Element contents
New Religious Movements and Comparative Religion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 January 2024
Summary
This Element provides an introduction to a number of less frequently explored approaches based upon the comparative study of religions. New religions convey origin myths, present their particular views of history, and craft Endtime scenarios. Their members carry out a vast and diverse array of ritual activities. They produce large corpuses of written texts and designate a subset of these as a sacrosanct canon. They focus their attention on material objects that can range from sacred buildings to objects from the natural world that are treated in ritualized fashion. The reason for this fundamental similarity between older and newer religions is briefly explored in terms of the cognitive processes that underlie religious concepts and practices. A final section returns to the issue of how such shared processes take specific shapes in the context of modern, Western societies.
Information
- Type
- Element
- Information
- Online ISBN: 9781009029469Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication: 22 February 2024
References
Ashcraft, W. M. 2018. A Historical Introduction to the Study of New Religious Movements. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Athay, R. G. 1968. Worlds Without Number: The Astronomy of Enoch, Abraham, and Moses. BYU Studies Quarterly 8: 255–69.Google Scholar
Barrett, J. L. 2022. Oxford Handbook of the Cognitive Science of Religion. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Barret-Fox, R. 2016. God Hates: Westboro Baptist Church, American Nationalism, and the Religious Right. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bascom, W. A. 1965. The Forms of Folklore: Prose Narratives. Journal of American Folklore 78: 3–20.Google Scholar
Bell, C. 2009a. Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bell, C. 2009b. Ritual Theory. Ritual Practice. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ben-Porat, G. & Huss, B.. 2023. Fighting for Legitimacy: New Religious Movements and Militarism in Israel. Nova Religio 26(3): 80–100.Google Scholar
Besant, A. 1905. Esoteric Christianity: The Lesser Mysteries. 2nd ed. London: J. Lane (with numerous reprints).Google Scholar
Bigliardi, S. 2023. New Religious Movements and Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Blavatsky, H. 1888. The Secret Doctrine. New York: Theosophical University Press (with numerous reprints).Google Scholar
Boyer, P. 1994. The Naturalness of Religious Ideas. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Bromley, D. G. 2009. Making Sense of Scientology: Prophetic, Contractual Religion. In Lewis, J. R., ed. Scientology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 83–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, F. 1997. The Channeling Zone: American Spirituality in an Anxious Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Burt, A. R. 2023. Hare Krishna in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Campbell, C. 1972. The Cult, the Cultic Milieu and Secularization. In Hill, M., ed. A Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain. London: SCM Press, pp. 119–36.Google Scholar
Capra, F. 1975. The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism. Boulder, CO: Shambhala Publications.Google Scholar
Clarke, P. 2012. New Religious Movements in Sub-Saharan Africa. In Hammer, O. & Rothstein, M., eds. The Cambridge Companion to New Religious Movements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 303–20.Google Scholar
Davis, R. H. 2015. The Bhagavad Gita: A Biography. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Denzler, B. 2003. The Lure of the Edge: Scientific Passions, Religious Beliefs, and the Pursuit of UFOs. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Dowling, L. 1908. The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ. Los Angeles: Leo W. Dowling (with numerous reprints).Google Scholar
Dubuisson, D. 2014. Twentieth-Century Mythologies: Dumézil, Lévi-Strauss, Eliade. Revised ed. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Eisenstadt, S. 2000b. The Reconstruction of Religious Arenas in the Framework of “Multiple Modernities.” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 29(3): 591–611.Google Scholar
Fäth, R. J. & David, V. (eds.). 2015. ænigma: One Hundred Years of Anthroposophical Art. Prague: Arbor Vitae.Google Scholar
Feder, Y. 2016. Contamination Appraisals, Pollution Beliefs, and the Role of Cultural Inheritance in Shaping Disease Avoidance Behavior. Cognitive Science 40(6): 1561–85.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ferguson, M. 1980. The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in the 1980s. New York: Tarcher.Google Scholar
Firestone, R. 2012. “Jihadism” as a New Religious Movement. In Hammer, O. & Rothstein, M., eds. The Cambridge Companion to New Religious Movements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 261–85.Google Scholar
Fuller, J. G. 1966. The Interrupted Journey: Two Lost Hours “Aboard a Flying Saucer.” New York: Dial Press (with numerous reprints).Google Scholar
