Three recent comments on Amazon about Manhattan Cult Story from readers. I like. They are on target about how people fall into cults.
Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2022
Unfortunately, the people who need to read this book won't. Looking back over my life, I can see the point in time where, simply by accident of place and time, I didn't fall into the same trap that it took the author 23 years to get out of. Powerful, insightful retelling of how cults lure people in, keep them in, and make it difficult for them to recover.
Reviewed in the United States on November 3, 2022
Being a New Yorker I am living in the city during the office time The Cult sounded so interesting! I couldn’t put it down.
Reviewed in the United States on November 2, 2022
The author tells an incredible story about his involvement in a cult in NYC which recruited affluent people and his ability to escape, which probably saved his life as well as his sanity.
I just read and enjoyed your story. I had found a version some time ago when I was googling Gurdjieff. I was part of a Gurdjieff group in the late 70's when I was 20 - at a school called Claymont in West Virginia. The lingo of the Work you use is very familiar to me. The Work had a disastrous impact on my mental health. Eventually, I recovered and moved on. Interestingly, I could never identify a full-fledged villain in my story, except perhaps Gurdjieff (long dead), and to a lesser extent my father, who pushed me to join the rigorous school while enjoying Gurdjieff studies from the safety of his armchair. This is not to say the Claymont leaders were blameless, but it was not clear that they benefitted from the scheme in the same way Sharon did (and they did seem so sincere in their beliefs). Anyway, your story was well told and cathartic for me to read. The topic is so fraught for me that it's not easy to do an Amazon review, but I will try to add one soon.
ReplyDeleteThank you Nancy.
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