Cult Dynamics and Today’s Political Divide: The Chilling Parallels
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How followers can so easily disregard reality and fall for the seduction of narcissistic leaders forms the foundation of Radhia Gleis’ powerful exposé, The Followers: “Holy Hell” and the Disciples of Narcissistic Leaders: How My Years in a Notorious Cult Parallel Today’s Cultural Mania.
“Narcissists have one goal, and that is to serve themselves and their insatiable appetite for self-aggrandizement, by whatever means possible, with no regard to ethics,” she writes.
Gleis spent 25 years under the influence of the charismatic leader of the Buddha-field cult, and in The Followers, she masterfully draws parallels between cult dynamics and the characteristics of current political and cultural leaders; social media; and the press.
A nutritionist, biochemical analyst and educator, Gleis says her post-traumatic stress, forever entombed in her psyche, is repeatedly triggered by events surrounding today’s political divide, prompting her to explore her past decisions through a much broader lens that sheds light on the blind spots — and dangers — of groupthink.
The Followers lays the groundwork by skimming Gleis’ upbringing in Hollywood and tracing the steps of her life when, at age 14, she began to crave a deeper sense of spirituality. She spent the next 12 years searching for nirvana, and at age 26, she found what she thought she had been searching for. Gleis draws strong parallels between her devotion to a cult leader — an authority — whose damaging behavior and influence she willfully ignored, and the followers of other narcissistic authorities. She goes into detail about the characteristics of narcissists and explains the “feedback loop” that sustains the disciple-narcissist dynamic.
Gleis weaves together her personal experiences with reflections on a number of thought-provoking topics, including the search for a higher truth, cults, groupthink and mind control, authoritarian leaders, malignant narcissistic personality disorder and sociopathy, the American schism, and how an intelligent, well-educated person may find herself under the control of a narcissistic sociopath.
Author Radhia Gleis won First Place in the Nonfiction – Autobiography genre in this year’s PenCraft Book Awards for The Followers. She has earned a 4:4 star rating on Good Reads.com. She was featured in the internationally viewed movie Holy Hell, which was broadcast on CNN and named one of Sundance Film Festival’s and Netflix’s top 10 documentaries. It can now be viewed on Amazon Prime.
Gleis has appeared as a featured guest on numerous radio and television shows, including interviews by Robert Mangino, Pittsburgh News KDKA News Radio; Mark Dolan, Great Britain News; Hannah Brooks, Nat Kringoudis Show, Australia; Paul Kretschmer, WIHS News and Public Affairs; David “Bulldog” Rothner, Bulldog and the Rude Awakening Show; Donna Seebo, Warriors of Peace Show; Michael Berry, The Michael Berry Show; Mathew Williams, West Coast Radio; Scott Sloan, iHeart Radio; Vicki Clark, BBC, UK Radio; Briana Haas-Zak, Jobs-Blow Podcast; Jeff Crouere, Ring Side Politics; Kevin Price, Price of Business Show; Arash Farzaneh, Arash’s World; Josefa Salinas, Josefa Salinas Show KQIE104.7radio; Celinda Hawkins, NewsTalk Radio; Louie b. Free, Louie b. Free Show, WFMJ; Faune Riggin, River Talk Radio; and Tom Sumner, Tom Sumner Radio.
In print she has been featured on PArticipate, “Following On, Or Beyond The Buddha-field,” by journalist Bruce Dennill (South Africa); interviewed by Samantha Bartlett, Daily Star, Canada; Dorothea Jacobs, SUN UK; Austin Woman Magazine; UK’s Global Woman Magazine; and 360 Magazine. She was invited to contribute a Guest Post, “How to Recognize a Narcissist,” in Ms. Career Girl. Her book has been reviewed by Inger McPhail, Roger’s Review; Senora Scott, Concho Valley News; and Stacy Hearne, Author’s Reading.com.
For more information, please visit www.radhiagleis.com, or follow the author on Twitter (@radhia_gleis).
The Followers: “Holy Hell” and the Disciples of Narcissistic Leaders: How My Years in a Notorious Cult Parallel Today’s Cultural Mania Publisher: Sage Card Publishing ISBN-10: 1737125803 ISBN-13: 978-1737125808 Available from Amazon.com, BN.com and Audible.com
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Like a fragile flower emerging from a crack in the sidewalk, professor and trained psychotherapist Laura Berg pushed aside personal setbacks and found a way to be better in spite of them — or maybe even because of them.
