How L. Ron Hubbard’s his views on Christianity, Buddhism and other religions develop and how do they relate to popular and academic knowledge in the 1940s and 1950s? The idea Hubbard only for economic or public relation reasons defined Scientology as a religion is a serious biographic mistake, as a survey of his earlier statements can show. Hubbard only had limited knowledge on the historic religions, however (as he himself says). But he seriously tried to find a place for Scientology in the history of religions, as can be seen from texts like the Phoenix lectures, his most elaborate discussion of how the other religions relate to Scientology. The article discusses both Hubbard´s ideas on religious history and his possible sources.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.