New Age Religions

I examine the epistemological vision of the body as an accumulation of genes that has been developed by the UFO religion called the Raëlian Movement. I reflect it against various posthumanist theories and take an approach that has rarely been used in this domain: I analyze the aesthetic aspect of such scientific and religious models. Thorsten Botz-Bornstein Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review (ASRR) in 8: 1 2017, 101-125.

The 2012-phenomenon includes apocalyptic fantasies regarding an impending collapse of our contemporary society, supposedly prophesized by the ancient Maya and their Long Count calendar. Sometimes connections to the ancient Maya collapse are made. That also happens to be the quite common in academic circles. Some academic researchers believe we can learn from the past failures for future solutions. The objects that were involved in the ancient Maya collapse were not the same as now and therefore we have little to learn from the Maya collapse in relation to our own ecological crisis. The ancient and contemporary Maya’s sensual profiles of ecology, time and space were/are quite different from those found within the “2012-phenomenon” and academia.

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The article proposes an interpretative study of Darren Aronofsky's film Noah. The film draws inspiration from various spiritual traditions ranging from shamanism to Buddhism, whilst relying heavily on Jewish midrash, and adds a layer of innovation. Our main assertion is that the film attempts to present three viewpoints on issues of religion, humanity, nature, and God-while negating two of them and preferring one. Each of the various characters and groups in the film represents one of the three stances, as the film's protagonist must cope with the problematic nature of his worldview and revisit it.
The film engages with current pivotal issues: climate change, the depletion of natural resources, materialism and hedonism, fundamentalism in both religious and environmental trends, suspicion of religious institutionalized interpretations, and gendered spiritual religious beliefs. Thus, the film Noah is a cultural product that disseminates spiritual ideas and values within mainstream culture.

This paper is an in-depth exploration of the modern school of yoga popularly known as Kundalini Yoga As Taught By Yogi Bhajan (KYATBYB). The practice will be examined in its political, historical, and religious dimensions, as compared with other movements within Modern Postural Yoga and their historical precedents and as compared with other expressions of yoga within Sikh history. Yogi Bhajan’s influences will be explored, and the work of other critical authors will be revisited and revised where new information has come to light. Yogi Bhajan’s many inspirations will be laid out in detail, including the various political and interpersonal rivalries that may have shaped his path. Ultimately, the mind of the late Yogi Bhajan is unknowable, but those indelible fingerprints of the past that can be discerned will serve as a jumping off point by which the historical dimensions of the practice may be better understood.

If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.

In 2014, Admiral William H. McRaven addressed the graduating class of the University of Texas, in a video which has since been watched over 10 million times.

He shared the 10 principles he had learned during his Navy Seal training that helped him overcome challenges not only in his long Naval career, but also throughout his life. He explained how anyone can use these basic lessons to change themselves - and the world - for the better . . .

Building on these principles in this book, McRaven recounts tales from his own life and from people he encountered during his military service who dealt with hardship and made tough decisions with determination, compassion, honour, and courage.

Told with great humility and optimism, this timeless book provides simple and universal wisdom, practical advice, and words of encouragement that will inspire readers to achieve.

Over the past few decades, Daoism has become a recognizable part of Western alternative spiritual life. Now, that Westernized version of Daoism is going full circle, traveling back from America and Europe to influence Daoism in China. Dream Trippers draws on more than a decade of ethnographic work with Daoist monks and Western seekers to trace the presence and spread of Westernized Daoism in contemporary China. David A. Palmer and Elijah Siegler take us into the daily life of the monastic community atop the mountain of Huashan, exploring its relationship to the socialist state; detail the international circuit of Daoist "energy tourism," which connects a number of sites throughout China; and examine the controversies around Western scholars who become practitioners and promoters of Daoism. They conclude with lively portrayals of encounters among the book's various characters—Chinese hermits and monks, Western seekers, and scholar-practitioners— as they interact with each other in obtuse, often humorous, and sometimes enlightening and transformative ways. Dream Trippers untangles the anxieties, confusions, and ambiguities that arise as the Chinese and American practitioners work through the tensions between cosmological attunement and radical spiritual individualism in their complex search for authenticity in a globalized world.

