Mind-Bending: Brainwashing, Cults, and Deprogramming in the '80s

N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Garden City, 1984. First edition. Octavo with black and grey half-cloth boards; pictorial jacket with black and yellow spine; xvii, 218 pages; 22 cm Near fine in near fine jacket. Hardcover. ISBN: 0385192754

"Lowell D. Streiker was working as executive director of the Mental Health Association in the San Francisco area when the Jonestown massacre stunned this nation and the world. Many People's Temple members and their families came to him for help in dealing with their emotional devastation. As a result, Dr. Streiker opened the now world-renowned Freedom Counseling Center. His experiences as an exit counselor have led to his recognition by the courts an an expert witness on the subject of cults. He has a PhD in religion from Princeton University and is the author of several previous books, including Cults: The Continuing Threat and The Jesus Trip." -- Jacket. "Whether it's the Children of God or the Moonies, the Hare Krishnas, or a "no name" ultrafundamentalist Christian Sect, cults are here to stay. [...] As long as there is loneliness, as long as the difference between good and evil is a blur, as long as we feel unloved and incapable of loving, as long as our quest for personal significannce is frustrated, as long as our search for the perfect community eludes us, teh inner ear will strain to hear strange messengers, new gospels, whispers of hope, promises of utopia. Listen well--whether you regard their affirmations as cruel hoaxes or as revelations of God. The new believers cannot be ignored." --Back cover.Contents: Beginnings. What is a cult?. The cult that never was. Why here? Why now?. The dangers of cults and sects. "Save the life of my child". Counteracting cults and sects. Is force ever justified?. Targets of the anticult network. Brainwashing and deprogramming. An alternative to deprogramming. Can anything be done?.