Lewis James R. - Controversial New Religions

Controversial New Religions

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Controversial new religions / edited by James R. Lewis and Jesper Aa. Petersen. 2nd Edition.

p. cm.

ISBN 9780199394364 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Cults. I. Lewis, James R., editor of compilation. II. Petersen, Jesper Aagaard, editor of compilation.

BP603.C66 2014

200.9'04dc23

2013049363

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

Henrik Bogdan is Associate Professor in History of Religions at the University of Gothenburg. His main areas of research are Western esotericism, New Religious Movements, and Freemasonry. He is the author of Western Esotericism and Rituals of Initiation (2007); and co-editor of several works, including Handbook of Freemasonry (2014) and Sexuality and New Religious Movements (2014).

James D. Chancellor is retired W. O. Carver Professor of World Religions from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has a PhD from Duke University in History of Religion and is the author of Life in The Family: An Oral History of the Children of God (2000).

George D. Chryssides was Head of Religious Studies at the University of Wolverhampton, England, from 2001 to 2008, and is currently Honorary Research Fellow in Contemporary Religion at the University of Birmingham. Recent publications include The A to Z of Jehovahs Witnesses (2009); Heavens Gate: Postmodernity and Popular Culture in a Suicide Group (2011); Christians in the Twenty-First Century (with Margaret Z. Wilkins, 2011); and Historical Dictionary of New Religious Movements (2012). He has co-edited (with Benjamin E. Zeller) The Bloomsbury Companion to New Religious Movements (2014); and is currently working on Jehovahs Witnesses: Continuity and Change, to be published in 2014.

Jocelyn H. DeHaas received her PhD from the University of New Mexico. She works at the University of New Mexico and Central New Mexico Community College teaching anthropology and religious studies. Dr. DeHaas has been studying the Church Universal and Triumphant since 1994.

Helen Farley is a Senior Research Fellow with the School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics at the University of Queensland and a Senior Lecturer (Digital Futures) at the Australian Digital Futures Institute at the University of Southern Queensland. She has taught and researched in world religions, meditative and esoteric traditions, religion and popular culture, and religion in virtual worlds. She was the convenor of the Alternative Expressions of the Numinous Conference Series and the editor of the journal Khthnios.

Eugene V. Gallagher is the Rosemary Park Professor of Religious Studies at Connecticut College. He is the author of Expectation and Experience: Explaining Religious Conversion (1990); The New Religious Movements Experience in America (2004); and co-author of Why Waco? Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America (1995). With W. Michael Ashcraft he is the co-editor of the five-volume Introduction to New and Alternative Religions in the United States (2006). He is a co-General Editor of Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions and Associate Editor of Teaching Theology and Religion.

Mattias Gardell is Nathan Sderblom Professor of Comparative Religion at Uppsala University, Sweden. His numerous publications include In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam (1996); Rasrisk (1998, 2003); Gods of the Blood: White Separatism and the Pagan Revival (2003); and Bin Laden i vra hjrtan: Globaliseringen och framvxten av politisk islam (Bin Ladin in our hearts: Globalization and the rise of political Islam) (2005). The latter study is currently being translated into English, Spanish, Arabic, and Norwegian.

Marion S. Goldman is Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies at the University of Oregon and Scholar in Residence at the Portland Center for Public Humanities at Portland State University. Her 2012 book The American Soul Rush focuses on the growth and spread of alternative spirituality in the United States and the ways that Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, helped shape the spiritual marketplace. She has written extensively about the Rajneesh/Osho Movement in her book Passionate Journeys: Why Successful Women Joined a Cult (1999) and in numerous academic and popular articles.

Malcolm Haddon is a sessional lecturer in anthropology at the University of Sydney and Macquarie University. He is also a senior adviser to the New South Wales Government on multicultural affairs, specializing in issues relating to religion and violent extremism. His forthcoming book Transcending Culture with the Hare Krishnas: Conversion, Translation, Revelation will be published in 2014.

Manon Hedenborg-White is a PhD candidate in History of Religion at Uppsala University, Sweden. Her dissertation deals with the social construction of gender in contemporary occultism. She has written and spoken on a number of topics pertaining to gender and sexuality in modern Western esotericism and Paganism.

Kjersti Hellesy is currently a graduate student at the University of Troms, currently researching independent Scientology. She holds degrees in Religious Studies and in Russian language and literature. She has a special interest in New Religious Movements, religion and violence, Christianity and Islam. She is co-editor of the forthcoming Handbook of Scientology (2015).

Anne Kalvig is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Stavanger, Norway. She has published the book Spiritual Health: Views of Life among Alternative Practitioners (2013, in Norwegian) and various articles and chapters on themes within the field of alternative spirituality, such as alternative therapy, folk medicine, crop circles, spiritual tourism, spiritism, religion and media, popular culture, and death.