Ernesto Genoni (1885-1975) was the pioneer of Biodynamic agriculture  in Australia. He studied art at Brera Academy of Fine Art in Milan, Italy. He visited his older brothers and sisters who had earlier migrated to Australia and had farms at Broome Hill in Western Australia. On one visit WW1 broke out. Although he was a pacifist, Ernesto volunteered in the AIF and served on the Western Front as a stretcher bearer. before being conscripted off the battlefield into the Italian Army. After the war he joined the Anthroposophy Society. He spent time with Rudolf Steiner in Dornach, Switzerland in 1923 and 1924. Back in Australia he established Melbourne's Anthroposophy Michael Group with Anne Macky. He was the first Australian to join the Experimental Circle of Anthroposophical Farmers and Gardeners. He was Australia's first biodynamic farmer. This is his story in his own words.

Dette nummers side 9-ikon stammer fra The Emin Foundation, en diminutiv, religiøs bevægelse der, ifølge bevægelsens egne tal, har små 3000 medlemmer verden over, fordelt i USA, Israel og en række nordeuropæiske lande, deriblandt Danmark. Emin er kun sporadisk beskrevet i litteraturen. De fleste steder (f.eks. hos Eileen Barker) betegnes bevægelsen som en "human potential movement"; en klassifikation, der nok er korrekt, men ikke fuldt dækkende, som det skal blive klart når vi betrager illustrationen nøjere.

Witchcraft has refashioned itself into a religion that exudes female power. This dissertation enters a dynamic conversation in religion and history about the suppression of witchcraft as a religion, as well as feminist discussions on the suppressive and changing nature of ‘femininity’. It explores the possibility that witchcraft at a deeper level, was/is a fight for femininity, drawing on the traditional historical notion of the witch, the feminist witch and the mainstream glamorous witch. A feminist critique challenges the way women are perceived during the age of the traditional witch and collectively, the chapters in this dissertation articulate the inequality and suppression of femininity, masked by a period of persecution of witches.

Bethel Church in Redding, Kalifornien, und ihr Pastor Bill Johnson sind Teil eines apostolischen Netzwerks, dessen Einfluss über die Grenzen der evangelikalen Gemeindebünde hinaus in Deutschland schnell wächst. Johnson begrüßt es offen, Erkenntnisse des New Age mit christlichen Überzeugungen zu verschmelzen. Er nennt New-Age-Praktiken “Werkzeuge, die Gott uns für den Erfolg im Leben und im Dienst gegeben hat”.  Das Buch The Physics of Heaven, das von der Bethel Church mit Artikeln von Johnson und seiner Frau Beni beworben wird, lädt Christen zu einem Abenteuer mystischer Entdeckungen und Begegnungen ein, um “Wahrheiten aus dem New Age zurückzuerobern, die eigentlich den Bürgern des Reiches Gottes gehören.”  Wenn sich jedoch religiöse Elemente, die der Bibel fremd sind, mit dem christlichen Glauben vermischen, kommt es zu Synkretismus, der die Kraft des Evangeliums, das Leben zur christlichen Reife zu verwandeln, schwächt (Eph 3,16–19; 4,13–14).  Diese Konsequenz des Synkretismus wäre das Gegenteil von dem, was Bethel als eine beispiellose Bevollmächtigung für eine wundersame Zukunft mit übernatürlichen Phänomenen durch die Übernahme der New-Age-Ideologie anpreist. Evangelikale und pfingstlich-orientierte Christen in Deutschland stehen vor der provokanten Frage, ob der Anspruch der Bethel Church auf neues und mystisches Wissen die Aufnahme von New-Age-Überzeugungen in den christlichen Glauben rechtfertigt. Eine Analyse der Art, des Ausmaßes, der Anwendung und der Autorität von mystischer Erkenntnis in der Bethel Church aus evangelikaler Sicht trägt zu dieser Entscheidung und einer theologischen Differenzierung bei. Darüber hinaus beleuchtet ein Vergleich der entsprechenden Themen im New Age die Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede zwischen den religiösen Bewegungen. Letztendlich werden Gemeindeleiter entscheiden müssen, ob die Integration von New Age innerhalb der grundlegenden evangelikalen Affirmationen, wie in der quadrilateralen Definition von Evangelikalismus durch Bebbington ausgedrückt, bleibt oder unzulässige Formen des Synkretismus darstellt.  Jede der beiden Schlussfolgerungen wird die Beziehungsnetze prägen, die sich zwischen den Gemeindebünden und den Diensten von Bethel bilden. Ein historischer Rückblick auf die Bethel Church und ihren wachsenden Einfluss in Deutschland geht der Diskussion über mystischer Erkenntnis voraus.

