For the past five years, I have received a daily email filled with stories about those who succumb to extreme religious ideologies. Whether it's the Nxivm sex-cult trial in New York earlier this year or the Netflix documentary series "Wild Wild Country," Americans have shown an expansive appetite for cult stories. While my interest in the topic isn't unique, it's personal: I grew up in a cult.
In fact, I grew up in the cult next door. There wasn't sexual or physical abuse. We never lived in a compound. I didn't work on a farm in the woods. Instead my cult venerated one man, who said he was an apostle receiving direct revelation from God. We followed the Bible and this man's teachings. We gave him 10% of our income—which he used to buy a Jaguar, snakeskin boots and a house on the Rio Grande.
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