New Age Grifter
The True Story of Gabriel of Urantia and His Cosmic Family
$22.95
Purchase a copy of New Age Grifter directly from Feral House and receive a bookplate signed by author Joseph L. Flatley.
Feral House is no stranger to angry emails from disgruntled readers who can’t bear to see their beliefs challenged and sacred cows slaughtered. Yet, the situation we encountered with New Age Grifter: The True Story of Gabriel of Urantia and His Cosmic Family was a bit different…
Publishing a book about an active cult is challenging. We are diligent in our fact-checking, and writer Joseph L. Flatley is a resourceful and consummate researcher. Yet, in modern America, money is the law of the land. If you have enough money, there are lawyers who will happily take a large portion of it and write as many threatening letters not just to you but to everyone involved in making a book. And, of course, our lawyer must waste time (and our money) responding to every scurrilous claim made by the cult. It’s annoying at best and costly at worst.
That’s what wealthy people do. They use their money as a weapon to keep their status quo intact.
We refuse to succumb to the bullying tactics from this group or anyone for that matter. They don’t want you to read New Age Grifter: The True Story of Gabriel of Urantia and His Cosmic Family. They don’t want you to know the details of their multiple non-profit businesses operated by the unpaid members of the group. They don’t want you to know about the early history of their leader. And they don’t want you to know how their coercive and fringe practices have damaged people lucky enough to leave the group.
The people harmed were the impetus for Flatley to tell their story. He says:
“I met my first member of the Global Community Communications Alliance in 2016. He was convinced that he had quite a story on his hands, the story of Gabriel of Urantia and his bizarre cult, and he wanted to put it in my hands. I wasn’t so sure. I mean, I had heard about all the famous cult villains: Charles Manson, Jim Jones, the Heaven’s Gate crowd, to name a few — and say what you will about Gabriel, but he’s no Jim Jones. But this former cult member kept at me, and eventually, I did investigate the community in the desert. What I discovered was a case study in human nature and how it can be twisted to benefit a few people at the expense of many others. There’s palace intrigue, mind control, sex, something resembling rock’n’roll, farm animals, and possibly even UFOs. The story has it all, and I’m glad I was sucked into it.”
We think you’ll be sucked in as well.
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“Joseph L. Flatley goes where few journalists dare to tread: into the heart of America’s conspiracy culture. Sociopaths, quack psychologists, targeted individuals, flat-earthers, anti-Semites, one world government freaks; no moldy rock is left unturned.” Yasha Levine, author of Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet
Gabriel of Urantia is the leader of a UFO religion based in the desert of southern Arizona. He has spent the last three decades weaving together his belief system–a tapestry of Eastern spirituality, Born Again Christianity, and New Age platitudes. In a compound in the desert near the Mexican border, his 100-plus disciples tend the garden, take classes, and serve their guru while they wait for the end of the world.
Gabriel is a guru with an eye towards the recording charts with his TaliasVan and the Bright and Morning Gabriel’s spiritual teachings with a vocal style that would fit alongside the country’s most bizarre outsider Star Band is a 12-piece hippie jam band that combines artists.
How does this cult make its money? How does it control its followers? What is its connection to a powerful and controversial hedge fund billionaire? Utilizing legal documents, press accounts, academic research, and untold hours of exclusive interviews, journalist and author, Joseph L. Flatley helps readers understand life in this experimental community and the damage done to his biological and cosmic family members. New Age Grifter explores this group’s activities in the wider context among American New Religious Movements and utopian communities.
Author Bio: Joseph L. Flatley is an author and investigative journalist living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania whose “beat” is conspiracy theories and fringe subcultures. In his books and articles, he has chronicled internet con artists, doomsday preppers, Satanic Panic pseudo-therapists, and Julian Assange, to name a few. His stories have appeared in The Verge, The Outline, Postindustrial, and CounterPunch.
