Escaping Evil: My Life in a Cult

Leslie Wagner-Wilson spent her formative years as a member of the People's Temple under the guidance of Jim Jones. When the church uproots amidst scandal and settles in Guyana, Leslie is convinced to follow. As conditions deteriorate in Jonestown, she and several other cult members attempt a harrowing escape, narrowly avoiding Jones' most sinister sacrifice. Then, Susan Justice is raised in a world invented by the crazed mind of cult leader David Berg. He uses radical biblical interpretations to convince his followers to live a life of questionable morality, prostitution and institutionalized pedophilia. For the first two decades of her life, Susan's parents force feed her a steady diet of David Berg's twisted teachings. Still, after years of sheltering Susan's eyes are opened to a more conventional way of life, and Susan risks everything familiar to her, abandoning her family and the only life she's known, to take her first breath of freedom.

Flora Jessop was born at the bottom of an oppressive hierarchy established by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or the FLDS. Growing up in Colorado City, Arizona, she suffered greatly at the hands of her father. A torment of sexual, physical, and psychological abuse. As she grows, she begins to speak out against these injustices, but at a cost. Under the constant scrutiny of her family and a group of violent men nicknamed "The God Squad," Flora eventually attempts a daring midnight escape--only to be discovered and returned to Colorado City, this time under the watchful eye of her sadistic aunt Lydia. After several more years of torment and abuse, Flora eventually gains her freedom through the most unlikely of chance events.

A man blindly follows god-like cult leader Yahweh Ben Yahweh even when Yahweh unleashes a bloody campaign of murders and beheadings. He maintains his devotion until Yahweh's tyranny and violence is turned against his devoted follower. And when a woman joins a cult, she is forced to beat her children and live under the brutal militaristic tyranny of the Aggressive Christianity Mission Training Corps.