This article explores the role of evolved pattern recognition in the development and divergence of mental frameworks underlying creative and metaphysical thought in Hominid species. It examines the emergence of figurative artistic expression through the lenses of Darwinian evolutionary theory and Gaboran honing theory, testing the limits and overlap of these methodologies when applied to humanity’s archaic relatives. This is contrasted with complex philosophical and artistic traditions of a relatively recent human society, Early Modern Persia. There is something of a taboo around the application of evolutionary psychology in some sociological circles due to its frequent misuse in pop science to dismiss societal change: an appeal to antiquity rebranded as biological determinism. This article will expand the use of evolutionary psychological methodologies in moderation as an additional tool in the study of archaic humanity and its relatives. It finds there is an evolutionary substratum to the development of creative thought, but that its recognisable features for a modern human were unlikely to have initially been selected traits themselves: this evolutionary substratum is a basis of sensory and conceptual pattern recognition traits, generating a mental atmosphere conducive to the development of collective strata of conceptual association, and is traceable to prehistory.

When P. D. Ouspensky (1878–1947) is noted today, it is generally as a quondam pupil of G. I. Gurdjieff (c.1866–1949), and the author of In Search of the Miraculous, an account of his time with Gurdjieff. Ouspensky had a considerable reputation in Russian esoteric circles before he had met Gurdjieff, and it is sometimes asserted that Ouspensky’s standing as an independent thinker has been underestimated. The English translation of his book Tertium Organum has been cited as evidence that Ouspensky had already anticipated some of Gurdjieff’s leading ideas. However, a comparison of the 1911 Russian-language edition with the 1920 English translation of the 1916 Russian revision of Tertium Organum establishes that the 1911 original lacked key ideas found in later editions, most of which are distinctively Gurdjieff’s. This shows the extent of Ouspensky’s debt to Gurdjieff, and casts a different light on the relationship between Gurdjieff and Ouspensky; namely, that there was more collaboration than previously known, and that Ouspensky’s account of his agreement with Gurdjieff about committing Gurdjieff’s ideas to writing, was tendentious, if not misleading.

This study explores the new strands of an emerging theodicy among Uyghurs living in diaspora. This study is based on material collected from recorded discussions generated during online introductory classes on the Qur’an, and from interviews with Uyghur Imams residing in Canada and Turkey. The ongoing persecution of Muslims in the Uyghur Homeland by the Chinese government (recently recognized as a “genocide” by the governments of eight countries) has led many Uyghurs to attempt to explain these atrocities through an Islamic religious lens. Similar strategies have been noted in the Jewish theodicy that emerged in the wake of the Holocaust—where the suffering of victims of genocide were interpreted as either a divine test or punishment. Using to these new examples of theodical thinking found among Uyghurs living in the diaspora, we have crafted a typology of four different approaches to the problem of evil and suffering. These include the gnostic argument, the mythic argument, the apocalyptic argument, and the mystery argument. Special attention will be given to the mystery argument because it appears to be an incipient pastoral theodicy that poses a challenge to the test-or-punishment paradigm by valorizing political activism and emphasizes the intergenerational transmission of Uyghur identity. Affinities between Uyghur theodicy and certain Jewish Holocaust theodicies are explored, with a focus on covenantal paradigmatic thinking, the political quietism of Hasidic Hungarian borderland Grand Rabbis in the early 1940s, and the dynamic “broken theodicy” of Rabbi Kalonimus Kalman Shapiro.

This article is a personal reflection on Swami Shankarananda’s se­cretive sexual behaviour with female devotees within his Mount Eliza Ashram, and the Guru-disciple relationship. Shankarananda developed his own Shiva Yoga in Melbourne after being a senior disciple in Muktananda’s Siddha Yoga. As his Ashram grew, so did his notoriety, and eventually he was accused by some of the female devotees of sexual abuse; a situation reminiscent of his own guru. Shankarananda admitted the harm he had caused; however, he rationalised it with his notion of secret Tantra initiation within Kashmir Shaivism. At the time, in 2015, Mount Eliza was a successful meditation centre and residential retreat. When the news broke, the Ashram was reported to have lost two thirds of its followers and was described in the media as a ‘Guru sex scandal.’ Today the Ashram is flourishing as Shankarananda seems to have moved on, continually attracting new followers; however, allegations persist.

Historically women’s achievements have been obscured, sexually, socially, culturally, and spiritually. However, with the rise of global and social media, women have been empowered, having a greater impact on society; women are more receptive to discussions related to ethical and social issues - such as racial, national, and sexual discrimination, elimination of violence, religious control, free movement, modern slavery, psychological submission, and poverty/ economic marginalization – and are at the forefront of international movements, such as #MeToo and #SheDecides, which promote freedom of speech, thought and belief, and how to speak out publicly. Issues related to ethnic, religious, and sexual persecution and violence are part of women’s history. A critical thinking approach to the struggle of women in modern society is essential; it is important to understand female leaders as part of a multi-ethnic, multi-faith, and multi-gendered society. Women in postcolonial movements construct their self-identity in real, concrete, and existential sociocultural contexts. This article discusses violence against women, women contributing to a diverse global society, and women’s ideas of beauty and sexuality. I employ the lens of autocoscienza (self-awareness) with a view to embracing diversity and vindicating contribution of women in religious and secular contexts, and its value for the future.

This article surveys intersections between art, religion, and society in three periods of the history of Aotearoa New Zealand: 1) Polynesian settlement, 2) British colonization and 3) a contemporary multicultural society built on a bicultural base. Using a material culture framework which traces changes in the uses and significance of artistic objects as they pass through the hands of members of various religious and secular communities, it illustrates, through a variety of examples from the fields of popular art, fine arts and architecture, that art has, and can, play a large part in negotiations between religious traditions, particularly when they encounter one another in conflict, reconciliation and hybridization.

Contemporary new religious movements—originating from early in the 1960s—gained substantial following in the past half century. Rooted in an era characterised by accelerated social and technological advancements, as well as major historical events, these movements incorporated meanings and qualities anchored in Cold War internal and external tensions. Effects of globalization and rapid urbanization, alongside novel—and in large part still unsolved—challenges posed by individual and collective alienation and the decline of conventional micro, meso, and macrosocial structures affirmed a gradual depletion of inherited collective identity, which was even more apparent in highly urbanized settings. Early societal reactions towards these new constellations—emerging from said turbulent and transitory times—varied greatly by regional and cultural contexts. While in the United States, an initial, generally inclusive, and pluralistic attitude was detectable—overshadowed by a short lived, yet intense cult and moral panics period—in the ‘future post-Soviet’ countries of Central and Eastern Europe the opportunities to deal with the challenges and congested social arrears by history were not available until the early 1990s. After the demise of the Soviet Union, simultaneously with the immediate and pressing challenges of regaining—and retaining—national identity, the opening towards an often-idealized Western world and the appearance of new religious movements brought about even more complex issues. This article provides a brief interpretation of the contexts of new religious emergence, and their receptions in United States around from 1960s. Through outlining region-specific traits of Central and Eastern Europe after 1989, the authors contribute to a parallel understanding of new religious attitudes and of the inherent differences between the two regions.

