Prophet's Daughter

Barnes & Noble Discover Great New WritersThe April 2008 police raid on a fundamentalist Mormon sect in West Texas provided a rare glimpse into the hidden world of religious cults. Americans were transfixed by the coverage, trying to get a handle on this seemingly unfathomable phenomenon. Why do people join these groups? What draws themto live in such an unusual and restrictive environment? Erin Prophet's memoir offers an insider's response to these questions and more. Erin was the daughter and heir apparent of Elizabeth Clare Prophet, the leader of the Church Universal and Triumphant, an international organization with a membership in the thousands. The church saw its heyday in the late 1980s, after Elizabeth asserted herself as the "living representative" of Jesus, Buddha, and other ascended masters, and set rules for members regarding their marriages, sex lives, finances, and living arrangements. But it was her forecast of an impending apocalypse and the organization's subsequent construction of a vast, armed underground complex in Montana that brought her national acclaim.Journalists and former cult members have published books on cults, but it's Erin Prophet's unique vantage point -- as a disenfranchised cult member and a daughter -- that makes her memoir so compelling. Prophet's Daughter is the unparalleled story of a daughter struggling to understand her mother despite her own sense of betrayal, and a must-read.(Holiday 2008 Selection)