Escaping Utopia

Growing Up in a Cult, Getting Out, and Starting Over

By: Janja Lalich, Karla McLaren

Narrated by: Kelly Burke

Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

In Escaping Utopia: Growing Up in a Cult, Getting Out, and Starting Over, the authors craft Lalich’s original and groundbreaking research into an accessible and engaging book. The authors explore fundamental questions about human nature, human development, group dynamics, abuse and control, and triumphs of the human spirit.

• An exploration of the human spirit in the tensions between freedom and control
• Demonstrates cults as extensions of more typical human behaviors, both deviant and normal
• Primary author is the world’s leading authority on cults (Janjich) who has appeared on Meet the Press, CNN, the CBS Evening News, NPR’s Morning Edition and BBC’s Thinking Allowed
• Courses: Deviance, Social Problems, Social Movements, Social Psychology, Sociology of Religion, Family, and Life Course, Social Work, Child Development, Health and Community Services, Nursing

©2019 Taylor & Francis (P)2019 Routledge

Critic reviews

"ESCAPING UTOPIA is a must read book for everyone concerned about the real nature of human nature. Authors Lalich and McLaren do a brilliant job in revealing the various psycho-social mechanisms by which cults attract, deceive and bind recruits into their "families," at great personal costs—and how to help them exit."—Philip Zimbardo, Professor Emeritus, Stanford University

"This is a unique and valuable book.The authors have taken a much-neglected subject: the fate of children growing up in cults who leave knowing little or nothing of the world outside their cult’s boundaries. The book is largely based on interviews with 65 of these former cult members from a wide variety of different types of cults. But the material is thematically unified by the authors’ profound theoretical understanding of cult dynamics gained through many decades of studying cults from both inside and out. This accessible and nuanced account of a controversial subject will be the standard reference on its subject for many years to come."—Benjamin Zablocki, Professor Emeritus, Rutgers University

"By using contemporary scholarship to elucidate the abuse, then the resiliency, of young adults who left abusive cults, this study accomplishes the unusual task of creating an immensely accessible book for the general public, current and former members, and academics. Nothing else like it exists."—Stephen A. Kent, Sociology Professor and Adjunct Professor in the Interdisciplinary Program in Religious Studies, University of Alberta.

Necessary and insightful

As a cult survivor of a cult I was raised in, this book was exactly what I needed. I had read other cult related material by Dr. Steven Hassan and had looked into the research done by Stanley Milgram and Margaret Singer as well as others. The best part of this book was the last two chapters when former cult members shared their advice and insight. I have been recommending this book to others like me.

Found it relatable having grown up strict baptist

I thought this book was very real and explained cults well. I grew up in a strict baptist religion which I now understand was a cult and started realizing I didn’t believe or agree with the beliefs after attending college. Although my experience wasn’t as extreme as most interviewed for this book, the struggles they experienced hit home and made me feel less alone in the experience I had. Definitely recommend this book.