too "open" to every single thing the leader says, you might absorb ideas that are not good for you based on who you are and where you currently are in your life (or in some cases ideas that are not good for anyone lol) -- this is especially true if you can't directly talk to the leader to clarify.

Confusingly, many of these realizations I had echo certain "teachings" I have heard within the organization, even though apparently contradicted by other teachings or attitudes. "Ultimately you should listen to your self; use your discernment; do what feels right" but then also implying that you should be doing all the things they tell you to do, and if you're not successful it's because you're not doing enough and making you feel guilty (and there is a lot of things you're "suggested" to do; practically impossible to be doing everything). "You should learn from everyone" but also --> heavily implying that you shouldn't read books or listen to teachers that weren't vetted by the group, lest it lead you astray.

Overall, I think my time in this group was important to my life journey, and that I was transformed in positive ways and learned a lot, but that I "overstayed my time" and should have looked at other things way earlier, and that there are things I have yet to learn that are best learned from other sources. I still think there was a lot of very positive things in that organization, and thinking maybe one day I might rejoin -- just I would need to be very careful and intentional about what my goal is for doing so.

Maybe HN is not the best place to ask this, but are there books that explore these "cults" from a more neutral or "dual" angle like this? Could it be possible to create such a spiritual-adjacent group providing a lot of the benefits of a "cult" without the negative aspects?

In any case, some of the books posted here look interesting and I'll look into them.

by cult_throwaway

8/23/2026 at 2:45:16 PM

I can also recommend the book Mindfuckers - a source book on the rise of acid fascism in America. Each chapter is about a different cult from the 60s and 70s including one on the Manson's. Super interesting read.

by zenapollo

8/23/2026 at 3:00:49 PM

I hope to release a book on how this all has evolved.

One side is the technology of artful misleading, which is usually much stupider than it sounds.

And another side is a forbidden taboo to speak of. An occult secret that lives like a cancer within us.

Through a sustained art of Power human minds may entangle and manipulate each other at any distance. Counter intuitively, this “esp” is merely consciousness entangled. And some have great skill and others delusional cargo cult “gifts.” Those “gifted” rather than rigorously formed are played in games by their handlers who they themselves cannot perceive perched in their own minds (big spacious brains and all.)

This is how the CIA Stargate programs and those since have largely worked. Overt participants are gamed by handlers who can see in everyone’s minds. It is for those who can “mind trip” to a degree, that functional awareness gradually forms. The basic neurological feedback of being messed with by such “Power” is what causes its development.

It is not that some are “psychic”, it is that all minds may be entangled and some have decades of development “screwing around” in the backs of minds. Their own and others.

The modern occult mindfuck is that consciousness has been hacked.

by enragebait

8/23/2026 at 5:59:07 PM

The game "Cult of the Lamb" is a great way to learn about cults :)

by glimshe

8/23/2026 at 6:44:41 PM

Look, fun quick game that I'd not knock anyone for playing.

But it's not informative about cults in the slightest. It's just a caricature of what "satanic panic" [1] people thought a cult was.

Real cults are much more normal, which is why they are so easy to accidentally fall into. The worst cults have pretty mainstream acceptance. Often, they are simply break-offs of already well accepted religions.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_panic

by cogman10

8/23/2026 at 3:16:57 PM

[dead]

by hnmu4c5zar

8/23/2026 at 8:20:26 PM

[flagged]

by specialfred

8/23/2026 at 8:20:36 PM

[flagged]

by specialfred

8/23/2026 at 3:02:17 PM

I quite like The Cult of Trump due to the relevance to current events.

by lawn

8/23/2026 at 7:26:09 PM

Reading these books shines a light on how the current events have come to pass.

by qingcharles

8/23/2026 at 4:32:01 PM

Looks like she is still trying to make money. So the cult didn't work out. I left a cult. If she wants to use the word for sympathy, talk about the really bad ones. Start with Nebraska and work back from there. Sympathy farmer.

by pcblues