In Brainwashed and Anointed, Christopher Yeoman tells his heart-wrenching struggles within Mormonism with no holds barred honesty and irresistible wit. Raised as a Mormon boy in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Christopher went through a heavily indoctrinated youth system, and at the age of 19 he served as a missionary for the Church. So sure of his religion and of the existence of God, he thought nothing would ever break his faith, but after battling with shame and guilt for his so-called 'sins', an ordeal with panic attacks and loss, his belief system began to unravel. This story offers a fascinating insight into the conflict between years of conditioned thinking vs. a need to reprogram one's mind after escaping the clutches of organized religion. Packed with humorous anecdotes and heartbreaking confessions, Brainwashed and Anointed makes for a fascinating read for anyone who is has been affected by religion or not.

This provocative account of our obsession with neuroscience brilliantly illuminates what contemporary neuroscience and brain imaging can and cannot tell us about ourselves, providing a much-needed reminder about the many factors that make us who we are. What can't neuroscience tell us about ourselves? Since fMRI -- functional magnetic resonance imaging -- was introduced in the early 1990s, brain scans have been used to help politicians understand and manipulate voters, determine guilt in court cases, and make sense of everything from musical aptitude to romantic love. br In Brainwashed, psychiatrist and AEI scholar Sally Satel and psychologist Scott O. Lilienfeld reveal how many of the real-world applications of human neuroscience gloss over its limitations and intricacies, at times obscuring -- rather than clarifying -- the myriad factors that shape our behavior and identities. Brain scans, Satel and Lilienfeld show, are useful but often ambiguous representations of a highly complex system. Each region of the brain participates in a host of experiences and interacts with other regions, so seeing one area light up on an fMRI in response to a stimulus doesn't automatically indicate a particular sensation or capture the higher cognitive functions that come from those interactions. The narrow focus on the brain's physical processes also assumes that our subjective experiences can be explained away by biology alone. As Satel and Lilienfeld explain, this "neurocentric" view of the mind risks undermining our most deeply held ideas about selfhood, free will, and personal responsibility, putting us at risk of making harmful mistakes, whether in the courtroom, interrogation room, or addiction treatment clinic. Although brain scans and other neurotechnologies have provided groundbreaking insights into the workings of the human brain, Brainwashed shows readers that the increasingly fashionable idea that they are the most important means of answering the enduring mysteries of psychology is misguided -- and potentially dangerous.

No rational mind - given the evidence of buttons and buttonholes in an article of clothing - would deny that both "intelligence" and "design" played roles in the fabrication of such a garment, but - mystery of mysteries - the brightest and most educated in our culture, reject such considerations for all the infinitely more complex living organisms, insisting (dogmatically) that they somehow "evolved" by haphazard, sequential, random mutations. A challenge is therefore, proposed - to anyone anti-"Intelligent Designer", who believes he has not been "brain-washed", but who has at least a "hair-line crack" to open-mindedness - to refute the material herein - the non-factuality and astronomical improbabilities of pure random-chance-mutations of individual elements (among the multi-billions in the DNA helix) as a credible belief system in explaining: ü the spider, butterfly, or bacterium flagellum (Pajaro Dunes Micro-Biology Conference - scientists challenging Darwinism); ü male-female sexuality feelings: irresistible sex-drive before; gratification after - evoking propagation and proliferation of mammalian species; ü the (simple, yet ever so complex) umbilical cord concept for mammals - from kittens to humans? This book is a scholarly review (in layman terms) of all pertinent aspects of Science versus Bible in all applicable fields: Archaeology, Astronomy, Biology, Cosmology, Egyptology, Paleontology, Physics, etc., with over 300 references to the arcane writings of world-class scientists, historians, mathematicians and adventurers.

'A frankly brilliant book' - GUARDIAN 'An absorbing exploration ... Pick does not stumble' - TORTOISE 'An extraordinarily engrossing and wide-ranging analysis of a word and a concept. I fell under its spell immediately' - SIMON GARFIELD In 1953, a group of prisoners of war who had fought against the communist invasion of South Korea were released. They chose - apparently freely - to move to Mao's China. Among those refusing repatriation were twenty-one American GIs. Their decision sparked alarm in the West: why didn't they want to come home? What was going on? Soon, people were saying that the POWs' had been 'brainwashed'. Was this something new or a phenomenon that has been around for centuries? The belief that it is possible to marshal scientific knowledge to govern someone's mind gained enormous attention. In an era of Cold War paranoia and experimentation on 'altered states', the idea of brainwashing flourished, appearing in everything from critiques of CIA research on LSD to warnings of corporate groupthink, from visions of automaton assassins to conspiracy theories about 'global elites'. Today, brainwashing is almost taken for granted - built into our psychological and political language, rooted in the way we think about minds and societies. How did we get to this point - and why? Psychoanalyst and historian Daniel Pick delves into the mysterious world of brainwashing in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from The Manchurian Candidate to ISIS, TV advertising to online algorithms. Mixing fascinating case studies with historical and psychological insights, Brainwashed is a stimulating journey into the mysteries of thought control.