This article explores the historical and contemporary entanglements of race, religion and media as it plays out through a four-part documentary series about deviant, dangerous and criminal Christian group Electus Per Deus, who were responsible for a spate of murders known collectively as the Krugersdorp Killings. Headed by a self-proclaimed powerful ex-Satanist witch, who was actively involved in on-going spiritual warfare, the group’s primary religious activity was to help educate about and assist with escape from the ‘Occult’ in general and Satanism in particular. A curious element of Electus Per Deus’ modus operandi was that the group’s members often masqueraded as Satanists, in order to advance their cause and secure the legitimacy of their claims. The community in which they were positioned vehemently rejected the Christian status of the group despite members claims to the contrary. This article argues that within the historical and contemporary political economies of race, religion and media, White Afrikaans Christian communities, such as those featured in Devilsdorp were inordinately favoured through the policies and practices of the apartheid regime and more recently the Afrikaner capture of commercial media. This re­ligious and racial privilege is reproduced by the series and serves as a reminder of the importance of intersectional, contextually informed approaches to the study of religious diversity, deviance, and danger.

Due to the inauguration of the Next Quest of the Historical Jesus and renewed interest in historical materialist approaches to early Christianity (such as the forthcoming volume from Myles and Crossley), the present paper seeks to elucidate the history of one of the most contentious debates in early Christian studies among Marxists: that of the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth. The article goes through the early debates and discussions on the subject and seeks to correct a number of misunderstandings about the history of this debate and also evaluate some of the present contributions on the matter, to see where Marxist historians generally stand. It starts with the earliest discussions of Jesus’ historicity among figures such as Albert Kalthoff and Karl Kautsky, then discuss­ing where Marxist mythicists gained majority positions in the Soviet Union and People’s Republic of China, until reaching the present day and briefly discussing the contemporary interlocutors in this debate.

Appearing on the food landscape in the 2010s, “Buddha bowls” are a meal consisting of healthy food elements artfully arranged. This name carries with it a notable spiritual significance, allowing buyers to feel as though they are consuming something more elevated than an average meal. The kind of Buddhism that is consumed here is related to exotic choices and health secrets from the Orient. Discourse around Buddha bowls shows a limited grasp of the religion’s actual history or practices, including frequent confusion between Gautama Buddha and the Chan figure Budai. What is more important in the spiritual dimension of this meal is the sense of elevation and the power of the ascetic choice in an obesogenic consumer environment. Buddha bowls also feed into a “healthist” society where neoliberal self-governance places responsibility for health on the individual and their own choices. By making a healthy choice, a person can feel safe and protect against harm and pollution to the body. In this way, Buddha bowls also perform a common religious role by warding off danger like a talisman. While they offer little towards an exploration of Buddhist history and global praxis, the Buddha bowl has much to reveal about neoliberal spiritual landscapes.

In the study of the Hebrew Bible and ancient Israel, a consistent area of debate between mainstream and conservative scholars is whether or not the ancient Israelites were monotheists who worshiped El Elyon as their highest god, and whether or not the Hebrew Bible retains any of this. One particular passage of interest has been Deuteronomy 32: 8–9, which most academics interpret as El Elyon distributing the nation to his children, one of whom is Yahweh. This essay seeks to address the rebuttals of conservative scholars who have sought to deny this, by arguing that ancient Israel’s conception of Yahweh was and that he was not a son of El in Deut. 32. This essay rejects these conclusions, principally arguing against the work of Michael S. Heiser, bringing attention to some neglected data which conservative academics (and mainstream ones) have often overlooked in trying to elucidate this passage and demonstrating that the consensus reading of the passage makes the most sense of the text.

The French author Robert Charroux (1909–1978) contributed to the popular discourse about alien visits to earth in the remote past, that he advanced in voluminous books replete with narratives of anomalous “facts.” According to Charroux, humanity is divided in “races” whose existence is explained in reference to greater or lesser “genetic” similarity to the “ancient aliens,” as well as to radiation that genetically modified humans on the occasions of major catastrophes (natural as well as human-induced). Additionally, he was convinced that a factor in humanity’s decadence was its attachment to technology, that he regarded as detrimental in various ways; science, in his opinion, was overrated, a case in point being the theory of evolution. Extending the analysis of Charroux’s work offered by scholars like Wiktor Stoczkowski and Damien Karbovnik, I scrutinize Charroux’s books, reconstructing his ambiguous attitude towards science, his criticism of evolution, his racist theories, and his xenophobic worldview.

Authenticity has become one of the key ethics in contemporary society and culture. This research analyses the present ideals of authenticity in work-life, building on theories on post-secularization and new spiritualities, neoliberalism, and the concept of ideal worker deriving from organizational studies. Corporate mindfulness is looked at as a topical example of authenticity practices in current work-life. The research utilizes interview data was produced in a knowledge work organization that had launched its own mindfulness program and become part of the wider workplace spirituality movement. The research question focused on what kind of discourses on authenticity are born when the organization simultaneously discourages full expressions of one’s personality as not being professional or adequate in work-life context, and roots for mindfulness, which hails for recognizing reality as it is, accepting oneself and finding authentic self. Using discourse analysis, four themes were found in data, each revealing a different discourse on authenticity.

The article presents new research about spiritual experiences during COVID-19. It starts with a wider discussion about the relationship between spirituality and wellbeing, based on research carried out in Brazil and the United Kingdom before the pandemic. The research showed a strict division between personal faith and medical treatment, reflecting a professional distance when treating patients that results in patients’ unwillingness to speak about their experience to anyone in the medical profession, even when these experiences impact their mental health. The article then explores findings of a new research project about spiritual experience during COVID-19 and reflects on three themes that emerged from the data: 1) changes in patients’ relationships with their religious communities, 2) seeing spiritual figures and near death experiences, and 3) interpretations of COVID-19 as a spiritual contagion. These themes contribute to a nuanced understanding of how spiritual experiences that arise in moments of crisis are interpreted by the people who have them, potentially contributing to resiliance and coping. The last section discusses the reluctance to speak about non-ordinary experiences and reflects on the importance of integrating non-ordinary experiences for mental health.

The global consumption of yoga appears to have reached the saturation point in many market segments. In Japan, it is possible that with the seemingly endless array of X+Yoga hybrids that the consumption of Yoga is waning. While it is difficult to assess this with accuracy, it is increasingly difficult to delineate what yoga is. Therefore, how might one attend to answering a question related to yoga and sacred space in Japan? This paper explores the promotion of some relatively local hybrids such as temple yoga, face yoga, ninja yoga, nature yoga, and serotonin yoga.

Discourse emphasizing “natural childbirth,” emerging at first in the 1980s in Britain, was welcomed to Japan, too, attracting high attention. The discourse in Japan has changed with the times and has gradually lost momentum, but is recently paid attention to again, which is shown by the fact that childbirth assisted by midwife has become more preferable than before. This kind of discussion tends to keep a distance from feminism although it gives holiness to childbirth, differently from trends overseas in which the discourse has a high affinity to feminism as well as spirituality.

