num_pages: 288
description: They took an oath of absolute secrecy and lived in a covert world in plain sight.It didnt look like a cult. I was relieved. Nobody was in black robes chanting. No kids running around in rags with faraway gazes. Just a bunch of young professionalshedge funders doctors entrepreneurs lawyersin a secret loft in Tribeca. They looked I realized a lot like me says Spencer Schneider. I had no way to possibly know they were brainwashedhollowed out soulsunder the clutches of a leader every bit as twisted and commanding as Jim Jones.When Schneider was a twenty-nine-year-old Manhattan corporate lawyer an acquaintance invited him to a secret meeting of an esoteric school for inner development known to its students simply as School. Suspicious yet curious he went. At first he found support community and meaning among other highly educated New Yorkers. But soon he found himself trapped in one of the nations most secretive and abusive cults. In the name of personal development hundreds endured decades of sexual and physical abuse forced labor arranged marriages swindled savings and inheritances and systematic terrorizing. Some of them broke the law. All for their charismatic and demented leader Sharon Gans a washed-up actress who claimed to be on a spiritual par with Buddha. This is Schneiders story of how he got entangled in School why he stayed and howimpossiblyhe got out after twenty-three years. Its a cautionary tale about the power of group psychology and how anyone can be radicalized. Its also a story of surviving traumatic abuse and ultimately finding a path to healing.
language: English
title: Manhattan Cult Story: My Unbelievable True Story of Sex, Crimes, Chaos, and Survival
publisher: Arcade