SecularBooks

Secular Books

These books are recommended from the standpoint of their relevance to understanding the Assembly movement of George and Betty Geftakys . We do not necessarily endorse all the contents.

Animal Farm, George Orwell, 1954. The animals take over Manor Farm, and everything is done with zealous equality. Too soon, however, the pigs, who have styled themselves leaders by virtue of their intelligence, succumb to the temptations of privilege and power and elevate themselves above their brethren. "The whole management and organization of the farm depend on us. Day and night, we are watching over your welfare." And thus they begin to lord it over the other animals, who are soon left hungry and exhausted.

The Boston Movement: Critical Perspectives on the International Churches of Christ, Carol Giambalvo & Herbert L. Rosedale, Editors, 1996. Lots of personal experiences with remarkable similarities to Assembly stories. The chapter on "An Examination of the Boston Movement in Relation to Thought Reform Criteria" is especially good.

Captive Hearts, Captive Minds: Freedom and Recovery from Cults and Abusive Relationships and/or Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships Madeleine Landau Tobias and Janja Lalich, 1994 (both former cult members). This is a comprehensive book which takes the former group member through all the necessary healing stages. It is both clear and compassionate, and is one of the few books on our list that deals at length with both sexual abuse, and children in cults. An excellent, excellent book. Take Back Your Life (2006) is a revised and updated version of Captive Hearts, Captive Minds.

Combatting Cult Mind Control, Steven Hassan, 1988. As a former member of the Moonies, Steve provides an inside view of cult life--its seductions, its abuses, and the deep psychological disturbances and personality changes it can cause. He tells the chilling story of his own recruitment and indoctrination; the painful realization that he had been lied to, manipulated, and robbed of his identity; and the long ordeal of returning to a normal, healthy life. Much as we may not want to believe it, his discussion of mind control is very pertinent to Assembly people. His approach is very balanced, caring and insightful. Also recommended is his book Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves, primarily for those who have loved-ones in a destructive group. It emphasizes the importance of staying in contact with the person, and offers a method to help awaken them to the pervasiveness of the group's control over their life.

The Grief Recovery Handbook: The Action Program for Moving Beyond Death, Divorce, and Other Losses, John W. James & Russell Friedman, 1998. A little book packed with very helpful stuff for getting beyond the major multiple losses of the Assembly . The authors have an institute which provides certification to run grief recovery workshops, which are offered in many churches and community centers. If you can't find a workshop, get the book.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Dr. Robert Cialdini, 1998. All guests at Wellspring watch a video of Dr. Cialdini presenting the principles in this book. It's amazing to learn how someone like G. Geftakys used these same concepts against us.

Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith, Martha Beck, 2005. A daughter of the Mormon Church's chief apologist recounts how she and her husband left the LDS ten years ago. Martha is a good writer and this riveting tale reads like fiction. Of course, these were her experiences and a lot of Mormons don't believe LDS is like that. There are similarities here to the Assembly that are absent from Brethrenism: the Mormons' apple-pie niceness, the sparkling cleanliness, many children, the grow-a garden and bake-your-own-bread domesticity (plus disaster preparedness and the Franklin planner!) Did G and B imbibe more from the Mormons than they would ever admit?

The Lucifer Effect, Phillip Zimbardo, 2007. In 1971 Dr. Zimbardo conducted a famous experiment at Stanford University. He divided a group of college students into "prisoner" and "guards", and recorded their behavior over the course of a week. Tom Maddux says, "In this recent book, The Lucifer Effect, Zimbardo uses what was learned in this experiment to shed light on many incidents in history including the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal. He concludes that in just about any group of people there are factors present in human personalities that can be activated by placing the person in the right conditions. I think that this goes a long way to explain the way the Assembly leadership developed and behaved, as well as the response of those subject to their influence. "

People of the Lie: Hope for Healing Human Evil, M. Scott Peck, 1991. Peck's concept of evil is not intended to be theological; rather, it clarifies the nature of malignant narcissism, and so offers a very useful category for understanding George Geftakys.

The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver, 1998, fiction. The (lengthy) story of a fiery Southern-Baptist style preacher, Nathan Price, who takes his wife and four daughters to the Congo in 1959 for a one-year short-term mission. The preacher character has many similarities to our own GG. The perceptions and reactions of the four daughters and the wife to his twisted version of Christianity are tragically insightful in terms of the Assembly. The true Christian faith, however, is missing from this book.

Recovery from Cults: Help for Victims of Psychological and Spiritual Abuse, Michael D. Langone, ed., 1993. 22 different contributors write on the topics of mind control, leaving cults, facilitating recovery and special issues. Especially helpful are the chapters on "Guidelines fro Families", "Guidelines for Ex-members", "Children and Cults", and the chapters on mind control.

The Brothers K, David James Duncan, 1992, fiction. 645 pages--very long--and yet this story of a large family in the '60s holds you in it's grip until the last page. The mother's fanatical Seventh Day Adventism is played off against the father's intense devotion to baseball. It's oddly illuminating to an ex-Assemblyite to realize that this kind of weirdness exists in the world quite apart from the Assembly. The best thing about the book is the grace, that comes from neither of the "religions" but from the family relationships that refuse to be smothered by the dogmas.

Visions of Glory: A History and a Memory of Jehovah's Witnesses, Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, 1978. This book is both a history of the JW's, and the personal story of the author's childhood in the Watchtower Society in the 1950's and her escape as a teenager. Amazing parallels with the Assembly. This book can be read on the internet at the exjws.net website.

