New Releases by Gordon Neufeld

A woman follows her guru on a wearying trek through the wilderness. A teenage girl who will soon be married in a polygamous sect makes a break for freedom. These are just two stories in this startling collection by K. Gordon Neufeld, author of "Heartbreak and Rage"and "Cult Fiction."

Mass weddings. Matching ceremonies where people meet their future spouses for the first time. Desperate flower-sellers approaching bar customers late at night. Isolated farms where young men and women are rapidly transformed into fanatical devotees of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. All these are well-known aspects of life in the cult known as the Unification Church, often called the "Moonies". In Heartbreak and Rage: Ten Years Under Sun Myung Moon, a Cult Survivor''s Memoir, K. Gordon Neufeld recalls his own participation in all of these events in a powerful and engrossing, and occasionally wistful and tender, memoir. In Part Three, Neufeld recounts the dilemma he finds himself in after two years of study at the Unification Theological Seminary. For the first time in his cult life, he no longer feels he must obey the leaders automatically. Instead, he believes the cult''s failure to achieve greater success is precisely because the cult leaders require members to repress their feelings. Neufeld resolves to be an empathetic listener and to encourage other members to express their real feelings; in short, he determines to justify his existence by love, and not by works. As he wrestles with his dilemma, he writes his thoughts down in a small diary which he keeps while in Boston. Upon his return to the Unification Theological Seminary in September, he is abruptly sent away by the Seminary leaders. Neufeld opts to go to Los Angeles to undergo Primal Therapy, a radical treatment he had investigated before he joined the Unification Church. While working with other cult members, he sets aside money for the treatment. However, during this waiting time, he is called to a gathering of members in New York, where Moon matches him up to a woman he had never met, who is now to become his eternal spouse. Yet Moon has not yet selected a date for the actual wedding ceremony, so in the interim, all the matched members must remain celibate. In Neufeld''s case, he must get to know his fiancée by correspondence only, since she lives in England and Scotland. Once back in Los Angeles, Neufeld returns to his plans to undergo Primal Therapy. As time goes on, he realizes that his fiancée is deeply troubled and is at risk of leaving the cult, so he drops his therapy in order to travel to see her. There, he quickly falls in love with her. Yet his situation is impossible: the cult will not permit him to live with his new love, and she must remain in England, while he must return to Los Angeles. One year later, Neufeld is again abruptly called to attend a cult mass wedding ceremony at Madison Square Garden in New York; yet, even after the wedding ceremony, he must continue to remain celibate and to wait at least three more years before he can live with his beloved. Gradually, as his financial position becomes more and more difficult, and as his fiancée again pleads with him to visit her, Neufeld concludes that he must abandon his Primal Therapy treatment. Later, in a desperate effort to raise money to visit his fiancée, he returns to his parents'' home in Canada, so he can work legally. During his time in Calgary, Neufeld remains loyal to Moon, but he finds himself in a city where no other Unification Church members live. But before he can afford the trip overseas to see his fiancée, she writes him to tell him it is over. Now, Neufeld must decide whether to remain in the cult, or to leave.

Why would an aspiring young writer of fiction and poetry such as author K. Gordon Neufeld join an extreme religion like the Unification Church of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon? How did Neufeld''s involvement in this group impact his creative writing, and how did writing impact his involvement? After leaving the group, how did Neufeld process his experiences through creative writing? Finally, what value can writing have for other survivors of extreme religions? These are the questions this book explores, while providing samples of Neufeld''s creative writing from 1973 to 2013. The four questions are explored in a series of four academic papers presented at conferences of the International Cultic Studies Association. The sample writings range from highly intense personal reflections to zany and irreverent spoofs, and include many sensitive, thoughtful short stories and poems. This collection will be of interest to academics wanting to understand the psychological roots and effects of cultic involvement, and also to general readers who just want to read a good story.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER This parenting classic on one of the most disturbing and misunderstood trends of our time—peers replacing parents in the lives of children—is now more relevant than ever. The latest edition includes new material on how social media and video game culture are affecting our children, and what parents can do. In Hold On to Your Kids, Dr. Neufeld and Dr. Maté explore the phenomenon of peer orientation: the troubling tendency of children and youth to look to their peers for direction—for a sense of right and wrong, for values, identity and codes of behaviour. But peer orientation undermines family cohesion, poisons the school atmosphere, and fosters an aggressively hostile and sexualized youth culture. It provides a powerful explanation for schoolyard bullying and youth violence; it is an escalating trend that has never been adequately described or contested until Hold On to Your Kids. Once understood, it becomes self-evident—as do the solutions.

Mass weddings. Matching ceremonies where people meet their future spouses for the first time. Desperate flower-sellers approaching bar customers late at night. Isolated farms where young men and women are rapidly transformed into fanatical devotees of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. All these are well-known aspects of life in the Unification Church, often called the "Moonies". In Heartbreak and Rage: Ten Years Under Sun Myung Moon, a Cult Survivor''s Memoir, K. Gordon Neufeld recalls his own participation in all of these events in a powerful and engrossing, and occasionally wistful and tender, memoir. Neufeld recounts his own rise in the ranks of the Unification Church to the position of a leader-in-training at the Unification Theological Seminary, a promotion that indirectly led to his growing disillusionment. Yet even when he found himself rejected by the woman Moon had chosen for his bride, and by the church to which he had been unswervingly dedicated, he refused to give up, but carried on until there was absolutely no way to continue. At last, demonstrating great courage, Neufeld broke free from his state of mental transfixion without the aid of deprogrammers. This is an unforgettable story of persistence, devotion, love and loss.