Philip Jenkins looks at how the image of the cult evolved and why panics about such groups occur at certain times. He examines the deep roots of cult scares in American history, offering the first-ever history and analysis of cults and their critics from the 19th century to the present day. Contrary to popular belief, Jenkins shows, cults and anti-cult movements were not an invention of the 1960's, but in fact are traceable to the mid- 19th century, when Catholics, Mormons and Freemasons were equally denounced for violence, fraud and licentiousness. He finds that, although there are genuine instances of aberrant behaviour, a foundation of truth about fringe religious movements is all but obscured by a vast edifice of myth, distortion and hype.

The study of New Religious Movement (NRMs) is one of the fastest growing areas of religous studies. There are now several journals dedicated to the study of NRMs, as well as an academic association (CESNUR), in addition to a section of the American Academy of Religion devoted to NRMs. This handbook covers the current state of the field and breaks new ground. Its contributors are drawn equally from sociology and religious studies and include both established scholars and 'rising stars' in the field. The core chapters deal with such central issues as conversion, the brainwashing debate, millennialism, and modernisation. Another section deal with NRM subfields such as neopaganism, satanism, and UFO religions. The final section considers NRMs in a global perspective. This book will be indispensible resource for every scholar and student of this field.

This pertinent short history illustrates the leading issues separating the theist from the atheist and agnostic, and sheds light on world events and the inconsistencies inherent in supernaturalism and theistic theories. Thrower discusses atheism both as a reaction to belief and as a separate and consistent form of belief in a world stripped of the divine, where reason, science, and humankind's endless search for knowledge flourish.

The Golden Dawn is one of most prolific and legendary of all Western secret and esoteric societies. Hundreds of people, from the rich and famous to the common man, have walked through its halls of the neophyte. Very few stood as tall in the history of the occult sciences as Arthur Edward Waite, the creator of the Rider Waite Tarot Deck. He founded the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross in England in 1915. For the first time in more than 80 years, these secret ceremonies are revealed and made available to you. Included in this volume are the following deeply spiritual rites: 1) Invocation of the Rosicrucian current during the Equinoxes, 2) Celebration of the Solstices, 3) Ceremony of Consecrating the Rosicrucian Temple in the First and Second Orders, 4) Consecrating the Temple in the Highly Secret Third Order, 5) Ceremony for Enthroning the Keeper of the Sacred Mysteries, and 6) The Ceremony Of Consecration On The Threshold Of Sacred Mystery For The Watchers of the Holy House. Be part of a historical moment in the tradition of the Western Mysteries. If you are an aspirant of the Rosicrucian Mysteries or the Golden Dawn Tradition and looking for moving mystical ceremonies filled with high levels of esoteric wisdom, you will find them in this book.

Pagan and Native Faith movements have sprung up across Europe in recent decades, yet little has been published about them compared with their British and American counterparts. Though all such movements valorize human relationships with nature and embrace polytheistic cosmologies, practitioners' beliefs, practices, goals, and agendas are diverse. Often side by side are groups trying to reconstruct ancient religions motivated by ethnonationalism-especially in post-Soviet societies-and others attracted by imported traditions, such as Wicca, Druidry, Goddess Spirituality, and Core Shamanism. Drawing on ethnographic cases, contributors explore the interplay of neo-nationalistic and neo-colonialist impulses in contemporary Paganism, showing how these impulses play out, intersect, collide, and transform.

Examines how "Religious Nones" negotiate tensions with those who think they ought to provide their children with a religious upbringing The fastest growing religion in America is-none! One fifth of Americans now list their religion as "none," up from only 7 percent two decades ago. Among adults under 30, those poised to be the parents of the next generation, fully one third are religiously unaffiliated. Yet these "Nones," especially parents, still face prejudice in a culture where religion is widely seen as good for your kids. What do Nones believe, and how do they negotiate tensions with those convinced that they ought to provide their children with a religious upbringing? Drawing on survey data and in-depth personal interviews with religiously unaffiliated parents across the country, Christel Manning provides important demographic data on American "Nones" and offers critical nuance to our understanding of the term. She shows that context is crucial in understanding how those without religious ties define themselves and raise their families. Indeed, she demonstrates that Nones hold a wide variety of worldviews, ranging from deeply religious to highly secular, and transmit them in diverse ways. What ties them all together is a commitment to spiritual choice-a belief in the moral equivalence of religions and secular worldviews and in the individual's right to choose-and it is that choice they seek to pass on to their children. The volume weaves in stories from the author's interviews throughout, showing how non-religious parents grapple with pressure from their community and how they think about religious issues. Engagingly written and thoroughly researched, Losing Our Religion will appeal to scholars, parents, and anyone interested in understanding the changing American religious landscape.

Chosen for their powerful symbolism, the illustrations in this book range from the myths and legends of the ancient world to the icons used in modern culture and science. You will discover the fascinating origins and meanings of over 500 signs and symbols, from the secrets of the Maya calendar to demon-summoning seals and secretive symbols of the hermetic orders. Divided into seven thematic sections - astrology; the natural world; sacred writings; alchemy, numerology and sacred geometry; magic; demonology; and the western esoteric tradition - this decoding guide is the ultimate resource for unlocking the secret language of signs and symbols for the modern occultist.

