Library Staff Recommendation
Liz Cameron’s account of her experience with the Providence, or JMS (Jesus Morning Star), cult. She shows us how she was recruited, her beliefs and practices shifted, she was isolated from friends and family, and then she almost died as a direct result of the cult’s practices. After being discharged from hospital, however, an expert was able to deprogram her, allowing her to escape the cult.
It is hard to find the right words to describe the experience of reading this book. Seeing the effectiveness of the cult’s recruitment strategies was chilling. Following how they broke Cameron down and rebuild her into one of them was horrifying. That an expert was brought in to help deprogram her so she could escape the cult provided some brief hope, but then seeing the lack of resources for cult survivors brought me back down again.
The book was also extremely insightful and fascinating. Cameron provides an introduction to the psychological framework that cults and their practices are viewed in. She explains what happens and why cults do these things, then shows us how this played out in her situation. By this book providing a better understanding of what happens takes it away from the usual narrative of “poor, misguided individuals” into showing how this is a highly calculated process by which a person’s world view is warped until they can only see and do what the cult wants them to. For this alone, I would strongly recommend this book.
4/5 Stars
Reviewed by Rebecca