Commenters traded recommendations and practical frameworks for reading about cults, scams, and schemes. Several praised investigative nonfiction - JennyWeston called Going Clear “wonderful” for its clear breakdown of Scientology recruitment, gmiller highlighted Seductive Poison on Jonestown, and ktallett and randycupertino recommended Bad Blood and No One Would Listen for Theranos and Madoff. Others suggested broader or alternative reads: omsta and meonkeys liked Cultish and The Confidence Game for language and persuasion; frankfrank13 and derektank pointed to Underground and the BITE model (Behavior, Information, Thought, Emotional) as tools to recognize authoritarian control; webnrrd2k, thinkingemote and glimshe noted podcasts, games and essays as useful supplements. Multiple commenters flagged MLMs as particularly pernicious scams (WheelsAtLarge) and recommended historical classics like Eric Hoffer and Extraordinary Popular Delusions.
Opinion divided over definitions, sources, and emphasis. cogman10 offered a social-definition of cults focused on how groups treat ex-members, while groundzeros2015 argued “cult” is a modern, post‑Enlightenment construct and meigwilym labeled Trump a cult leader. Swatcoder warned memoirs can read like creative nonfiction and urged academic sources, while peteforde criticized the list for omitting Steven Hassan’s Combating Cult Mind Control. Others quibbled about the list’s curation or popularity (pessimizer) and debated whether marketing or mainstream religion should be labeled “cultish” (thataccount, p_j_w).
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