Seeking Stories about Cults

Spy_on_the_Inside

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Lately I've been on a nonfiction kick, reading a lot about different cults. And now I am seeking your favorite stories about cults. Horror stories are a plus, but I would love to see anything that is well-written and a great story.
 

Kjbartolotta

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Fiction or nonfiction? I thought one of the best books on cults was Rogue Messiahs by Colin Wilson. Wilson is an interesting chap, his stuff always runs the gamut between insightful, profound, and nonsensical, plus he loves a lurid story more than the truth sometimes. But the book is chock full of horrific stories and accounts of cults both well-known an obscure (including the Ant Hill Gang. *Shudders*), with some really interesting observations drawn from his experience and worldview. YMMV if you think he's full of it or not, but if you're interested in cults, worth a look.
 

Spy_on_the_Inside

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Fiction or nonfiction? I thought one of the best books on cults was Rogue Messiahs by Colin Wilson. Wilson is an interesting chap, his stuff always runs the gamut between insightful, profound, and nonsensical, plus he loves a lurid story more than the truth sometimes. But the book is chock full of horrific stories and accounts of cults both well-known an obscure (including the Ant Hill Gang. *Shudders*), with some really interesting observations drawn from his experience and worldview. YMMV if you think he's full of it or not, but if you're interested in cults, worth a look.
Fiction would be ideal (been reading a ton of nonfiction), but if you can think of good creative nonfiction pieces, I'd love to see those too. But I've read so many stories about real cults, now I wants see groups out of people's imaginations.
 

iszevthere

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I remember really liking "Armageddon Summer" by Bruce Colville and Jane Yolen when it first came out. It's YA, though, and the cult claims to be religious in nature. The parents join and the kids aren't happy. And uhm, not my favorite, but I recently read "Come November" which is also a YA story about an alien doomsday cult that the mom joined and the daughter -hates- her for it. I wrote an unflattering review of it on Goodreads due to a personal reaction I had, but others may adore it.
 

Spy_on_the_Inside

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I think I read Armageddon Summer once upon a time when I was in middle school, sneaking into the library before the school opened.

Never heard of Come November. I'll have to look it up.
 

Spy_on_the_Inside

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Just ordered Come November and Armageddon Summer from Amazon, and my local library has Bad Blood.

I have a long weekend of reading ahead of me. Does anyone else have suggestions?
 
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AmandaHard

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Have you checked out recommendations of folk horror? I was a huge fan of Thomas Tryon's "Harvest Home" which is cult-centered.
 

pattmayne

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Dennis Wheatley is a classic occult horror writer, and they're pretty great stories. But they feel dated (I think he wrote in the 1930's). His "satanic" cults feel like a grandmother's paranoid fantasy rather than true mystery. But there are cool hints of paganism and astrology, weird unexplainable phenomena, and really solid characters. These are classic occult-horror adventure novels.

Robert Anton Wilson wrote mad-comedy novels with LOTS of great occult stuff in them, but they're only horrifying in a mad-comedy way.

There are occult horror elements to many of David Mitchell's books, but they're officially mainstream/lit.

Some of Alastair Reynold's science fiction holds occult elements. Ancient alien technology verging on the magical/cosmic.
 

Dr. Jerry

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Secret and mysterious societies/groups play a major role in The Robert Langdon series by Dan Brown (Angels and Demons, The Da'Vinci Code, The Lost Symbol, Inferno, Origins).
 

thomasdown92

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I recently read this piece on Helltown,Ohio. It did talk about satanic cults, cry baby bridges, ghosts etc. Dunno how true the details are. When it comes to cults in published books, I can only think of Dan Brown books.
 

Calla Lily

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I'm in the middle of one pubbed about 10 years ago called The Red Church. Some good writing in this one. Plot's predictable unless there's a massive twist coming.
 

hester

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I know OP's post is from April, but one of my favorite cult/horror books is The Killing Kind by John Connolly. Amazingly creepy and well-written.

Under the Banner of Heaven by John Krakauer is also great--nonfiction about the Jeffs family and the Church of Latter-Day Saints (which may not be a cult per se, although the thought processes described seem to fit).
 
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