The relationship between new religious movements (NRMs) and violence has long been a topic of intense public interest--an interest heavily fueled by multiple incidents of mass violence involving certain groups. Some of these incidents have made international headlines. When New Religious Movements make the news, it's usually because of some violent episode. Some of the most famous NRMs are known much more for the violent way they came to an end than for anything else. Violence and New Religious Movements offers a comprehensive examination of violence by-and against-new religious movements. The book begins with theoretical essays on the relationship between violence and NRMs and then moves on to examine particular groups. There are essays on the "Big Five"--the most well-known cases of violent incidents involving NRMs: Jonestown, Waco, Solar Temple, the Aum Shunrikyo subway attack, and the Heaven's Gate suicides. But the book also provides a richer survey by examining a host of lesser-known groups. This volume is the culmination of decades of research by scholars of New Religious Movements.

This personal yet scholarly journey into the confusing and clandestine world of ritual abuse survivors sheds light on their catastrophic experiences and their efforts to heal afterward. Revised, updated, and expanded, this third edition of a classic study is one of the most authoritative and evenhanded volumes to tackle its hotly debated subject matter. Incorporating the authors' firsthand observations, the book provides historical, anthropological, and psychological context for contemporary reports of both ritual abuse and ritual crime. In addition to sharing patient vignettes and a history of cult and ritual abuse in society, the authors explore fascinating topics related to these practices, among them what triggers personality shifts for victims even many years after the abuse has stopped. Importantly, the book shows how ritual abuse affects society as a whole, influencing civil and criminal law, politics, legislation, social movements, social welfare, and psychological theory. It provides unique insights into the scientific study, forensic investigation, and implementation of social services for survivors of cult and ritual abuse, discusses new research and treatment strategies, and establishes the foundation for a psychological diagnosis to be called Cult and Ritual Trauma Disorder. Features recalled histories of ritual abuse and vignettes of patients who have experienced dissociative identity disorder (formerly known as multiple personality disorder) Discusses techniques used to create and manipulate altered states of consciousness Explores how media sensationalizes and inaccurately depicts ritual abuse Critiques the argument that ritual abuse stories are the result of false memories and advances the idea that reports of ritual abuse are understated Expresses the position that clinicians have an ethical duty to achieve competence in recognizing and treating the psychological effects of ritual abuse Concludes that clinicians, lawmakers, law enforcement, social services personnel, journalists, and others need to treat allegations of ritual abuse seriously and evaluate each report on its own merits

Why do religions fail or die? Taking a multidisciplinary approach, this open access book explores this important question that has received little scholarly attention to date. International contributors provide case studies from the United States, England, Sweden, Japan, New Guinea, and France resulting in a work that explores processes of attenuation, disintegration, transmutation, death, and extinction across cultures. These include: instances where mass suicides or homicides resulted in religious dissolution; the fall of Mars Hills Church and its larger-than-life megachurch pastor, accused of plagiarism and bullying in 2012; the death of the last member of the Panacea Society in England in 2012; and the disintegration of Knutby Filadelfia, a religious community in Sweden with Pentecostal roots that ceased to exist in May 2018 after a pastor shot his wife. Combining case studies and theoretical contributions, The Demise of Religion: How Religions End, Die, or Dissipate fills a gap in literature to date and paves the way for future research The eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

In this novel academic study, Aled Thomas analyses modern issues surrounding boundaries and fluidity in contemporary Scientology. By using the Scientologist practice of 'auditing' as a case study, this book explores the ways in which new types of 'Scientologies' can emerge. The notion of Free Zone Scientology is characterised by its horizontal structure, in contrast to the vertical-hierarchy of the institutional Church of Scientology. With this in mind, Thomas explores the Free Zone as an example of a developing and fluid religion, directly addressing questions concerning authority, leadership and material objects. This book, by maintaining a double-focus on the top-down hierarchy of the Church of Scientology and the horizontal-fluid nature of the Free Zone, breaks away from previous research on new religions, with have tended to focus either on new religions as indices of broad social processes, such as secularization or globalization, or as exemplars of exotic processes, such as charismatic authority and brainwashing. Instead, Thomas adopts auditing as a method of providing an in-depth case study of a new religion in transition and transformation in the 21st century. This opens the study of contemporary and new religions to a series of new questions around hybrid religions (sacred and secular), and acts as a framework for the study of similar movements formed in recent decades.

