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Douglas E. Cowan

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Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
Serie: Blackwell Brief Histories of Religion
Sprache: Englisch

Beschreibung

This unparalleled introduction to cults and new religious movements has been completely up-dated and expanded to reflect the latest developments; each chapter reviews the origins, leaders, beliefs, rituals and practices of a NRM, highlighting the specific controversies surrounding each group. * A fully updated, revised and expanded edition of an unparalleled introduction to cults and new religious movements * Profiles a number of the most visible, significant, and controversial new religious movements, presenting each group's history, doctrines, rituals, leadership, and organization * Offers a discussion of the major controversies in which new religious movements have been involved, using each profiled group to illustrate the nature of one of those controversies * Covers debates including what constitutes an authentic religion, the validity of claims of brainwashing techniques, the implications of experimentation with unconventional sexual practices, and the deeply rooted cultural fears that cults engender * New sections include methods of studying new religions in each chapter as well as presentations on 'groups to watch'

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Seitenzahl: 470

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

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Leseprobe

Cover

Title page

Preface to the Second Edition

List of Text Boxes

Chapter 1: Cults and New Religions: A Primer

The Range of New Religious Movements

Controversy and the Popular Perception of New Religious Movements

Further Reading on New Religious Movements

Chapter 2: The Church of Scientology: The Question of Religion

L. Ron Hubbard and the Origins of Scientology

Beliefs and Practices of the Church of Scientology

The Organizational Structure of the Church of Scientology

The Church of Scientology and the Question of Religion

Researching Scientology

Further Reading on the Church of Scientology

Chapter 3: Transcendental Meditation: The Questions of Science and Therapy

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the Arrival of Transcendental Meditation

Beliefs and Practices of Transcendental Meditation

The Growth and Development of Transcendental Meditation

Transcendental Meditation: The Questions of Science and Therapy

Researching Transcendental Meditation

Further Reading on Transcendental Meditation

Chapter 4: Ramtha and the New Age: The Question of “Dangerous Cult”

Who Is JZ Knight and Who Is Ramtha?

History and Development of Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment

Beliefs and Practices of Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment

RSE and the Question of the ‘Dangerous Cult’

Researching Ramtha

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

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Wiley Blackwell Brief Histories of Religion Series

This series offers brief, accessible, and lively accounts of key topics within theology and religion. Each volume presents both academic and general readers with a selected history of topics which have had a profound effect on religious and cultural life. The word “history” is, therefore, understood in its broadest cultural and social sense. The volumes are based on serious scholarship but they are written engagingly and in terms readily understood by general readers.

Cults and New Religious

A Brief History

Second Edition

Douglas E. Cowan

Renison College, University of Waterloo

and

David G. Bromley

Virignia Commonwealth University

Edition history: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. (1e, 2008)

Registered OfficeJohn Wiley & Sons, Ltd., The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK

Editorial Offices350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UKThe Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK

For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell.

The right of Douglas E. Cowan and David G. Bromley to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and authors have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services and neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cowan, Douglas E. [Cults and new religions] Cults and new religions : a brief history / Douglas E. Cowan, Renison College, University of Waterloo, David G. Bromley, Virginia Commonwealth University. – Second edition. pages cm. – (Wiley blackwell brief histories of religion) Revision of: Cults and new religions. – Malden, MA ; Oxford : Blackwell Pub., 2008. Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-118-72210-7 (paperback)1. Religions. 2. Cults. I. Bromley, David G. II. Title. BL80.3.C69 2015 200.9′04–dc23

2015005385

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

For Joie and Donna, our soul mates

Preface to the Second Edition

We are very gratified by the reception of the first edition of this book. It has become a popular textbook in both Europe and North America for introductory courses on cults and new religions, and has been translated into German, Czech, and Japanese. We hope to see more translations in the future. We have tried to provide a detailed, yet accessible text for both students and instructors, something that will serve as much to inform their research as to spark their interest in further study. New religions continue to appear – some contested, others less so. The issues and questions with which we deal remain central to the study not only of new religious movements, but religion itself. Both of us regularly field media inquiries about this new movement or that. Reporters still want to know, for example, if the Church of Scientology is a “real” religion. Our response to all these inquiries remains the same: there is so much more to new religious movements than you can capture in your newspaper, television report, or blog post.

Cults and New Religions: A Brief History is intended for instructors who have little formal preparation in the field and for students interested in the central questions that have defined new religions study for nearly half a century. We hope that it will encourage a broader and richer understanding of these movements, an appreciation for their diversity and resilience that moves far beyond the stock and superficial descriptions so common in society.

Much has happened since the first edition, some of which we were able to incorporate, much more of which happened so fast that it was simply impossible to include. Sun Myung Moon, for example, the founder of the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity – known colloquially as the Moonies – passed away in 2012. As Max Weber, one of the founders of modern sociology, taught us, the death of a charismatic leader puts profound pressure on the organization, and we are seeing this in the Unificationist movement now. On the other hand, although we present JZ Knight, also known as Ramtha, as a foil to the notion of the “dangerous cult,” in 2014 she was sued by one of her former students because of racist and homophobic comments she made on a video. What we learn from all this is that religion is, for better or worse, a human phenomenon, subject to the foibles and fortes of our shared humanity.