Gallagher, E. 2014. Reading and Writing Scripture in New Religious Movements: New Bibles and New Revelations. New York: Palgrave/Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardell, M. 1996. In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Goswami, S. D. 1980. Srila Prabhupada Lilamrta: A Biography of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. 7 vols. Los Angeles: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust.Google Scholar
Green, M. 1990. Mau Mau Oathing Rituals and Political Ideology in Kenya: A Re-Analysis. Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 60(1): 69–87.Google Scholar
Grimes, R. 2000. Ritual. In Braun, W. & McCutcheon, R. T., eds. Guide to the Study of Religion. London: Cassell, pp. 259–70.Google Scholar
Hammer, O. 2010. I Did It My Way? Individual Choice and Social Conformity in New Age Religion. In Aupers, S. & Houtman, D., eds. Religions of Modernity: Relocating the Sacred to the Self and the Digital. Leiden: Brill, pp. 49–68.Google Scholar
Hammer, O. 2019. Occult Scriptural Exegesis: Theosophical Readings of the Bible. In Elness-Hanson, B. E. & Skarpeid, J., eds. A Critical Study of Classical Religious Texts in Global Contexts: Challenges of a Changing World. New York: Peter Lang, pp. 153–66.Google Scholar
Hammer, O. & Rothstein, M.. 2012. Canonical and Extracanonical Texts in New Religions. In Hammer, O. & Rothstein, M., eds. The Cambridge Companion to New Religious Movements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 113–22.Google Scholar
Hammer, O. & Rothstein, M.. 2023. Religious Innovation in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hammer, O. & Swartz, K.. 2020. The Bosnian Pyramid Phenomenon. Nova Religio 23(4): 94–110.Google Scholar
Hammer, O. & Swartz, K.. 2021. Ancient Aliens. In Zeller, B. E., ed. Handbook of UFO Religions. Leiden: Brill, pp. 151–77.Google Scholar
Hammer, O. & Swartz, K.. 2024. Graham Hancock. Prometheus for a New Age: Alternative Archaeology as Modern Mythmaking. Nova Religio 27: forthcoming.Google Scholar
Harvey, S. & Newcombe, S. (eds.). 2013. Prophecy in the New Millennium: When Prophecy Persists. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hoopes, J. W. 2011. A Critical History of 2012 Mythology. In Ruggles, C. L. N., ed. “Oxford IX” International Symposium on Archaeoastronomy Proceedings IAU Symposium No. 278. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 240–48.Google Scholar
Hutton, R. 2008. Modern Pagan Festivals: A Study in the Nature of Tradition. Folklore 119(3): 251–73.Google Scholar
Hutton, R. 2009. Blood and Mistletoe: The History of Druids in Britain. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Introvigne, M. 2016. New Religious Movements and the Visual Arts. Nova Religio, 19(4): 3–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kisala, R. 2004. Soka Gakkai: Searching for the Mainstream. In Lewis, J. R. & Aa., J. Petersen, eds. Controversial New Religions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 139–52.Google Scholar
Lewis, J. R. 2003. Legitimating New Religions. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, J. R. 2016. Technological Exorcism, Body Thetans, and Scientology’s Secret Mythology. Numen 63(1): 33–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lincoln, B. 1999. Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and Scholarship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lucas, P. C. 2011. New Age Millennialism. In Wessinger, C., ed. The Oxford Handbook of Millennialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 567–86.Google Scholar
Lund, G. N. 1992. Plan of Salvation, Plan of Redemption. In Ludlow, D. H., ed. Encyclopedia of Mormonism. New York: Macmillan, pp. 1088–91. https://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Plan_of_Salvation,_Plan_of_Redemption.Google Scholar
MacLaren Walsh, J. & Topping, B.. 2018. The Man who Invented Aztec Crystal Skulls: The Adventures of Eugène Boban. New York: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Malinowski, B. 1948 [1926]. Myth in Primitive Psychology. In Malinowski, B., ed. Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, pp. 72–124.Google Scholar
McCutcheon, R. T. 2000. Myth. In Braun, W. & McCutcheon, R. T., eds. Guide to the Study of Religion. London: Cassell, pp. 190–208.Google Scholar
McGuire, M. 1988. Ritual Healing in Suburban America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Melton, J. G. 2016. Encyclopedia of American Religions. 9th ed. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Research.Google Scholar
Moerman, D. E. 2002. Medicine, Meaning, and the Placebo Effect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morgan, D. 2010. Introduction: The Matter of Belief. In Morgan, D., ed. Religion and Material Culture: The Matter of Belief. London: Routledge, pp. 1–17.Google Scholar
Newen, A., Bruin, L. De & Gallagher, S. (eds.). 2018. The Oxford Handbook of 4E Cognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nielsen, K. F. & Ricks, S. D.. 1992. Creation, Creation Accounts. In Ludlow, D. H., ed. Encyclopedia of Mormonism. New York: Macmillan, pp. 340–43. https://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Creation,_Creation_AccountsGoogle Scholar
Notovitch, N. 1894. La vie inconnue de Jésus-Christ. Paris: Paul Ollendorff (with numerous reprints).Google Scholar
Ohlenschläger, S. 1999. Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925): Das architektonische Werk. Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag.Google Scholar
