Online texts about cults and new religions
by Rob Nanninga, October 2006
118 Online papers, articles and books about Cults, New Religious Movements, and the Social Scientific Study of Religion
Aaldrink, Karin (2001)
“Totally expunge evil, pursue it to the end” – Explaining the crackdown on the Falun Gong. Graduation paper.
Adamczyk, Adam (2005) [PDF] Religion, Regulation and Violence – Review article. Current Sociology 53(5): 855–863.
Allen, Charlotte (1998)
Brainwashed! Scholars of cults accuse each other of bad faith. Lingua Franca (December).
Anthony, Dick & Thomas Robbins (2003)
Cults, porn and hate: Convergent discourses on First Amendment restriction. Preliminary version of forthcoming book chapter.
Anthony, Dick & Thomas Robbins (2003)
Conversion and “brainwashing” in New Religious Movements. Preliminary version of a chapter in the The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements, edited by James R. Lewis (2004).
Atack, Jon (1990)
A piece of blue sky: Scientology, Dianetics and L. Ron Hubbard exposed. New York: Carol Publishing Group.
Bader, Chris & A. Demaris (1996)
A test of the Stark-Bainbridge theory of affiliation with religious cults and sects. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 35, 285-303.
Barker, Eileen (1995) (doc)
The scientific study of religion? You must be joking! Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 34(3), 287-310.
Barker, Eileen (2001)
Watching for violence: a comparative analysis of the roles of five types of cult-watching groups. In Bromley & Melton (eds.), Cults, Religion & Violence, 123-138. Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Basnet, Chudamani (2006) [PDF] Stagnation and the Growth of the Rajneesh Movement in Nepal: Culture and the New Paradigm in the Sociology of Religion.
Beckford, James A. (1994)
The mass media and New Religious Movements. ISKCON Communications Journal, 2(2).
Beit-Hallahmi, Benjamin (2003)
Scientology: religion or racket? Marburg Journal of Religion, 8(1).
Berman, Eli & David D. Laitin (2004) [PDF] Rational Martyrs: Evidence from data on suicide attacks. For inclusion in Suicide Bombing from an Interdisciplinary Perspective by Eva Meyersson Milgrom (ed.).
Bromley, David G. (1997)
Constructing apocalypticism: Social and cultural elements of radical organization.” In Millennium, messiahs, and mayhem: contemporary apocalyptic movements, edited by Thomas Robbins and Susan J. Palmer, 31-46. New York: Routledge.
Bromley, David G. (1998)
A tale of two theories: brainwashing and conversion as competing political narratives. In Zablocki & Robbins (eds.), Misunderstanding Cults, 318-348. University of Toronto Press, 2001.
Bromley, David G. & J. Gordon Melton (2002) [PDF] Violence and religion in perspective. In Bromley & Melton (eds.), Cults, Religion & Violence, 1-10. Cambridge University Press.
Chryssides, George D. (1994)
New religious movements – some problems of definition. Diskus, 2(2).
Chryssides, George D. (1996)
New religions and the Internet. Diskus, 4(2).
Chryssides, George D. (2000)
Defining the new spirituality. Paper presented at CESNUR 14th International Conference.
Chryssides, George D. (2001)
Unrecognized charisma? A study and comparison of four charismatic leaders. (paper)
Chryssides, George D. (2003)
Unifying or dividing? Sun Myung Moon and the origins of the Unification Church. Paper presented at the CESNUR Conference.
Cook, David (2002)
Suicide attacks or “martyrdom operations” in contemporary jihad literature. Nova Religio, 6(1), 7-44.
Cowan, Douglas E. (2002) [PDF] Cult apology: A modest (typological) proposal. Paper presented to the SSSR Conference.
Davis, Joseph Davis (1993)
Thought control, totalism, and the extension of the anti-cult critique beyond the “cults”. Dexter: Tabor House Press.
Dawson, Lorne L. (1998)
Anti-modernism, modernism, and postmodernism: struggling with the cultural significance of new religious movements. Sociology of Religion, 59(2).
Dawson, Lorne L. (2001)
The cultural significance of new religious movements: the case of Soka Gakkai. Sociology of Religion, 62(3), 337-364.
DISKUS (2000)
Pagan identities: 11 articles about paganism, WICCA, women’s spirituality, and nature religion.
Doktòr, Tadeusz (2003)
A typology of new religious movements and its empirical indicators. Paper presented at the CESNUR Conference.
DuPertuis, Lucy (1986)
How people recognize charisma: the case of Darshan in Radhasoami and Divine Light Mission. Sociological Analysis, 47(2), 111-124.