The traditional Japanese shaman called itako is a kind of kuchiyose-mikos performing kuchiyose ritual to summon a spirit of the deceased and communicate with them. As a result of the decline in the number of once the common kuchiyose-mikos, the itako, who remains in Aomori, north Iwate and north Akita prefectures, happened to attract the attention of mass media. Itako began to appear in Japanese mass media in the 1950s, and by the 1960s they were already well known throughout Japan. This article will examine how mass media has changed the local folk culture, focusing on the kuchiyose practice on the sacred place Osorezan. Osorezan, located in Shimokita Peninsula, Aomori, is not only the sacred place for Buddhism but also for the folk beliefs that the spirits of the dead are gathered; therefore, various kinds of religious activities, including the kuchiyose, have taken place here. With the movement of rediscovering Japan and the boom of interesting in unexplored places in the 1950s, the mass media repeatedly picked up kuchiyose on Osorezan, and created a strong image of itako that has an inextricable connection with Osorezan. Although their relationship was actually transient, many people sharing the fictional image created by mass media visited here from around the country to observe or experience kuchiyose since the 1950s. The increase in the number of visitors from outside the region due to the new image altered the religious environment on the sacred place, and caused three changes in the kuchiyose practice, at the same time. Those three changes seem to function to avert a risk of miscommunication between itako and new clients under the phenomenon of delocalization. They can be evaluated as efforts to maintain the religious function to communicate with the dead even under new circumstances.

This study illustrates how local shamans in the Tsugaru area in Japan adapt to contemporary society by focusing on their practices and self-identity formation process. There are two types of shamans in this area: itako and kamisama. The number of itako is decreasing drastically and kamisama are taking over the role. In this context, it is important to examine how and to what extent local contexts affect kamisama’s practices and their identity. Conversely, it is also important to understand the extent to which they are affected by phenomena outside of the local community, such as mass media and tourism. By examining two kamisama’s lives as cases, this study reveals that a shaman’s self-identity is neither just a result of a divine calling, nor a reflection of local shamanic traditions, but a dynamic, ever-changing reaction to the social surroundings.

The study aims to explore the relationship between Rastafari and the anti-nuclear movement in Japan, following the accident at Tokyo Electrical Power Company’s (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, an incident, which was a result of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. This event revitalised the anti-nuclear movement in Japan, which included Japanese Rastas among its participants. This study focuses specifically on the case of reggae singer Sing J Roy, who participated in the anti-nuclear movement and produced a song on the theme of community development in the Wakasa region of Fukui Prefecture in 2013. In this case, it becomes clear that the intentions of the anti-nuclear movement backed by Rastafarai’s ideology are mixed with attempts to revitalise the region led by the local government and local residents in an inconspicuous way.

This article examines the importation of Paganism, mainly Witchcraft, from the West in Japan. Japanese witches do not resist the traditional religion; combined with their lack of Christian influence on their context, there is no image of evil connotation with witches in Japan. However, people who practice witchcraft are facing depictions of the “witch” in anime and children’s literature. If we regard Japan as a contact zone where Western witchcraft and Japanese tradition meet, various images of witches are produced there without the Christian context, and a localised witchcraft faith has been produced.

The article investigates the relationship between religion and technology, referring to relevant topics in the concept of “human beings,” such as body and spirit. It particularly taking into consideration the transhumanist and posthumanist tenets, which are often regarded as conflicting with a spiritual/religious thought. The Dragon Ball franchise as a case of study provides insight into how elements of spirituality and technology can be well structured in a very popular medial product with a unique reference universe of significances using an history of ideas and historical-religious framework.

The Order of Saint Charbel, and its founding prophet William Kamm (b. 1950), also known as “The Little Pebble,” has been a marginal presence on the fringes of the Roman Catholic Church in Australia since the 1980s. While a series of bishops from the Diocese of Wollongong (and other dioceses) have issued official statements taking issue with the beliefs and practices of the group and publicly distancing the group from normative Catholicism, little systematic analysis of its beliefs has been undertaken which situate these within a wider historical Roman Catholic context. This article offers a preliminary analysis of some key themes occurring in the “private revelations” which form a key aspect of the Order of Saint Charbel’s religious repertoire and their relationship with the broader theological positions of Catholic traditionalists. This article suggests that the Order of Saint Charbel, while sharing some concerns with traditionalist and other groups across the spectrum of conservative reactions to Vatican II, is best classified as a “devotionally traditionalist” lay movement exhibiting a kind of popular theology that can only be properly understood when viewed against the wider backdrop of traditional vernacular Catholic devotional practices, many of which have either declined or become marginalized since Vatican II.

The experience of colonialization and Christianization among the Maori of Aotearoa (New Zealand), the Polynesians’ furthest settlement in the Southern Hemisphere, resulted in significant population decline of the Maori, land alienation, the rise of nativist revitalization movements, and British laws regarding land tenure that conformed to a Domesday Book tradition of conquest and social stratification. Nativist religious movements attempted to regain the land, reverse Maori population decline, and avoid the pathological consequences of aporia, a Greek word that signifies “without a bridge.” Three successive “Holy Spirit” movements arose to heal the breach between the old world of the Polynesians and the new world of British colonization and Christianization. Adherents assumed an identity as Israelites—the children of Shem—and challenged the Christian dominance of the Pakeha (European New Zealanders). From this culture clash came the Land Wars of the nineteenth century and the emergence of a new, biracial nation.

Christianity and circus entered the Australian landscape within a few decades of each other. Christianity arrived with the First Fleet in 1788. Five years later, Australia’s first church was opened. In 1832, the first display of the circus arts was given by a ropewalker on the stage of Sydney’s Theatre Royal. Fifteen years later, Australia’s first circus was opened in Launceston. Nevertheless, Australia’s historians have tended to overlook both the nation’s religious history and its annals of popular entertainment. In their new antipodean setting, what did Christianity and circus offer each other? To what extent did each accommodate the other in terms of thought and behaviour? In raising these questions, this article suggests the need to remove the margins between the mainstreams of Australian religious and social histories. For the argument of this article: 1) the term “religion” will refer to Christianity, specifically its Roman Catholic and principal Protestant manifestations introduced in Australia, Anglican, Presbyterian and Methodist; and 2) the term “circus” will refer to the form of popular entertainment, a major branch of the performing arts and a sub-branch of theatre, as devised by Astley in London from 1768, and first displayed in the Australia in 1847.

One of the most iconic television series of the 1990s, The X-Files drew on religious and folkloric traditions regarding supernatural phenomena for many of its plotlines. Among the themes that the show’s writers turned to repeatedly was witchcraft, using it as a major plot device in six episodes over the course of the series’ eleven season run. While drawing on longstanding ideas about witchcraft arising from European and European-American culture(s), these writers also had to contend with a social environment in which fears of witchcraft had resurfaced in the form of the Satanic ritual abuse hysteria and where various forms of modern religious witchcraft had arisen, often claiming proprietorship of the concept of the witch itself. How the show’s writers chose to portray this topic and navigate around the social issues it posed offers insight into the nature of beliefs about witchcraft present in American culture, especially at the close of the twentieth century.