The trope "We Are All One" is taken for granted across a wide spectrum of polyglot spiritualities. Heard today in many spaces, "We Are All One" has a historic precedent based on the multifaith belief in a "unified consciousness," but a deeper analysis uncovers urban myth, erroneous assumptions, cultural appropriation, New Age delusion, separation from Earth Community, denial of current political realities or social justice, and the promotion of globalization through a default of homogeneity.  "We Are All One" is also offensive to marginalized groups and people of colour, and bypasses our foundational bonds to place.

Sexuality is at the center of the kabbalistic cosmos, structuring interactions between the sefirot human and divine. Thus medieval kabbalists innovated rituals of sacred sexuality to act on that cosmos. This essay first describes these earlier rituals, and then examines their changing functions in two 21st Century American self-help books, The Kabbalah Book of Sex and Other Mysteries of the Universe by Yehuda Berg, and The Kosher Sutra: Eight Sacred Secrets for Reigniting Desire and Restoring Passion for Life, by Shmuley Boteach. These American Jewish writers adapt older models to engage American discourses of individualism, capitalism, gender, and pleasure.

We live in a world where most people believe in God. Despite propaganda to the contrary, the number of atheists in the world remains rather small (only 3% in the U.S.A, and only 9% in Canada). Why is that? Is it because people are stupid, superstitious, and irrational. Or is it because there is something there that keeps them engaged. Putting aside derisive dismissals of human spiritual experience, this paper renames mystical experience as "connection experience" and points out that connection experiences are a ubiquitous and healthy aspect of human spirituality and human experience.

Sažetak Jedna od značajnijih karakteristika postmodernog doba, u religijskom smislu, jeste pojava novih vidova religioznosti kao alternativa postojećim, tradicionalnim religijama. Inače, krajem XX i početkom XXI st. religija doživljava ozbiljnu transformaciju, jer sa društvenoreducirane prelazi u individualnosubjektivnu religioznost, što je dovelo, kako to sugerira prof. Adnan Silajdžić, do značajne krize religijskih institucija i krize tradicionalnih religijskih formi. To će rezultirati pojavom novih formi religiozne percepcije svijeta, tj. novih religijskih učenja i pokreta. U radu koji slijedi autor je ponudio kratki prikaz osnovnih karakteristika religije novog doba, kao i najznačajnije pokrete koji se ubrajaju u kategoriju religioznosti novog doba. Ključne riječi: nova religioznost, religija novog doba, New age Uvod R iječ nov (eng. new) u modernom dobu široko je prisutna i često upotrebljiva. Ono što ima atribut novo prihvata se sa znatiželjom i visokim interesom. Ta znatiželja naročito je naglašena u oblasti ekonomije, novinarstva, mode, filma, te drugih sfera života.

