Lecture
Это продолжение увлекательной статьи про нетрадиционная религия.
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interest in religion? Contemporary researchers identify the following causes, or factors:
1) First of all, these are the political and legal changes that led to the elimination of official and unofficial prohibitions and administrative persecution of believers that had existed for decades. After progressive laws on freedom of conscience were adopted, religious organizations emerged from their semi-underground state, and believers were granted the right to freely profess their faith without fear. This is confirmed by believers and religious figures themselves, active both in Russia and in Ukraine.
2) Their own effect on the state of society is exerted by social confusion and the deterioration of the economic and ecological situation of most of the population, political instability, and interethnic conflicts. All this generates in people a distrust of the statements of politicians. Many experience a feeling of fear, and the future seems unpredictable. As a result, having become disillusioned with real life and with countless promises, people turn, in search of a way out of the conditions of life that have arisen, to the authority of religion and the church.
3) This is considerably aided by the rapid rejection of those ideals and values by which society was guided for more than 70 years. The resulting spiritual vacuum needed to be filled with a system of ideas and values that have an age-old history and have been tested by time. Surveys conducted among the intelligentsia have revealed a position characteristic of many of its representatives, proceeding from the illegitimacy of a rigid opposition between scientific knowledge and religious faith. Rational scientific knowledge and religious feeling, based on a value-oriented approach to reality, mutually complement one another, forming a kind of unity.
4) An essential factor in the rise of religiosity is the need to overcome spiritual emptiness, the moral crisis that has gripped the whole of society. People accustomed to living according to conscience have increasingly begun to turn to religion and the church as a stronghold of moral values. The corruption, speculation, drunkenness, and drug addiction that constantly manifest themselves in our society hinder the normal life of people and contribute to the fact that many of them seek to compensate for these vices by turning to the universal human values preached by the church, such as mercy, goodness, and attentiveness toward others. In these humanistic values they see a shield against those norms (standards) and habits which, like rust, corrode the soul, breeding immorality, cruelty, despair, and fear.
5) Historical tradition has enormous significance in strengthening religiosity. The historical memory of the people has preserved the progressive activity of the Orthodox Church in the crisis and turning-point periods of the history of our society (the formation of the Russian state, liberation from the Tatar-Mongol yoke, the Patriotic War of 1812, the Great Patriotic War). In our difficult times people turn to the church as a reliable social force capable of helping the people withstand the hardships of contemporary life.
6) The most important reason for the growing interest in religion is the rise in national self-awareness, which awakens people's attraction to national values, including religious ones. According to a sociological survey, more than 60% of citizens believe that religion is necessary for the preservation of national self-awareness. Moreover, religion brings together representatives of different nationalities who adhere to one confession or another. Thus, Orthodoxy unites the large and small peoples living in the CIS countries. Islam brings together the culture and way of life of Tatars, Bashkirs, many Caucasian peoples, and so on.
Alongside the positive aspects, a number of negative phenomena connected with the spread of religious ideas and views in society should also be noted. First of all, this concerns the not always well-considered actions of certain political figures with regard to religion. For example, it has become fashionable for many statesmen to appear in churches holding candles. On the other hand, clergy have become almost obligatory figures at various receptions, presentations, rallies, film festivals, and so on. Many of them seek to impose religious views on pupils, students, and soldiers. Religious organizations often try to resolve political problems, which is in no way proper to them. Here one can suggest only one countermeasure — to consistently separate state matters from religious ones. This is especially necessary under the conditions of a multi-confessional society, when various religious organizations are represented on the territory of the CIS countries. Society must observe the principles of equality of all confessions, as well as the rights of the non-believing part of the population.
