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• List of Illustrations Preface and Acknowledgments
• 1. Introduction: The Rise of New Religions in Modern America
• 2. The Native American Church: Ancient Tradition in a Modern Legal Context
• 3. Mormonism and Plural Marriage: The LDS and the FLDS
• 4. Spiritualism: Women, Mediums, and Messages from Other Worlds
• 5. The Nation of Islam and the Five Percenters: Race, Religion, and Hip-Hop
• 6. Rastafari: Messianism, Music, and Ganja
• 7. The Church of Scientology: New Religions and Tax Exemption
• 8. Wicca and Neopaganism: Magic, Feminism, and Environmentalism
• 9. The Church of Satan and the Temple of Set: Religious Parody and Satanic Panic
• 10. ISKCON (Hare Krishna): Eastern Religions in America and the "Brainwashing" Debate
• 11. Channeling and the New Age: Alternative Spirituality in Popular Culture and Media
• 12. Peoples Temple: Mass Murder-Suicide, the Media, and the "Cult" Label
• 13. The Branch Davidians: Millenarian Movements, Religious Freedom, and Privacy
• 14. The Raelians: UFOs and Human Cloning Appendix: Method and Theory in the Study of New Religions Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

New Age, Neopagan, and New Religious Movements is the most extensive study to date of modern American alternative spiritual currents. Hugh B. Urban covers a range of emerging religions from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, including the Nation of Islam, Mormonism, Scientology, ISKCON, Wicca, the Church of Satan, Peoples Temple, and the Branch Davidians. This essential text engages students by addressing major theoretical and methodological issues in the study of new religions and is organized to guide students in their learning. Each chapter focuses on one important issue involving a particular faith group, providing readers with examples that illustrate larger issues in the study of religion and American culture. Urban addresses such questions as, Why has there been such a tremendous proliferation of new spiritual forms in the past 150 years, even as our society has become increasingly rational, scientific, technological, and secular? Why has the United States become the heartland for the explosion of new religious movements? How do we deal with complex legal debates, such as the use of peyote by the Native American Church or the practice of plural marriage by some Mormon communities? And how do we navigate issues of religious freedom and privacy in an age of religious violence, terrorism, and government surveillance?
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Suspicions
• What is California?
• The loss of the cosmic
• A wider sense of psychology
• The agonies of religious relevance
• The sense of Asian teachings
• Why now? why here?
• The inclusion of the mind
• The return of the practical
• The modern underestimation of man
• Hinduism, Buddhism and Sufism
• Hinduism
• Buddhism
• Sufism
• The occult
• The place of California
• Zen center
• The embrace of Zen Buddhism
• Just sitting
• Drugs and extraordinary experience
• Difficulties
• Suzuki roshi
• What is a master?
• The uses of ritual
• The place of the intellect
• The question of discipline
• Tassajara
• An American zen monastery
• What is a monk?
• A monastery in the midst of life
• The monastery as a laboratory
• Meher Baba
• The age of the Avatar
• Psyche and cosmos
• The instrumentality of love
• The life and work of Meher Baba
• The silence
• The Baba-lovers
• A search for the emotions
• Love from the point of failure
• Subud
• The experience of Latihan
• An ordinary man
• Energies
• The meaning of submission
• The energies of sex
• Social order and self-perfection
• Understanding death
• Transcendental meditation (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi)
• Promises
• The attracted mind
• The theory of the mantra
• It's easy!
• What is a practical method?
• A note on Krishnamurti
• Instantaneous self-observation
• A new understanding of freedom
• Thought and death
• The surface of Krishnamurti
• The existence of psychological help
• Relationship: an example
• Right education
• Tibet in America
• The appearance of Tibet
• The compassion of reality
• Why are they here?
• TarthangTulku
• The Vajrayana
• Balanced disillusionment
• The path to the path
• The accumulation of merit
• The weight of Tibet
• The hunger for ideas
• A more fundamental world
• Astrology
• The idea of influences
• Reincarnation
• Ideas as tools
• The sacred in nature
• The American Indian
• The silence of nature
• Western esotericism
• Civilization in the midst of the cosmos
• A note about the ideas of Gurdjieff
• In search of a central question
• Other groups and teachings
• Drugs and the problem of work
• Enthusiasm
• Spiritual effortlessness.

