New Religious Movements
Falun Gong:
a Chinese meditation movement based in the qigong tradition, founded in 1992 by Li Hongzhi and now claiming more than 100 million practitioners worldwide.
Li Hongzhi
founder of falun gong
church of scientoglogy
: founded by L. Ron Hubbard in 1954 and claiming to be the fastest-growing reli- gion in the world today; in North America, known principally for its many celebrity members
Xiejiao:
“evil cult” or “evil religion,” a Chinese term used to describe the meditation movement Falun Gong.
brainwashing
the idea that leaders of new religions can use a variety of mind-control techniques to effect radical and permanent personality change in their fol- lowers, which is largely rejected by social scientists as an explanation for conversion to new religions.
Dissafilliation
the process of leaving a new religious movement, whether voluntarily or involuntarily.
Apostacy
in the context of a new religion, leaving it, often under strained circumstances. Apostate is fre- quently used by new religions as a negative label for those who have left and taken an adversarial posi- tion toward the group.
Schismatic Movement
a splinter movement within a religion, often either associated with or precipi- tated by revitalizationist tendencies.
revitilization movement
a religious movement that seeks to return practitioners to a more authentic, vital form of the faith, often a result of what leaders of new religions see as the dilution of religious belief in late modern society.
unification church
the popular name for the Holy Spirit Association–World Unification of Christianity, also known (often derogatorily) as Moonies, founded in 1954 by Sun Myung Moon.
peoples temple
founded in 1955 by Jim Jones and one of the most well-known of the late modern new religions. The mass suicide of more than 900 Peoples Temple members in Jonestown, Guyana, in November 1978 precipitated a period of intense cul- tural hysteria about new religions in general.
church of jesus christ and latter day saints
founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith, Jr., and popularly known as the Mormons, one of the most successful new religions to emerge out of the religious fervour of nineteenth-century America.
jehovas witness
: known first as the International Bible Students Association, a movement founded in 1872 by Charles Taze Russell (1852–1916). A mil- lenarian sect, Jehovah’s Witnesses have predicted the return of Christ a number of times and are best- known for “pioneering,” or door-to-door sharing of their beliefs and literature. Because they do not privi- lege secular political authority over their allegiance to God, they were banned in Canada from 1940 to 1943 under the War Measures Act
christian science
a Christian sect founded in the late nineteenth century (c. 1879) by Mary Baker Eddy, based in the New Thought doctrines popular at the time. Among other things, Christian Scientists believe in healing by faith alone and often refuse medical treatment for life-threatening ailments.
theosohpy
a religious-philosophical movement based on a syncretism of Hindu and Buddhist thought, founded in 1875 by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott (1832–1907).
children of God
begun in the mid-1960s by David Berg as “Teens for Christ,” the Children of God was one of many “Jesus people” groups that emerged from the 1960s counterculture as protest against the institutional Christian church. Initially one of the principal targets of Christian countercult and secular anti-cult activity, which accused them of brain- washing and child sexual abuse, the group is now known as The Family International.
transcendental meditation
a meditation move- ment based in the principles of Advaitic (non-dualist) Hinduism, founded in the mid-1950s by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
process church of the final judgement
also known as “The Process” and founded by Robert DeGrimston (b. 1935), a splinter group that split from the Church of Scientology in the early 1960s. It prac- tised a form of group psychotherapy until the mid- 1970s, when it became defunct.
christian countercult movement
a loose coalition of conservative Protestant Christians that considers all new religious movements a threat not only to the social dominance of Christianity but also the general welfare of society. Salvation means not only leaving the new religious movements in question but con- verting to conservative Protestantism
heavens gate
a UFO-centred group founded in the early 1970s by Bonnie Lu Nettles (1928–85) and Marshall Herff Applewhite (1931–97). In March 1997, as the Hale-Bopp comet approached Earth, thirty- nine members of the group, including Applewhite, committed ritual suicide in a rented mansion near San Diego, California.
secular anti-cult movement
: a loose coalition of groups that emerged in the 1960s in response to the brainwashing panic associated with new reli- gious movements such as the Children of God, the Unification Church, and the Hare Krishnas. Unlike the Christian countercult movement, secular anti- cult activists were concerned only with removing adherents from suspect groups, and many employed coercive deprogramming tactics throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
modern paganism
a loosely related family of new religious movements devoted to the worship of a variety of pre-Christian deities, among the most common being Wicca, modern witchcraft, and modern Druidry.
