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

About the Author

James R. Lewis is a prominent, highly-published scholar of New Religious Movements. He is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Tromsø in Tromsø, Norway. Lewis currently co-edits three book series and is the general editor for the Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review and the Journal of Religion and Violence. He co-founded the International Society for the Study of New Religions and the
Alternative Spirituality and New Age Studies association.

Jesper Aa. Petersen is Associate Professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway, specializing in Religious Education and Religious Studies. He is the editor of several anthologies, most recently The Devil's Party: Satanism in Modernity (OUP, 2013) with Per Faxneld. His primary areas of research include contemporary esotericism and occult milieus, non-religion and critical religious education.