In her new book, Thriving Life: How to Live Your Best Life No Matter the Cards You’re Dealt, Berg blends the knowledge she gained from her own experiences with her education in psychotherapy to build strategies that she hopes will resonate and help heal.
“For most of my life I felt stuck, as though I was just trying to survive life one day at a time,” Berg said. “I found it difficult to move beyond the traumas in my past to live the life I deserved. I wrote this book to share with others my experiences and the lessons I learned that helped me overcome the obstacles in my life that were holding me back. I’m hoping that these stories and the advice I share in this book will help the reader live a more joyful and thriving life.”
Chapter by chapter, Berg takes a deep dive into specific issues that many people struggle with, such as defining your own happiness, making good relationships last, dealing with toxic relationships, how to stop comparing yourself to others and overcoming rejection. With practical tips and a step-by-step approach to help you find what makes you happy, Berg teaches readers how to stop victimizing themselves and find strength in asking for help.
About the Author Laura Berg is a professor, author, entrepreneur, trained therapist and award-winning parenting expert. Among her many accolades, she has been named one of the Top 10 Mom Entrepreneurs, Savvy Mom of the Year, and was awarded YouTube’s Silver Play Button.
For more information, please visit her website: lauraberginc.com.
Thriving Life: How to Live Your Best Life No Matter the Cards You’re Dealt Publisher: HCI Books Release Date: November 2, 2021 ISBN-10: 0757323960 ISBN-13: 978-0757323966 Trade Paperback, 256 pages Available for pre-order wherever books are sold
Rosa Offers Gritty Twist on Classic Cinderella Fairytale
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An unrelenting heatwave has hit the streets of London. The city is a furnace, a sweatbox of people melting on their daily grind. Within the confines of one public housing building lies a coldness — a sharp icy blast of harsh, unforgiving betrayal. For one young family in particular, a wind of change is on the horizon … in fact, a storm is brewing so fierce that the wreckage it leaves behind will be injurious.
This is the setting for Rosa, a new novel from Lyndon Haynes, a multi-talented artist who was successful as an actor, songwriter, singer and music video director before turning his attention to literature.
“My book is a drama-themed story about the life of a young woman, Rosa, who comes to London under a dark cloud with her brothers after the death of her parents,” Haynes said, adding that it could be described as “an urban Cinderella story with edge.”
Struggling to find her own identity, Rosa copes with the reality that her life has been turned upside down since she and her two brothers left Mexico under a dark cloud … and a crime protection program. Forced to move to a new country, she has to learn a new language and culture while experiencing harsh realities during her bleak, lonely and formative teenage years.
Rosa meets a smart businessman who changes her life for the better and finally sees a hint of light, offering hope and freedom, but she soon realizes that every choice she makes will impact the world around her.
Author Lyndon Haynes hails from Tottenham, North London, worked as a child actor and spent nearly 25 years in the music industry as a songwriter, rapper and music video director. He has also been a playwright, film and TV director, and rapper for the hip-hop band The Sindecut, which was signed by Virgin Records. His previous published books include This Functional Family, released by Book Guild Publishing in 2011, and The Life and Times of Stanley Spank, his first novel, which he published through Authorhouse.
For more information, please visit https://authorlyndonhaynes.com/, or connect with the author on Instagram (Mr_lyndonh), Twitter (LyndonHaynes) or Facebook (Lyndon Haynes).
Rosa Publisher: Publishing Push Release Date: August 11, 2021 ISBN-10: 1802270574 ISBN-13: 978-1802270570 Available from Amazon.com
Former Buddhafield Follower Shares Unvarnished Truth About Cult Life
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Radhia Gleis spent 25 years of her adult life in the Buddhafield cult, under the influence of a narcissistic sociopath known by many names: Michel, Andreas, The Teacher or Reyji. She escaped the psychological prison of cult life over 12 years ago, but the emotional scars remain. The post-traumatic stress, forever entombed in her psyche, is repeatedly triggered by the characteristics of political and cultural leaders of today, prompting her to explore her past decisions through a much broader lens that sheds light on the blind spots — and dangers — of groupthink.
“What makes people give up their will, their sense of right and wrong — give up their moral compass and family ties for a person or an ideal?” Gleis asks in her captivating new book, The Followers: “Holy Hell” and the Disciples of Narcissistic Leaders: How My Years in a Notorious Cult Parallel Today’s Cultural Mania, giving a nod to the 2016 Buddhafield cult documentary Holy Hell, in which she appears.
