Controversial New Religions JAMES R. LEWIS JESPER AAGAARD PETERSEN, Editors OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Controversial New Religions This page intentionally left blank Controversial New Religions edited by james r. lewis and jesper aagaard petersen 1 2005 1 Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Sa˜o Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Copyright ᭧ 2005 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Controversial new religions / edited by James R. Lewis and Jesper Aagaard Petersen. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-515682-X; 0-19-515683-8 (pbk) 1. Cults. I. Lewis, James R. II. Petersen, Jesper Aagaard. BP603.C66 2004 200'.9'04—dc22 2003024374 987654321 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Contents Contributors, ix Introduction, 3 James R. Lewis and Jesper Aagaard Petersen PART I: GROUPS IN THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION 1. A Family for the Twenty-first Century, 19 James D. Chancellor 2. Spirit Revelation and the Unification Church, 43 James A. Beverley 3. Reconstructing Reality: Conspiracy Theories about Jonestown, 61 Rebecca Moore 4. Explaining Militarization at Waco: The Construction and Convergence of the Warfare Narrative, 79 Stuart A. Wright PART II: ASIAN AND ASIAN-INSPIRED GROUPS 5. Family Development and Change in the Hare Krishna Movement, 101 E. Burke Rochford, Jr. vi contents 6. When Leaders Dissolve: Considering Controversy and Stagnation in the Osho Rajneesh Movement, 119 Marion S. Goldman 7. Soka Gakkai: Searching for the Mainstream, 139 Robert Kisala 8. Aum Shinrikyo and the Aum Incident: A Critical Introduction, 153 Martin Repp 9. The Falun Gong: A New Religious Movement in Post-Mao China, 195 David Ownby 10. Notes on the Aumist Religion, 215 PierLuigi Zoccatelli PART III: ESOTERIC AND NEW AGE GROUPS 11. Inventing L. Ron Hubbard: On the Construction and Maintenance of the Hagiographic Mythology of Scientology’s Founder, 227 Dorthe Refslund Christensen 12. The Theosophical Society, 259 James A. Santucci 13. The Solar Temple “Transits”: Beyond the Millennialist Hypothesis, 295 James R. Lewis 14. From Atlantis to America: JZ Knight Encounters Ramtha, 319 Gail M. Harley 15. Heart and Soul: A Qualitative Look at the Ethos of the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness, 331 Diana G. Tumminia PART IV: OTHER GROUPS AND MOVEMENTS 16. “Come On Up, and I Will Show Thee”: Heaven’s Gate as a Postmodern Group, 353 George D. Chryssides 17. The Rae¨lian Movement: Concocting Controversy, Seeking Social Legitimacy, 371 Susan Palmer contents vii 18. White Racist Religions in the United States: From Christian Identity to Wolf Age Pagans, 387 Mattias Gardell 19. Modern Satanism: Dark Doctrines and Black Flames, 423 Jesper Aagaard Petersen Index, 459 This page intentionally left blank Contributors James A. Beverley is Associate Director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion in Santa Barbara, California, and Professor at Tyndale Seminary in Toronto, Canada. He is the Senior Editor of the forthcoming HarperCollins’ Encyclopedia of Religions in Canada and the author of the forthcoming Nelson’s Illustrated Guide to Religions. He also worked as Associate Editor on Melton and Bauman’s Relig- ions of the World and has written three books on Islam and two books on charismatic Christianity. James D. Chancellor holds an M.A. from the University of Ne- braska, an M.Div. from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Duke University in the History of Religion. He has served since 1992 as W. O. Carver Professor of World Religions at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is author of Life in the Family: An Oral History of the Children of God (Syracuse Univer- sity Press, 2000). Dorthe Refslund Christensen holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. in the Sci- ence of Religion from the University of Aarhus. She has taught at the Department of the Study of Religion, Aarhus University; the De- partment for Religion and Philosophy, Southern Danish University, Odense; and the Department of the History of Religions, University of Copenhagen. In 2004 she had a postdoctoral scholarship from the Danish Research Council for the project Religion in Popular Culture and Everyday Life: Religion in Transformation. x contributors George D. Chryssides studied at the University of Glasgow as an undergrad- uate and gained his doctorate from the University of Oxford. He is currently Head of Religious Studies at the University of Wolverhampton. He has written extensively on new religious movements. His books include The Advent of Sun Myung Moon (Macmillan, 1991), Exploring New Religions (Cassell, 1999), and Historical Dictionary of New Religious Movements (Scarecrow Press, 2001). He has contributed to numerous academic journals and edited collections. Mattias Gardell is Associate Professor (docent) in the History of Religions, Stockholm University, Sweden. His publications include In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam (Duke University Press, 1996), Rasrisk: Rastister, separatister och amerikanska kulturkonflikter (Stock- holm: Natur & Kultur, 2003 [1998]), and Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism (Duke University Press, 2003). Marion S. Goldman is Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies at the University of Oregon. Her books include Gold Diggers and Silver Miners (Uni- versity of Michigan Press, 1982) and Passionate Journeys: Why Successful Women Joined a Cult (University of Michigan Press, 1999). Her current research is about Esalen Institute and men’s spiritualities. Gail M. Harley earned her Ph.D. in the History of Religion and Humanities from Florida State University. She currently teaches for the University of South Florida Religious Studies Department. She is the author of Emma Curtis Hop- kins: Forgotten Founder of New Thought (Syracuse University Press, 2002) and Hindu and Sikh Faiths in America (Facts on File, 2003). Robert Kisala is a fellow at the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture and professor of religious studies at Nanzan University, Nagoya, Japan. His publications include Prophets of Peace: Pacifism and Cultural Identity in Japan’s New Religions (University of Hawaii Press, 1999) and Religion and Social Crisis in Japan: Understanding Japanese Society through the Aum Affair (edited with Mark Mullins, Palgrave, 2001). James R. Lewis is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin–Mil- waukee. His recent publications include The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements (Oxford, 2004), The Encyclopedic Sourcebook of UFO Religions (Pro- metheus Books, 2003), and Legitimating New Religions (Rutgers University Press, 2003). Rebecca Moore is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at San Diego State University. Her current specialty is New Religious Movements, with a focus on the group People’s Temple and its utopian commune Jonestown, which contributors xi ended in mass murder-suicides in November 1978. She and her husband, Fielding McGehee III, have written and published five books and numerous articles. Dr. Moore maintains a Web site of current resources on People’s Tem- ple at http://jonestown.sdsu.edu. David Ownby is Professor of History and Director of East Asian Studies at the Universite´ de Montre´al in Montreal, Canada. He has published extensively on the history of secret societies and popular religions in China and is currently completing a manuscript on the Falun Gong. Susan Palmer is Adjunct Professor at Concordia University and a tenured Professor at Dawson College, both in Montreal, Quebec. She has written over sixty articles on new religious movements and authored or edited eight books on new religious movements, including Ra¨el’s UFO Religion: Racing and Clon- ing in the Age of Apocalypse (Rutgers University Press). Jesper Aagaard Petersen, M.A., is a teaching assistant at the University of Co- penhagen, Department of History of Religions. He is the coeditor with James R. Lewis of The Encyclopedic Sourcebook of Satanism (Prometheus Books, forth- coming) and has edited a special issue of Syzygy on modern Satanism (2002). Martin Repp is a Professor at the Graduate School for Pure Land Studies of Ryukoku University (Kyoto) and has been the editor of the journal Japanese Religions since 1991. He did extensive research on Aum Shinrikyo and the Aum incident, published in a number of articles and a book. He also teaches Japa- nese religions and theology at Doshisha and Kyoto Universities. E. Burke Rochford, Jr. is Professor of Sociology and Religion at Middlebury College in Vermont. He has researched the Hare Krishna movement over the past twenty-eight years. He has written numerous articles on the movement and his second book on ISKCON is in preparation. James A. Santucci teaches in the Comparative Religion Department at Califor- nia State University, Fullerton. Professor Santucci is the author of La societa` teosofica (1999), Hindu Art in South and Southeast Asia (1987), An Outline of Vedic Literature (1976), and coauthor (with Benjamin Hubbard and John Hat- field) of America’s Religions (1997). He has edited a quarterly journal of re- search, Theosophical History, since 1990, as well as a series of monographs in the series Theosophical History Occasional Papers since 1993. Diana G. Tumminia studied social psychology and ethnography at UCLA and currently teaches sociology at California State University, Sacramento. She pub- lishes on contemporary and historical new religious movements, among other xii contributors topics. Her publications in this area range from the social psychology of UFO religions to Native American millenarian movements, as well as new religions like MSIA and ISKCON.