Let us attempt to give a forecast of the possible development of religiosity in our society. Specialists believe that in the coming decades the religiosity of the population should stabilize — the number of believing people should amount to approximately 30%. The legitimacy of such a forecast is confirmed by the experience of other countries, which shows that the adoption by people of any worldview is a very complex process, and cannot be brought about artificially. This is also confirmed by the process of the Christianization of Rus, when the adoption of Christianity was stretched out from the 10th to the 16th century. At the same time, the massive impact of atheism on all strata of society over 70 years did not lead to the elimination of religion in our country.
Religiosity at a certain level will be sustained by the active work of clergy. Representatives of foreign religious organizations, possessing significant material resources (mass media, large sums of money, the availability of funds, and so on), will be especially enterprising in this field.
The national factor will play a significant role in the fate of religiosity. Religious organizations will, on the one hand, play a pacifying role in interethnic conflicts, while on the other, owing to destructive forces, they will contribute to their inflammation.
Questions of personal faith or unbelief will be resolved calmly, deliberately, not forcibly, but in a natural way. People will pay more attention to genuine spirituality, rather than reducing their religious interest exclusively to external forms (wearing crosses, attending church services, and so on).
The CIS countries, despite the considerable religiosity of the population, are to a significant degree secularized countries. Therefore it is necessary to realistically assess the possibilities of religion and the church, since social and moral revival is possible only through the joint efforts and cooperation of state and religious organizations. For the normal development of society it is extremely important that both the general interests of people and the interests of individual groups be taken into account, regardless of their worldview foundations; intolerance and aggressiveness must not be shown toward dissenters. A fundamentalist approach is very dangerous in relations between people. The culture of citizens presupposes a broad outlook, a distinctive set of worldview and moral views, and a loyal attitude toward the worldview of other people.
History shows that if people are induced to follow only one worldview orientation, this leads to confrontation and various kinds of conflicts. Often religious intolerance and the absence of civilized relations between religious confessions have led to social tension. In many regions of the world, contradictions between various religious systems have often been resolved by violent methods, bringing grief to people. Let us recall the struggle of the Christian religion with paganism, the confrontation between Christians and Muslims, clashes between people of different Christian organizations — Catholics and Protestants, Orthodox and Catholics. Evidence of this includes the Crusades, the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, the persecution of Protestants in tsarist Russia, the confrontation between Catholics and Protestants in Ulster, and between Catholics and Orthodox in Croatia, and so on.
Unfortunately, on the territory of the CIS, interreligious contradictions are becoming ever more pronounced. These are dangerous tendencies. Thus, in Ukraine, some Christians — Uniates — are taking churches away from other Christians; there is a struggle between the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), and between the Orthodox of the Moscow Patriarchate and of the Kyiv Patriarchate.
Against this background, the rivalry between the Catholic and Orthodox churches is intensifying, the strength of missionaries of foreign Protestant organizations is growing, and the schisms within Islam are worsening. Many actions of religious figures are driven by political considerations. The bulk of believers are not interested in such confrontation. Ensuring a culture of relations and tolerance, a loyal attitude between adherents of religion and unbelievers — these are the prerequisites for civil accord and genuine revival.
Contemporary (new) religious movements — a collection of religious doctrines that appeared in the second half of the 20th century. New religious movements are also called religions of the New Age, alternative cults or neo-cults, non-confessional (supra-confessional) beliefs, new religious movements (NRMs), and so on. In the broad sense of the word, new religious movements denote «all religious movements arising in modern times, roughly from the middle of the 19th century» (R. Flasche).
New religious movements began to spread in the USA and Europe from the end of the 1950s, and in the CIS countries from the end of the 1980s. Many researchers see the causes of the emergence of new religions in the crisis of post-industrial culture (materialistic in its essence): large-scale value transformations after the Second World War; secularization producing a backlash in the form of mass sacralization as traditional religiosity is replaced by quasi-religious consciousness; a deepening sense of tragedy from the hopelessness of resolving mounting problems (the ecological crisis, political extremism, the nuclear threat, and so on); the phenomenon of the social Robinson-Crusoe-ism of the individual — the growth of a person's sense of loneliness, alienation, and powerlessness. V. Frankl summarized these causes as an existential vacuum, that is, the loss by people of the meaning-forming values of life, the loss of the moral and social orientation of the individual.