The Followers lays the groundwork by skimming Gleis’ upbringing in Hollywood and tracing the steps of her adult life, when, at the age of 30, she fell under the influence of the charismatic leader of Buddhafield.
She draws striking parallels between her devotion to a cult leader — an authority — whose damaging behavior and influence she willfully ignored, and the followers of other authoritarian leaders, both past and present.
Gleis weaves her personal experiences with reflections on a number of thought-provoking topics, including:
• The search for a higher truth • Cults, groupthink and mind control • Authoritarian leaders • Malignant narcissistic personality disorder and sociopathy • The American schism • How an intelligent, well educated person may find themselves under the control of a narcissistic sociopath • Cognitive dissonance • The three basic types of people who join cults • The power of words/influence of media
Informative, raw and irreverent, Gleis’ book shares the unvarnished truth about cult followers from the viewpoint of a former follower still grappling with the consequences of her choices.
Author Radhia Gleis is a Certified Clinical Nutritionist, CCN, MEd. biochemical analyst and educator for over 33 years. She has appeared as a featured guest on numerous radio and television shows including Fox News, Austin. She hosted The Health Revolution and Let’s Get Healthy on Talk 1370 AM, KLBJ, and The Wellness Connection podcast on Voice America. She was the host and executive producer of three YouTube series: Wake up America; How the Body Works; and The Natural Way. She was featured in the internationally viewed movie, Holy Hell, which was broadcast on CNN and named one of Sundance Film Festival’s and Netflix’s top 10 documentaries. It can now be viewed on Amazon Prime.
For more information, please visit www.radhiagleis.com, or follow the author on Twitter (@radhia_gleis).
The Followers: “Holy Hell” and the Disciples of Narcissistic Leaders: How My Years in a Notorious Cult Parallel Today’s Cultural Mania Publisher: Sage Card Publishing ISBN-10: 1737125803 ISBN-13: 978-1737125808 Available from Amazon.com, BN.com and Audible.com
Transcendent Journey Gives Doctor Insights into Life’s Greatest Question Website details transformational visits with spiritual presence
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Why are we here? Minister and licensed psychotherapist Dr. Pieter Noomen consciously searched his mind for conclusive insight into this question during his evening walks. One evening, out of the blue, the word “Oneness” filled him. Day after day, a total of 12 words crystalized within him and around him. Those words became the basis for his 12 booklets, each of which explores the 12 components of life: Oneness, Love, Life, Fire, Space, Connectedness, Progression, Effect, Freedom, Joy, Differentness and Harmony.
Although the content of the 12 booklets comes from Dr. Noomen, he didn’t consider himself the author. “I ‘heard’ them within me when I specifically sat down to ‘hear’ them,” he explained on his website. “I listened while they formed in my head. I guess that the best way to describe this is to see it as a ‘merger’ on my spirit level of the voice/presence/spirit of Life itself and my ability to be consciously receptive for that — as much as a human being can be.”
Dr. Noomen’s connection with the higher presence would ultimately last for many years, resulting in an abundance of deeply profound insights freely shared on his website, www.wordsforall.org.
Visitors to Dr. Noomen’s website can read about the 12 components of life and ponder 147 thought-provoking questions and the illuminating answers that came to him during his extensive communications with the All Spirit. Avoiding the word God, Dr. Noomen relays his extraordinary journeys on the spiritual plane with an openness that invites readers to uncover and explore their own accessibility to spirituality without labels or constructs.
He grew to believe that, directly or indirectly, all life stems from one common source and that to connect with that source is the highest level of existence we can achieve on earth. And perhaps more importantly, he believed that being in direct contact with the ALL of existence is possible for every human being.
As to the answer to life’s most puzzling question, Dr. Noomen had this to say: “The consistent message in all Writings is that the purpose of being on earth is to make individual personal choices; choices that can either further direct contact with the real, full reality or can do the opposite and limit our experience of being alive …”
Dr. Noomen passed away in 2019, but his wealth of wisdom and insights freely shared on www.wordsforall.org will continue to inspire people throughout the world to broaden their spiritual paths.
“Self-help books, groups or gurus offer mental, social or physical well-being. These weekly words don’t focus on this. They focus on our intentions, our choosing-ability. Which is why we are on earth in the first place. ‘What’ we choose is not the issue. We won’t ever be judged anyway. But ‘that’ we choose is the issue; that is fulfilling our mission here. There are no exceptions to this.”
