title: Awakening of a Jehovah's Witness: Escape from the Watchtower Society
author:  Diane Wilson 
description: "The public needs to be warned," says ex-Jehovah's Witness Diane Wilson about the religion she once embraced. In Awakening of a Jehovah's Witness: Escape from the Watchtower Society, Wilson recounts her quarter-century in the movement, making the usual case that the Society is a cult, that it exercises unhealthy control over the minds and behavior of its members and that it grooms followers to become victims. Certainly, her story is sad, particularly the part about being encouraged to shun her own daughter for several months, but it is hardly a balanced or even very perceptive book. (One of the most interesting elements of the narrative is that Wilson seems to have transferred the near-divine authority that she once vested in her church to her therapist, whose words are sometimes reprinted here in boldface.) Sadly, few objective accounts exist about the Jehovah's Witnesses; little stands in the middle between polemic and apologetic. Readers are left with classic studies such as M. James Penton's Apocalypse Delayed, a rare book that seeks not just to discredit and refute the Watchtower, but to understand it.
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  The Great Apostate
  
  
  Life in the Cult of Jehovah’s Witnesses
  
  
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  by Neil Gardner
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Table of Contents
  
  
  
  
  
  [Title Page](part0001.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Acknowledgements](part0003.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Introduction](part0005.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Another Fine Mess You Got Us Into!](part0006.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [A Kid In “The Truth”](part0007.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Don’t Jerk It For Jehovah!](part0008.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [How To Lose Your Sister](part0009.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Armageddon is Coming and You’re all Gonna Get It!](part0010.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Post Apocalyptic Tree houses and The Secret Survivalist](part0011.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Schooldays As A True Believer](part0012.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Interludes Where I Am The Hero](part0013.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [The Life Of A Pioneer, Try Six Months](part0014.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [It Must Be Me](part0015.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [You’re Worldly, I’m Not](part0016.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Dating And Haste to Mate](part0017.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [How To Be A Bad Human](part001