An explosive first-person account by a young woman who spent 15 years in a sex cult which turned its female devotees into prostitutes, leading strangers to the love of God by enticing them with the pleasures of the flesh. of photos.

"Throughout history, the religious imagination has attempted to control nothing so much as our bodies: what they are and what they mean; what we do with them, with whom, and under what circumstances; how they may be displayed-or, more commonly, how they must be hidden. Religious belief and mandate affect how our bodies are used in ritual practice, as well as how we use them to identify and marginalize threatening religious Others. This book examines how horror culture treats religious bodies that have stepped (or been pushed) out of their 'proper' place. Unlike most books on religion and horror, This book explores the dark spaces where sex, sexual representation, and the sexual body come together with religious belief and scary stories. Because these intersections of sex, horror, and the religious imagination force us to question the nature of consensus reality, supernatural horror, especially as it concerns the body, often shows us the religious imagination at work in real time. It is important to note that the discussion in this book is not limited either to horror cinema or to popular fiction, but considers a wide range of material, including literary horror, weird fiction, graphic storytelling, visual arts, participative culture, and aspects of real-world religious fear. It is less concerned with horror as a genre (which is mainly a function of marketing) and more with the horror mode, a way of storytelling that finds expression across a number of genres, a variety of media, and even blurs the boundary between fiction and non-fiction. This expanded focus not only deepens the pool of potential examples, but invites a much broader readership in for a swim"--

Hello poets and writers of the world. My name is Anthony Morrison welcome all. This book I would like to dedicate to all Harlots Haven. As we all know life is nothing but an expression but this book is a little different than others, it takes you into the actual reality of relationship, companions, friends, lovers. Life is like a Harlots Haven from one life of love to another I converse the most important facts harlot. It dates back to ancient and modern hoboes of sexuality and the family ancestry. As I combine verse of poetry in a metaphoric language of expressions I hope you enjoy reading.

Renowned journalist Don Lattin, longtime reporter for the San Francisco Examiner and more recently the San Francisco Chronicle, interprets the American spiritual and religious landscape since the 60s with insight, wit, and telling reporting. What David Brooks did for the American social and commercial landscape in the bestselling Bobos In Paradise, he does for the spiritual landscape, showing how the 60s have had a profound transformative impact in every area of spirituality. This is the first comprehensive look at the spiritual legacy of the 60s and 70s, as seen through the lives of those raised amid some of the era’s wildest experimentation.

From a unique insider's perspective—including interviews with more than seven-hundred family members—James Chancellor charts The Family's course since its emergence as the most controversial group to grow out of the Jesus People Movement in the 1960s. Chancellor, who had extraordinary access to rare Family records, includes the experiences of members who have remained loyal to the community and to the founding vision of their prophet, David Brandt Berg. In the first book of its kind—comprising often painful personal histories and firsthand accounts—Chancellor focuses on the motivation and process of becoming a Child of God, the core beliefs of the community, the mission of the disciples, their shifting sexual mores, and the cost of membership in terms of internal discipline and external persecution. Intense confrontation with the legal, religious, political, and educational establishment marked the movement's activities from the beginning. The young disciples heeded the call of their prophet to flee a soon-to-be-destroyed North America. Dispersed throughout Europe, Latin America, Africa, and East Asia, they virtually disappeared from the American landscape. In the late 1980s, The Family had gone through extreme theological and lifestyle changes, including a radical reordering of their sexual ethos. The Children of God started to come home. Now a worldwide counterculture of some twelve thousand members, the movement's colorful history reveals a profoundly religious group that has tested the limits of human experience.

Misunderstanding Cults provides a uniquely balanced contribution to what has become a highly polarized area of study. Working towards a moderate "third path" in the heated debate over new religious movements or cults, this collection includes contributions from both scholars who have been characterized as "anticult" and those characterized as "cult-apologists." The study incorporates multiple viewpoints as well as a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives, with the stated goal of depolarizing the discussion over alternative religious movements. A prominent section within the book focuses explicitly on the issue of scholarly objectivity and the danger of partisanship in the study of cults. The collection also includes contributions on the controversial and much misunderstood topic of brainwashing, as well as discussions of cult violence, children brought up in unconventional religious movements, and the conflicts between alternative religious movements and their critics. Unique in its breadth, this is the first study of new religious movements to address the main points of controversy within the field while attempting to find a middle ground between opposing camps of scholarship.

