The Order of the Solar Temple

The Order of the Solar Temple PDF Author: Professor James R Lewis
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1409477223
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
In October 1994, fifty-three members of the Order of the Solar Temple in Switzerland and Québec were murdered or committed suicide. This incident and two later group suicides in subsequent years played a pivotal role in inflaming the cult controversy in Europe, influencing the public to support harsher actions against non-traditional religions. Despite the importance of the Order of the Solar Temple, there are relatively few studies published in English. This book brings together the best scholarship on the Solar Temple including newly commissioned pieces from leading scholars, a selection of Solar Temple documents, and important previously published articles newly edited for inclusion within this book. This is the first book-length study of the Order of the Solar Temple to be published in English.

The Order of the Solar Temple

The Order of the Solar Temple PDF Author: Professor James R Lewis
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1409477223
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 262

Get Book Here

Book Description
In October 1994, fifty-three members of the Order of the Solar Temple in Switzerland and Québec were murdered or committed suicide. This incident and two later group suicides in subsequent years played a pivotal role in inflaming the cult controversy in Europe, influencing the public to support harsher actions against non-traditional religions. Despite the importance of the Order of the Solar Temple, there are relatively few studies published in English. This book brings together the best scholarship on the Solar Temple including newly commissioned pieces from leading scholars, a selection of Solar Temple documents, and important previously published articles newly edited for inclusion within this book. This is the first book-length study of the Order of the Solar Temple to be published in English.

Controversial New Religions

Controversial New Religions PDF Author: James R. Lewis
Publisher:
ISBN: 0199315310
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 495

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Book Description
Written by established scholars as well as younger experts in their field, this updated and revised second edition of Controversial New Religions offers a scholarly, dispassionate look at the new religious groups that have generated the most attention in the media and general public.

Cults, Religion, and Violence

Cults, Religion, and Violence PDF Author: David G. Bromley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521668989
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
This explores the question of when and why violence by and against new religious cults erupts and whether and how such dramatic conflicts can be foreseen, managed and averted. The authors, leading international experts on religious movements and violent behavior, focus on the four major episodes of cult violence during the last decade: the tragic conflagration that engulfed the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas; the deadly sarin gas attack by the Aum Shinrikyo in Tokyo; the murder-suicides by the Solar Temple in Switzerland and Canada; and the collective suicide by the members of Heaven's Gate. They explore the dynamics leading to these dramatic episodes in North America, Europe, and Asia, and offer insights into the general relationship between violence and religious cults in contemporary society. The authors conclude that these events usually involve some combination of internal and external dynamics through which a new religious movement and society become polarized.

Survived by One

Survived by One PDF Author: Robert E. Hanlon
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 0809332639
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
On November 8, 1985, 18-year-old Tom Odle brutally murdered his parents and three siblings in the small southern Illinois town of Mount Vernon, sending shockwaves throughout the nation. The murder of the Odle family remains one of the most horrific family mass murders in U.S. history. Odle was sentenced to death and, after seventeen years on death row, expected a lethal injection to end his life. However, Illinois governor George Ryan’s moratorium on the death penalty in 2000, and later commutation of all death sentences in 2003, changed Odle’s sentence to natural life. The commutation of his death sentence was an epiphany for Odle. Prior to the commutation of his death sentence, Odle lived in denial, repressing any feelings about his family and his horrible crime. Following the commutation and the removal of the weight of eventual execution associated with his death sentence, he was confronted with an unfamiliar reality. A future. As a result, he realized that he needed to understand why he murdered his family. He reached out to Dr. Robert Hanlon, a neuropsychologist who had examined him in the past. Dr. Hanlon engaged Odle in a therapeutic process of introspection and self-reflection, which became the basis of their collaboration on this book. Hanlon tells a gripping story of Odle’s life as an abused child, the life experiences that formed his personality, and his tragic homicidal escalation to mass murder, seamlessly weaving into the narrative Odle’s unadorned reflections of his childhood, finding a new family on death row, and his belief in the powers of redemption. As our nation attempts to understand the continual mass murders occurring in the U.S., Survived by One sheds some light on the psychological aspects of why and how such acts of extreme carnage may occur. However, Survived by One offers a never-been-told perspective from the mass murderer himself, as he searches for the answers concurrently being asked by the nation and the world.