Also see the Christian Booklist and Ron Henzel's Recommended Reading (Back to top)

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	Animal Farm, George Orwell, 1954. The animals take over Manor Farm, and everything is done with zealous equality. Too soon, however, the pigs, who have styled themselves leaders by virtue of their intelligence, succumb to the temptations of privilege and power and elevate themselves above their brethren. "The whole management and organization of the farm depend on us. Day and night, we are watching over your welfare." And thus they begin to lord it over the other animals, who are soon left hungry and exhausted.
	The Boston Movement: Critical Perspectives on the International Churches of Christ, Carol Giambalvo & Herbert L. Rosedale, Editors, 1996. Lots of personal experiences with remarkable similarities to Assembly stories. The chapter on "An Examination of the Boston Movement in Relation to Thought Reform Criteria" is especially good.
	Captive Hearts, Captive Minds: Freedom and Recovery from Cults and Abusive Relationships and/or Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships Madeleine Landau Tobias and Janja Lalich, 1994 (both former cult members). This is a comprehensive book which takes the former group member through all the necessary healing stages. It is both clear and compassionate, and is one of the few books on our list that deals at length with both sexual abuse, and children in cults. An excellent, excellent book. Take Back Your Life (2006) is a revised and updated version of Captive Hearts, Captive Minds.
	Combatting Cult Mind Control, Steven Hassan, 1988. As a former member of the Moonies, Steve provides an inside view of cult life--its seductions, its abuses, and the deep psychological disturbances and personality changes it can cause. He tells the chilling story of his own recruitment and indoctrination; the painful realization that he had been lied to, manipulated, and robbed of his identity; and the long ordeal of returning to a normal, healthy life. Much as we may not want to believe it, his discussion of mind control is very pertinent to Assembly people. His approach is very balanced, caring and insightful. Also recommended is his book Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves, primarily for those who have loved-ones in a destructive group. It emphasizes the importance of staying in contact with the person, and offers a method to help awaken them to the pervasiveness of the group's control over their life.
	The Grief Recovery Handbook: The Action Program for Moving Beyond Death, Divorce, and Other Losses, John W. James & Russell Friedman, 1998. A little book packed with very helpful stuff for getting beyond the major multiple losses of the Assembly . The authors have an institute which provides certification to run grief recovery workshops, which are offered in many churches and community centers. If you can't find a workshop, get the book.
	Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Dr. Robert Cialdini, 1998. All guests at Wellspring watch a video of Dr. Cialdini presenting the principles in this book. It's amazing to learn how someone like G. Geftakys used these same concepts against us.
	Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith, Martha Beck, 2005. A daughter of the Mormon Church's chief apologist recounts how she and her husband left the LDS ten years ago. Martha is a good writer and this riveting tale reads like fiction. Of course, these were her experiences and a lot of Mormons don't believe LDS is like that. There are similarities here to the Assembly that are absent from Brethrenism: the Mormons' apple-pie niceness, the sparkling cleanliness, many children, the grow-a garden and bake-your-own-bread domesticity (plus disaster preparedness and the Franklin planner!) Did G and B imbibe more from the Mormons than they would ever admit?
	The Lucifer Effect, Phillip Zimbardo, 2007. In 1971 Dr. Zimbardo conducted a famous experiment at Stanford University. He divided a group of college students into "prisoner" and "guards", and recorded their behavior over the course of a week. Tom Maddux says, "In this recent book, The Lucifer Effect, Zimbardo uses what was learned in this experiment to shed light on many incidents in history including the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal. He concludes that in just about any group of people there are factors present in human personalities that can be activated by placing the person in the right conditions. I think that this goes a long way to explain the way the Assembly leadership developed and behaved, as well as the response of those subject to their influence. "
	People of the Lie: Hope for Healing Human Evil, M. Scott Peck, 1991. Peck's concept of evil is not intended to be theological; rather, it clarifies the nature of malignant narcissism, and so offers a very useful category for understanding George Geftakys.
	The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver, 1998, fiction. The (lengthy) story of a fiery Southern-Baptist style preacher, Nathan Price, who takes his wife and four daughters to the Congo in 1959 for a one-year short-term mission. The preacher character has many similarities to our own GG. The perceptions and reactions of the four daughters and the wife to his twisted version of Christianity are tragically insightful in terms of the Assembly. The true Christian faith, however, is missing from this book.
	Recovery from Cults: Help for Victims of Psychological and Spiritual Abuse, Michael D. Langone, ed., 1993. 22 different contributors write on the topics of mind control, leaving cults, facilitating recovery and special issues. Especially helpful are the chapters on "Guidelines fro Families", "Guidelines for Ex-members", "Children and Cults", and the chapters on mind control.
	The Brothers K, David James Duncan, 1992, fiction. 645 pages--very long--and yet this story of a large family in the '60s holds you in it's grip until the last page. The mother's fanatical Seventh Day Adventism is played off against the father's intense devotion to baseball. It's oddly illuminating to an ex-Assemblyite to realize that this kind of weirdness exists in the world quite apart from the Assembly. The best thing about the book is the grace, that comes from neither of the "religions" but from the family relationships that refuse to be smothered by the dogmas.
	Visions of Glory: A History and a Memory of Jehovah's Witnesses, Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, 1978. This book is both a history of the JW's, and the personal story of the author's childhood in the Watchtower Society in the 1950's and her escape as a teenager. Amazing parallels with the Assembly. This book can be read on the internet at the exjws.net website.