Classifying new religions is quite problematic. The most popular basis for classification is doctrine, the dogmatics of a given new religion. On this basis one can distinguish:
1.Pseudo-Christian new religions, characterized by reliance on the Christian heritage, in the interpretation of which they use theosophical and Eastern-religious schemes, or attempt independently to introduce corrections into traditional Christian tenets, placing emphasis on eschatology. The leaders of such teachings most often present themselves as «continuers of Christ's work» (the «Unification Church» of S. M. Moon), as prophets of the «Third Testament» (the «Bogorodichny Center» of I. Bereslavsky), as a new messiah (the «Church of Vissarion» of S. Torop), as the Mother of the World (the «Great White Brotherhood» of M. V. Tsvigun), and so on. Pseudo-Christianity also includes all neo-Protestant teachings («Children of God», «Christian Science», Christian meditation, the «School of Christian Unity»). Pseudo-Christian teachings can be divided into cults of «New Revelation» (for example, the Moonies, the Vissarionites) and pseudo-biblical ones, which distort the Bible with «their own» translations and interpretations, up to and including the creation of new texts (for example, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Mormons). By time of origin, these teachings can be classified into new (postwar) ones and long-established cults (from the 19th century).
2.Neo-Orientalist (neo-Eastern) new religions — a collection of cults of Eastern origin, whose doctrinal basis, as a rule, is formed by Hinduism, yoga, Taoism, and Confucianism. The main characteristic of neo-Orientalism is an emphasis on unlocking a person's inner abilities through mastery of psycho-technologies: the Hare Krishnas, «Transcendental Meditation», the «League of the Spiritual Revival of Sanatana Dharma», the «Only Religion» («Osho»), «Aum Shinrikyo», and others. These new religions are instrumentalist in character, which led to their great popularity in the West in the 1960s-1970s.
3.Occultism, teachings of the type of the ecology of the spirit. They are characterized by an occult-mystical orientation and pseudo-scientific explanatory schemes and concepts (energy, evolution, and so on): theosophy, astrology, spiritualism, mantic arts (systems of divination such as the «I Ching», «Tarot», and others), voodoo, Freemasonry, and so on.
4.Neo-paganism: Druids, the Wiccan religion, witchcraft, and so on. The ideology of neo-paganism is often used in the teachings of ultra-right religious-political organizations («New Acropolis», the church «Navi», the movement «Toward God-rule»).
5. Satanism.
6. Pseudo-psychological and pseudo-medical movements. Their foundation is a doctrine of perfecting a person's spiritual power and physical condition. Some researchers also single out so-called commercial cults such as "Herbalife."
Despite the diversity of new religions, three types of distinctive features can be identified: the first type is organizational features, the second is personnel-related, and the third is doctrinal. Organizational features include: worship of a living deity (deification of the leader); extremely strict centralization of governance and severe discipline; active missionary work; active material donation or the believer's complete renunciation of property in favor of the community (i.e., in favor of the leader).
Personnel-related features of new religions: a general orientation toward the rapid and radical transformation of the convert's consciousness; aggressive methods of recruiting and retaining followers based on the psychological manipulation of the individual; a demand for unconditional acceptance of the doctrine and fulfillment of cultic prescriptions; complete destruction of the individual's social ties and inclusion solely within the structure of the group of fellow believers; the unification of the believer's personality into the type of "fanatic" or "zombie."
Doctrinal features: absence of a dogmatic and ritual tradition (the doctrine and cult are in the stage of formation and refinement); pronounced anti-Christianity and neo-paganism (up to and including idolatry); the synthetic and eclectic nature of the doctrine, in which one can find Christian, Eastern, theosophical, and scientific concepts, symbols, and motifs; this compilatory character of the doctrine allows it to claim possession of absolute truth as the result of a "universal synthesis" of humanity's spiritual tradition; the teaching and ritual bear a pronounced mystical character, rooted in a system of esoteric ideas and attitudes.