In the light of the sarin attacks made by Aum Shinrikyo on Tokyo, this book describes the movement's history, examines the various conflicts it has been involved in, and discusses the content of Asahara's sermons and prophecies, all in an attempt to discover why the movement turned from meditation and asceticism to violence. Suggesting that the Aum case is not unique, the book shows how it displays similarities with other cases of violence and conflict amongst religious and political movements in Japan and elsewhere.

For most of its history, contemporary Paganism has been a religion of converts. Yet as it enters its fifth decade, it is incorporating growing numbers of second-generation Pagans for whom Paganism is a family tradition, not a religious worldview arrived at via a spiritual quest. In Pagan Family Values, S. Zohreh Kermani explores the ways in which North American Pagan families pass on their beliefs to their children, and how the effort to socialize children influences this new religious movement. The first ethnographic study of the everyday lives of contemporary Pagan families, this volume brings their experiences into conversation with contemporary issues in American religion. Through formal interviews with Pagan families, participant observation at various pagan events, and data collected via online surveys, Kermani traces the ways in which Pagan parents transmit their religious values to their children. Rather than seeking to pass along specific religious beliefs, Pagan parents tend to seek to instill values, such as religious tolerance and spiritual independence, that will remain with their children throughout their lives, regardless of these children's ultimate religious identifications. Pagan parents tend to construct an idealized, magical childhood for their children that mirrors their ideal childhoods. The socialization of children thus becomes a means by which adults construct and make meaningful their own identities as Pagans. Kermani's meticulous fieldwork and clear, engaging writing provide an illuminating look at parenting and religious expression in Pagan households and at how new religions pass on their beliefs to a new generation.

The Handbook of UFO Religions, edited by esteemed scholar of new religions Benjamin E. Zeller, offers the most expansive and detailed study of the persistent, popular, and global phenomenon of religious engagements with ideas about extraterrestrial life. The present work considers not only new religions founded on ideas about extraterrestrials and UFOs, but how those within more mainstream religions have responded to the science, scientific speculation, and popular culture involving extraterrestrials, UFOs, and related concepts. Global in reach, it includes chapters considering South and East Asia, Europe, and North and South America, and draws on several interdisciplinary methods. In addition, the handbook traces connections between UFO religiosity and cultural patterns such as science and scientism, esoterism and occultism, millennialism, and popular culture.

This multidisciplinary study of Scientology examines the organization and the controversies around it through the lens of popular culture, referencing movies, television, print, and the Internet-an unusual perspective that will engage a wide range of readers and researchers. For more than 60 years, Scientology has claimed alternative religious status with a significant number of followers, despite its portrayals in popular culture domains as being bizarre. What are the reasons for the vital connections between Scientology and popular culture that help to maintain or challenge it as an influential belief system? This book is the first academic treatment of Scientology that examines the movement in a popular-culture context from the perspective of several Western countries. It documents how the attention paid to Scientology by high-profile celebrities and its mention in movies, television, and print as well as on the Internet results in millions of people being aware of the organization-to the religious organization's benefit and detriment. The book leads with a background on Scientology and a discussion of science fiction concepts, pulps, and movies. The next section examines Scientology's ongoing relationship with the Hollywood elite, including the group's use of celebrities in its drug rehabilitation program, and explores movies and television shows that contain Scientology themes or comedic references. Readers will learn about how the Internet and the mainstream media of the United States as well as of Australia, Germany, and the UK have regarded Scientology. The final section investigates the music and art of Scientology. Discusses Scientology within the framework of popular culture, which is how most people outside the religion come in contact with it Approaches the study of Scientology from multiple viewpoints, enabling readers to have an informed, multicultural perspective on the religious group's beliefs and practices from which to form their own opinion Presents information about Scientology derived from one of the largest university archive collections on the subject worldwide, with a number of documents never before having been referenced in scholarship

There are over 600 New Religious Movements (NRMs) in Great Britain alone, and more than 2000 in the United States. A Reader in New Religious Movements aims to provide an introduction to the main teachings of a selection of these organizations, focusing on those which are well-established in the West. The contemporary - and in some cases controversial -- NRMs covered include The Unification Church, The International Society for Krishna Consciousness, The Family, Osho, Soka Gakkai International and the Western Buddhist Order.