Framing
Some of the foundational works in the constitution of anthropology, first as an "armchair" pursuit and then as a field-based discipline, had religious movements as their focus (see Stocking 1991). Despite some technical difficulties - how do you define "religion"? "belief"? what are you leaving out with that definition? - this is still a vital field of study.
And it's only getting more interesting as people engage with the processes that increasingly shape our world: global flows of information and cultural materials; fundamentalisms in the major world religions; technosciences and their various "imaginaries" (cf. Marcus 2001). It is precisely these admixtures of mainline, unconventional, and extra-religious factors that fascinate me as an anthropologist of religion.
We may well ask what is so "new" about new religions, given that the "New Age" milieu in which they have arisen could date back to the mid-1800s. This has to do with the neologism "new religious movement" that scholars have taken up now that the formerly respectable term "cult" has been pejoratively inflected by an anti-cult movement and the journalists and politicians who take their cue from this movement. I use it here to stick with the field, as well as to emphasize the emergent and developing nature of such groups
Given the importance of religious phenomena to anthropologists, and the continuing importance of religious beliefs and institutions to the vast majority of people around the world, it is only proper that attention be paid to even the most exotic of religions. New religious movements (NRMs) come in a stunning variety of flavors, and are of interest to researchers in many disciplines for many reasons. I am interested in the way that a certain class of NRMs try to deal with the omnipresence and influence of science and technology on modern life in a positive way, blending technoscience into their "techno-spirituality." In particular, I am fascinated by groups that locate the intersection of science and religion in extraterrestrial beings and their vehicles. I am also deeply interested in these NRMs' interactions with the mass media, especially the news media.
In the following pages I lay out an overview of the social-scientific study of new religious movements, with an emphasis on NRMs relationships with mainstream religions, technoscience, government and society, and the mass media. Depending upon the topic, I interject my own research and the issues I believe it raises for the anthropological study of religious creativity. Interested readers can also find selected bibliographies for each topic, as well as lists of useful or provocative websites.
A warning for both bibliography and links: As I have simply moved this site to another host, these pages await a full revision and overhaul. I make no effort at this stage to offer anything comprehensive, preferring instead to stick to my interests, on the one hand, and to offer quality sources of information, on the other. Some page links (e.g., Mainstream Religions) are dead ends because I have not created the pages. Please accept my apologies for the inconvenience, and my promise that the content is coming.