This award-winning memoir intimately and powerfully chronicles one woman’s journey falling under the spell of a manipulative spiritual guru, and her hard-won and triumphant break with, and recovery from, thought reform. For family members with someone in a cult, the book explains to the reader, step-by-step, the process of getting drawn into a cult environment, what it's like to be there and why and how terribly difficult it is to leave. For those who have had a cult experience, the author illuminates what the journey of cult recovery may look like and how to heal, and in fact thrive, after a cult experience.