Volume 2, 2021

IJCAM

Go Back

Book review of Scarred: The true story of how I escaped NXIVM the cult that bound my life

United States
  • Staying safe: Observing warning signs of a dangerous liaison. Boyle-Laisure, R., & Laisure, A. (2017). ICSA Today.
  • Employing trafficking laws to capture elusive leaders of destructive cults. Boyle-Laisure, R. (2016). Oregon Review of International Law, 18, 147–178.
  • Current status of federal law concerning violent crimes against women and children: Implications for cult victims. Boyle-Laisure, R. (2002). Cultic Studies Review, 1(3), 281–302.
  • How children in cults may use emancipation laws to free themselves. Boyle-Laisure, R. (1999). Cultic Studies Journal, 16(1), 45–63.
  • Women, the law, and cults: Three avenues of legal recourse—New rape laws, Violence Against Women Act, and anti-stalking laws. Boyle-Laisure, R. (1998). Cultic Studies Journal, 15(2), 133–150.
Published Date
November 10, 2021
Issue
DOI
https://doi.org/10.54208/0002/007

Abstract

Reviewer: Robin Boyle-Laisure

San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Prism. 2019. ISBN-10: 1452184267; ISBN-13: 978-1452184265 (hardcover). 243 pages. $5.10 (Amazon.com).

This book review examines Scarred, Sarah Edmondson’s firsthand account of NXIVM, analysing coercive control, recruitment tactics, psychological manipulation, and the long-term personal consequences of life inside a high-control group.

PDF of article
PDF of Issue

More articles

Ten seconds to implosion: The Magna Carta Lawful Rebellion

Volume 6, 2023

Donald J. Netolitzky
This article examines the Magna Carta Lawful Rebellion as a pseudolegal cult, analysing conspiratorial beliefs, oath-based authority, and how historical myths are used to undermine trust in modern law.

“You’re going to go into some really dark, dark places in your mind.” Loss and disillusionment of being shunned from the Jehovah’s witnesses community and its impact

Volume 4, 2022

Windy A. Grendele, PhD
This article examines the psychological impact of shunning among former Jehovah’s Witnesses, highlighting profound loss, identity disruption, and the complex process of rebuilding meaning after social and familial exclusion.

Late twentieth-century psychoanalytic interpretations of sects and cults: Weston La Bare, Norman Cohn, & E. P. Thompson

Volume 1, 2020

Stephen A. Kent, PhD
This article revisits the role of classical psychoanalysis in early studies of sectarian and cultic groups. Highlighting works by La Barre, Cohn, and Thompson, it argues that despite its limitations, Freudian theory offered valuable interpretive

The narcissistic messiah: Personality disorder, Sun Myung Moon, and its legacy in the Unification hurch

Volume 8, 2025

Stephen A. Kent, PhD
This article explores how cults shape behavior through gradual persuasion, not sudden brainwashing—revealing the psychology behind belief, conformity, and control.