The Penguin Book of Cults

A chilling documentary history of the most notorious cults of the past two thousand years, from the Celtic druids whose ritual sacrifices inspired the folk horror film The Wicker Man all the way up to the Peoples Temple and Heaven's Gate

A Penguin Classic

The word "cult" conjures images of people in thrall to a charismatic leader who extracts obedience through lies and threats, and of apocalyptic prophecies, ritual sacrifices, sexual perversion, and mass suicide. The Penguin Book of Cults charts the history of our fear of the religious other: the arrest and public execution of thousands of members of an ancient Roman cult devoted to Bacchus, the god of wine; the burning alive of victims in giant wicker effigies as an offering to Celtic gods; the nocturnal orgies, murder of children, and demon worship of medieval heretics; a church of "human vampires" in nineteenth-century Kansas City; moral panics over the hypnotic powers of yoga; and mass casualty events like the sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system by the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo.

Bringing to light little-known sources such as a "death tape" of Jonestown's final hour, when Jim Jones led more than 900 of his followers to drink poison, and a minute-by-minute log of the FBI's final assault on the Branch Davidian headquarters, and including accounts of drinking the blood of sacrificed cats, theories that we are living inside a hollow earth, and reports that space brothers from Venus are coming to redeem us from the threat of nuclear war, this volume opens a fascinating window into cults and why some of them have ended in spectacular violence.

Penguin Classics is the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world, representing a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Author: Joseph P. Laycock
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 10/07/2025
Pages: 304
Binding Type: Paperback
ISBN: 9780143138693

About the Author
Joseph P. Laycock (editor) is an associate professor of religious studies at Texas State University; coeditor of Nova Religio, the premier journal for the study of new religious movements; the author of several books about new religious movements, possession and exorcism, and moral panic; and the editor of The Penguin Book of Exorcisms. He has written for Quartz and The New Republic and been featured on the television documentary series Mysteries Decoded and The History Channel's Holy Marvels with Dennis Quaid and The UnXplained with William Shatner.