Nestorius and his relationship with his eponymous heresy, Nestorianism, has been a controversial topic in religious studies and in Christian theology. Largely thought to have been condemned for professing Nestorianism, the discovery of the Bazaar of Heracleides of Damascus (written by him in exile) led to a wide-reaching reassessment of this very relationship. Despite Nestorius’ protestations in defence of his own perceived orthodoxy, his rejection of the stronger term henosis for the weaker synapheia to describe the union of the natures of Christ and criticism of the use of the term “hypostatic union” both demonstrate that, implicitly, he did profess a two-person Christology. The authenticity of the Bazaar’s authorship and other historiographical issues came to the fore soon after its discovery. The dating of certain key events and the silence of Nestorius in other parts have led to a consensus of sorts amongst scholars in accepting the Bazaar, in large part, as being the work of Nestorius whilst still admitting of later additions and emendations. This article examines the relationship between Nestorius and Nestorianism, explains key theological terminology used in the Christological debates of the First Council of Ephesus and the Council of Chalcedon, situates Ephesus I and Chalcedon in their proper context and their relationship to Nestorius, provides an overview of the key arguments for and against the acceptance of the authorship of the Bazaar, and includes a concise summary of the most compelling arguments in favour of the acceptance of the Bazaar’s authorship.

In 1964, the United States Supreme Court affirmed by its decision in Jacobellis vs. Ohio that the French art film, Les Amants, was not, as the State of Ohio had previously defined it, “hardcore pornography.” In his concurrent opinion, Justice Potter Stewart wrote that, though he couldn’t properly define what might constitute “hardcore pornography,” it was something that would be obvious to most of us, especially when compared to a bawdy, yet otherwise harmless, foreign film. His exact words were: “but I know it when I see it.” And while Justice Stewart’s simple acknowledgment that we might “know” what something means merely based on our personal perceptions helped justify the Court’s stance on how it approached similar obscenity laws (as well as made him famous) from that point on, it also serves us well in our own search for definitions of words like “religion” or “Atheism.” This article will use Justice Stewart’s argument as a base of discussion for the latter, providing in the process examples of Atheists across three historical periods, that will in turn support a practical description of the term itself, while simultaneously challenging the need for a “definition of Atheism” in the first place.

Studies of western esotericism in the twentieth century proposed a certain number of characteristics as fundamental and universal to esotericism. This article first reviews Antoine Faivre’s intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics and Wouter J. Hanegraaff’s typology of esotericism, constituting the so-called empirical historical method. Next, it considers the case of George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (c. 1866–1949), a prominent Russian-speaking spiritual teacher who developed his own method of personal perfection and whose place in the history of western esoteric thought is not indisputable. Through a discussion of some main points of Gurdjieff’s teachings and the ways he dealt with esoteric subjects, it is suggested that Faivre’s and Hanegraaff’s material can partly be applicable to his system. It finally argues that this uncertainty can be explained by specifics of Gurdjieff’s teachings, which should be considered as crucial in formulating his esotericism, as well as by limitations of the above-mentioned approach.

Media technologies are being utilised as an effective medium to distribute diverse messages including religious messages. Numerous Muslim preachers have taken advantage of the advance of information technology in order to reach vast audiences and establish their religious authority. However, recipients do not accept the messages blindly. Recipients critically filter and examine all information available online, including religious messages. Making use of Hall’s encoding-decoding theory, despite Sven Ross’s and David Morley’s criticism, this article analyses how encoding and decoding processes work for both messenger (preacher) and recipient respectively. This may ensure the presence of hegemonic, negotiated, and oppositional positions when audiences make sense of messages. Basalamah is arguably one of Indonesia’s most favoured preachers who utilises YouTube as a medium to proselytise. This article studies how Basalamah’s online audiences, both in Indonesia and overseas, examine and make sense of the religious messages he communicates through the internet.

From about 1939 to 1947, G. I. Gurdjieff (1866–1949) taught some of his pupils exercises to send help to deceased persons and at the same time develop themselves. So far as the author is aware, the exercise is entirely unique in the annals of contemplation and mysticism. More even than Gurdjieff’s other exercises, this one seems to partake of the nature of “ritual.” The evidence is found in newly available material from his American pupil Donald Whitcomb, the recently published transcripts of his 1943 and 1944 group meetings, and from the memoirs of J. G. Bennett and Kathryn Hulme. It is contended that, unusual as they may be, these ideas and practices are related to and entirely consistent with Gurdjieff’s basic system. It appears that scholars may have underestimated the extent to which Gurdjieff developed his methods, and perhaps also his ideas, over the years.

This article presents a new approach to Japanese Zen Buddhism, alternative to its traditional views, which lack exact definitions of the relation between the meditator and the Buddha’s ultimate cause, dharma. To this end, I offer a comparative analysis between Zen Buddhist and Christian views of causality from the medieval to early modern periods. Through this, human causation with dharma in the Zen Buddhist meditations can be better defined and understood. Despite differences between religious traditions in deliberating human causal accounts, there are parallel ways of thinking and practicing between Christian and Buddhist meditators. Firstly, I reconstruct three sorts of Christian scholastic theories of creaturely causality: conservationism (realist or active view of our volitional action), occasionalism (passive view), and concurrentism (interactive view). Secondly, Zen Buddhist doctrines are introduced by placing particular emphasis on dharma as causal agency. Focusing on the Japanese Zen practice of meditation (zazen), finally I expound two theories of human causality: Sōtō Zen quasi-occasionalism following Master Dōgen’s teaching of enlightenment (satori), and Rinzai Zen quasi-concurrentism given the meditator’s interactive kōan practice. Hence, my comparative analysis explains why religious beings are causally active, passive, or interactive in relation to the first agency, God or dharma, whereby systematically establishing alternative definitions of human causality in Zen Buddhism.

Discussion around religion is abundant. Talking directly to it as a phenomenon is unusual. Yet, this brief essay aims to speak directly to the question of our positionality to religion by way of drawing lessons from the Harry Potter story. It does this by thinking about the takeaway message on religion from this literary epic with the aid of Martin Heidegger, but also in conversation with John Carroll’s piece on the same. There is something to be said for the practicality of religion as reflecting the practicality of being. Being as we are in the sense of becoming, religion might be argued to denote the act, rather than the ideal, of being human.

Falun Gong was originally a qigong group that entered into conflict with the Chinese state around the turn of the century. It gradually transformed into both a religious group and a political movement. Exiled to the United States, the founder-leader, Li Hongzhi, acquired property near Cuddebackville, New York, which he subsequently designated Dragon Springs. Dragon Springs, in turn, became the headquarters of Shen Yun Performing Arts, an ambitious touring dance and music company that claims to embody the traditional culture of China prior to its subversion by the Chinese Communist Party. Though Li’s earlier eschatology emphasized that individuals needed to become Falun Gong practitioners in order to survive the imminent apocalypse, the significant success of Shen Yun seems to have prompted Li Hongzhi to rewrite his eschatology, which now emphasizes that all one need do in order to be “saved” is to view live Shen Yun performances.

