Bücher der Reihe Palgrave Studies in New Religions and Alternative Spiritualities

This study of new religious movements in Quebec focuses on nine groups-including the notoriously violent Solar Temple; Eleven contributing authors offer rich ethnographies and sociological insights on new spiritual groups that highlight the quintessential features of Quebec's new religions ("sectes" in the francophone media).

This book tells the story of the children and youth of the charismatic new religious commune Knutby Filadelfia in Sweden. It recounts the history of the congregation, which started out as a part of the Swedish Pentecostalmovement in 1921. In the 1990s, it developed into a new religion, when the congregation¿s female pastor embraced the role of the Bride of Christ. The congregation became widely known in 2004 when one of its members was murdered by another member, the latter claiming to have been acting on orders from God. In 2018, the congregation dissolved after a few years of internal crisis.Sanja Nilsson provides rich empirical analysis of archival material and interviews with the congregation¿s children and youth. The young informants¿ personal perspectives on their own childhoods encompass narratives from their time inside the congregation, when they identified as members of a stigmatizedminority religion, aswell as from the time after the dissolution of the group, when they identified asdefectors from what they came to view as a sectarian milieu.This work offers a comprehensive insight into the Knutby Filadelfia congregation, a group, that although notoriously charted by the media, has been hitherto unexplored by academics. It adds to the growing field of studies concerned with childhoods within new religions and expounds the dynamics of the defection process from the rarely applied perspective of children and youth themselves.

The Damanhur Federation, situated in Valchiusella, North-West Italy, is one of Europe's longest-lasting spiritual-esoteric communities. Nevertheless, there has hitherto been nearly no scientific study of this group, with the exception of a handful of specialised-journal articles. This collection fills that gap by collating the various scholarly contributions which over the years have dealt with Damanhur, aiming to present the phenomenon to a public of specialists, students and people who are just curious in a volume focusing on the multidisciplinary nature of the community as a whole. We consider the various spheres making up the social, cultural, spiritual and organisational life of Damanhur through analysis and interpretation of its historical evolution and more recent changes which have affected the community since its founder's death. The contributions combine field research with theoretical reflection, making use of both qualitative (discursive interviews and participant observation) and quantitative (questionnaires) methods.

This collection explores the role of innovation in understanding the history of esotericism. It illustrates how innovation is a mechanism of negotiation whereby an idea is either produced against, or adapted from, an older set of concepts in order to respond to a present context. Featuring contributions from distinguished scholars of esotericism, it covers many different fields and themes including magic, alchemy, Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, Tarot, apocalypticism and eschatology, Mesmerism, occultism, prophecy, and mysticism.

The nineteenth century witnessed a proliferation of alternative religious currents and practices, appropriating earlier traditions, entangling geographically distinct spiritual discourses, and crafting a repository of mindscapes eminently suitable to be accommodated by later generations of thinkers and practitioners.

This book presents empirical case studies of such constructions, and of transfers between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in the premodern period, and Judaism, Christianity, and Western esotericism in the modern period.

This study of new religious movements in Quebec focuses on nine groups-including the notoriously violent Solar Temple; Eleven contributing authors offer rich ethnographies and sociological insights on new spiritual groups that highlight the quintessential features of Quebec's new religions ("sectes" in the francophone media).

This book is the first collection to feature histories of women in Western Esotericism while also highlighting women's scholarship.

This collection explores the role of innovation in understanding the history of esotericism. Featuring contributions from distinguished scholars of esotericism, it covers many different fields and themes including magic, alchemy, Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, Tarot, apocalypticism and eschatology, Mesmerism, occultism, prophecy, and mysticism.

The nineteenth century witnessed a proliferation of alternative religious currents and practices, appropriating earlier traditions, entangling geographically distinct spiritual discourses, and crafting a repository of mindscapes eminently suitable to be accommodated by later generations of thinkers and practitioners.

India and the Occult explores the reception of Indian spirituality among Western occultists through case studies. Rather than focusing on the activities of Theosophical Society, India and the Occult looks at the 'hard-core' occultism, in particular the British 20th century currents associated with Aleister Crowley, Dion Fortune, Kenneth Grant, etc.

Combining the theoretical and methodological foundations of the field of Esotericism Studies with those of Literary Studies, Art History, and Cinema Studies, this volume provides in-depth and nuanced perspectives upon the relationship between Occultism and Modernism in the Western arts from the nineteenth century to the present day.

In this book, historians of religion and gender studies explore the biographies of a number of female leaders, and the factors within their groups and cultural contexts that support these women's religious leadership.

In the second, the authors demonstrate that spiritual traditions, whether ancient or historically fictitious, are suitable for reframing in the context of critical interpretative frameworks related to cultural expectations which challenge them and call their continuity into question.

In this book, historians of religion and gender studies explore the biographies of a number of female leaders, and the factors within their groups and cultural contexts that support these women's religious leadership.

This volume explores how Pagans negotiate local and global tensions as they craft their identities, both as members of local communities and as cosmopolitan ¿citizens of the world.¿ Based on cutting edge international case studies from Pagan communities in the United States, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Israel, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Malta, it considers how modern Pagans negotiate tensions between the particular and universal, nationalism and cosmopolitanism, ethnicity, and world citizenship. The burgeoning of modern Paganisms in recent decades has proceeded alongside growing globalization and human mobility, ubiquitous Internet use, a mounting environmental crisis, the re-valuing of indigenous religions, and new political configurations. Cosmopolitanism and nationalism have both influenced the weaving of unique local Paganisms in diverse contexts. Pagans articulate a strong attachment to local or indigenous traditions and landscapes, constructing paths that reflect local socio-cultural, political, and historical realities. However, they draw on the Internet and the global circulation of people and universal ideas. This collection considers how they confound these binaries in fascinating, complex ways as members of local communities and global networks.

New religious movements both read the Bible in creative ways and produce their own texts that aspire to scriptural status. From the creation stories in Genesis and the Ten Commandments to the life of Jesus and the apocalypse, they develop their self-understandings through reading and writing scripture.

In the second, the authors demonstrate that spiritual traditions, whether ancient or historically fictitious, are suitable for reframing in the context of critical interpretative frameworks related to cultural expectations which challenge them and call their continuity into question.

MSIA, the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness, has been called the Cadillac of cults. Those interested in new religions may only know of MSIA from these kinds of labels. However, when looked at from a qualitative sociological perspective, a more complex story of religious innovation and cultural change can be told.

This volume is the first English-language anthology to engage with the fascinating phenomena of recent surges in New Age and alternative spiritualties in Israel.

Combining the theoretical and methodological foundations of the field of Esotericism Studies with those of Literary Studies, Art History, and Cinema Studies, this volume provides in-depth and nuanced perspectives upon the relationship between Occultism and Modernism in the Western arts from the nineteenth century to the present day.

This is open access under a CC BY 4.0 licenseThe history of Charismatic Christianity in the Nordic countries reaches as far back as Pentecostalism itself. The bounds of these categories remain a topic of discussion, but Nordic countries have played a vital role in developing this rapidly spreading form of world-wide Christianity.