The features of new religions also include the methods of recruiting followers and processing the neophyte: "love bombing" (you are the center of attention, admiration, and love); informational comfort (you receive answers to all questions); isolation (contact only with fellow believers); a strict regimen (restriction of sleep and food, exhausting spiritual practices, hard physical labor). These methods are characteristic above all of the so-called totalitarian (destructive) sects, which place the adherent's consciousness and behavior under total control, destroying his personality.
The Mormons (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) are a religious community of Protestant origin. It arose in the 1830s in North America. Classifying Mormons as Protestants is generally received negatively by contemporary churches of that branch of Christianity.
The founder was the farmer Joseph Smith (1805-1844). His family had adopted Presbyterianism, but Smith himself leaned toward Methodism. At the age of 14, according to his account, Smith had a vision of God the Father and Jesus Christ. Four years later came a vision of the "angel" Moroni, who told Smith about his father, the prophet Mormon, and about the Book of Truth inscribed on four golden plates.
This book contained a chronicle of two Semitic tribes—the Nephites and the Lamanites. At God's command, a descendant of Joseph the Fair named Lehi set out in 600 BC with the people of these tribes by ship across the Red Sea and onward to America. Here the tribes came into conflict, and after a long struggle the Lamanites prevailed in 384 AD. The American Indian population later descended from them. The last of the Nephites—Mormon—recorded the history of these events in the 5th century, along with instruction he received from Jesus Christ on how people should live in the future.
In 1827 Smith managed to dig up a stone box containing the Book of Mormon at the place indicated by Moroni. Using the magical crystals Urim and Thummim, which were attached to the book, he translated the text into English. The book was then returned to Moroni. In form, the structure of this text resembles the books of the Old and New Testaments. It describes events parallel to biblical ones and cites over 300 quotations from Scripture. In 1830 Smith published the Book of Mormon in an edition of five thousand copies. And on April 6 of that same year, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) was officially founded. A year before this event, another vision of the "angel" culminated in Smith being granted the priesthood and the right of ordination.
The leading idea of the teaching became the "revival of the Christian religion" in the spirit of the early apostolic communities. The first theocratic-type Mormon associations arose in the states of Ohio and Missouri. The local authorities and population received them with hostility. In 1838-1839 the Mormons relocated to Illinois. There they achieved complete administrative, economic, and religious control in one of the towns, establishing the center of their church. Smith stood at its head and was venerated as a prophet. In 1843 he declared that polygamy was one of the conditions of salvation and introduced it by his own decree. This practice was officially abolished in 1890. Smith himself was arrested by the authorities in 1844 and soon shot dead in prison.
The next head of the community was Brigham Young (1801-1877). On his initiative, about 85,000 Mormons made a migration of some fifteen hundred kilometers from Illinois to Utah, where they founded the city of Salt Lake City in 1847. A skilled organizer, Young achieved success in the economic development of the "Utah Territory" and was recognized by the federal authorities. In 1850-1857 he served as governor of the territory, and in subsequent years governed the community as president of the church. With the Mormons' abolition of polygamy, Utah gained the rights of an American state.
The Mormons have become a notable religious community not only in the United States but also abroad, where more than a third of all church members reside. Their communities and missionary representations operate in approximately 100 countries of the world,
including Scandinavia, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, France, Africa, and the islands of the Pacific Ocean. Since 1991, Mormon missionary groups have been active in the Russian Federation.
The church structure reproduces the order of early Christianity as it is understood in Mormon tradition. In ascending order, the church's structure consists of wards, districts, and so-called "stakes." The hierarchy is divided into two levels: the Aaronic priesthood (deacons, teachers, priests, bishops) and the Melchizedek priesthood (elders, seventies, high priests, patriarchs, apostles). The church is headed by a president. He is considered to be recognized by God and holds the exclusive right to prophetic revelation. The president is elected by a council of 12 apostles, who administer the life of the church and oversee the activities of the "spiritual ministers."