In den vergangenen Jahrzehnten wurde Meditation weltweit zu einem Kernbereich moderner Spiritualität. "Meditation und Moderne" enthält die bisher ausführlichsten Analysen zur Geschichte dieses Phänomens.
Als Hintergrund wird der Wandel der spirituellen Praxis vom Hochmittelalter bis zur Etablierung des neuzeitlichen Paradigmas von Meditation in Westeuropa nachgezeichnet. Die für die Moderne wichtigen innovationen entstehen zunächst im außerkirchlichen Bereich mit Schwerpunkten in Nordamerika und Asien. Eine Schlüsselrolle spielen dabei Mesmerismus, Okkultismus und New Thought, die auch an der Entstehung des modernen Yoga beteiligt sind. Gemeinsam mit der Körperkultur-Bewegung wird in diesen Strömungen die Basis für die moderne Meditationskultur gelegt. Im 20. Jahrhundert setzen Reformbemühungen in den Großkirchen, in Philosophie und Psychotherapie den Trend zur Meditation fort. Die Verbreitung von Zen-Praxis läutet im deutschen Sprachraum die Meditationsbewegung der 1970er und 80er Jahre ein, mit deren Darstellung das Buch endet.

The concept ‘New Age’ signifies, in today’s terms, an extremely popular belief system that offers complete control of one’s own life, as well as balance, love and peace in everyday situations. Although every individual would gladly accept all of the above, a detailed examination of the New Age practices will uncover a much more sinister reality beneath a benevolent mask of love and peace. By studying the New Age belief system, symbols by which New Age members communicate, and history and influences that helped shape the already mentioned philosophy into what it is today, we will be able to see that New Age is actually not new at all, but that it is a carefully masked teaching of demons that existed for hundreds of years, that Bible warns about, and that infiltrates all spheres of human existence.
When we analyze practices in so-called ‘Christian’ churches, we may notice that they are saturated with occult symbolism and rituals. The same can be seen in ‘scientific’ circles as well, since today’s science was largely based on the ancient art of alchemy which is simply the other side of the same coin of occultism. The popularization of those practices can be ascribed to the media, especially to movies and videos made by celebrities, by which they slowly, but surely, introduce the masses into the new age of occultism. 
Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to warn the reader of the dangers that New Age carries with it but carefully hides, to encourage them to research everything thoroughly, and to protect themselves from harm. The ultimate goal is to show that the only way out of this system is by following Jesus Christ, the Savior of mankind, who destroyed the devil’s system and in whom we can find rest.

Yoga is now found in urban centres and rural retreats across the world as well as in its historical home in the Indian subcontinent. What is now practiced as yoga across the globe has a long history of transnational intercultural exchange and has been considered by some as an outgrowth of Neo-Hinduism. Although the popularisation of yoga is often cited in theories about ‘Easternization’ or the ‘re-enchantment’ of the West since the late 20th century, most of these theories make little reference to the growing number of historical, sociological and anthropological studies of modern yoga. This article will consider how the apparent dichotomy between yoga as a physical fitness activity (often termed ‘hatha yoga’) and/or as a ‘spiritual practice’ developed historically and discuss recent trends in the research.

This article attempts to establish a sociology of the occult in general, and a sociology of the Western tarot in particular. The tarot is a deck of 78 cards invented in Italy in the fifteenth century. From humble beginnings as a device for gaming or gambling, the tarot became invested with occult, mystical, divine, spiritual, and even psychological significance. This investing became part of a larger strategy of discipline and indoctrination to ease the transition from pre-industrial structures of power and authority to industrial and bureaucratic structures. That tarot, associated as it was with the emergence of elite Freemasonry, helped provide new ideologies of power and ways of existing within new tightly structured, bureaucratic organizations.

