MATING IN CAPTIVITY:
a cult memoir
for smart people
I WANT TO READ THAT!
Get excerpts from MATING IN CAPTIVITY—and more!
About the Author
Helen Zuman is a tree-hugging dirt worshipper devoted to turning waste into food and the stinky guck of experience into fertile, fragrant prose. She holds a BA in Visual and Environmental Studies from Harvard and a Half-FA in memoir from Hunter College. Raised in Brooklyn, she lives with her husband in Beacon, NY and Black Mountain, NC.
Mating in Captivity: A Memoir
A Harvard grad seeks a mate in a cult that forbids monogamy. To pursue love on her own terms, she must brave exile and learn self-trust. When recent Harvard grad Helen Zuman moved to Zendik Farm in 1999, she was thrilled to discover that the Zendiks used go-betweens to arrange sexual assignations, or “dates,” in […]
If I’d Had a Life Coach, Would I Have Joined a Cult?
by helenzuman in Coaching, Cults, Zendik
I am an ex-cultist; I am a life coach. As a life coach, I use a tool called the Model (developed by Life Coach School founder Brooke Castillo). It’s based on these premises: that circumstances—facts—are neutral, i.e., don’t mean anything until we have a thought about them. That our thoughts create our feelings, which drive […]
Mourning a Murderer
by helenzuman in General
I wrote this piece months ago, and recorded it for my podcast; I am posting it now from the Isle of Skye. On Monday, December 27, 2021, my friend Lyndon McLeod shot and killed five people, wounded two more, and was shot to death himself, in Denver, Colorado. I first got wind of the shootings […]
Hitching with Mavis
by helenzuman in Cults, General, Memoir, Zendik
This is an excerpt from Mating in Captivity, my memoir of five years in a cult called Zendik Farm. In this scene, I’m on an “out,” which I’m hoping will fix what I see as my lack of commitment to Zendik. The first thing I noticed about the woman who pulled over for me, about […]