Gersande La Flèche rated Operation Mindfuck: 1 star

Operation Mindfuck by Robert Guffey
Mind control. Satanic rituals. Unspeakable sexual perversions. Supervillains eating children’s brains. A divine mandate to keep Donald Trump in the …
Why can't I read all these books!? 🍋🟩
🍵 Lots of nonfiction, literary fiction, poetry, classical literature, speculative fiction, magical realism, etc.
📖 Beaucoup de non-fiction et de fiction, de poésie, des classiques, du spéculatif, du réalisme magique, etc.
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Mind control. Satanic rituals. Unspeakable sexual perversions. Supervillains eating children’s brains. A divine mandate to keep Donald Trump in the …
Content warning CW: Scientology; High-Demand Religious Movements and Cults
Sincerely, I thought I knew L. Ron Hubbard was a bad guy. I did not know how much of a bad dude this man was.
Holy fucking smokes.
Content warning CW: Scientology; High-Demand Religious Movements and Cults
I don't know why I'm surprised to discover a connection between Alister Crowley and Ron Hubbards but yes, there is a religious/magical connection between Alister Crowley and Rob Hubbards through Pretty Gross Dude John W. Parsons, and Hubbards wanted to become the Beast and dominate the earth after Crowley's passing.
Unbearably interesting read, but I did it. Left with more questions than answers on the Lori Vallow Case, I think. But the historical religious and cultural deep dives into white American LDS/Christofascist culture that circled the Lori Vallow case was genuinely fascinating, in a highly disturbing way.
Update 2024-01-24: This online recording of a book club discussing Sottile's book is absolutely worth a visit to help contextualizing this book. It's a great book.
Content warning Content Warnings for Religious Abuse; High Control Groups; Child Murder; and Christofacism
The best part of this book isn't anything about the "True Crime" aspect (a chunk of Sottile's inspiration for writing this book was prompted by the horrific child murders by Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell) but the deep dive into high control groups at the fringes of rightwing, conservative Mormon culture which fuels righteous and murderous apocalyptism and horrific religious, sexual, and other kinds of exploitation, not to mention Christian white supremacy.
I think after the rise of the "alt-right" and Trump in 2016, there was a big emphasis on how new this "divided cultural and political moment" felt, but as Sotille untangles, there have been fringe and powerful groups agitating for Christian white patriarchal supremacy since the beginning of the United States.
Anyways, this book is sometimes disturbing, but as someone who grew up knowing almost nothing about Mormons until I met LDS missionaries in Zambia in 2008, this is a very, at times intensely, interesting read.
(Note to self, return to "Revelations.")