Cult of Two is the fifth book of internationally bestselling poet Michael Faudet, author of Winter of Summers, Smoke & Mirrors, Bitter Sweet Love, and Dirty Pretty Things—a finalist in the Goodreads Readers Choice awards. His intimate writing style and exquisite ability to paint pictures with words has captured the imagination and hearts of thousands of people from around the world.
Psychopaths aren't capable of love. Find out what happens when they target someone who is, in this insightful and practical book by a woman who was a victim. When we're imagining falling in love none of us thinks that we might fall for a psychopath. We don't even know it's a possibility. Most victims say they believed they had met their soul mate. But as the psychopath gains power and control, what seemed like heaven becomes an ever-worsening emotional hell. Don't let it happen to you. If it already has, don't let it happen again. This book -- which contains the best material from the author's popular blog PsychopathsandLove.com -- will help you gain a clearer understanding of these harmful pathological relationships. Learn what a psychopath is and how to possibly spot one if you're being pursued. Find out what makes you vulnerable. Learn how to tell if you're being manipulated. Finally, get ideas about healing afterward and for preventing it from happening again -- or for the first time. "I wish I could have read this half year ago. Thanks a million." Liu "I cannot tell you how much this has helped me today. I cannot get anything done because I can't stop reading! My whole life has been a mess because of these men. My eyes are finally opened - maybe a bit late, but still opened." SuckerNoMore "Thank you for making me feel sane again." Tom "I wish I had read this years ago; it would have saved me money, heartbreak and pain. I met a one eight years ago and I believed I was with the man of my dreams. It's been a nightmare. I often wondered how I got caught up in this crap but reading about it has open my eyes." Michelle "I truly believe this info saved my life! I thank God I found it and I thank God you are eloquent enough to cut right thru to all the things I have been experiencing with this monster but was never able to verbalize! it felt like you were speaking directly to me! Thank you again for all the incredibly insightful info." Duped "I have no words but thank you so very much!" Anthony "After countless sessions with a therapist this makes more simplistic sense of what I had been going through in marriage. Very insightful and I wish the readers acknowledged. Wellness." Eric "I just want you to know what a valuable service you've provided by creating this site. I stumbled upon it the other day while doing some research on psychopathy in an attempt to understand how the individual I was involved with could do all the things he did. It was such a relief to realize, after reading several of your posts, that this monster who had me believing he was one in a million is actually just one OF a million... psychopaths. He's no more than a common, predictable set of symptoms and patterns. He fits the mold perfectly. I understand better than ever now that none of this was my fault; that he targeted me; and that the mental anguish he put me through was something I could not have resisted if I tried... because I could never be someone who thinks the way he does. Your information helped me realize that fully and take that last step of discarding any last little attempt to "reconcile" the unthinkable." L.B. "Thank you for a brilliant and concise definition of a psychopath. This information is the best I have seen on this topic...I now know I am not crazy. Thank you.
Named one of Vulture’s Top 10 Best Books of 2020! Leftist firebrand Fredrik deBoer exposes the lie at the heart of our educational system and demands top-to-bottom reform. Everyone agrees that education is the key to creating a more just and equal world, and that our schools are broken and failing. Proposed reforms variously target incompetent teachers, corrupt union practices, or outdated curricula, but no one acknowledges a scientifically-proven fact that we all understand intuitively: Academic potential varies between individuals, and cannot be dramatically improved. In The Cult of Smart, educator and outspoken leftist Fredrik deBoer exposes this omission as the central flaw of our entire society, which has created and perpetuated an unjust class structure based on intellectual ability. Since cognitive talent varies from person to person, our education system can never create equal opportunity for all. Instead, it teaches our children that hierarchy and competition are natural, and that human value should be based on intelligence. These ideas are counter to everything that the left believes, but until they acknowledge the existence of individual cognitive differences, progressives remain complicit in keeping the status quo in place. This passionate, voice-driven manifesto demands that we embrace a new goal for education: equality of outcomes. We must create a world that has a place for everyone, not just the academically talented. But we’ll never achieve this dream until the Cult of Smart is destroyed.
WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER • A FINANCIAL TIMES, FORTUNE, AND NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • “The riveting, definitive account of WeWork, one of the wildest business stories of our time.”—Matt Levine, Money Stuff columnist, Bloomberg Opinion The definitive story of the rise and fall of WeWork (also depicted in the upcoming Apple TV+ series WeCrashed, starring Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway), by the real-life journalists whose Wall Street Journal reporting rocked the company and exposed a financial system drunk on the elixir of Silicon Valley innovation. LONGLISTED FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES AND MCKINSEY BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD WeWork would be worth $10 trillion, more than any other company in the world. It wasn’t just an office space provider. It was a tech company—an AI startup, even. Its WeGrow schools and WeLive residences would revolutionize education and housing. One day, mused founder Adam Neumann, a Middle East peace accord would be signed in a WeWork. The company might help colonize Mars. And Neumann would become the world’s first trillionaire. This was the vision of Neumann and his primary cheerleader, SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son. In hindsight, their ambition for the company, whose primary business was subletting desks in slickly designed offices, seems like madness. Why did so many intelligent people—from venture capitalists to Wall Street elite—fall for the hype? And how did WeWork go so wrong? In little more than a decade, Neumann transformed himself from a struggling baby clothes salesman into the charismatic, hard-partying CEO of a company worth $47 billion—on paper. With his long hair and feel-good mantras, the six-foot-five Israeli transplant looked the part of a messianic truth teller. Investors swooned, and billions poured in. Neumann dined with the CEOs of JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, entertaining a parade of power brokers desperate to get a slice of what he was selling: the country’s most valuable startup, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and a generation-defining moment. Soon, however, WeWork was burning through cash faster than Neumann could bring it in. From his private jet, sometimes clouded with marijuana smoke, he scoured the globe for more capital. Then, as WeWork readied a Hail Mary IPO, it all fell apart. Nearly $40 billion of value vaporized in one of corporate America’s most spectacular meltdowns. Peppered with eye-popping, never-before-reported details, The Cult of We is the gripping story of careless and often absurd people—and the financial system they have made.