Résumé. Cet article vise à établir une sociologie des sciences occultes en général et une sociologie du tarot en particulier. Le tarot comprend 78 cartes et a été inventé en Italie au XVe siècle. De ses débuts modestes en tant que jeu, le tarot s'est vu associé aux sciences occultes, mystiques, divines et spirituelles, prenant même une signification psychologique. Cette dimension s'est inscrite dans une plus grande stratégie de discipline et d'endoctrinement dans le but de faciliter la transition des structures préindustrielles du pouvoir et de l'autorité à des structures industrielles et bureaucratiques. Ce tarot, associé à l'émergence de la franc-maçonnerie d'élite, a contribué aux nouvelles idéologies du pouvoir et des moy-ens d'exister dans les confins d'organisations très structurées et bureaucratiques.

The first part of this article addresses the origin and importance of the yuga theory in India. The second part deals with the discovery of the yuga system by the West, its use by modern Western esoteric writers, and its relevance to New Age ideas, including attempts to determine the date of the beginning of a new cosmic age. The second part will take up more space because it has been less explored.

Pojam 'New Age' oznacava danas vrlo popularan sustav uvjerenja koji covjeku nudi kontrolu nad vlastitim zivotom, te stjecanje ravnoteze, ljubavi i mira u svakodnevnim situacijama. Iako bi svaka osoba sa radoscu prihvatila navedeno, pomnije istrazivanje razotkrit ce mnogo zlokobniju sliku koja se nalazi iza maske ljubavi i mira. Proucavanjem uvjerenja pripadnika New Agea, simbola kojima komuniciraju, te povijesti nastanka i razvoja, imat cemo priliku saznati kako se zapravo radi o demonskim naucima koji se prenose vec stoljecima, na koje upozorava Biblija, i koji se infiltriraju u sve sfere ljudskoga zivota.
Tako, primjerice, kada analiziramo 'krscanske' crkve, mozemo vidjeti kako su zasicene okultnim simbolima, ritualima i praksama, kao što se dogada i u 'znanstvenim' krugovima, koji su bazirani na alkemiji, ili, bolje receno, drugoj strani iste te okultisticke medalje. Navedeno se vec godinama propagira preko medija, a poglavito preko filmova i video spotova koji lagano, ali sigurno, uvode ljude u novo doba okultizma.
Cilj ovoga rada je upozoriti citatelja na opasnosti ovoga sustava vjerovanja, te potaknuti na daljnje istrazivanje, ali i na zaštitu. Isto tako, cilj je ukazati na jedini izlaz iz ovakvog sustava, dakle, na Isusa Krista kao Spasitelja covjecanstva, u Kojemu mozemo naci mir.

Mevlana, İbn-i Arabi, ve Hallac-ı Mansur tarihteki çok önemli tasavvuf alimlerindendir. Ülkemiz açısından ise Mevlana'nın önemi daha büyüktür. Ancak bu tasavvuf alimlerini "sapkın" düşünceli olarak niteleyen bazı çalışmalar da yapılmaktadır. Çalışmamızda bu düşünceye sahip bir araştırmacının makalesi alıntılanmış, böyle bir düşüncenin karşısında esas ana dil metinlere inilerek tartışma konusu metinlerin anlamlarının ne olduğu ve yazar tarafından ilk anda mı yoksa sonradan başkaları tarafından mı yazıldığı açıklığa kavuşturulmalıdır. Bunun önemi, Müslümanların kafalarındaki soru işaretlerini ortadan kaldırması adına çok mühimdir.

The article addresses contemporary enthusiasts’ activities dealing with the ancient Thracian heritage in Bulgaria. Alternative re-writings of the past, cult movements and historical re-enactments have been analysed in view of the creation of a popular narrative, which is being endlessly shared, experienced, re-appropriated and re-formulated online. Based on the concept of "community of practice", as it has been recently introduced in Heritage Studies by Nicolas Adell, Regina F. Bendix, Chiara Bortolotto and Markus Tauschek, the focus of the paper is on possible entanglements between various academic and dilettante, professional and amateur, religious and political actors, all of which contribute to the establishment of an “edited” past.