Violence and New Religious Movements

Violence and New Religious Movements PDF Author: James R. Lewis
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199831319
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 457

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Book Description
The relationship between new religious movements (NRMs) and violence has long been a topic of intense public interest--an interest heavily fueled by multiple incidents of mass violence involving certain groups. Some of these incidents have made international headlines. When New Religious Movements make the news, it's usually because of some violent episode. Some of the most famous NRMs are known much more for the violent way they came to an end than for anything else. Violence and New Religious Movements offers a comprehensive examination of violence by-and against-new religious movements. The book begins with theoretical essays on the relationship between violence and NRMs and then moves on to examine particular groups. There are essays on the "Big Five"--the most well-known cases of violent incidents involving NRMs: Jonestown, Waco, Solar Temple, the Aum Shunrikyo subway attack, and the Heaven's Gate suicides. But the book also provides a richer survey by examining a host of lesser-known groups. This volume is the culmination of decades of research by scholars of New Religious Movements.

Apocalypse Observed

Apocalypse Observed PDF Author: John R. Hall
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134651244
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Apocalypse Observed is about religious violence. By analyzing five of the most notorious cults of recent years, the authors present a fascinating and revealing account of religious sects and conflict. Cults covered include: * the apocalypse at Jonestown * the Branch Davidians at Waco * the violent path of Aum Shinrikyo * the mystical apocalypse of the Solar Temple * the mass suicide of Heaven's Gate. Through comparative case studies and in-depth analysis, the authors show how religious violence can erupt not simply from the beliefs of the cult followers or the personalities of their leaders, but also from the way in which society responds to the cults in its midst.

American Cult: A Graphic History of Religious Cults in America from the Colonial Era to Today

American Cult: A Graphic History of Religious Cults in America from the Colonial Era to Today PDF Author: Robyn Chapman
Publisher: Silver Sprocket
ISBN: 9781945509636
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
From its earliest days, America was a home for spiritual seekers. In 1694, the religious tolerance of the Pennsylvania Colony enticed a Transylvanian monk and his forty followers to cross the Atlantic. Almost two hundred years later, a charismatic preacher founded a utopian community in Oneida, New York, that practiced socialism and free love. In the 1960s and '70s, a new generation of seekers gathered in vegetarian restaurants in Los Angeles, Satanic coffee shops in New Orleans, and fortified communes in Philadelphia. And in the twenty-first century, gurus find their flocks through self-help seminars and get-rich-quick schemes. Across the decades, Americans in search of divine truths have turned to unconventional prophets for the answers. Some of these prophets have demanded their faith, fortunes, and even their very lives. In American Cult, over twenty cartoonists explore the history of these groups with clarity and empathy--digging deep to find the human stories within.

The Mystical Geography of Quebec

The Mystical Geography of Quebec PDF Author: Susan J. Palmer
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030330621
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
This study of new religious movements in Quebec focuses on nine groups—including the notoriously violent Solar Temple; the iconoclastic Temple of Priapus; and the various “Catholic” schisms, such as those led by a mystical pope; the Holy Spirit incarnate; or the reappearance of the Virgin Mary. Eleven contributing authors offer rich ethnographies and sociological insights on new spiritual groups that highlight the quintessential features of Quebec's new religions (“sectes” in the francophone media). The editors argue that Quebec provides a favorable “ecology” for alternative spirituality, and explore the influences behind this situation: the rapid decline of the Catholic Church after Vatican Il; the “Quiet Revolution,” a utopian faith in Science; the 1975 Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms; and an open immigration that welcomes diverse faiths. The themes of Quebec nationalism found in prophetic writings that fuel apocalyptic ferment are explored by the editors who find in these sectarian communities echoes of Quebec’s larger Sovereignty movement.

The Templar Tradition in the Age of Aquarius

The Templar Tradition in the Age of Aquarius PDF Author: Gaetan Delaforge
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780939660179
Category : Occultism
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description


Apocalyptic Trajectories

Apocalyptic Trajectories PDF Author: John Walliss
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9783039102907
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
This book aims to examine several religious groups holding millenarian or apocalyptic ideologies that have been involved in violent incidents over the last twenty-five years: Peoples Temple, The Branch Davidians, The Order of the Solar Temple, Heaven's Gate, Aum Shinrikyo, and the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God. The work focuses particularly on their respective 'apocalyptic trajectories' - the key recurring issues and social processes that fostered the progressive acceptance of violence within each group's ideology, and ultimately helped to precipitate the use of force against the group's own members or against outsiders.