*As featured in the streaming documentary #UNTRUTH—now with a new foreword by George Conway and an afterword by the author* A masterful and eye-opening examination of Trump and the coercive control tactics he uses to build a fanatical devotion in his supporters written by “an authority on breaking away from cults…an argument that…bears consideration as the next election cycle heats up” (Kirkus Reviews). Since the 2016 election, Donald Trump’s behavior has become both more disturbing and yet increasingly familiar. He relies on phrases like, “fake news,” “build the wall,” and continues to spread the divisive mentality of us-vs.-them. He lies constantly, has no conscience, never admits when he is wrong, and projects all of his shortcomings on to others. He has become more authoritarian, more outrageous, and yet many of his followers remain blindly devoted. Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert and a major Trump supporter, calls him one of the most persuasive people living. His need to squash alternate information and his insistence of constant ego stroking are all characteristics of other famous leaders—cult leaders. In The Cult of Trump, mind control and licensed mental health expert Steven Hassan draws parallels between our current president and people like Jim Jones, David Koresh, Ron Hubbard, and Sun Myung Moon, arguing that this presidency is in many ways like a destructive cult. He specifically details the ways in which people are influenced through an array of social psychology methods and how they become fiercely loyal and obedient. Hassan was a former “Moonie” himself, and he presents a “thoughtful and well-researched analysis of some of the most puzzling aspects of the current presidency, including the remarkable passivity of fellow Republicans [and] the gross pandering of many members of the press” (Thomas G. Gutheil, MD and professor of psychiatry, Harvard Medical School). The Cult of Trump is an accessible and in-depth analysis of the president, showing that under the right circumstances, even sane, rational, well-adjusted people can be persuaded to believe the most outrageous ideas. “This book is a must for anyone who wants to understand the current political climate” (Judith Stevens-Long, PhD and author of Living Well, Dying Well).
Feeling an overpowering pull she can't explain or control, Branwynne slips out of the Emergents Academy in search of Matholook, the mysterious and charming seventeen-year-old member of the Cult of the Devoted she first met five years ago.Heading right into the enemy camp may not seem like the most sensible thing to do, but Branwynne has never been one to blindly follow the rules--or to shy away from danger. Especially when her instincts are screaming at her that Matholook may have answers to questions she's been searching for all her life.Thrust into the middle of a bloody, three-way war for power in a bleak and ravaged land, Branwynne has her loyalties tested as she closes in on the mystery of who and what she really is.What she finds may not change her life or her mind.But it could just change her heart.
It is generally supposed that the Vedic tradition emerged from certain Brahmanic circles of poets, priests and theoreticians who depended economically very much on a kind of pastoral aristocracy. As against this point of view the book maintains the theory that the Vedic tradition was mainly connected with the warrior world, in particular with certain groups of seers that surrounded the warrior chiefs called sûris and strongly opposed the pastoral aristocracy and their priesthood. What emerges from this approach is that the Vedic tradition, in spite of its apparent unity of themes, images and even sentences, is not a tradition based on consensus or on a harmonious development of thought from one end to the other, but rather a tradition that reveals a troubled background, a background of passionate rivalries. The book reconsiders the debate surrounding the antagonistic ideologies of pastoral and agricultural peoples and represents a new contribution to the discussion about similarities and differences between the Iranian and the Indo-Aryan cultures.
An introduction reviews previous scholarship, and concludes that the cultic aspects of Judges 17-18 have not been examined in any depth. It then goes on to deal with the historical and redactional issues which previous scholars have found interesting. The issues of provenance and dating are then examined with the conclusion that the text was written down in the immediate aftermath of the Assyrian conquest of Dan in an attempt to preserve its sacred traditions. The text therefore reflects the self-understanding of the priests of Dan in the period immediately prior to its fall. The text of Judges 17-18 is then subjected to a rhetorical critical examination, followed by a more traditional form critical study. The next section is a comparison of similar cultic foundation stories from other cultures. Three major chapters examine the three major cultic issues raised by the text itself: images, priests and divination. Each chapter draws on evidence from the Hebrew Bible and its environment in an attempt to clarify the nature of the cult of Dan. Broadly, each chapter concludes that although there were some features peculiar to the cult reflected by Dan, in general, the Danite cult was not greatly different from that of its neighbours. A final chapter deals with what the text says about the tribe of Levi, with the conclusion that according to Judges 17-18, there was once a secular tribe of Levi. The conclusion draws a brief picture of cultic life in Dan in its final years.