• Roman Catholics
• by Amy Koehlinger
• Congregationalists
• by Margaret Bendroth
• Presbyterians
• by Sean Michael Lucas
• American Baptists
• by Keith Harper
• Methodists
• by Jennifer L. WoodruffTait
• Black Protestants
• by Paul Harvey
• Mormons
• by David J. Whittaker
• Pentecostals
• by Randall J. Stephens
• Evangelicals
• by Barry Hankins.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

This work brings to various important topics and groups in American religious history the rigor of scholarly assessment of the current literature. The fruitful historiographic questions that are posed by the positions and experiences of the various groups are carefully examined. "American Denominational History" points the way for the next decade of scholarly effort.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• v. 1. History and controversies
• v. 2. Jewish and Christian traditions
• v. 3. Metaphysical, New Age, and neopagan movements
• v. 4. Asian traditions
• v. 5. African diaspora traditions and other American innovations.

Most new or alternative religions are gravely misunderstood by members of the religious mainstream. Labeled "cults" or "sects, " groups and their members are often ridiculed or otherwise disregarded as weird and potentially dangerous by the populace at large. Despite their efforts at educating the general public, the various anti- and counter-cult activists have in fact promoted much more misunderstanding than accurate understanding of the religious lives of some of their fellow citizens. Consequently, they have helped to create a very hostile environment for anyone whose religious practices do not fit within a so-called "mainstream." This set rectifies the situation by presenting accurate, comprehensive, authoritative and accessible accounts of various new and alternative religious movements that have been and are active in American society, and it addresses ways of understanding new and alternative religions within a broader context. Determining what actually constitutes a new or alternative religion is a subject of constant debate. Questions arise as to a new faith's legitimacy, beliefs, methods of conversion, and other facets of a religious movement's viability and place in a given culture. How a religion gains recognition by the mainstream, which often labels such new movements as cults, is fraught with difficulty, tension, and fear. Here, experts delineate the boundaries and examine the various groups, beliefs, movements, and other issues related to new faiths and alternative beliefs. Readers will come away with a fuller understanding of the religious landscape in America today. Volume 1: "History and Controversies" discusses the foundations of new and alternative religions in the United States and addresses the controversies that surround them. This volume helps readers better understand what makes a new or alternative belief system a religion and the issues involved. Volume 2: "Jewish and Christian Traditions" explores the various new religions that have grown out of these two Abrahamic faiths. Groups such as the Shakers, the People's Temple, the Branch Davidians, Jehovah's Witnesses, and others are examined. Volume 3: "Metaphysical, New Age, and Neopagan Movements" looks at Shamanism, Spiritualism, Wicca, and Paganism, among other movements, as they have developed and grown in the U.S. These faiths have found new and devoted followers yet are often misunderstood. Volume 4: "Asian Traditions" focuses on those new and alternative religions that have been inspired by Asian religious traditions. From Baha'i to Soka Gakkai, from Adidam to the Vedanta Society, contributors look at a full range of groups practicing and worshiping in the U.S. today. Volume 5: "African Diaspora Traditions and Other American Innovations" examines the various traditions linked to the African diaspora. Chapters include: Shamanism; Wicca; Black Israelites; Santeria; Scientology; Elan Vital; Hare Krishna; Soka Gakkai; and many more.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Chronology
• Controversial groups and movements
• Court decisions, legislation, and governmental actions
• Documents and data
• Biographical sketches
• Organizations and websites.

New Religious Movements is a highly unique volume, bringing together primary documents conveying the words and ideas of a wide array of new religious movements (NRMs), and offering a first-hand look into their belief systems. Arranged by the editors according to a new typology, the text allows readers to consider NRMS along five interrelated pathways - from those that offer new perceptions of existence or new personal identities, to those that center on relationships within family-like units, to those movements that highlight the need for recasting the social order or anticipate the dawn of a new age. The volume includes original documents from groups such as the Unification Church, Theosophy, Branch Davidians, Wicca, Jehovah's Witnesses, Santeria, and Seventh Day Adventists, as well as many others. Each section is prefaced by a contextual introduction and concludes with a list of sources for further reading. New Religious Movements offers a rare inside look into the worldviews of alternative religious traditions.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

This is a collection of essays on the subject of religious liberty and new religious movements (NRM) in America. NRMs are often called "cults" by popular media commentators and the public at large, but scholars eschew that term because it is so pejorative that is skews the argument from the start.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)