Review by Nicholas Christian -- The Cult Next Door

[Nicholas Christian]

[Following is a volunteer review of "The Cult Next Door" by Elizabeth R. Burchard, Judith L. Carlone.]

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4 out of 4 stars

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The Cult Next Door by Elizabeth R. Buchard and Judith L. Carlone is a bone-chilling glance into the world of manipulation and evil disguised as good. The book starts in a simple, story-like fashion: our heroine is introduced and we are told about her antecedents. She has been raised by her abusive, foul-mouthed mother and has mostly been apart from her dad, Mr. Burchard. She loves her father very much; he is a beacon of affection, safety and stability in her life. She has been through hell. She has been beaten and abused emotionally by her mother, and subjected to embarrassment and ridicule from her peers and neighbours because of her mother. One day, when she is a mere girl in middle school, she is informed of her dearly beloved father's passing. This is a pivotal moment in her life because she no longer has anyone to love her.

Fast forward a few years, Elizabeth Burchard, a young, wide-eyed girl who is just out of high school, meets with George Shackman, a biofeedback technician at her mum's therapist. She is a college freshman, young and impressionable, and the eloquent, charismatic George Shackman enraptures her with his excellent rhetoric and vast repertoire of knowledge. He rapidly convinces her, together with a motley aggregation of women, to subscribe to his philosophy of life and lives off them like a parasite. This marks the beginning of a twenty-two year odyssey in search for herself, a search for fulfillment and internal peace. Not until Judith L. Corlone enters the scene and gains her trust does Elizabeth start emancipating herself from the chains that have yoked her to this evil man.

I loved this book. It was an amazing depiction of how an intricate web of lies, deceptive logic and deceit can ensnare an otherwise intelligent person, especially through their emotions. This book gave me a deep insight into cult psychology. I finally understood why so many apparently sane and rational people cannot see the discrepancies in the lies they are told by people they respect and look up to. I followed Elizabeth's story, as George Shackman wove his web tighter and tighter around her mind, and I wept for her internally as she was financially, sexually, emotionally and physically abused by that personification of selfishness and evil. I celebrated when she, with the help and patience of Judith, managed to free herself from the mental chains that had kept her a prisoner for so long. I felt exceptionally bad when the sinister George Shackman drove a wedge between the loving, young couple. This book was emotionally engaging and appealed to all my finer sensitivities.

There was little to find fault with in this book. It was a very well executed attempt, mostly successful, at portraying the mental chains that tie a hapless sufferer of Stockholm Syndrome to their captor and make them to love their worst enemy. I, however, would have liked to get a clearer description of some of the emotional abuse and members of the cult, not for sadistic reasons but to fully understand the dangers of getting involved with some characters. The author also implies some things but does not say them clearly, like how she insinuates in the earlier part of the book that George was indirectly involved in Joe's death. In my opinion, the veracity of this premise should have been clearly discussed.

All in all, this was a wonderful book, professionally edited as one may expect from such academically distinguished authors. I saw no grammatical errors. I rate this book four out of four. This book contains no profanity and the sexual content, while present, is mild, vague and inoffensive. This book is suitable for all mature audiences and I highly recommend it for students of the human psyche. This book is one of the best and most insightful depictions of cult phenomena and rationale I have ever come across.

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The Cult Next Door
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