A sobering, occasionally amusing, and altogether compelling look at the impulses that have fueled the rising pitch of Armageddon, this startling book explores the arcane but significant phenomena of contemporary American cults--from survivalists and white supremacists to UFO cultists, satanists, and the most far-flung New Agers. 40 photos.

Cult Rapture: Revelations of the Apocalyptic Mind

Adam Parfrey

History

Feral House

[Read by Bronson Pinchot] The strange saga of the famous kitsch artists, the Keanes, now seen in the Tim Burton film Big Eyes Teary, big-eyed orphans and a multitude of trashy knockoffs epitomized American kitsch art as they clogged thrift stores for decades. When Adam Parfrey tracked down Walter Keane - the credited artist of the weepy waifs - for a San Diego Reader cover story in 1992, he discovered some shocking facts. Decades of lawsuits and countersuits revealed the reality that Keane was more of a con man than an artist, and that he forced his wife Margaret to sign his name to her own paintings. As a result, those weepy waifs may not have been as capricious an invention as they seemed. Parfrey's story was reprinted in Juxtapoz magazine and inspired a Margaret Keane exhibition at the Laguna Art Museum. Director Tim Burton made a movie about the Keanes called Big Eyes, which came out in 2014. Citizen Keane is a book-length expansion of Parfrey's original article, providing fascinating biographical and sociological details.

Citizen Keane: The Big Lies Behind the Big Eyes

Arts & Photography

Cletus Nelson

Individual Artists

Blackstone Audio,Inc.

In the early twentieth century, as many as one-third of America men belonged to a secret society. And though fezzes and tiny car parades are almost a thing of the past, the Gnostic beliefs of Masonic orders are now so much a part of the American mind that the surrounding pomp and circumstance has become faintly unnecessary. The new and expanded edition of Ritual America includes even more rare images and entertaining and enlightening commentary making this esoteric subject provocative, exciting, and approachable.

Ritual America -- Expanded Edition: Secret Brotherhoods and Their Influence on American Society

Craig Heimbichner

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Books by Adam Parfrey