Enquete-Kommission (1998)
Endbericht der Enquete-Kommission “Sogenannte Sekten und Psychogruppen”. Bonn: Deutscher Bunderstag.
Fish Mooney, Sharon (2002) [PDF] Descending masters: a history of the Raëlian movement. Christian Research Journal, 24(3).
Ferrari, Silvio (2006) [PDF] New Religious Movements in Western Europe. Religioscope, Research and analyses 8.
Gasde, Irene & Richard A. Block (1998)
Cult experience: psychological abuse, distress, personality characteristics, and changes in personal relationships reported by former members of Church Universal and Triumphant. Cultic Studies Journal, 15(2).
Goerman, Patricia L. (1998)
Heaven’s Gate: a sociological perspective. (MA Thesis)
Grünschloß, Andreas (1998)
When we enter into my Father’s spacecraft: Cargoistic hopes and millenarian cosmologies in new religious UFO movements. Marburg Journal of Religion, 3(2).
Haan, Wim (1998)
The oracle of Ifa and the verdict of the court. A failed attempt to deprogram from the African “Ifa” religion.
Hadden, Jeffrey (1999)
Cults wars in Maryland. An introduction to the Task Force to Study the Effects of Cults Activities on Public Senior Higher Institutions.
Hall, Deana (1998)
Managing to recruit: religious conversion in the workplace. [Scientology] Sociology of Religion, 59(4), 393-410.
Hall, John (2000) [PDF] The apocalypse at Jonestown. In Apocalypse observed, Chapter 1, 15-43. London / New York: Routledge.
Hall, John R. (2001) [PDF] Religion and violence. Chapter prepared for the Handbook for the Sociology of Religion, Michele Dillon (ed.).
Hall, John R. (2004) [PDF] Apocalypse 9/11. Chapter prepared for New Religious Movements in the Twenty-First Century: Political and Social Challenges in Global Perspective, Phillip Lucas & Thomas Robbins (eds.). London: Routledge.
Harskamp, Anton (1999)
A modern miracle. Or: the ruthless logic of A Course in Miracles.
Hexham, Irving & Karla Poewe (1986)
Understanding cults and new religions. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
Iannaccone, Laurence R. (1992) [PDF] Sacrifice and stigma: Reducing free-riding in cults, communes and other collectives. Journal of Political Economy 100, 271-292.
Iannaccone, Laurence R. (2000) [PDF] Religious extremism: Origins and consequences. Contemporary Jewry 20, 8-29.
Iannaccone, Laurence R. (2002) [PDF] Religious Extremism: The Good, the Bad, and the Deadly. Paper.
Iannaccone, Laurence R. (2003) [PDF] The market for martyrs. Paper presented at the 2004 Meetings of the American Economic Association.
Inaba, Keishin (2004) [PDF] Conversion to New Religious Movements: Reassessment of Lofland/Skonovd Conversion Motifs and Lofland/Stark Conversion Process.
Introvigne, Massimo (1998)
“Brainwashing”: career of a myth in the United States and Europe. Paper delivered at the Cesnur-remid conference held in Marburg, Germany.
Introvigne, Massimo (1999)
“So many evil things”: anti-cult terrorism via the Internet. Paper presented at the annual conference of the Association for Sociology of Religion.
Introvigne, Massimo (2000)
From the Unification Church to the Unification Movement, 1994-1999: five years of dramatic changes.
Introvigne, Massimo (2001)
“There is no place for us to go but up” : New religious movements and violence. Paper presented at the 26th Conference of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion.
Isaksson, Stefan (2000)
New religious UFO movements: Extraterrestial salvation in contemporary America. (Paper)
Jekins, Philip (1995) [PDF] The devil rides in: Charismatic Christians and the depiction of a satanic menace in contemporary Britain. Religiologiques, 11 (Spring), 169-192.
Kent, Stephen (1994)
Lustful prophet: A psychosexual historical study of the Children of God’s leader, David Berg. Cultic Studies Journal, 11(2), 135-188.
Kent, Stephen (1999)
The creation of ‘religious’ Scientology. Religious Studies and Theology, 18(2), 97-126.
Kent, Stephen & Deana Hall (2000)
Brainwashing and re-Indoctrination programs in the Children of God / The Family. Cultic Studies Journal 17, 56-78.
Kent, Stephen (2001)
A French and German versus American debate over ‘New Religions’, Scientology, and Human Rights. Marburg Journal of Religion, 6(1).
+ a response from the Church of Scientology.
Ketola, Kimmo (2002) [PDF] An indian guru and his western disciples: Representation and communication of charisma in the Hare Krishna movement. Dissertation, University of Helsinki.