In this article, I aim to showcase the emergence of the so-called Ancient Astronaut Discourse (AAD) out of religious discourse as well as its continued religious functions despite all differences and pretensions to the contrary (i.e., the concerted effort to resemble legitimate or even superior science, specifically historiography and archaeology). In a second step, I sketch a concise literary history of this emergence itself, as well as the continuous mutual influence between the AAD and the realm of popular culture. This complex intertwinement is exemplified via the rather spectacular case of the "Stargate" science fiction franchise which adapted popular themes and theories from the AAD (in particular its Egyptian front focusing on the pyramids) in the mid-90s. With the success of the movie and the subsequent television shows, the direction of the influence then became strangely reversed: The eponymous Stargate device became integrated into AAD narratives, its fictional origins being silently dropped or explained away by conspiracy theories. I try to account for this development by a methodical approach in the vein of recent studies on fiction-based religions as well as Jean Baudrillard's concept of hyperreality and simulacra. Throughout all these observations, we encounter an imaginary Egypt as providing both the primary building blocks and the general backdrop of ancient mystery from and upon which the AAD's flying pyramids are built.

In her “Toward a Metamodern Reading of Spiritual but Not Religious Mysticisms,” Linda C. Ceriello frames being SBNR as evidencing a new means of engaging with mysticisms through what has been described as a metamodern epistemic shift. By way of examining how mystical material “performs” in a post-postmodern, secular milieu, she investigates the potential utility of the theoretical category of metamodernism that some are putting forth as a successor to postmodernism. She asks how this new category might help us to both account for shifting levels of normativity around mysticism in contemporary culture, and to expose a new dimension of the choice to identify as SBNR.  She then posits the significance of the relationship between the two as a reflexive construction of spaces of liminality analogous to the mystical encounter itself, which mirror contemporary individuals’ felt experiences: of being in-between, of being neither this nor that, and a sense of being both/and —secular and spiritual. Theorizing of a metamodern sensibility is further applied in addressing the significant roles that pop culture and social media have played as the New Age gave way to the SBNR. This move, she suggests, has paved the way for a cultural narrative of a different sort--one that may offer not only a new angle on universalist (modern) and constructivist (postmodern) cultural readings, but a kind of reconciliation of the two that is consequently uniquely reflective of, and responsive to, contemporary secular-spiritualities. Such an analysis aptly culminates in a reconsideration of the oft-cited (and usually pejorative) critique of the social mission and “community” (if any) inherent in being SBNR.

L’article a pour sujet la personnalité extraordinaire du kabbaliste le Rabbin Levi Isaac Krakovsky (1891–1966), un des étudiants oubliés du Rabbin Yehuda Leib Ashlag (1885–1955). Krakovsky diffusait l’enseignement de son maître en Amérique en anglais, écrivait des douzaines de livres et essayait d’établir des yeshivot de Kabbalistes. Contrairement à son maître, il présentait un enseignement exotérique et une vision de diffusion de la Kabbale dans le monde entier. Son influence était minime, mais un de ses élèves était Shraga Philip Berg qui continuait son chemin et le complétait de plusieurs points de vue. L’article se base sur de riches matières archivales, parmi lesquelles de longues essays de l’auteur en manuscrit qui sont décrits ici pour la premiere fois. D’une telle façon, nous décrivons le dévelopment de la Kabbale en Amérique du début du vingtième siècle jusqu’ aujourd’hui.

My Master's research on Starseeds, a new religious movement, and the inter-relationship between digital realities, the social imaginary and the nature of belief.
Philosophical, reflexive musings on the connectedness between ideas, old and new, through the prism of a group of people that believe their souls come from another planet.
An attempt at structuring and layering of ideas to reflect the multi-faceted, or indeed, the multi-dimensional shapes and impact of the life and worldview of a Starseed.

MRes Dissertation:

A comparative study of the existing Ethnographies on Neo-Paganism in Britain and the United States of America. The study aimed to draw out the commonalities between the way community is constructed in both country's Neo-Pagan movements. The study also provides an explanation for the differences between American and British Neo-Paganism.