3HO was founded in 1969, and SDI followed five years later. What are they, and what is the significance of the 2023 summer solstice for their followers?
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, photographed in New York circa 1874.
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Theosophy and its founders had an outsize impact on Americans’ ideas about spirituality and Asian religions.
QAnon, which fans the flames of wild and dangerous conspiracy theories, is being incorporated into some fringe religious movements.
Photo Illustration/The Conversation
The QAnon movement that’s based on conspiracy theories is now being used by some charismatic Christians as a way to interpret the Bible. It’s a dangerous mix of religion and false information.
Valley of the Dawn members celebrate ‘Day of the Indoctrinator’ at their temple complex in Brazil on May 1. This year’s event is postponed due to coronavirus.
Márcia Alves
Brazil’s Valley of the Dawn faith is often dismissed as a cult. But many of the group’s fantastical rituals are a recognizable reaction to this harsh world of inequality, loneliness and pandemics.
The ‘Christ of the Pacific’ statue in Lima has caused controversy in Peru because of its financing by a graft-tainted Brazilian construction company. Both religion and corruption loomed large in Peru’s 2020 legislative elections.
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After a bribery scandal that took down four presidents and led Congress to dissolve, some Peruvians are putting their faith in an austere religion called the Israelites of the New Universal Pact.
Trump is seen in the Oval Office in early January 2020. Viewing him as a cult leader and his supporters as cult followers doesn’t help us understand why he appeals to some voters.
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
There are many legitimate ways to critique Donald Trump, but demonizing his voters as cult followers doesn’t help us understand why they are attracted to him and how their world view has developed.
“Stop the hair nudes!” A protest by Kofuku-no-Kagaku members against the showing of pubic hair in photographs displaying nudity.
Ella Tennant
From a sarin attack on a city subway to the rebirth of Buddha to protest marches against indecent magazines, Japan’s religious movements have covered a lot of ground.
We’ll say someone’s brainwashed only when we disagree with their beliefs or actions.
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Forty years ago, Rebecca Moore’s two sisters helped plan the Jonestown massacre. But she refuses to say they were brainwashed, arguing that it prevents us from truly understanding their behavior.
A mob burnt down a compound of a religious cult in West Kalimantan, Indonesia.
Reuters/Antara Photo Agency