Betsy Dovydenas is an artist who painted and wrote her story about joining a bogus church run by a bogus pastor. In more than 200 monoprints with narrative text, she tells the story of being tricked, sweet-talked, coaxed, manipulated, conned, coerced and exploited. In short, she was brainwashed. This book shows how it happened.

Not much is clear when we consider the history of first-century Israel. We know it was a nation in turmoil, with constantly shifting politics and ideas. Crippled by kings who were unable to keep their thrones, governors who were evicted from office soon after taking it, Israel was beset with brutal, violent outbursts and equally brutal suppressions. In such a climate it was inevitable that there'd be no shortage of populist leaders all pretending to know what was best for the people. But something happened, and whatever it was, it was to determine the history of the world for the next two thousand years. We all know the familiar story. But what if it didn't happen like that?

Here is the fatal blow to the belief that God does not heal today. Through the power of his personal experience and strength of his biblical insight, Mahesh Chavda reveals how the healing compassion of our Lord reaches the hurting masses simply by the believer's healing touch. Written with compassion, humor, and insight, The Hidden Power of Healing Prayer affirms that the healing anointing and the gifts of signs and wonders are not reserved for ‘super saints’ or the specially gifted, but are available to every believer who carries the compassion and love of the Lord Jesus.

The first play God inspired me to write, Like Father, Like Son, made grown men weep openly in the congregation. It was a play about a man causing his son to be left in the rapture. Sometimes a program for our church would be due in two weeks, and my mind would be blank. I would take pen and paper in hand and tell God, You know and I know I can't do this. He authored all my plays like taking dictation. I would sit down at my dining room table and wait for God. When the anointing came, I could write eighteen to twenty pages without stopping and know every character for each part. I never wanted to take glory from him and at the times the applause for me bothered me, until one night as people began to applaud, I felt all the applause come straight toward my heart and stopped midair, and immediately the praise went straight up to God-letting me know he was receiving the glory and honor for all the plays. Very interesting and unique plays that would be make wonderful Christmas movies-whatever God wants to do with them. So many, many souls were won to God-different things causing hopes to so many people. So amazing. So wonderful to be called a soul winner.

FINALIST - Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction WINNER - 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writers Prizes for Nonfiction FINALIST - Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Nonfiction An unforgettable coming-of-age memoir about a Black boy adopted into a white, Christian fundamentalist family Perfect for fans of Educated, Punch Me Up to the Gods, and Surviving the White Gaze “An affecting portrait of life inside the twin prisons of racism and unbending orthodoxy.” --Kirkus Reviews A powerful, experiential journey from white cult to Black consciousness: Harrison Mooney’s riveting story of self-discovery lifts the curtain on the trauma of transracial adoption and the internalized antiblackness at the heart of the white evangelical Christian movement. Inspired by Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man the same way Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me was inspired by James Baldwin, Harrison Mooney’s debut memoir will captivate readers with his powerful gift for storytelling, his keen eye for insight and observation, and his wry sense of humor. As an adopted and homeschooled Black boy with ADHD at white fundamentalist Christian churches and tent revivals, Mooney was raised amid a swirl of conflicting and confusing messages and beliefs. Within that radical and racist right-wing bubble along the U.S. border in Canada's Bible Belt, Harrison was desperate to belong and to be "visible" to those around him. But before ultimately finding his own path, Harrison must first come to understand that the forces at work in his life were not supernatural, but the same trauma and systemic violence that has terrorized Black families for generations. Reconnecting with his birth mother--and understanding her journey--leads Harrison to a new connection with himself: the eyes looking down were my true mother’s eyes, and the face was my true mother’s face, and for the first time in my life, I saw that I was beautiful.

-Zebadiah- The last time I saw her, she was marked with blood. Excommunicated. Now she