In addition to a thorough updating of the groups included, this edition of Cults and New Religions: A Brief History included two components we think will be particularly valuable to students and instructors. First, at the end of each chapter devoted to a particular group or movement we have added a section on research methods, how different scholars have studied and continue to study new religions. Obviously, these are not intended to exhaust the methodological options for study, but to provide a sampling of the ways in which we have sought to understand the continuing emergence and evolution of human religious behavior. Second, in the last chapter we have included a number of text boxes on what we consider groups worth watching. Once again, these hardly describe all the groups out there, but should give students and instructors some guidance in looking for cults and new religions beyond “the usual suspects.”

We would like to thank our editors at Wiley Blackwell, particularly Georgina Colby, who has sent gentle reminders when things were due and was unfailingly gracious when we were slightly behind on the rent, as it were. The hundreds of students who have passed through the classes in which many of these ideas were presented have always been a source of pleasure in our academic lives. Our greatest debt, as always, though, is reserved for our spouses, Joie (Cowan) and Donna (Bromley).

List of Text Boxes

Santa Muerte

Burning Man Festival

Trucker Churches and Cowboy Churches

Sunday Assembly

Entheogenic Churches

The term cult … is generally understood to have a negative connotation that indicates morally reprehensible practices or beliefs that depart from historic Christianity.

Bob Larson, countercult activist

A group or movement exhibiting a great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea, or thing and employing unethically manipulative techniques of persuasion and control … designed to advance the goals of the group’s leaders, to the actual or possible detriment of members, their families, or the community.

L.J. West and Michael D. Langone, anticult activists

They crouch in dark basements in New York and San Francisco, worshipping the Devil. They wait patiently for the Second Coming or scan the skies for the spaceship that will bring the New Age. A few practice polygamy in isolated mountain communes. Tens of thousands have abandoned their families, friends, educations and careers to follow the teachings of a leader they will never meet.

Melinda Beck and Susan Frakar, journalists

… new religious movements are important indicators of stressful changes in culture and society. They are also interesting attempts to come to terms with rapid social change by imposing new interpretations on it and by experimenting with practical responses. They therefore amount to social and cultural laboratories where experiments in ideas, feelings and social relations are carried out.

James A. Beckford, sociologist

For me, [new religious movements] are beautiful life forms, mysterious and pulsating with charisma. Each “cult” is a mini-culture, a protocivilization. Prophets and heretics generate fantasy worlds that rival those of Philip K. Dick or L. Frank Baum.

Susan Palmer, sociologist

New religions open their members to highly creative lifestyles that enable them to envision themselves as citizens of the global city that our world has become. Like Christian missions, they are global movements that energize their followers with a new vision of the world … By uprooting traditions from their social and historical contexts, new religions propose new ways of life that give members a reason for living and hope for the future.

Irving R. Hexham, historian, and Karla Poewe, anthropologist

Chapter 1Cults and New Religions: A Primer

It should be clear from the brief sampling on the previous pages that the debate over what constitutes a “cult” or “new religious movement” is often highly contested and emotionally charged. For some, new religions epitomize all that is dangerous and deviant in the compass of religious belief and practice. For others, they represent fascinating glimpses into the way human beings organize their lives to construct religious meaning and give shape to religious experience. Such differences, however, are only exacerbated by the different agendas that motivate various interest groups.

On the one hand, some groups proactively challenge the legitimacy of new religious movements, seeking to convince adherents to abandon their new religious commitments. Exemplified by the first quote opposite, evangelical countercult apologists such as Bob Larson (1989: 19) consider new religions suspect simply because they either deviate or are altogether different from their own understanding of Christianity. Indeed, new religions are often treated with skepticism when their principal beliefs differ from those of the dominant religious tradition in a particular society. As historian of religions J. Gordon Melton points out, though, this dynamic varies considerably from country to country. “For example,” he writes, “in the United States the United Methodist Church is one of the dominant religious bodies. In Greece, the government cited it as being a destructive cult” (Melton 2004: 79). Thus, what appears as a cult in one context may be one of the most prevalent religious traditions in another. Secular anticult activism, on the other hand, is motivated not by theological conflict or differences in doctrinal belief, but by civil libertarian concerns for the psychological welfare of new religious adherents. Often informed by an ideology that accuses new religions of such nefarious practices as “brainwashing” and “thought control,” this is illustrated by the second quote opposite (West and Langone 1986: 119–120). For both of these countermovements, however, the same set of salient issues are involved: How do we show that cults are dangerous? How do we warn people against them? And, most importantly, how do we get people to leave them behind? (For detailed histories of the evangelical countercult and secular anticult movements, as well as comparisons between them, see Shupe and Bromley 1980; Cowan 2003a.)

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