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New Religious Movements
New religious movements, a heterogeneous group of religious faiths emerging since the nineteenth century, often syncretizing, re-interpreting or reviving aspects of older traditions such as Western esotericism (Occultism, New Age, Satanism), Modern Paganism (Wicca, Neopaganism, Hellenism, Polytheistic reconstructionism), Hindu derived religions (Transcendental Meditation), New ethnic religions (Nation of Islam, Native American Church, Order of Nine Angles), Entheogenic religions, New Thought (Christian Science), some inspired by science-fiction (UFO religions, Scientology), Political Religions, and Parody religions.
A cult is a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs, or by its common interest in a particular personality, object or goal.
Outline of New Religious Movements New religious movements, a heterogeneous group of religious faiths emerging since the nineteenth century, often syncretizing, re-interpreting or reviving aspects of older traditions such as Western esotericism (Occultism, New Age, Satanism), Modern Paganism (Wicca, Neopaganism, Hellenism, Polytheistic reconstructionism), Hindu derived religions (Transcendental Meditation), New ethnic...
List of New religious Movements A new religious movement (NRM) is a religious, ethical, or spiritual group or community with practices of relatively modern origins. NRMs may be novel in origin or they may exist on the fringes of a wider religion, in which case they will be distinct from pre-existing denominations. Academics identify...
New Religious Movements: An Overview Scholars adopted the term new religious movements (NRMs) in order to avoid the pejorative connotations of the popularly used term cult. Although the word cult originally referred to an organized system of worship (and is still used in that sense by scholars in several disciplines), cult began to take on negative connotations...
Academic Study of New religious Movements The academic study of new religious movements is known as new religions studies (NRS). The study draws from the disciplines of anthropology, psychiatry, history, psychology, sociology, religious studies, and theology. Eileen Barker noted that there are five sources of information on new religious movements (NRMs): the information provided by such groups themselves, that provided by...
Japanese New Religions Japanese new religions are new religious movements established in Japan. In Japanese, they are called shinshūkyō (新宗教) or shinkō shūkyō (新興宗教). Japanese scholars classify all religious organizations founded since the middle of the 19th century as “new religions”; thus, the term refers to a great diversity and number of organizations....
Falun Gong Falun Gong or Falun Dafa (“Dharma Wheel Practice” or “Law Wheel Practice”) is a new religious movement that combines meditation and qigong exercises with a moral philosophy centered on the tenets of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance (真、善、忍). The practice emphasizes morality and the cultivation of virtue, and identifies as a practice of the Buddhist school,...
Mexicayotl Mexicayotl (Nahuatl word meaning “Essence of the Mexican”, “Mexicanity”; Spanish: Mexicanidad; ) is a movement reviving the indigenous religion, philosophy and traditions of ancient Mexico (Aztec religion and Aztec philosophy) among the Mexican people. The movement came to light in the 1950s, led by Mexico City intellectuals, but has grown significantly on a grassroots level only in more recent times, also spreading to the Mexican immigrants to...
Indian Shaker Church The Indian Shaker Church is a Christian denomination founded in 1881 by Squaxin shaman John Slocum and his wife Mary Slocum in Washington State. The Indian Shaker Church is a unique blend of American Indian, Catholic, and Protestant beliefs and practices. The Indian Shakers are unrelated to the Shakers of New England (United Society of Believers) and are not to be confused with the Native...
Ghost Dance The Ghost Dance (Nanissáanah, also called the Ghost Dance of 1890) was a new religious movement incorporated into numerous Native American belief systems. According to the teachings of the Northern Paiute spiritual leader Wovoka (renamed Jack Wilson), proper practice of the dance would reunite the living with spirits of the dead, bring the spirits to fight on...
Goddess Movement The Goddess movement includes spiritual beliefs or practices (chiefly neopagan) which emerged predominantly in North America, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand in the 1970s. The movement grew as a reaction to perceptions of predominant organized religion as male-dominated, and makes use of goddess worship and a focus on gender and femininity. The Goddess...
Matriarchal Religion A matriarchal religion is a religion that focuses on a goddess or goddesses. The term is most often used to refer to theories of prehistoric matriarchal religions that were proposed by scholars such as Johann Jakob Bachofen, Jane Ellen Harrison, and Marija Gimbutas, and later popularized by second-wave feminism. In the 20th century,...
Earth Religion Earth religion is a term used mostly in the context of neopaganism. Earth-centered religion or nature worship is a system of religion based on the veneration of natural phenomena. It covers any religion that worships the earth, nature, or fertility deity, such as the various forms of goddess worship or matriarchal religion. Some find a connection between earth-worship and the Gaia hypothesis. Earth religions are also...
Heathenry Heathenry, also termed Heathenism, contemporary Germanic Paganism, or Germanic Neopaganism, is a modern Pagan religion. Scholars of religious studies classify it as a new religious movement. Developed in Europe during the early 20th century, its practitioners model it on the pre-Christian belief systems adhered to by the Germanic peoples of the Iron Age and Early Middle Ages. In an attempt to reconstruct these...
Cargo Cult The term cargo cult was first used in print in 1945 by Norris Mervyn Bird, repeating a derogatory description used by planters and businessmen in the Australian Territory of Papua. The term was later adopted by anthropologists, and applied retroactively to movements in a much earlier era. In 1964, Peter Lawrence...
Cult of the Supreme Being The Cult of the Supreme Being (Culte de l’Être suprême)[note 1] was a form of deism established in France by Maximilien Robespierre during the French Revolution. It was intended to become the state religion of the new French Republic and a replacement for Roman Catholicism and its rival, the Cult of Reason. It went unsupported after the fall...
Cult of Reason The Cult of Reason (Culte de la Raison)[note 1] was France’s first established state-sponsored atheistic religion, intended as a replacement for Catholicism during the French Revolution. After holding sway for barely a year, in 1794 it was officially replaced by the rival Cult of the Supreme Being, promoted by Robespierre. Both cults were officially banned in 1802 by Napoleon...
Religion of Humanity Religion of Humanity (from French Religion de l’Humanité or église positiviste) is a secular religion created by Auguste Comte (1798–1857), the founder of positivist philosophy. Adherents of this religion have built chapels of Humanity in France and Brazil. In the United States and Europe, Comte’s ideas influenced others, and contributed to the emergence of ethical societies and “ethical...
Freemasonry Freemasonry or Masonry consists of fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local fraternities of stonemasons that from the end of the fourteenth century regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities and clients. Modern Freemasonry broadly consists of two main recognition groups. Regular Freemasonry insists that a volume...
Neoshamanism Neoshamanism refers to “new” forms of shamanism, or methods of seeking visions or healing. Neoshamanism comprises an eclectic range of beliefs and practices that involve attempts to attain altered states and communicate with a spirit world. Neoshamanic systems may not resemble traditional forms of shamanism. Some have been invented by individual...
Eckankar Eckankar is a religion founded by Paul Twitchell in 1965. It is a non-profit religious group with members in over one hundred countries. The spiritual home is the Temple of Eck in Chanhassen, Minnesota. Eckankar is not affiliated with any other religious group. The movement teaches simple spiritual exercises, such as singing “Hu“, called “a love song to...
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