This article focuses on how NRMs are depicted in the mass media in the province of Quebec, and examines some of the ethical, deontological and legal issues reflected in journalistic coverage of controversial groups known as “sectes” or “cults” in the francophone and anglophone medias. These groups include: Les Apôtres de l’Amour Infini, Le Mouvement Raëlien, L’Église essénienne chrétienne, L’Ordre du Temple solaire, La Cité Écologique de Ham-Nord, la Mission de l’Esprit-Saint, and Lev Tahor. News reports on these groups, collected over a period of fifteen years, will be analyzed within the framework of James A. Beckford’s 1994 study, “The Mass Media and New Religious Movements.” Relying on Beckford and models supplied by other sociologists, this chapter will identify various types of biased approaches used by journalists and analyzes the external pressures that shape their stories. Finally, it will attempt to explain why Quebec’s new religions are consistently portrayed by journalists as controversial and threatening, in a manner that tends to generate and perpetuate conflict.

This is the Plenary speech presented by Murphy Pizza, Ph.D, the current president of the Upper Midwest American Academy of Religion, to an audience at the April 2019 Meeting for both the UM AAR and the UM Society for Biblical Literature at St. Thomas University in St. Paul, MN. The speech is an overview of the diversity of Paganisms in the movement, in practice and theological approaches, and it also references the community building efforts of the Pagan Community in the Twin Cities in Minnesota, the research area of the speaker.

This article examines religion’s public role in Central Europe by investigating people’s expectations and perceptions regarding distinct facets of religion. The paper analyses factors related to the first wave and the second wave of religiosity along different lines such as church and government policies, the roles of churches in strengthening democracy, etc. According to the Aufbruch data research project and partially from the ISSP (International Social Survey Project), religious depiction of some post-communist countries are brought to the table. A deeper analysis is undertaken for 6 countries (Czech Republic, Croatia, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary and Poland), considering that in the countries previously listed, the distinction in the general level of religiosity differ remarkably, in order of the extremely religious country (Croatia) to the extremely non-religious country (Czech Republic). The discoveries from the various indicators shows that there is a good reason to believe in a possible second wave or different form and kind of religiosity compared to the times of the transition or the mid-1990s in contemporary times.

This article explores the relationship of two “metaphysical” religious traditions, Christian Science and New Thought. The argument developed here is that the two traditions are closely related, using the category of Religious Idealism to identify similarities. The article offers a departure from traditional, long-standing assessments of the relationship between the movements, which focus on their differences. Specific problems considered are initially posed by questions related to the origins of the movements, and the study of origins is the focus of this paper. Three other categories of relevance will also be noted: (1) theology and cosmology, (2) the centrality of mental healing, and (3) biblical exegesis.

Following the ideas of a Cognitive Optimum Position, this paper aims to illustrate how cognitive science of religion can be fruitfully applied to understand the appeal of certain metaphysical beliefs within modern New Age religiosity. By diving into the popular DVD version of Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret, this paper seeks is to uncover the cognitive mechanism and systematic biases involved when New Age sympathizers engage in ritual practices and beliefs related to positive thinking and the Law of Attraction. We propose to view the visualization rituals highlighted in The Secret as “internalized” similarity magic, possibly triggering the adaptive principle appearance equals reality. We further argue that the mind-over-matter belief promoted throughout The Secret—that thoughts affect or interact with physical reality—in certain cases are strengthened by a human bias to see a mental-physical causal relationship, a causation heuristic. The cognitive processes behind the general metaphysical belief that thoughts can affect reality are elaborated further by the concept core knowledge confusion. Finally we suggest that together with an illusion of control over uncertain future events, an optimism bias may incite people to engage in continual ritual practice.

Through decades of anti-bigamy legislation, the practice of plural marriage was officially outlawed. In the first half of the twentieth century, contemporary polygamists faced raids in the 1930s, 1940s, and the largest of the time, in 1953. The 1953 raid in Short Creek, Arizona, executed by Arizona Governor Howard Pyle, was meant to put down the “insurrection” of “white slavery” in the border town now known as Colorado City. Though there was significant media coverage of the raid and subsequent trials, and there have been academic works on the subject, the experiences of the women while in state custody require further conversation. In this article, transcriptions of those recollections are examined in order to continue the discussion started in Martha Bradley’s seminal work, Kidnapped from that Land, with a focus on the female experience in their own words.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the recent “I’m a Mormon” publicity campaign put forward by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as the Mormon Church, or the LDS Church) and its significance in the larger scheme of Latter-day Saints’ public relations history. Since the nineteenth century, Mormons have had to negotiate with mainstream society in order to obtain a comfortable position while maintaining their identity as “peculiar people.” Through a detailed analysis of selected “I’m a Mormon” capsules, broadcasted on the Mormon.org website, this paper presents the recent normalization and differentiation strategies put forward by the Church of Jesus Christ, and exposes the relationship between these tactics and the strategies used by the Church throughout history. We note that while members of the Church of Jesus Christ aim to be accepted by mainstream Americans and viewed as somewhat “normal,” they also seek to maintain an aura of uniqueness associated with their specific religious beliefs and values. This falls under what we refer to as differentiation.

During September 22–24, 2017, Zhejiang University hosted an International Symposium on the Theoretical and Practical Issues of Faiths in the Construction of the Community of Common Destiny for All Mankind in Hangzhou, China. In the course of this conference, six scholars from Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, and China participated in an interdisciplinary panel discussion about “Spiritual Movements, Secret Societies, and Destructive Cults.” Covering such topics as the general spiritual situation of the contemporary world, the religious marketplace, the dangerous tendencies within some religious movements, and the role of the state in relation to religious communities, the discussion concludes with an examination of the conflict of Falun Gong with the Chinese government and the faults of the group’s leadership that brought the conflict to a head. The discussion offers a fruitful combination of theoretical insights and concrete case studies that provides a wide and deep purview of our present spiritual situation, setting forth both its dangers and its positive potential. This paper is a transcript of the panel discussion, with a brief introduction identifying its highlights.

This study makes a bold statement on the problematic nature of historic academic research, and its implications on our understanding of religion and culture. The case study is New Age religion’s scholarly historiography. It appears that New Age religion plays a part within narrative imagination, which often contains moral allusions as to the heroes or antiheroes, as well as literary allusions to the causal sources of events or to expected developments. We review the conflicts that arise between utterly differing opinions in some of the field’s fundamental issues, and thus evoke several of the challenges historical research on NA faces: when did it debut on the historical stage? Which ideological movements did it draw upon? Who are its unmistakable heralds? Did it already reach the height of its strength, and if so, when? The survey of scholarly studies indicates that the history of New Age is ever-changing. Thus, we argue that though historic discussion may deepen the analysis of a religious phenomenon and its understanding and give it context and meaning—it cannot decipher it. We cannot rely on history in defining a phenomenon, in attempting to comprehend its essence, its power, its importance, and most certainly not its future.

This article offers a comparative analysis of the relationship between science and religion in Acem and the Transcendental Meditation organisation. Both these meditation movements have their historical origin in the teachings of the Indian guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the Hindu Advaita Vedānta tradition. Their further development in the West has been characterised by varying degrees of cultural adaptation. The TM movement has retained a worldview which is inherently religious, but has developed its teachings through its encounters with modern science, and developed a panoply of alternative “scientific” disciplines. The TM movement has also systematically employed scientific terms and tropes to communicate effectively with a Western audience. Acem has discarded religious explanations altogether, and sees modern science as the sole source of reliable knowledge. The shifts in what is conceived to be plausible forms of knowledge have been paired with changes in terminology and self-descriptions. It is argued that the increased emphasis on and normative elevation of science can be seen as strategies to gain legitimacy and appeal in a cultural environment that tends to favour science over religion. The article thus sheds light upon some of the challenges that may arise when a body of knowledge moves between different cultural contexts, and strategies used to encounter these.

