In terms of public opinion, new religious movements are considered controversial for a variety of reasons. Their social organization often runs counter to popular expectations by experimenting with communal living, alternative leadership roles, unusual economic dispositions, and new political and ethical values. As a result the general public views new religions with a mixture of curiosity, amusement, and anxiety, sustained by lavish media emphasis on oddness and tragedy rather than familiarity and lived experience. This updated and revised second edition of Controversial New Religions offers a scholarly, dispassionate look at those groups that have generated the most attention, including some very well-known classical groups like The Family, Unification Church, Scientology, and Jim Jones's People's Temple; some relative newcomers such as the Kabbalah Centre, the Order of the Solar Temple, Branch Davidians, Heaven's Gate, and the Falun Gong; and some interesting cases like contemporary Satanism, the Raelians, Black nationalism, and various Pagan groups. Each essay combines an overview of the history and beliefs of each organization or movement with original and insightful analysis. By presenting decades of scholarly work on new religious movements written in an accessible form by established scholars as well as younger experts in the field, this book will be an invaluable resource for all those who seek a view of new religions that is deeper than what can be found in sensationalistic media stories.

Table of Contents:
Contributors Introduction Part I: Western Religious Traditions 1. A Family for the 21st Century - James Chancellor 2. The Unification Church - Sarah Lewis 3. The Controversies About Peoples Temple and Jonestown - Rebecca Moore 4. The Branch Davidians - Gene Gallagher 5. Charismatic Controversies in the Jesus People, Calvary Chapel, and Vineyard Movements - Jane Skjoldli 6. Kabbalah Centre: Marketing and Meaning - Jody Myers 7. Controversial Afro-American Muslim Organizations -Göran Larsson Part II: Asian and Asian-Inspired Traditions 8. The Earth School: The Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness - James R. Lewis 9. Contested Genealogies and Cross-cultural Dynamics in the Hare Krishna Movement - Malcolm Haddon 10. Transcendental Meditation, the Art of Living Foundation and Public Relations: From Psychedelic Romanticism to Science and Schism - Inga Tøllefsen 11. Controversy, Cultural Influence, and the Osho/Rajneesh Movement -Marion S. Goldman 12. Aum Shinrikyo and the Aum Incident: A Critical Introduction - Martin Repp 13. Falun Gong: A Narrative of Pending Apocalypse, Shape-shifting Aliens and Relentless Persecution - Helen Farley Part III: Western Esoteric and New Age Groups 14. Scientology: The Making of a Religion - Kjersti Hellesøy 15. The Church Universal and Triumphant: Controversy, Change, and Continuance - Jocelyn DeHass 16. The Order of the Solar Temple - Henrik Bogdan 17. New Age Spiritualities - Siv Ellen Kraft 18. Contemporary Paganism - Manon Hedenborg White 19. Popularity of--and Controversy in--Contemporary Shamanism - Anne Kalvig Part IV: Other Groups and Movements 20. "Come on up, and I will show thee": Heaven's Gate as a Post-modern Group - George D. Chryssides 21. "Those Who Came from the Sky": Ancient Astronauts and Creationism in the Raëlian Religion - Erik Östling 22. Wolf Age Pagans - Mattias Gardell 23. Carnal, Chthonian, Complicated: The Matter of Modern Satanism - Jesper Aagaard Petersen Index