Pace, E. 2000. Damanhur, de la religion à la politique. Ethnologie française, nouvelle série, 30(4): 575–82.Google Scholar
Palmer, S. J. 2004. Aliens Adored: Rael’s UFO Religion. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Palmer, S. J. 2005. The Raelian Movement: Concocting Controversy, Seeking Social Legitimacy, In Lewis, J. R. & Aa, J.. Petersen, eds. Controversial New Religions. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 371–85.Google Scholar
Palmer, S. J. 2010. The Nuwaubian Nation: Black Spirituality and State Control. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Paul, E. R. 1992. Astronomy, Scriptural References to. In Ludlow, D. H., ed. Encyclopedia of Mormonism. New York: Macmillan, p. 82. https://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Astronomy,_Scriptural_References_to.Google Scholar
Penton, M. J. 2015. Apocalypse Delayed: The Story of Jehovah’s Witnesses. 3rd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Pinkney, A. M. 2018. Prasāda. In Jacobsen, K. A. (editor in chief). Brill Encyclopedia of Hinduism Online. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Prophet, E. C. 1984. The Lost Years of Jesus: On the Discoveries of Notovitch, Abhedananda, Roerich, and Caspari. Livingston, MT: Summit University Press.Google Scholar
Rappaport, R. 1999. Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rothstein, M. 2009. “And his Name was Xenu, He Used Renegades … ”: Aspects of Scientology’s Founding Myth. In Lewis, J. R., ed. Scientology. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 365–87.Google Scholar
Schjødt, U., Stødkilde-Jørgensen, H., Geertz, A. W. & Roepstorff, A.. 2009. Highly Religious Participants Recruit Areas of Social Cognition in Personal Prayer. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 4(2): 199–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmidt, R. 2010. Membership – Study – Contact. In Kühl, J., von Plato, B., & Zimmermann, H., eds. The School of Spiritual Science: An Orientation and Introduction. Forest Row: Temple Lodge, pp. 96–100.Google Scholar
Shaman, N. J., Saide, A. R. & Richert, R. A.. 2019. Dimensional Structure of and Variation in Anthropomorphic Concepts of God. In Airenti, G., Cruciani, M. & Plebe, A., eds. The Cognitive Underpinnings of Anthropomorphism. Frontiers in Psychology. Lausanne: Frontiers Media, pp. 46–61.Google Scholar
Shterin, M. 2012. New Religious Movements in Changing Russia. In Hammer, O. & Rothstein, M., eds. The Cambridge Companion to New Religious Movements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 286–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simmel, G. 1992. Das Geheimnis und die geheime Gesellschaft. In Simmel, G., ed. Soziologie: Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, pp. 383–55.Google Scholar
Smith, J. Z. 1982. Sacred Persistence: Towards a Redescription of Canon. In Smith, J. Z., ed. Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 36–52.Google Scholar
Strenski, I. 1987. Four Theories of Myth in Twentieth-Century History: Cassirer, Eliade, Lévi-Strauss, and Malinowski. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Taves, A. 2009. Religious Experience Reconsidered: A Building Block Approach to the Study of Religion and Other Special Things. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Taves, A. 2016. Revelatory Events: Three Case Studies of the Emergence of New Spiritual Paths. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, M. 2015. How to Do Things with Sanskrit: Speech Act Theory and the Oral Performance of Sacred Text. Numen 62(5/6): 519–37.Google Scholar
Urban, H. B. 2011. The Church of Scientology: A History of a New Religion. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Urban, H. B. 2021. Secrecy: Silence, Power, and Religion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Vogel, D. 2021. Book of Abraham Apologetics: A Review and Critique. Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books.Google Scholar
Vorilhon, C. (a.k.a Raël). 1974. Le livre qui dit la vérité: le message donné par les extra-terrestres. Clermont-Ferrand: L’édition du message.Google Scholar
Walsh, J. M. 2008. Legend of the Crystal Skulls: The Truth Behind Indiana Jones’s Latest Quest. Archaeology 61: 36–41.Google Scholar
White, C. 2021. An Introduction to the Cognitive Science of Religion. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Whitehouse, H. 2000. Arguments and Icons: Divergent Modes of Religiosity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Whitehouse, H. 2004. Modes of Religiosity: A Cognitive Theory of Religious Transmission. Walnut Creek, CA: Alta Mira Press.Google Scholar
Zander, H. 2007. Anthroposophie in Deutschland: Theosophische Weltanschauung und gesellschaftliche Praxis 1884–1945. Göttingen: Vandenhock & Ruprecht.Google Scholar
Zander, H. 2019. Die Anthroposophie: Rudolf Steiners Ideen zwischen Esoterik, Weleda, Demeter und Waldorfpädagogik. Paderborn: Schöningh.Google Scholar
Zeller, B. E. 2014. Heaven’s Gate: America’s UFO Religion. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Accessibility standard: Unknown
Why this information is here
This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.Accessibility Information
Accessibility compliance for the HTML of this Element is currently unknown
and may be updated in the future.
- 12
- Cited by