König, Thomas (2000)
The New Age Movement: Genesis of a High Volume, Low Impact Identity. Dissertation.
Kranenborg, Reender (1999)
Brahma Kumaris: a new religion? A preliminary version of a paper presented at the CESNUR Conference.
Lafferty, Rich (2001) [PDF] Devil’s advocate: Converging claims and the construction of Satanic ritual abuse. Paper.
Langone, Michael D. (1996)
Clinical update on cults. Psychiatric Times, 13(7).
Lewis, James R. & J. Gordon Melton, eds. (1994)
Sex, slander, and salvation. Investigating The Family / Children of God. Stanford: Center for Academic Publication.
Lewis, James R. (2000) [PDF] Sect-bashing in the guise of scholarship: A critical appraisal of select studies of Soka Gakkai. Marburg Journal of Religion, 5(1).
Lewis, James R. (2001)
Who serves Satan? A demographic and ideological profile. Marburg Journal of Religion, 6(2).
Lewis, James R. (2002)
Diabolical Authority: Anton LaVey, The Satanic Bible and the Satanist “Tradition”. Marburg Journal of Religion, 7(1).
Lindholm, Charles (1990) [PDF] Charisma. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. (contains a chapter on Jim Jones)
Lowe, Scott (1994)
The strange case of Franklin Jones. [Da Free John] In Lane, David Christopher (ed.), Exposing cults: when the skeptical mind confronts the mystical. New York: Garland Publishing.
Mayer, Jean-François (1998)
Apocalyptic millennialism in the West: The case of the Solar Temple. (presentation at the University of Virgina + remarks from Bromley, Hadden & Richardson)
Mears, Daniel P. (2000)
Who Buys New Age Materials? Exploring Sociodemographic, Religious, Network, and Contextual Correlates Of New Age Consumption. Sociology of Religion, Fall.
Melton, Gordon J. (1999)
The rise of the study of new religions. Paper presented at CESNUR 99 conference.
Melton, Gordon J. (2000)
Brainwashing and the cults: the rise and fall of a theory. Introduction to the forthcoming book The Brainwashing Controversy: An Anthology of Essential Documents, edited by J. Gordon Melton and Massimo Introvigne.
Melton, Gordon J. (2000)
Beyond millennialism: the New Age transformed. Paper.
Menegotto, Andrea (2003)
The “quasi-religion” of Reiki. Paper presented at the CESNUR Conference.
Miller, Russell (1987)
Bare-faced messiah: the true story of L. Ron Hubbard. London: Penguin Books.
Moore, James (1994) [PDF] Moveable Feasts: The Gurdjieff Work. Religion Today, 9(2), 11-16.
Nobutaka, Inoue (1991)
New religions. Contemporary papers on Japanese religion 2. Institute for Japanese Culture and Classics, Kokugakuin University.
Oakes, Len (1997)
Prophetic charisma: the psychology of revolutionary religious personalities. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. (excerpt from chapter 2)
Ofshe, Richard & Margaret T Singer (1986)
Attacks on peripheral versus central elements of self and the impact of thought Reforming techniques. Cultic Studies Journal, 3(1), 3-24.
Olle, Hannah (2001)
The Lotus in the West. Sheffield Online Papers in Social Research, 4.
Passantino, Bob & Gretchen Passantino (1994)
Overcoming the bondage of victimization. Cornerstone Magazine.
Peckham, Michael (1998)
New dimensions of social movement/countermovement interaction: The case of Scientology and its Internet critics. Canadian Journal of Sociology 23, 317-347.
Porter, Noah (2003)
Falun Gong in the United States: An ethnographic study. Master’s Thesis.
Price, Maeve (1979)
The Divine Light Mission as a social organization. Sociological Review, 27(2), 279-296.
Rambo, Lewis (1998)
The psychology of religious conversion. Paper delivered at the International Coalition on Religious Freedom Conference in Berlin.
Richardson, James T. (1993)
A social psychological critique of “brainwashing” claims about recruitment to new religions. In J. Hadden and D. Bromley, (eds.), The Handbook of Cults and Sects in America. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, Inc., 75-97.
Richardson, James T. (1996)
“Brainwashing” claims and minority religions outside the United States: Cultural diffusion of a questionable concept in the legal arena. Brigham Young University Law Review, 1996(4), 873-902.
Richardson, James T. & Gerald Ginsburg (1998)
A critique of “brainwashing in light of Daubert: science and unpopular religions. In Helen Reece (ed.), Law and Science: Current Legal Issues, Vol. 1. Oxford University Press, 265-288.
Richardson, James T. (1999)
Testimony offered to the Maryland Task Force to study the effects of cult activities on public senior higher institutions.