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Is there a reality that exists beyond our human awareness? As a minister and licensed psychotherapist, Dr. Pieter Noomen often addressed this question. And one day, he found himself the bearer of the answer.
Dr. Noomen experienced a profound transcendent journey that led him to connect on a deeply spiritual level with a higher presence. His “visits” into another human dimension would ultimately last for many years, and his communications with the one he calls “the source of all existence” are freely shared on his website, www.wordsforall.org.
As he explains, “I can only say that the information came from a presence on my innermost spiritual level I was in communication with for some time. The words seem the result of my spirit merging with the spirit of life It/Her/Himself.”
Visitors to Dr. Noomen’s website can read about the 12 components of life and ponder 147 thought-provoking questions and the illuminating answers that came to him during his extensive communications with the All Spirit. Avoiding the word God, Dr. Noomen relays his extraordinary journeys on the spiritual plane with an openness that invites readers to uncover and explore their own accessibility to spirituality without labels or constructs.
He grew to believe that, directly or indirectly, all life stems from one common source and that to connect with that source is the highest level of existence we can achieve on earth. And perhaps more importantly, he believed that being in direct contact with the ALL of existence is possible for every human being.
Dr. Noomen hoped that by making public his personal journeys with the world of the Positive State, he could open our hearts and minds to the possibility that there is more to our reality than meets the eye and help us understand the scope of what full existence is all about.
Dr. Noomen passed away in 2019, but his wealth of wisdom and insights freely shared on www.wordsforall.org will continue to inspire people throughout the world to broaden their spiritual paths.
“It seems scientifically proven that laughing is good for our health. Yet I know a source that always lets me smile inside. That happens when I realize how awesomely great the universe is and how tiny I am. And much more, when I realize that this Totality of all, Life in its full volume, is essentially a love reality. Many may not feel or believe that, yet now I know that not my sense of reality counts, but the fact that He/She/It Who is the All doesn’t focus on that but just wants our relationship to be a love affair. That thought often causes more than a smile inside. I want to sing!”
Black Sheep: A Blue-Eyed Negro Speaks of Abandonment, Belonging, Racism, and Redemption (This press release may be reprinted in part or in its entirety by any print or broadcast media outlet or used by any means of social media sharing.)
With an afterword by My Haley, PhD, widow of Alex Haley, famed author of Roots and Malcom X
Ray Studevent walked hesitantly toward the door of the nursing home and prayed that his Momma, now in the throes of dementia, would recognize him. Surely, the blue eyes would give him away. The blue eyes that his Momma originally equated with hatred and brutality.
White on the outside, Black on the inside, Ray grew up on the eastern side of the Anacostia River, the Blackest part of the Blackest city in America not long after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the D.C. race riots. There were guidelines if you were Black; different rules if you were White; but only mixed messages for mixed-race children like Ray, who had to fight for acceptance and struggle to find his identity.
Black Sheep: A Blue-Eyed Negro Speaks of Abandonment, Belonging, Racism, and Redemption is the unforgettable true story of Ray’s struggles as a mixed-race boy learning to fight the ghosts of his past to find trust and love. Abandoned by his White, heroin-addicted mother and Black, violently alcoholic father, Ray found salvation at age 5 when he was adopted into a loving, stable home by his father’s uncle Calvin and his wife, Lemell. But that is just the beginning of the story.
Lemell is suddenly widowed and must raise Ray and her two daughters as a single mother in Chocolate City. Each time she looks into Ray’s blue eyes, she sees the Klansmen who tormented her family as she grew up in segregated Mississippi.
Ray and Lemell must navigate the minefields of society’s outward racial tensions while inwardly, Lemell does her best to overlook her emotional scars and suppress her justifiable resentment toward White people when she looks into Ray’s blue eyes.
Black Sheep takes readers on an emotional journey and reveals universal truths through faith and great humor. It is a search for who we are, where we fit and who we can become. Imagine a book where The Notebook meets The Help.
About the Author Ray “Ben” Studevent was a mixed-race child whose unique look led him to fight a racial identity crisis his entire life. Each time he entered a room, he had to decide whether it was better to be Black or White. His personal and career journeys ebbed and flowed, taking him to prison, fatherhood and gigs in comedy clubs, modeling and stock-market research. In all these varied experiences, he realized that race played a critical role. Visit his website at: raystudevent.com.
Black Sheep Publisher: HCI Books Release Date: May 4, 2021 ISBN-10: 0757323812 ISBN-13: 978-0757323812 Trade Paperback, 288 pages Available wherever books are sold
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