Belief Behind the Book | Brittany Hart’s ‘Surviving Wonderland: A Journey Beyond Control’

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today’s Belief Behind the Book is Brittany Hart’s Surviving Wonderland: A Journey Beyond Control. There are books that inform, and there are books that liberate. Hart’s Surviving Wonderland is the latter. In a time when many are quietly untangling themselves from harmful religious systems, Hart offers something rare: language for the disorientation, poetry for the grief, and a compass for the way out.

Belief Behind the Book is a feature that gives readers a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the beliefs behind books written by progressive spiritual leaders. Inspired by the Ministry from the Margins Books program, Belief Behind the Book shines a spotlight on why authors write the books they write, offering up practical tips for readers to apply to their own belief systems.

What happens when the faith you trusted becomes the cage you can’t escape?

Brittany Hart knows. She spent six years inside a high-control religious group, a place where love looked like control, devotion meant erasure, and questioning was betrayal. Surviving Wonderland is her map out. Through haunting, visceral poetry, Hart traces the journey from manipulation to freedom, using the story of Alice in Wonderland as a guide through the disorientation of spiritual abuse.

Each poem illuminates: 

• The subtle ways control disguises itself as care
• The impossible standards that break you down
• The courage it takes to trust yourself again
• The slow, sacred work of reclaiming your voice 

This book is for anyone who is rebuilding after leaving a controlling religious environment, struggling with spiritual trauma or religious PTSD, deconstructing faith and feeling lost in the process, or needing permission to grieve what was taken from them. When I asked Hart why she wrote this book, she responded:

“I wrote Surviving Wonderland after coming to terms with the fact that I had been part of a religious cult and carried a lot of trauma from that experience. When I began journaling about this a few years ago, poetic lines and phrases began to flow from that place. I realized that the younger version of me that carries this trauma needed the container of poetry, rhythm and metaphor to make sense of a really amorphous experience. It proved to be incredibly helpful in my healing and my hope in sharing it in a book is that it could offer the same language and validation to others with similar backgrounds.”

Continuing, she offers a practical takeaway, claiming:

“I hope readers can take away from this book that they aren’t alone in their experience of spiritual trauma. I’m hoping they can find solace and resonance from these poems in a way that empowers them to reclaim their lives from high-control religion in the same way that writing them did for me.” 

At its heart, Surviving Wonderland reminds us that reclaiming your life is not an act of rebellion; it is a sacred return. Through poetry that names what was once unspeakable, Brittany Hart extends both solidarity and permission: you are not alone, your questions are holy, and your freedom is worth the journey.

If you or someone you love is navigating the long road beyond spiritual control, this book offers not just validation but a way forward.