Kategoria BISAC: Religion >> Cults

"Bednarowski is especially good at elucidating the theological daring of these new American religions.... She] demonstrates in a very few pages how... theology and group adherence made the individual count, a configuration simultaneously American, un-American, and important." --Jon Butler

"The cultural confrontation with these new religions' is very real and usually very misinformed. Bednarowski has gone to great lengths to dispel the ignorance." --The Christian Century

"A groundbreaking study." --Syzygy: Journal of Alternative Religion and Culture

Organized as a series...

The Peoples Temple movement ended on November 18, 1978, when more than 900 men, women, and children died in a ritual of murder and suicide in their utopianist community of Jonestown, Guyana. Only a handful lived to tell their story. As is well known, Jim Jones, the leader of Peoples Temple, was white, but most of his followers were black. Despite that, little has been written about Peoples Temple in the context of black religion in America. In 10 essays, writers from various disciplines address this gap in the scholarship. Twenty-five years after the tragedy at Jonestown, they assess the...

In October of 1563, 18-year old Anne Mylner was herding cows near her home when she was suddenly enveloped by a white cloud that precipitated a months-long illness characterized by sleeplessness, loss of appetite, convulsions, and bodily swelling. Mylner's was the first of several cases during the reign of Elizabeth I of England that were interpreted as demon possession, a highly emotional experience in which an afflicted person displays behavior indicating a state of religious distress. To most Elizabethans, belief in Satan was as natural as belief in God, and Satan's affliction of...

This riveting work of social history documents the role the news media played in spurring two murders revolving around Edmund Creffield, a charismatic "Holy Roller" evangelist who arrived in Corvallis, Oregon, in 1903 and quickly enraged the citizenry by defiantly challenging the religious and sexual mores of the time. When ardent female followers began refusing to speak to their nonbelieving husbands, vigilantes tarred and feathered Creffield, eventually forcing him to flee to Seattle.

Once there, Creffield was murdered by George Mitchell, the brother of one of his followers. The...

A comprehensive survey of major alternative religions in the United States, including new groups since the 1960s Crystals, shamans, guided imagery, healing meditation--why have these New Age practices been so eagerly accepted by so many North Americans? Why were Mormonism, Christian Science, and Baha'i so warmly welcomed earlier? Another Gospel explains how these and other alternative religious movements appear to meet people's needs. Ruth Tucker's overview illumines the personalities whose alleged revelations spawned historical heresies in all the major cults in the United States. She...

Called "The Black Pope" by many of his followers, Anton La Vey began the road to High Priesthood of the Church of Satan when he was only 16 years old and an organ player in a carnival:

"On Saturday night I would see men lusting after halfnaked girls dancing at the carnival, and on Sunday morning when I was playing the organ for tent-show evangelists at the other end of the carnival lot, I would see these same men sitting in the pews with their wives and children, asking God to forgive them and purge them of carnal desires. And the next Saturday night they'd be back at The carnival...