Flashcards: New religious movements

Ánanda Márga (Sanskrit: আনন্দ মার্গ ānanda mārga "The Path of Bliss", also spelled Anand Marg and Ananda Marg) or officially Ánanda Márga Pracáraka Saḿgha (organisation for the propagation of the path of bliss) is a socio-spiritual organisation and movement founded in Jamalpur, Bihar, India in 1955 by Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar.

Oomoto (大本 Ōmoto, Great Source, or Great Origin), also known as Oomoto-kyo (大本教 Ōmoto-kyō), is a sect founded in 1892 by Deguchi Nao (1836–1918), often categorised as a new Japanese religion originated from Shinto.

Osho (11 December 1931 – 19 January 1990), born in India as Chandra Mohan Jain, and formerly known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, was a mystic, guru, and spiritual teacher.

The Five-Percent Nation, sometimes referred to as NGE or NOGE, the Nation of Gods and Earths, or the Five Percenters is a cultural movement founded in 1964 in the Harlem section of the borough of Manhattan, New York City, by a former member of the Nation of Islam named Clarence 13X (born Clarence Edward Smith and later known as "Allah the Father").

The Church of Scientology is an organization devoted to the practice, administration and dissemination of Scientology, a new religious movement.

The Family International (TFI) is a new religious movement that started in 1968 in Huntington Beach, California, USA.

Raëlism (also known as Raëlianism or the Raëlian movement) is a UFO religion that was founded in 1974 by Claude Vorilhon (b. 1946), now known as Raël.

Satprem (30 October 1923 – 9 April 2007) was a French author and a disciple of Mirra Alfassa.

Huna is a Hawaiian word adopted by Max Freedom Long (1890–1971) in 1936 to describe his theory of metaphysics.

Shinnyo-en (真如苑 Borderless Garden of Truth) is a Japanese new religion in the tradition of the Daigo branch of the Shingon Buddhism.

The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), known colloquially as the Hare Krishna movement or Hare Krishnas, is a Gaudiya Vaishnava Hindu religious organisation.

Aum Shinrikyo (jap. オウム真理教), which split into Aleph and Hikari no Wa in 2007, is a Japanese doomsday cult founded by Shoko Asahara in 1984.

The Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ, commonly shortened to Peoples Temple, was a new religious movement founded in 1955 by Jim Jones in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Cults of Unreason is a non-fiction book on atypical belief systems, written by Christopher Riche Evans, Ph.

The Grail Movement is an organization which originated in Germany in the late 1940s, inspired by the work of Oskar Ernst Bernhardt (also known by his pen name Abd-ru-shin), principally In the Light of Truth: The Grail Message.

The Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University (Prajapita Brahma Kumaris Ishwariya Vishwa Vidyalaya) or BKWSU is a new religious movement that originated in Hyderabad, (current-day Pakistan) during the 1930s.

Ratu Bagus (born I Ketut Widnya, November 1949) is a Balinese guru who developed the spiritual discipline of Bio-energy Shaking Meditation.

Erhard Seminars Training (marketed as est, though often encountered as EST or Est), an organization founded by Werner Erhard, offered a two-weekend (60-hour) course known officially as "The est Standard Training".

Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner (27 (or 25) February 1861 – 30 March 1925) was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect and esotericist.

Unarius is a non-profit organization founded in 1954 in Los Angeles, California and headquartered in El Cajon, California.

Werner Erhard and Associates, also known as WE&A or as WEA, operated as a commercial entity from February 1981 until early 1991.

Vale do Amanhecer (Valley of Dawn) is a religious community originally with 300 believers that today contains around 10,000 people.

The Church of the Guanche People (in Spanish "Iglesia del Pueblo Guanche") is a religious organisation, founded in 2001 in the city of San Cristóbal de La Laguna (Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain).

The Great White Brotherhood, in belief systems akin to Theosophical and New Age, are said to be supernatural beings of great power who spread spiritual teachings through selected humans.

Messiah Foundation International (Urdu: مہدی فاونڈیشن انٹرنیشنل‎) (or MFI) is a spiritual organisation formally established in 2002 to promote the Goharian Philosophy of Divine Love.