AN Earthy Look At Christianity. Many biblical terms have a consistent symbolic significance from Genesis to Revelation eg nudity, light and darkness, virgins, harlots. Nudity occurs in three of the most significant events in the whole Bible, and in every case it is best understood symbolically. This book demonstrates that symbolism is so powerful it can, for example, change the status of Isaiah's virgin birth prophecy from an absurdity to an astonishing fulfilment of prophecy. Harlots (described in the book as God's warning lights) also figure very prominently in the biblical coverage of both Jews and Christians. Another key theme is to show that the raw seed-concepts of the Hebrew Bible evolve so neatly into the Christian New Testament viewpoint over a 1000+ years that readers may conclude uninspired biblical script writers could not have organized it. Here are some quotes from the book that introduce intriguing and/or provocative new trains of thought: 1 "If you think linking sex with religious experience is a bit rich then you need to do some more Bible study." 2 "Indulgence in adultery is the most obvious of the sins proscribed in the Ten Commandments that could trace directly to hormonal influences." 3 "Should we be joining Haters Anonymous, Schadenfreude Anonymous or Egotists Anonymous . . in order to qualify for a better land and to actually enjoy it." 4 "Some of our excretory functions are less than ideal for a brand new earth . . the creator team could have done better by us . . if they wanted to." 5 "It is tacitly assumed God did not conduct experiments in His creation efforts. No need to . . He knows the end from the beginning! But . . ." Other challenging insights emerge in connection with Lot's use of his daughters as sex-sops, the possible symbolic significance of the Mosaic decree to cut off a lady's hand if she squeezed testicles, the massaging of data in St Matthew's genealogies, a religious uncertainty principle, and the reason God doesn't do something to stop the frightful things happening in the world. This is not a book built on hype and emotion.It makes extensive use of scholarly sources but has a light-hearted journalistic approach and is easy to read. In exploring the spiritual import of sexual issues in nature and revelation it offers fresh perspectives on the bitter creation-evolution debate, the gross and genocidal behavior of the chosen people, the currently unacceptable biblical restrictions on human sexual behavior, and the decidedly low-key role of women in organized religion. Innovative, succinct, engaging, thought-provoking, and sometimes shocking!

In terms of public opinion, new religious movements are considered controversial for a variety of reasons. Their social organization often runs counter to popular expectations by experimenting with communal living, alternative leadership roles, unusual economic dispositions, and new political and ethical values. As a result the general public views new religions with a mixture of curiosity, amusement, and anxiety, sustained by lavish media emphasis on oddness and tragedy rather than familiarity and lived experience. This updated and revised second edition of Controversial New Religions offers a scholarly, dispassionate look at those groups that have generated the most attention, including some very well-known classical groups like The Family, Unification Church, Scientology, and Jim Jones's People's Temple; some relative newcomers such as the Kabbalah Centre, the Order of the Solar Temple, Branch Davidians, Heaven's Gate, and the Falun Gong; and some interesting cases like contemporary Satanism, the Raelians, Black nationalism, and various Pagan groups. Each essay combines an overview of the history and beliefs of each organization or movement with original and insightful analysis. By presenting decades of scholarly work on new religious movements written in an accessible form by established scholars as well as younger experts in the field, this book will be an invaluable resource for all those who seek a view of new religions that is deeper than what can be found in sensationalistic media stories.

A Heavenly Revelation of Spiritual Warfare Secrets Jennifer LeClaire, globally recognized prophet, spiritual warfare trainer, and prayer leader, received a vivid, visionary encounter in the War Room of Heaven. In this vision, I saw a veil rip open from the top to bottom. As I peered behind the veil, I saw a long walkway with...