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Kings appointed by gods: how legitimacy was manufactured
A 2.25 m stele shows Hammurabi before the god of justice, but its 282 laws contain almost no religion. How rulers borrowed the gods' authority, from Babylon to James I, what it could and could not do, and how to notice it today.
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State religion as a tool: 1,600 years of altar and throne
Soviet open churches fell from 28,560 to 1,744 in a decade, then Stalin needed a patriarch. Documented cases from Rome to Moscow, Bucharest, Washington, Tehran, Riyadh and Beijing of states using religion, and why forced belief rarely works.
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When prophecy fails: what really happened to the Seekers
In 1954 a group waited for a flying saucer that never came. The 1956 classic says they doubled down; a 2025 archival study argues the leader recanted. What people really do when a prophecy fails, from the Millerites to economists.
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High-control groups: how cults recruit and hold people
918 people died at Jonestown, yet only about 4% of Unification Church workshop attendees were full-time members two years on. How high-control groups recruit and hold people, the checklists, the scholarly critics, and the warning signs.