Love Has Gained is the title of the brand new age cult that’s the focus of this e book. It’s the story of Amy, her metamorphosis into Mom God (as she referred to as herself and made others name her), and her founding of this cult. The occasions on this e book are very current, as in throughout the previous decade. We additionally get to see the rampant unfold of this cult on-line and the detailing of how the disinformation disseminated so frighteningly rapidly and extensively was horrifying. The writer does a superb job of describing the place folks have been at once they found this info—their loneliness, their emotions of being outsiders, their fixed seek for which means, and their perception that there’s something larger. The Love Has Gained cult supplied responses and treatments for all of this.
One other factor the writer does with this e book that I deeply recognize is add over a century and a half of context. On the core of plenty of new age lies, together with those on which Love Has Gained was based mostly, is a debunked concept from an 1860s British zoologist. The writer begins there, and as you learn, you actually get a way of how issues rapidly spun uncontrolled. There may be additionally details about historic spiritualists and self-professed new age gurus and the way their legacy has reached ahead into the current, in addition to ones nonetheless dwelling at present.
Love Has Gained, the primary iteration with Amy dwelling as Mom God, was not long-lasting however there are nonetheless plenty of spin-off teams thriving at present which, once more, is actually unnerving. It isn’t a spoiler that Amy dies and it’s grotesque—not gorey violent, however very darkish. As a result of that is such a current factor and there was a three-part documentary on these occasions in 2023, the writer was capable of interview lots of people, together with a few of Amy’s precise household.
There are various content material warnings for this e book: alcoholism, little one abuse, verbal, emotional, psychological, and bodily abuse, antisemitism, and probably extra. This e book was loads to deal with, particularly as somebody who doesn’t often learn true crime, but I completely devoured it.
