Masoud Banisadr is an author and former member of the Iranian Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MeK). He was born in Tehran, in 1953, as the son of a prominent Iranian family. In 1978, while pursuing his postgraduate studies in Engineering-Mathematics in England, Banisadr joined MeK, a political organization that played a prominent role in overthrowing the Shah in 1979. Two years later, after a failed effort to overthrow Ayatollah Khomeini’s government, MeK turned into a clandestine terrorist cult. Banisadr was fortunate in 1996 to escape and tell his story in a 2004 book, "Memoirs of an Iranian Rebel." Since then, he has dedicated his life to an intensive scholarly study of the cult phenomenon, culminating in the publishing of his new book, "Destructive and Terrorists Cults: A New Kind of Slavery" (2014).