This paper develops an earlier proposal to consider ‘religion’ in terms of Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological concept of the natural attitude. My overall aim is to argue that ‘religion’ represents an ideological concept for demarcating deviant modes of naturalisation. In focusing on the case of Taekwondo, I will not be able to give a full exposition to this understanding of ‘religion’ but, rather, will make a more conservative attempt to give better phenomenological sense to the term ‘spirituality,’ a concept that will be key for achieving the larger task. To demonstrate this, I will look at Taekwondo in relation to what John Donohue has called the ‘American warrior hero’ as an aspect of American modes of naturalisation.

Historically speaking, belief in gods and demons has been practiced all over the world, beginning even before organized religions came into being. Over the last few decades, the influence of the Kāli cult has spread rapidly in Sri Lankan Buddhist culture. This research paper reveals how and why the Kāli cult is popular today, with reference to its history. The investigation of its historical aspects is based on literature, while a discussion of the cult’s present practice is informed by examination of its methods of participation, as well as observations and open discussions. Data collection involved a literature review and qualitative interviews with the cult’s charmers and devotees. Some of the data indicates that the cult is based on an incarnation of Śiva’s wife named Kāli; other records suggest, however, that the cult originated in ancient India before the Aryan invasion. Recently, there has been some loss of spirituality among Buddhist adherents and it can be suggested, therefore, that the Kāli cult offers them direction in their worldly lives. Although the elements of cruelty present in the Kāli doctrine clash with Buddhist tradition, it seems that these adherents are willing to follow anything that enables self-benefit. To overcome this contradiction between Buddhism and the Kāli cult, the figure of Kāli has been transformed from a demoness into goddess.

There is a common pattern for researchers to study one particular new religion, write a monograph or article on that specific group, and then begin the cycle all over again with a different group. This approach causes one to remember such groups as relatively stable organizations, fixed in memory at a specific stage of development, rather than as dynamic, evolving groups. In the present article, we will examine new data on contemporary Pagans that takes a quasi-longitudinal approach to survey data. Though our focus will be limited, the result will nevertheless be a partial statistical picture of Paganism as a changing, evolving movement, rather than a static statistical snapshot.

The essay examines in detail the theology of Walter Menozzi, founder and leader of the Italian Santo Daime association Stella Azzurra, the history of which is also reconstructed here. Focusing both on the views expressed in Menozzi’s writings and on some narratives collected at a ritual in which the author actively participated, the study identifies eight ways in which ayahuasca, the psychoactive brew that is identified as a sacrament by Santo Daime affiliates, and science are conflated with religion by Santo Daime followers in order to substantiate, strengthen, and defend ayahuasca-related theology.

In contrast to emic claims that modern Paganism and Satanism are inherently distinct phenomena with little or no common ground, this article demonstrates that there is an area of clear intersection between the two. To do so, it presents them both as different milieus within the wider framework of occultism, occulture, and the cultic milieu. To make the argument, three case studies are presented. The first concerns Satanic elements within the modern Pagan religion of Wicca, while the second two consider the Pagan aspects of two groups usually regarded as Satanic: the Temple of Set and the Order of Nine Angles. The aim is to illustrate the various ways in which the two milieus interact, thus shedding further light on these new, alternative religions.

During the recent decade, the control of religious life and even the persecution of religious minorities has intensified in Russia. This article discusses a small Islamic group, Faizrakhmanisty. This group was named after its founder and leader, Faizrakhman Sattarov. The community lived isolated from the society in a small compound in Tatarstan. In 2012, the police conducted a raid as a part of the investigations of the murder of the Mufti of the republic of Tatarstan. Stories about this authoritarian and potentially dangerous sect were covered not only in Russian, but also in international media. Many of the stories contained exaggerated claims and relied on a few somewhat controversial “experts” of Islam in Russia. This article analyses the way in which Faizrakhmanisty were constructed as a social problem and a “totalitarian sect” and the consequent banning of the organization. In contemporary Russia, such labels as “sect” bring serious consequences for religious communities. In order to place the case of Faizrakhmanisty in context, the article discusses four other forms of Islam or Islamic organizations, Wahhabism, Hizb-ut Tahrir, Nurdzhular, and the National Organization of Russian Muslims, which are generally labelled as “sects” in the Russian context.

This study is an attempt to show the religious implications of the central tenet of the “resolution of grievances for mutual beneficence” in Daesoon thought in relation to its other tenet of the “harmonious union between divine beings and human beings.” This new school of religious thought developed as the main idea of Daesoon Jinrihoe (“The Fellowship of Daesoon Truth”), established at the end of nineteenth century in Korea by Kang Jeungsan, who is known as a “Holy Master” or “Sangje.” Upon receiving a calling to perpetuate religious orthodoxy from Sangje Kang, Doju Jo Jeongsan launched the Mugeuk Do religious body and constructed a Yeongdae—a sacred building at which the 15 Great Deities were enshrined. He then laid down the “four tenets” of Daesoon thought and issued the Declaration of the Propagation of Dao, which was said to show followers the way to seek the soul in the mind.

The purpose of this paper is to study Donghak thought in relation to the idea of the current, post-modern era coming to an end. The concepts of “serving God within me” (sicheonju, 侍天主), “treating and respecting human beings as you would treat God” (sainyeocheon, 事人如天), “honoring the three” (samkyung, 三敬), and “Heaven eating Heaven” (icheonsigcheon, 以天食天), which are key to Donghak doctrine, will be examined. The meanings of “serving,” “treating and respecting,” and “harmony and balance” within the context of the aforementioned Donghak concepts will also be explored. In the present, post-modern period, humankind’s future is seen in a very negative way, with previous Utopian energies being considered exhausted. There are a multitude of “isms” and arguments in which reification and alienation within modern society are defined as omens of the end of this industrial era, which has corrupted and devastated human life. Today, religious movements are obliged to provide a spiritual drive that will lead their followers forward into a new era, establishing internal solidarity while associating with external elements. In this sense, the Donghak movement must put into practice the notions of “service, respect, and resuscitation” that are prominent in the ideologies behind the “serve God within me,” “treat and respect human beings as you would treat God,” “honor the three,” and “Heaven eats Heaven” concepts. In other words, in order to compete in the modern world, Donghak must concentrate on the belief that spiritual power can change society for the better.

Won Buddhism, founded by Master Sot’aesan in 1916, is regarded as one of the four major religions in Korea. The active participation of its followers in social and educational movements has led to the spread of this religion both in Korea and in other countries. One of the most significant aspects of new religions in Korea is that they champion the universal value of “publicness,” seeking to overcome the historical suffering associated with colonialism and imperialism by constructing a peaceful and egalitarian modern society. The founding motive behind Won Buddhism was Master Sot’aesan’s search for a way in which to realize world peace in a truly civilized world, where material civilization and spiritual civilization are harmonized. To this end, a new interpretation of the Mahayana Buddhist teachings was fused with Irwon philosophy in a bid to heal social ills through “mutual life-giving” (the Korean term for ensuring the wellbeing of all society).