Robbins, Susan P. (1998)
The social and cultural context of satanic ritual abuse. Issues in Child Abuse Accusations, 10.
Robbins, Thomas (1997)
Krishna and culture: Cultural exclusivity and the debate over ‘mind control’. ISKCON Communications Journal, 5(1).
Rochford, E. Burke (1997)
Family formation, culture and change in the Hare Krishna Movement. ISKCON Communications Journal, 5(2).
Rochford, E. Burke (2001)
The changing face of ISKCON: Family, congregationalism, and privatisation.
ISKCON Communications Journal, 9(1).
Rothstein, Mikael (1996)
Patterns of diffusion and religious globalization: an empirical survey of new religious movements. Temenos 32 (1996), 195-220.
Rubin, Julius H. (1998)
A case study of the conflict between a new religious movement and its critics. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the SSSR.
Sakurai, Yoshihide (2002) [PDF] A cult controversy and freedom of religion: The case of an illegal missionary work lawsuit and exit counseling for Unification Church members. Paper presented at the ISA Word Congress of Sociology.
Saliba, John A. (1999) [PDF] The earth is a dangerous place: the world view of the Aetherius Society. Marburg Journal of Religion, 4(2).
Santucci, James (2000)
Old Wine in New Bottles: What is New in New Religions. Presented at the CLE Lecture Series, “Cults, Sects, and New Religions”.
Santucci, James (2000)
Dangerous Cults, Mind Control Cults, Doomsday Cults. Presented at the CLE Lecture Series, “Cults, Sects, and New Religions”.
Santucci, James (2000)
Esotericism, the Occult, and Theosophy. Presented at the CLE Lecture Series, “Cults, Sects, and New Religions”.
Santucci, James (2002)
The Roots of Religious Fanaticism. Presented at the CLE Lecture Series, “America’s Changing Religious Landscape”.
Schön, Brigitte (2001) [PDF] Framing effects in the coverage of Scientology versus Germany: Some thoughts on the role of press and scholars. Marburg Journal of Religion, 6(1).
Shepherd, Gordon & Gary Shepherd (2000)
The moral career of a new religious movement. (The Family / COG). Oakland Journal, Spring 2000, 9-22.
Shupe, Anson & Jeffrey K. Hadden (1995)
Cops, news copy, and public opinion. legitimacy and the social construction of evil in Waco. In Stuart A. Wright (ed.), Armagaddon in Waco. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 172-202.
Shupe, Anson & Susan E. Darnell (2003)
The attempted transformation of a deviant occupation into a therapy: Deprogramming seeks a new identity. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the SSSR.
Singelenberg, Richard (1989)
The ‘1975’-prophecy and its impact among Dutch Jehovah’s Witnesses. Sociological Analysis, 50(1), 23-40.
Sosis, Richard (2003) [PDF] Why aren’t we all Hutterites? Costly signaling theory and religious behavior. Human Nature, 14(2), 91-127.
Stark, Rodney & Laurence Iannaccone (1997) [PDF] Why the Jehovah’s Witnesses grow so rapidly: a theoretical application. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 12(2), 133-156.
Stewart, David Tabb, ed. (2003) [PDF] Waco: Ten years after. Fleming lectures in religion. (Catherine Wessinger, James T. Richardson, Stuart A. Wright – 108 pages).
Stuart, William Taft (1999)
Defining and assessing “cults”: anthropological perspectives on new religious movements on campus. Testimony offered to the Maryland Task Force.
Tabor, James D. & Eugene V. Gallagher (1995)
Why Waco? Chapter 1 in Cults and the battle for religious freedom in America. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Tabor, James D. (1998)
Patterns of the end: textual weaving from Qumran to Waco. In Peter Schaefer & Mark R. Cohen (eds.), Toward the Millennium: Messianic Expectations from the Bible to Waco. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 409-430.
Victor, Jeffrey S. (1991)
The satanic cult scare and allegations of ritual child abuse. Issues In Child Abuse Accusations, 3(3).
Wiktorowicz, Quintan (2004)
Joining the cause: Al-Muhajiroun and radical Islam. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, forthcoming.
Young, Marie de (2000) [PDF] The Devil Goes Abroad’: The Export of the Ritual Abuse Moral Panic. Paper from the British Society of Criminology Conference, 1999.
Zablocki, Benjamin (2002?)
Methodological fallacies in Anthony’s critique of exit cost analysis. Paper.
Zablocki, Benjamin (1999?)
The birth and death of new religious movements. Paper.
Nanninga, Rob (August 2002)
Cults and new religious movements: a bibliography.
