I grew up in Boston, graduated Magna cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Tufts University, then moved to Ann Arbor, where I received my Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Michigan. After that, I settled in San Antonio, where I taught Sociology at the University of Texas. I am the author of eight books: Violence and Religious Commitment (Penn State Press), about the suicide and murder of over 900 members of the People’s Temple Church in the Jonestown massacre; Proving God Exists:Physics, Cosmology, and the Universal Mind, about scientific proof for God’s existence; The Moral Symmetry of Good and Evil, about the scientific derivation of morality; Knowing: Consciousness and the Universal Mind, a composite theory solving the “hard problem” of consciousness; Mind of God, to answer the question, "Does the Universe think"; Scandal in the American Orchid Society: Treachery and Betrayal at Alamo Town, about office politics in the orchid world; American Hitler: Trump and His Cult of Followers, about Trump's diehard loyalists; Proving God Exists Part II: I AM, about Cosmic consciousness. I have also published several articles on violence, crime, and delinquency, including "Becoming a Hit Man" (Sage Publications), cited in over 150 books and articles.