Mystery Cults

While belief in religious supernatural claims is waning throughout the West, evidence suggests belief in nonreligious supernatural claims is on the rise. What explains this contradiction? How can a society with a falling belief in God have a rising belief in ghosts, psychic powers, ancient astronauts, and other supernatural or pseudo-scientific phenomena? Taking the same anthropological approach he employed in his notable studies of religion, atheist author and activist David G. McAfee turns his attention to nonreligious faith-based claims.

In this powerful follow-up to his action-packed thriller The Kill Clause, Gregg Hurwitz, the new maestro of pulse-pounding suspense, ratchets up the excitement with another sensational pause resister featuring Tim Rackley, a driven lawman motivated by honor, morality, and a deep sense of justice. Called back into the fold of the US Marshals Service, Tim is tasked with retrieving Leah Henning, the daughter of a powerful Hollywood producer, from a mind-control cult.

Investigator Sloan McPherson finds a frightened vagrant suffering from amnesia living in a Florida swamp—then learns he disappeared from Oregon when he was a teenager. To find out how he ended up three thousand miles from home thirty years later, Sloan enlists the help of two brilliant colleagues. FBI agent Jessica Blackwood and scientist Theo Cray have already made an alarming connection. A female classmate of the Everglades drifter disappeared at the same time, and their high school journals reveal ties to an enigmatic figure they both called Mr. Whisper.

Lay provost Eldon Fochs is a happily married father of four. Based on his disturbing dreams, he may also be a sex criminal. His therapist isn’t sure, and his church is determined to protect its reputation. Written from the perspectives of Fochs, his analyst Dr. Alexander Feshtig, and the letters exchanged between Feshtig and his superiors in the church, Father of Lies is Brian Evenson’s fable of power, paranoia, and the dangers of blind obedience. It offers a terrifying vision of how far institutions will go to protect themselves from the innocents who may be their victims.

Learn about the history of Doomsday Cults with iMinds insightful knowledge series. A doomsday cult is a quasi-religious group that believe the end of the world is imminent. Doomsday cults are typically led by charismatic messiah-figures, who teach that their cult holds the secret to surviving the apocalypse. More recently the term has come to include cults who carry out acts of violence or terrorism in an attempt to bring about revolutionary change.

Shane Ryan has faced supernatural evil beyond imagination. As a ghost hunter and retired Marine, Shane is no stranger to violence. But when his own home is invaded by a sinister force, it sets him off on a path straight into the heart of darkness itself… Following the lead of an old fortune teller, Shane discovers that a powerful ghost named Thomas Coulson was responsible for desecrating his home. And this spirit has left a trail of clues, leading Shane on a breathless cross-country chase.

Carpenter, the Paterson, N.J., lawyer whose wealth allows him to work as seldom as he chooses, is recovering from the loss of the love of his life, Laurie Collins, who has moved home to Findlay, Wis., to become the acting chief of police. When Laurie calls Andy for help after arresting 21-year-old Jeremy Davidson for murders that she thinks he didn't commit, Andy can't resist heading off to Findlay with his faithful dog, Tara.

It stalks the shadowy tunnels beneath the city. It strikes without warning. It kills without a sound. But someone has come to end it… Ghost hunter and retired Marine, Shane Ryan. When a contact from a previous case reaches out for help, Shane soon finds himself searching the tent cities and homeless encampments of the sprawling city, hot on the trail of a merciless killer. What he finds is an animalistic spirit, driven into a frenzy by bloodlust.

After the long period of cultural decline known as the Dark Ages, Europe experienced a rebirth of scholarship, art, literature, philosophy, and science, and began to develop a vision of Western society that remains at the heart of Western civilization today.

When their 23-year-old daughter goes missing, divorcees Harry and Paulie are forced to leave behind their newly constructed lives to track Grace down. But Grace isn't lost, not physically at least. They find her seemingly unharmed in California on a sunny farm the other residents call 'Camp Star'. But nothing is as it seems.... Sinister motives lurk behind the smiles of those at the camp, and the two soon learn that Grace is in the clutches of a notorious cult. Under the spell of mind control, she denies Harry and Paulie as her family and shuns their love.

The worst thing about a man being led to his execution—aside from the whole impending death bit—was that he immediately tried to figure out what choice had brought him there. Which Dannen thought was ridiculous. The one possible comfort a man could have, when faced with his own death, was that things simply could not get any worse. The problem, of course, was that things could always get worse.

Father John controls everything inside The Fence. And Father John likes rules. Especially about never talking to Outsiders. Because Father John knows the truth. He knows what is right, and what is wrong. He knows what is coming. Moonbeam is starting to doubt, though. She's starting to see the lies behind Father John's words. Then a fire engulfs life as she knew it, and Moonbeam is forced outside The Fence into a world she does not recognize.

Twelve years ago Jessica Williams escaped a cult. Thanks to the private detective who rescued her, she reintegrated into society, endured an uncomfortable notoriety, and tried to put it all behind her. Then, at an airport bar, Jessica meets a woman with an identical name and birth date. It appears to be just an odd coincidence - until a week later, when Jessica finds her bank account drained and her personal information stolen. Following a trail of the grifter’s victims, each with the same name, Jessica gathers players - one by one - for her own game.

Documenting the life of wandering spirits and their impact on vulnerable human targets, Susan Martinez offers a radical departure from the standard psychological explanations for a host of pathological behaviors - including multiple personality, autism, epilepsy, migraines, obsessive compulsive disorder, depression, schizophrenia, anxiety, PTSD, self-destructive urges, and strange outbursts - and reveals that hallucinations are often true impressions of spirit input.

An in-depth look into the creation of the post-WWII Healing Revival focusing on the historical perspective of William Marrion Branham, who has been credited by some as the evangelist who both initiated and led the movement. From his involvement with the Kardashian family in California to his politically-charged sermons supporting the revival of the Ku Klux Klan, William Branham lived a fascinating and unbelievable history connected to the collaboration, influence, and power of recognized public figures and events in American history.

The Latter Rain Movement of the late 1940s and 1950s created a new breed of Pentecostalism that dramatically impacted Christianity in the United States, as well as many other countries around the world. Initially viewed as a movement by God, a number of well-respected men and women participated in the movement during its early years.

From the national best-selling author of Racing Weight, Matt Fitzgerald exposes the irrationality, half-truths, and downright impossibility of a "single right way" to eat and reveals how to develop rational, healthy eating habits.

When Charlie Dodge gets a phone call from a frantic woman stating her daughter has been kidnapped by her ex-husband and taken into a cult called Fourth Dimension, he takes the case without hesitation. The cult’s rumored purpose is to gather men with psychic abilities with the goal of breeding a race of people who have supernatural powers. Once accepted into the cult, men are given a young girl to marry in exchange for one of their own daughters.

A New York Times Notable Book and Best Thriller of 2024 A whip-smart and “fast-paced mystery” (The Daily Telegraph, London) from the internationally bestselling author of The Twyford Code and The Appeal about a true crime journalist who revives a long-buried case about a cult—and finds...

FBI agents Brady Moore and Alicia Wager are accustomed to grisly crimes like the so-called Pelletier Killings. But when the pair uncovers ancient prophecies that link the victims, the wrath of the killers turns on them. Reeling from a series of attempts on their lives, they follow a scant trail of evidence that leads them to Luco Scaramuzzi, the charismatic Italian ambassador to Israel, a man of near limitless power and incalculable wealth.