The most prominent characteristics of the religious situation in contemporary Korea can be said to be the following: first, the religious population is large and is increasing rapidly at present. Second, in a situation of multi-religious coexistence, no particular religion takes precedence over another; Western religions, however, are challenging and gradually overwhelming Eastern religions. In this paper, I argue that these two features are closely related to each other. When compared with other countries, religions are growing more rapidly in Korea and with an unusual level of enthusiasm, a situation which has emerged as a result of the unprecedented inter-religious clash that has developed between Eastern and Western religions.

The New Age movement—i.e., non-mainstream and non-institutionalized religious/spiritual culture—is widespread across Asian countries, especially in advanced industrial societies and urban areas. Even though it has often been said that New Age is a global phenomenon, in non-western societies, only a small circle of scholars engages in research in this field. As a result, the New Age movement in South Korea is an area that is barely known about among foreign scholars. This paper presents an overview, delineating the historical development of New Age in South Korea and examining its sociocultural background. At the same time, the key components of Korean New Age will be identified. This dualistic approach—both diachronic and synchronic—will enable a more complex picture of Korean New Age to emerge.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of Korea’s new religions is an expectation of kaebyŏk, a “Great Transformation” which will eliminate the many conflicts human beings are facing today and produce a world in human beings will find themselves instead in cooperative and mutually beneficial relationships with both their fellow human beings and the natural world. Kaebyŏk once referred to the creation of the world. The use of kaebyŏk in Korea to mean “re-creation” first appeared in the teachings of Ch’oe Cheu, the founder of Tonghak. It was reiterated by Kim Hang, the author of Correct Changes. Kang Ilsun, revered by the Chŭngsan family of religions, further elaborated on the reasons kaebyŏk is imminent and how we can hasten its arrival. Park Chungbin, the founder of Won Buddhism, then suggested that kaebyŏk of the material world was already happening and proposed steps we should take to ensure that we keep pace spiritually. These four Korean religious leaders stimulated an important shift in the Korean world-view which has influenced not only followers of Korea’s new religions but the spirituality of Koreans in general.

The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (HSA-UWC), founded in Seoul in 1954 by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012), has been more popularly known as the Unification Church (UC) or ‘the Moonies.’ Following revelations that he reports having received as a young man, Moon devoted his life to preaching and eventually publically proclaiming himself to be the Messiah, or Lord of the Second Advent, come to fulfil the mission of restoring God’s Kingdom of Heaven on earth. His early struggles in Korea clearly had a considerable influence on the trajectory of his life and the development of the UC into a world-wide movement that reached into a wide variety of areas, such as anti-communist politics, the media, the arts, the sciences and vast businesses. Following Moon’s death, the movement has split into three separate factions, the largest of which is run by his widow, and the other two by, respectively, his oldest living and youngest sons.

In a Western democracy such as Australia, academic freedom is something that is taken for granted. It forms the cornerstone of the academic endeavour and university lecturers and researchers feel unimpeded as they sift through documents both public and private, collect data and construct knowledge from that information. The generation of that knowledge is always seen to be in the public interest. It forms the basis of the research that follows it by academics or students known or unknown. That construction of knowledge is guided by a set of inviolable rules of citation, ethics, style and method. As a studies in religion academic, I wrote about new religious movements, esotericism and the place of religion on the internet. In the course of writing about Falun Gong, I attracted the attentions of a Falun Gong practitioner who disagreed with what I wrote. This article forms my account of the attack on my academic freedom by that individual.

This paper tells the story of my research on Falun Gong and its aftermath. I describe a series of events including online slurs, implied threats and warnings, phone and email harassment, and messages to my colleagues, seemingly designed to isolate, demoralize and silence me. Next, I narrate discovering references to an intelligence report stating that former United States Army Colonel Robert Helvey was believed to be acting as an adviser to Falun Gong. I discuss Helvey’s book “On Strategic Nonviolent Conflict” as a check-list of Falun Gong tactics. I query the appropriateness of targeting academics with psychological violence designed to topple dictators and suggest the spiritual movement would be better suited to the principled nonviolence of Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

What do Shen Yun, New Tang Dynasty TV, Human Harvest (originally entitled Davids and Goliath), The Art of Courage (a film about Falun Gong artists in ‘Exile’), Avenues of Escape (a film about people ‘escaping’ China), In the Name of Confucius (a film attacking the PRC’s Confucius Institutes), and The Bleeding Edge (a fictional film about forced organ harvesting) have in common, beyond their anti-China focus?—All, it turns out, are bankrolled by the Canadian government’s Canada Media Fund. In the present paper, we will provide a preliminary outline of these activities, and, in the words of our subtitle, ask: Why is the Canadian Government bankrolling an anti-China propaganda campaign?

It is a well-established fact that most new, non-traditional religious groups are treated negatively in the mass media. However, Falun Gong, the qi gong group that was banned in China in 1999, is a marked exception to this general tendency. Why should this be the case? In the present paper, we examine the various factors that combine to make Falun Gong the exception to the rule. We also call attention to this organization’s pattern of attacking critics, as well as their pattern of attacking anyone who offers an interpretation of events that is at odds with Falun Gong’s interpretation. However, this heavy-handed tactic has the potential to backfire, and to prompt the media to reperceive them as a bully rather than as an innocent victim.

This research explores the characterisation of individuals and groups in Falun Gong news stories through a lens of archetype analysis. Longitudinal data was used to reveal changes to people’s identities. Practitioners are depicted primarily as victims and martyrs and secondarily as crusaders, warriors, and avengers. However, the 2006 allegations of organ harvesting mark a turning point in the narrative where members’ identities are infantalised. While the depictions benefit Western advocates and a minority of zealous practitioners, everyday practitioners do not benefit. They are cast in the role of helpless, wounded, constantly embattled, crusading and avenging victims who have to be rescued by the superior Western world. To transform the narrative, protagonists could bring forward another archetype—one that does not depend on dualisms of good and evil or superiority and inferiority.

In this paper, 222 news reports about Falun Gong found in the New York Times from 2008 to 2016 are scrutinized via the theory of image building. An analysis is offered of images of the movement presented in the New York Times, in which location, disorder, and superstition are presented as key themes. The newspaper’s level of objectivity is considered, as are its reflections on the anti-cult movement. The context of cross-cultural communication is examined, with a focus on the lack of cultural understanding that is evident as well as the writers’ uncertainty about the definition of Falun Gong.

The article reconstructs the narratives advanced by the author Jean Sendy (1910–1978). His life is reconstructed as well. It is argued that Sendy was a cultivated, sophisticated, and ironic author; deeply different, by virtue of his books’ quality, from other proponents of the “ancient aliens” narratives, with whom he is often grouped.

