Disappointing. I’ve always been interested in heresies, cults, and the like; after all, every modern religion started out as a heresy. Unfortunately, this rambling and disorganized book isn’t much use. The author, Colin Wilson, is a prolific writer on a variety of subjects, especially the occult; he seems to take some of his subject’s claims to supernatural powers seriously. He also repeatedly and tediously digresses into amateur psychoanalysis and account of his own youthful sexual experiences. Some of the people described here - David Koresh and Jim Jones, for example - are relatively well known; I hadn’t heard of some of the others: the creepy LeBaron family, supposedly responsible for over two dozen murders; and Rock Theriault, who practiced amateur surgery on his cult followers (including sawing an arm off one and vivisecting another). Unfortunately, the book is full of factual errors (the Sarin gas used by Aum Shinriyko is described as “used in the Nazi death camps”; and Hungary supposedly joins the Axis in 1944), so you can’t trust any of the descriptions; and although a few books are mentioned in the text there’s no bibliography so you can’t find the author’s sources and check for yourself. In the bargain bin at Barnes & Noble for $2 and not worth it. ( )