Cults In History & Literary Fiction

The Rise of Alternative Spirituality: From Theosophy to Modern Cults
During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, traditional religious frameworks were challenged by emerging spiritual movements, most notably Theosophy. 

Founded by Helena Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott, Theosophy established patterns that would later become hallmarks of cult organizations: charismatic leadership, claims of secret knowledge, and promises of spiritual enlightenment. Like Transcendentalism before it, which was led by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Theosophy attracted educated seekers dissatisfied with conventional religion. However, while Transcendentalism emphasized individual intuition and self-reliance, Theosophy's hierarchical structure, emphasis on supernatural abilities, and a blend of Eastern-Western mysticism created a template that numerous cult leaders would later follow.

Blavatsky's organization particularly appealed to intellectuals and artists through its sophisticated combination of ancient wisdom traditions and modern occult practices. This approach of mixing established religious concepts with new revelations would become a standard technique for cult leaders in the 20th century, who often studied and borrowed from theosophical writings while developing their own dedicated communities and belief systems.

Before Oneida became a silverware company, it was a commune founded by John H. Noyes’s in 1848 

Oneida Utopia is a fresh and holistic treatment of a long-standing social experiment born of revival fervor and communitarian enthusiasm. The Oneida Community of upstate New York was dedicated to living as one family and to the sharing of all property, work, and love. Anthony Wonderley is a sensitive guide to the things and settings of Oneida life from its basis in John H. Noyes’s complicated theology, through experiments in free love and gender equality, to the moment when the commune transformed itself into an industrial enterprise based on the production of silverware. Rather than drawing a sharp boundary between spiritual concerns and worldly matters, Wonderley argues that commune and company together comprise a century-long narrative of economic success, innovative thinking, and abiding concern for the welfare of others.

Oneida Utopia seamlessly combines the evidence of social life and intellectual endeavor with the testimony of built environment and material culture. Wonderley shares with readers his intimate knowledge of evidence from the Oneida Community: maps and photographs, quilts and furniture, domestic objects and industrial products, and the biggest artifact of all, their communal home. Wonderley also takes a novel approach to the thought of the commune’s founder, examining individually and in context Noyes’s reactions to interests and passions of the day, including revivalism, millennialism, utopianism, and spiritualism.

The fascinating story of Bronson Alcott’s utopian experiment

This is the first definitive account of Fruitlands, one of history’s most unsuccessful—but most significant—utopian experiments. It was established in Massachusetts in 1843 by Bronson Alcott (whose ten-year-old daughter Louisa May, future author of Little Women, was among the members) and an Englishman called Charles Lane, under the watchful gaze of Emerson, Thoreau, and other New England intellectuals.

Alcott and Lane developed their own version of the doctrine known as Transcendentalism, hoping to transform society and redeem the environment through a strict regime of veganism and celibacy. But physical suffering and emotional conflict—particularly between Lane and Alcott’s wife, Abigail—made the community unsustainable.

Drawing on the letters and diaries of those involved, Richard Francis explores the relationship between the complex philosophical beliefs held by Alcott, Lane, and their fellow idealists and their day-to-day lives. The result is a vivid and often very funny narrative of their travails, demonstrating the dilemmas and conflicts inherent to any utopian experiment and shedding light on a fascinating period of American history.

Louisa May Alcott’s Diary of her time at Fruitlands.

We are all going to be made perfect . . .

In 1843, with all their possessions loaded onto a single wagon, ten-year-old Louisa May Alcott and her family bravely set out into the wilderness to make a new home for themselves on a farm called Fruitlands. Louisa’s father has a dream of living a perfect, simple life. It won’t be easy, but the family has vowed to uphold his high ideals.

In her diary — one she shares with her parents — Louisa records her efforts to become the girl her parents would like her to be. But in another, secret diary, she reveals the hardships of this new life, and pours out her real hopes and worries. Can Louisa live up to her father’s expectations? Or will trying to be perfect tear the family apart?

The Other Nadia Bisset: Book Two of The Bisset Twin Series

A Stolen Twin. 

 A Family Secret. 

 A Dangerous Cult. 

Carla Bisset wants nothing more than to put the tragedy of her past behind her and provide a normal life for her daughter Lydia. The abduction of Lydia’s twin, Nadia, has left the family prey to sordid media tabloids, and Lydia hounded by paparazzi.

A move to a small sleepy town in New York provides several years of respite from the public eye. But when three men are found brutally murdered in the park near the Bissets’ home, Carla finds her world once again uprooted and plunged into darkness.

For investigative journalist Katie Garrison and Detective Don Anderson, the initial search for the missing Bisset twin left a lot of dead ends.

A collaborative effort to find Nadia unravels a cunning web of deceit, betrayal, and a powerful family that will stop at nothing to fulfill its destiny.

Sssshhhhhhhh…

For Edwardian-era spiritualists and illusionists, silence is more than a strategy; it’s a way of life. And when Max Grahame, a bullied, small-town teen, discovers a secretive world of occultism and séances right under his nose, he can hardly contain his excitement.

But as Max begins his conjurer’s lessons in earnest, his newfound knowledge exposes the group’s dark and deeply sinister designs, leading a game of supernatural cat and mouse that takes him from the ancient hills of rural Georgia and the mystic plains of the Midwest to fin-de-siècle Manhattan…and beyond.

Impeccably researched and wildly imaginative, The Occultists is a darkly riveting historical fantasy in which magic is terrifying, and annihilation is closer than Max could ever imagine.

An English-language debut that reveals and subverts contemporary conceptions of normative sexuality, capitalist culture, and environmental degradation.

Farah moves into Liberty House – an arcadia, a community in harmony with nature – at the tender age of six, with her family. The commune’s spiritual leader, Arcady, preaches equality, non-violence, anti-speciesism, free love, and uninhibited desire for all, regardless of gender, age, looks, or ability. At 15, Farah learns she is intersex, and begins to go beyond the confines of gender, as she explores the arc of her own desires. What, Farah asks, is a man or a woman? What does it mean to be part of a community? What is utopia when there are refugees nearby seeking shelter who cannot enter?

Emmanuelle Bayamack-Tam delivers a magisterial novel, both a celebration and a critique of innocence in the contemporary world.

Contains mature themes.