Whether the recently settled religious minorities, Muslims, in particular, can be accommodated as religious groups in European countries has become a central political question and threatens to create long-term fault lines. In this collection of essays, Tariq Modood argues that to grasp the nature of the problem we have to see how Muslims have become a target of a cultural racism, Islamophobia. Yet, the problem is not just one of anti-racism but of an understanding of multicultural citizenship, of how minority identities, including those formed by race, ethnicity and religion, can be incorporated into national identities so all can have a sense of belonging together. This means that the tendency amongst some to exclude religious identities from public institutions and the re-making of national identities has to be challenged. Modood suggests that this can be done in a principled yet pragmatic way by drawing on Western Europe's moderate political secularism and eschewing forms of secularism that offer religious groups a second-class citizenship.

Written in the tradition of the vastly popular Prometheus title "Atheism: The Case Against God" and "The Atheist Debater's Handbook", this accessible and inviting primer of non-belief ponders eight of the most-asked questions about atheism. What is atheism? How can atheists have morals? How can atheists have purpose in their lives? Doesn't the Bible show that god exists? Do reports of miracles prove the existence of a god? Aren't there philosophical proofs demonstrating that god exists? Wouldn't a person have to know everything to say that god doesn't exist? What's wrong with believing on faith? These are the concerns that arise when believers and those who are simply curious question the purpose and meaning they suspect is lacking in the lives of non-believers. These questions also come up in philosophical and theological debates on the assumptions and merits of both belief and non-belief. Krueger contends that atheism is a powerful alternative to the religious outlook so prevalent today, yet it is also one of the most misunderstood because people harbour preconceived ideas about atheism. This concise introduction to atheism, from a scholar who has led thousands of students to the enlightenment of free-thought, has been designed with the general audience in mind.

Alchemy of the Word is a study of the literary, philosophical, and cultural ramifications of Cabala during the Renaissance. Important intellectual figures from 1490 to 1690 are considered, including Agrippa, Dee, Spenser, Shakespeare, Browne, and Milton; Cabalas more recent impact is also discussed. Cabala, a hermeneutic style of Biblical commentary of Jewish origin, is based on the notion that, along with an inscribed Decalogue, Moses received a secret, oral supplement that provides a symbolic, allegorical, and moral qualification of the literal law of religion.

Building on the work of Gershom Scholem, Joseph Blau, Harold Bloom, Francois Secret, Michel de Certeau, and Arthur Waite, Beitchman takes a fresh look at the "mystical" text through the lens of postmodernist theory. In a model developed from Deleuze-Guattari's "nomadology" to explore issues related to the Zohar, he shows that Cabala was a deconstruction of Renaissance authority. Like deconstruction, Cabala presents familiar material from novel and sometimes provocative perspectives. It allows space for modifiability, tolerance and humanity, by widening the margins between the letter of the law and the demands of an existence whose rules were so rapidly changing.

An exercise in the literary analysis of "sacred texts" and an examination of the mystical element in literary works, Alchemy of the Word is also an experiment in new historicism. It shows how the reincarnation theories of E M. Van Helmont, which impacted heavily on the seventeenth century English cabalistic circle of Henry More and Ann Conway, demonstrate at once the originality and boldness of Cabala, but also its desperation, constituting a theoretical parallel tothe continental "acting out" of the Sabbatian heresy.

Religion in Europe is currently undergoing changes that are reconfiguring physical and virtual spaces of practice and belief, and these changes need to be understood with regards to the proliferation of digital media discourses. This book explores religious change in Europe through a comparative approach that analyzes Atheist, Catholic, and Muslim blogs as spaces for articulating narratives about religion that symbolically challenge the power of religious institutions. The book adds theoretical complexity to the study of religion and digital media with the concept of hypermediated religious spaces. The theory of hypermediation helps to critically discuss the theory of secularization and to contextualize religious change as the result of multiple entangled phenomena. It considers religion as being connected with secular and post-secular spaces, and media as embedding material forms, institutions, and technologies. A spatial perspective contextualizes hypermediated religious spaces as existing at the interstice of alternative and mainstream, private and public, imaginary and real venues. By offering the innovative perspective of hypermediated religious spaces, this book will be of significant interest to scholars of religious studies, the sociology of religion, and digital media.

Reflexive Religion: The New Age in Brazil and Beyond examines the rise of alternative spiritualities in contemporary Brazil. Masterfully combining late modern theory with multi-site ethnographies of the New Age, it explains how traditional religion is being transformed by processes of reflexivity, globalization and individualism. The book unveils how the New Age has entered Brazil, was adapted to local Catholic, Spiritist and psychology cultures, and more recently how the Brazilian Nova Era re-enters transnational circuits of spiritual practice. It closely examines Paulo Coelho (spiritualist novels), Projectiology (astral projection) and Santo Daime (neo-shamanism) to understand the broader "new agerization" of Christianity and Spiritualism. Reflexive Religion offers a compelling account of how the religious field is being updated under late modern conditions.