Description

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A fundamentalist and abusive cult hidden in plain sight. Amazon Prime's docu-series, Shiny Happy People, tells the student's stories of abuse, control and brainwashing that took place in The ATI cult. This is a mother's story of what she lived and the rules she lived by until, thankfully she found herself out of the cult but unable to live in the world like a 'normal' person. Have you known someone who was in a cult? Do you think you know your neighbors pretty well? You really don't know what's going on behind the smile, the dress and the doors of the house down the street. This is the story of a Canadian woman who was in the Advanced Training Institute, run by Bill Gothard, for fourteen years. The amazing thing is that she never knew she was in a cult until several years after she was out. That's what happened to Christine in 2014. She spent the next nine years trying to deprogram and change the way she saw the world. The Advanced Training Institute had all the hallmarks of a cult, it even fit Bill Gothard's definition of a cult, but Christine and her family believed they were God's cream of the crop. Join her as she navigates the cult, goes through a divorce, finds out she was in a cult and subsequently has to unlearn all she believed to be true. Interestingly, this is the same cult the Duggar family of 19 Kids and counting is a part of.
Written with humor and candor, her story is both heart wrenching and humorous at the same time.
Book club discussion questions are included at the end of the book.