Escaping Utopia: Growing Up in a Cult, Getting Out, and Starting Over

We think of cults as bizarre, inexplicable, or otherworldly places that only strange people inhabit, but cults and other abusive and high-demand groups (and relationships) are actually quite commonplace. In fact, the behaviors, social pressures, and authoritarian structures that create cults exist to a greater or lesser extent in every human relationship and every human group.

In the first in-depth research of its kind, the author interviewed sixty-five people who were born in or grew up in ...