According to Claude Vorilhon (Raël), the Elohim do not effectuate miracles but are “designers” who have advanced knowledge in genetics. I approach the politics of the genetic body as it is conceived in Raëlism via a discussion on aesthetics. A genetically constructed body collides with a category that has been central to the Western aesthetic tradition: style. The Raëlian Movement has created the concept of an “artificial world beyond nature” where human existence is limited to the aistetikos. Certain premises regarding style and fashion become manifest through the way in which Raëlism connects genes with the question of style. In Raëlism, positivism overcomes nature as well as the restraining power of civilization and creates a new posthuman world. While Western thought has attempted to spell out reasonable links between the natural and the artificial, for Raëlians everything is artificial, which asks for a revision of aesthetics.

Census data from Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom make clear that the irreligious as well as those who indicate No Religion (‘Nones’) in censuses are growing rapidly. Despite being dominated by young males, we find that the demographics of those who identify with some form of irreligion or who indicate they have no religion are (1) becoming more gender balanced and are (2) rising in age. However, we also find that atheists, agnostics, and humanists are not having children, meaning their current remarkable rate of growth will fall off in the near future. In contrast, ‘Nones’ are more fertile than the population at large. However, because more than a few Nones hold religious beliefs, it is difficult to predict how the growth of this portion of the population will impact the future growth of irreligion. We conclude that more empirical work needs to be carried out on the Nones.

Channeled messages from hidden masters in Tibet, women’s liberation, secret science, and Tomb Raider, what all these seemingly unrelated things have in common, is that they have all been topics in the study of the Theosophical Society. In this paper, I want to examine how the Theosophical Society has been understood and interpreted within the different paradigms of religious studies. I will discuss why Theosophy was omitted from the scrutiny of religious studies for some time, as well as analyzing the renewed interest in the subject over the last fifty years. The paper will focus on key trends in religious studies, especially on how these have influenced the research on Theosophical Society. This is will be done by looking at how some important scholars within different paradigms have researched the group, with a focus on Scandinavian researchers. Overall the paper aims to offer a historical understanding of the relationship between religious studies and Theosophical Society. Far more sources and perspectives could have been included in the present study, but hopefully this selection gives an idea of the breadth of the research on the Theosophical Society that has been undertaken.

This is an anthropological study of the Women’s Church in Korea. The paper examines the organization’s symbols and rituals, taking a semiotic approach to ritual studies. By adapting Webb Keane’s “bundling of meanings” theory and Susan Gal’s fractal model of private/public distinction, four dimensions of rituals that are associated with the Women’s Church (objects, relations, narratives, and space) are identified and examined. By “jumping over” the distinction between the private and the public, new meanings are created, and this creation of meaning is related to the Women’s Church’s goal: the achievement of equality and liberation for the marginalized.

Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Party of Liberation is a transnational Islamic political party, promoting the idea of a medieval model of the Islamic Caliphate. The party is actively spreading this message among Muslims on the global level, and perhaps, it has never been so popular as it is now. Yet, Hizb ut-Tahrir has gained less international attention than other fundamentalist Islamic movements, and often research on the party is rather controversial, oscillating between labelling it as a “terrorist” or a “peaceful” group. In this regard, the article attempts to provide more insights into the ideology of Hizb ut-Tahrir, its aims, and methods of work, with a particular stress on its relation to violence.

Nowadays a trend to adapt traditional Indian Yoga for Western consumer society is becoming increasingly apparent. As a result of this adaptation, new forms of yoga are appearing in the West, among which Agni Yoga can also be listed. It was developed by theosophists Nicholas Roerich (1874–1947) and Helena Roerich (1879–1955), through turning against W. W. Atkinson’s (1862–1932) interpretation of yoga. Even though a wide variety of material is available about the Roerichs’ teaching, the yoga that they developed has not received much attention among either the followers of the Roerichs, or among the ranks of academic researchers. In dedicating this paper to the collation of Roerich’s yoga concept, it is hoped that this grey area will be filled in, but that it would also encourage research devoted to the comparative analysis of the yoga practiced in Hinduism, and in today’s Western world.

The Magnificat Meal Movement (MMM) emerged in the early 1990s as one Australian example of the millennialist belief system sometimes referred to as ‘Roman Catholic Apocalyptic’ associated with a series of alleged apparitions of Virgin Mary. Like many of the other Marian apparitional movements which have emerged from the Roman Catholic spiritual milieu since the Second World War, the MMM soon spread internationally and caused some concern to the Roman Catholic hierarchy, especially in Australia and Ireland. Following an ecclesiastical investigation between 1997 and 1999, an official statement emphasizing the group’s lack of institutional approval or affiliation was issued by the then Bishop of Toowoomba (Queensland, Australia) William Morris in 1999. Since this time the group has undergone a radical transformation. Utilizing insights from the study of Roman Catholic apocalyptic, ‘improvisational millennialism,’ ‘conspirituality,’ and scholarship on the development of Marian apparitional movements, this article seeks to illustrate some of the ways in which the MMM has developed from its roots in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR), to a cohesive and communal conservative Catholic apocalyptic group, and finally to a loose-knit online community with an increasingly eclectic millennial vision, and to identify some of the factors that have contributed to this development.

This article introduces the theological relationship of the Roman Catholic Church to new religious movements (NRMs) in the wake of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). While other articles in this special issue provide case studies of specifically Catholic NRMs, this article is predominately concerned with examining Vatican II and post-Vatican II theology that frames the church’s relationship to such groups in often problematic and unclear terms. For instance, the traditional ecclesiastical distinction between ecumenical and interreligious affairs leaves little, if any, theological room for categorizing NRMs at large and Catholic NRMs in particular. Assuming NRMs with Catholic roots have no interest in returning to communion with the church in Rome, these “sects” or excommunicated groups may be fruitfully comparable to NRMs with restorationist leanings that resemble Catholic traditionalist movements (some of which are indeed in good ecclesial standing). The relationship of the Roman Catholic Church to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) is one comparative example. However, unlike the LDS, excommunicated Catholics would of course not be possible candidates for ecumenical or interreligious dialogue, ironically but precisely because of disputes over claims of Catholic orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Such cases may represent a liminal position, neither “intra” nor “inter” in relation to the communion of Catholic Christendom, though the point becomes moot given competing claims to ecclesial authority.

The Mission of the Holy Spirit or la Mission de l’Ésprit Saint (MES), founded circa 1915, is one of Quebec’s oldest alternative religions. Today it might be described as a messianic movement, based on the charisma and millenarian mission of Eugene Richer (1871–1925), a Montreal policeman known to his followers as “ERL” (Eugene Richer dit Lafleche) and believed to be the Holy Spirit Incarnate. But its origins can be traced back to small Catholic Marian prayer circle called Notre-Dame du Sacre-Coeur de la Régénération (NDSCR). Sometime between 1913 and 1916, the NDSCR broke from Rome, changed its name to Mission de l’Ésprit Saint, and evolved into a messianic, evangelistic sect with an alternative cosmology, distinctive practices, and a sectarian stance towards the larger society. Our purpose is to investigate this period of dramatic transformation. Recently, an important historical document has become available that sheds new light on the events surrounding the foundation of this movement and challenges the congregation’s current understanding of their own history. We explore new interpretations of the enigma of ERL’s charismatic leadership and the founding of his movement in light of this new document.