The following are practiced in ritual: baptism (from age 8, by immersion in water), communion (water is served instead of wine), confession and absolution of sins, ordination, and marriage rites. These acts may be performed only by men—the so-called "priesthood society." Women form the "society of mercy" and may participate together with men in preaching, missionary work, charitable programs, and so on. Church ministers have no special vestments. In temple symbolism, a figure of the trumpeting angel Moroni is placed instead of a cross. Jesus Christ is customarily depicted as fair-haired, blue-eyed, strong of body, with a kind, loving gaze.
The sacred texts are considered to be the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the collections of revelations "Doctrine and Covenants" and "The Pearl of Great Price." The Articles of Faith compiled by J. Smith number 13. They include the traditional Christian notions of the Trinity, the salvation of all humanity through Christ's atoning sacrifice, and the Second Coming. The Mormons regard original sin as a manifestation of God's will, so all the troubles in the world come not from Him but from people's own errors. Hence the connection of the idea of divine punishment not with Adam's sin, but with people's own personal sins.
The central question of Mormon theology is the prospect of establishing the New Jerusalem on the American continent. Around it "Israel will be reunited and the ten tribes restored"—that is, a true worldwide church will arise. Reference is usually made to the Bible in support of this (Dan. 2:44). After this event, everything foretold in the Bible about the Second Coming of Christ will come to pass, and he will personally reign for a thousand years on a transfigured earth.
The last day before the Last Judgment will be a time of mass baptism. Present-day Mormons must take care of those who departed this life unbaptized before this. For this purpose, the so-called "baptism for the dead" is practiced, in which the identity of a deceased unbaptized person is documented and a proxy baptismal rite is performed (up to 5 million such baptisms take place in a year). The Mormons believe that the soul of the deceased is free either to accept or reject this act; their duty is to offer such a choice. A catalog of the human race, involving research into archival materials from around the world, has been maintained by the Mormons since 1894. It now contains more than two billion names and is kept in mountain vaults belonging to the Genealogical Society of Utah Archive.
The idea of uniting people for the kingdom of Christ is put into practice by numerous Mormon missions, which spread the teaching and establish new communities: more than 50,000 Mormon missionaries aged 18 and older are currently working in countries around the world. Additional activities include the sporting, cultural, and community events they organize.
Mormons are enjoined to lead a healthy lifestyle, excluding smoking, alcohol, tea, coffee, drugs, divorce, and abortion. Diligence in all spheres of activity and the achievement of material well-being are encouraged. Mormons own banks, insurance companies, mines, and industrial enterprises. The twelfth article of the Articles of Faith postulates loyalty to the church toward state authority, rulers, and laws. In matters of religion, Mormons adhere to the principle of religious tolerance. But they do not participate in the ecumenical movement, considering it an artificial equating of the true religion with "less true" ones. Several Mormon missions currently operate in contemporary Russia, with about 30 registered communities (approximately 4,000 people).
The Unification Church is a religious organization founded by Moon. Sun Myung Moon (b. 1920) is a South Korean religious figure, the founder of the Unification Church. Sun Myung Moon was born in 1920 in what is now North Korea. Moon says that at the age of 16 he experienced visions in which Jesus Christ chose him to restore the Kingdom of God on earth. Ten years later Moon began preaching in North Korea and Japan. His sermons brought persecution from the authorities upon him, and he was imprisoned twice. During the Korean War Moon managed to flee to South Korea, where in 1954 he organized the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (the Unification Church).
The church's first missionaries arrived in the United States in 1959. In 1971 Moon moved to the United States and took charge of the movement, creating a centralized organization with strict discipline. Entire teams traveled around the country to raise funds, selling flowers and candy at a large markup. By 1980 Moon had thousands of followers, many of whom worked at firms owned by the church.