Rastafari is an Abrahamic belief which developed in Jamaica in the 1930s, following the coronation of Haile Selassie I as Emperor of Ethiopia in 1930.

The Ausar Auset Society is a Pan-African religious organization founded in 1973 by Ra Un Nefer Amen.

Kriyananda (born James Donald Walters; May 19, 1926, Azuga – April 21, 2013, Assisi), was a direct disciple of the yogi Paramahansa Yogananda and was the founder of Ananda, a worldwide movement of spiritual intentional communities based on Yogananda's World Brotherhood Colonies ideal.

Landmark Worldwide (formerly Landmark Education), or simply Landmark, is a company offering personal development programs, headquartered in San Francisco.

Best Friends Animal Society, founded in its present form in 1991, is an American nonprofit 501(c)(3) animal welfare organization.

Ramtha's School of Enlightenment (RSE) is an American spiritual sect near the rural town of Yelm, Washington.

The Aetherius Society is a millenarian, New Age, UFO religion.

The Kabbalah Centre International is a non-profit organization located in Los Angeles, California that provides courses on the Zohar and Kabbalistic teachings online as well as through its regional and city-based centers and study groups worldwide.

The Church of the Creator is a Christian-based faith organization headquartered in Ashland, Oregon.

The Synanon organization, initially a drug rehabilitation program, was founded by Charles E.

Muktananda (16 May 1908 – 2 October 1982), born Krishna Rau, was the founder of Siddha Yoga.

Åsa M. Waldau [ˈoːsa maˈriːa ˈvaldau] is the leader of a Christian church in Knutby, Sweden.

Happy Science (幸福の科学 Kōfuku-no-Kagaku) is a controversial new religious and spiritual movement, founded in Japan on 6 October 1986 by Ryuho Okawa, that is widely criticized as a cult.

Cyrus Reed Teed (October 18, 1839 – December 22, 1908) was a U.

The Federation of Damanhur, often called simply Damanhur, is a commune, ecovillage, and spiritual community situated in the Piedmont region of northern Italy about 30 miles (50 km) north of the city of Turin.

Church Universal and Triumphant (CUT) is an international New Age religious organization founded in 1975 by Elizabeth Clare Prophet.

Shinji Shūmeikai (神慈秀明会) (often abbreviated to Shumei) is a Japanese new religious movement (shinshūkyō).

Dinkan (മ: ഡിങ്കൻ) is a fictional anthropomorphic superhero mouse who appear in an eponymous Malayalam comic story series in children's magazine Balamangalam.

Living Enrichment Center (LEC) was a New Thought megachurch and retreat center in the U.

Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) is a worldwide spiritual organization founded by Paramahansa Yogananda in 1920 and legally incorporated as a non-profit religious organization in 1935, to serve as Yogananda’s instrument for the preservation and worldwide dissemination of his writings and teachings, including Kriya Yoga.

Marshall Vian Summers (born January 28, 1949) is the central figure among a movement calling itself the Worldwide Community of people of the New Message from God.

Andrew Cohen (born October 23, 1955) is an American spiritual teacher of "Evolutionary Enlightenment".

Dera Sach Khand (Punjabi: ਡੇਰਾ ਸਚ ਖੰਡ ਬੱਲਾਂ Ḍērā Sac Khaḍ Balāṁ) is a religious social organization based in the village of Ballan near Jalandhar, Punjab, India.

Diagnostics of Karma (Russian: Диагностика Кармы) is a series of 12 books, written by Sergey Nikolayevich Lazarev, a Russian researcher and writer in bioenergetics and healing.

Hannes Vanaküla, also known as Tokroda (born 23 November 1966 in Tallinn), is an Estonian mage.

The International Center of Parapsychology and Scientific Research of the New Age, generally known under the name of Horus (in reference to falcon-god Horus which was the emblem of the group), was a New Age-oriented new religious movement founded in France in 1989 by Marie-Thérèse Castano, and ended in April 1997.