sun myung moon
founder of the Unification Church (b. 1920).
deprogramming
an invasive, frequently abusive practice perpetrated by members of the secular anti-cult movement, intended to reverse the putative brainwashing suffered by adherents of new religions. Now considered illegal in North America, depro- gramming often involved kidnapping and forcibly confining members of new religions.
cult apologists
a derogatory term often applied to scholars of new religions who do not automatically assume that the groups being studied are dangerous or even particularly deviant.
branch davidians
founded originally in 1955, a Seventh-day Adventist sect best known for the tragic 1993 standoff at Waco, Texas, when the group was being led by David Koresh. After a fifty-one day siege the FBI assaulted the members’ residence, fire broke out, and nearly eighty Branch Davidians, including more than twenty children, perished.
aum shinrikyo
in English, “Aum Supreme Truth.” Founded in 1984 and led by Shoko Ashara (b. 1955), Aum is the Japanese millenarian group responsible for the 1995 Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system, in which twelve commuters died and nearly a thousand were injured. Now known as Aleph
order of the solar temple
an esoteric neo-Templar movement founded in 1984 by Joseph di Mambro (1924–94) and Luc Jouret (1947–94). In 1994 and 1997, nearly one hundred members died by mass murder-suicide in Switzerland and Quebec.
movement for the restoration of the ten commandments of god
a fundamentalist Roman Catholic sect founded in Uganda in the late 1980s by Credonia Mwerinde and Joseph Kibweteere (1932–2000). In 2000, in a series of grisly (and still unsolved) events, more than a thousand members died in what analysts speculate was a series of mass suicides or murder-suicides. While Kibweteere died in the events, Mwerinde is believed to have survived, although her whereabouts are unknown.
jim jones
founder of Peoples Temple (1931–78).
charismatic authority
authority attributed to the leader of a new religion by his or her followers, often as a result of claims to divine communication or demon- stration of miraculous abilities.
wicca
one of the most popular streams of Modern Paganism.
satanism
a Christian heresy in which practitioners worship Satan (the devil) as the true source of personal power, often mistaken for a form of Modern Paganism.
cognitive dissonance
coined by sociologist Leon Festinger in the 1950s, a term describing a range of social and psychological behaviours that seek to resolve the conflict between one’s expectations (e.g., Jesus will return on a certain date) and one’s experience (e.g., Jesus does not return), often used to explain failed prophecies.
audience cult
Stark and Bainbridge’s term for the lowest level of new religious commitment, likened to sitting in the audience at a performance but not par- ticipating beyond that
client cult
Stark and Bainbridge’s second category of new religious organization, in which members take advantage of services offered by new religions, often paying for them. Rather than being passive recipi- ents, they are active participants in the new religious relationship.
cult movement
Stark and Bainbridge’s final cat- egory of commitment, in which the new religious movement meets all the religious needs of the par- ticipant and becomes the principal religious group to which that person belongs.
esoteric teachings
new religious teachings that are reserved for initiates or devotees, as opposed to exoteric teachings, which are available to the general public. Many new religions, such as the Church of Scientology, guard their esoteric teach- ings rigorously.
erhard seminars training
founded by Werner Erhard (b. 1935) in 1971 and also known as est; part of the so-called human potential movement. Est ceased operations in 1981 but Erhard and his teach- ings have since been linked to such organizations as the Hunger Project and Landmark Education.
joseph smith junior
founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (1805–44).
david koresh
born Vernon Howell, leader of the Branch Davidian community near Waco, Texas, at the time of the 1993 FBI siege that resulted in the deaths of nearly eighty group members (1959–93).
Helena Petrovna
founder of the Theosophical Society (1831–1891).
seventh day adventist church
a millenarian movement founded in the late nineteenth century.
theaology
ritual, devotional, and theoretical writ- ings centred on a female deity (or deities).
british traditional witchcraft
term used to differ- entiate witchcraft and Wiccan traditions that origi- nated in early mid-twentieth-century England, with Modern Pagans such as Gerald Gardner and Alex Sanders, from Pagan traditions that evolved after the 1960s in North America.
godess spirituality
emerging in the 1970s, a movement of women (and men) who feel that organ- ized religions (principally Christianity) are too male- oriented and believe that religious practice that is rooted in worship of female deities will restore spir- itual balance, both personally and societally.