Moon's teaching is set out in his book "Divine Principle," which asserts that, according to God's plan, Adam and Eve were meant to have perfect children who would lay the foundations of a perfect world. But Eve was seduced by Lucifer and began to maintain an unsanctified marital relationship with Adam. As a result, their offspring—all of humanity—turned out to be fallen beings incapable of union with God and with one
another. Moon's goal is to unite humanity, turning it into the family of God.
Moon arranged marriages between converts, which were celebrated in lavish, crowded ceremonies. The perfect children expected from these marriages were meant to become the core of a restored kingdom. However, there were known cases in which Moon's movement destroyed the existing families of converts, who left their spouses and parents in order to join the "family," calling Moon and his wife "our true parents."
The mass wedding ceremonies and converts' departure from their families gave rise to ill will toward the Unification Church among the public. The system of recruiting new members and the practice of indoctrinating them gave grounds to accuse
the "Moonies" of brainwashing and dehumanization. They were accused of fraudulent fundraising, and Moon's financial empire was accused of violating the country's laws. Moon's ties with the South Korean government also aroused suspicion.
In 1982 Moon was convicted of tax evasion and spent nearly a year in prison (1984-1985). During the 1980s many of Moon's followers left his church.
The Baha'i Faith is one of the youngest of the world religions. It arose in 1844 in Iran. Baha'i is based on the doctrines of Islam, subjected to an unprecedentedly radical revision. The number of believers in the Baha'i Faith exceeds 6 million people (1994). According to Baha'i teaching, the founder of the religion, Baha'u'llah, continues a line of messengers of God: Krishna, Abraham, Zoroaster, Moses, Buddha, Jesus Christ, and Muhammad. More than 100 works are attributed to Baha'u'llah's authorship (the principal one being the "Kitab-i-Aqdas," or "The Most Holy Book," 1872). The texts of the founder of the Baha'i Faith's son and grandson are also canonized, as are the messages of the Universal House of Justice at the administrative center of the Baha'i Faith—the city of Haifa (Israel).
According to the Baha'i Faith, God is one, and the evolution of the world is a consecutive series of realizations of His will through messengers—the founders of various religious systems. Humanity is one. Attaining this state is possible as a result of the embodiment of the "principle of the unity of differences" (referred to in the Baha'i Faith as the doctrine of "Progressive Revelation"). A messenger of God, appearing to the world every 500-1000 years, brings a qualitatively new spiritual potential into the life of humanity. For humanity not yet reunited, the nation, founded on the idea and values of patriotism, represents the highest attainable state of unity. The Baha'i Faith links the genesis of this spiritual phenomenon to the activity of the Prophet Muhammad. The next potential stage of this process is humanity as an integral subject facing the Cosmos. The individual's love for humanity will, according to Baha'i teaching, in the future become the highest type of love on earth. The Baha'i Faith formulates the goals of establishing a World Administration, the necessity of developing a universal auxiliary language, and the aspiration to overcome the real disunity of people. The Baha'i Faith sees the possibility of preventing the threat of world domination by any isolated and selfish military-political power in the establishment of extremely strict democratic procedures for resolving global issues. The ethical foundation of this process is meant to be the imperative: "Love thy neighbor more than thyself!" Among the leading social tenets of the Baha'i Faith are rightly counted the ideas of rejecting all prejudices; the unity and relativity of individual religious teachings; the equality of men and women; and the maximum permissible mitigation of inequality of property
among people; universal education; the search for truth as the meaning-forming principle of every person's life; a world federation; and the affirmation of harmony among religion, reason, and the pathos of science. The soul of every person is, in the Baha'i Faith, immortal and unique. Baha'is must not participate in political parties. They must strive to achieve the movement's goals solely by legal, peaceful means.
The organization of the Baha'i Faith has known no schisms since 1863. A distinguishing feature of the Baha'i Faith is also the broadly interpreted right of every believer to his own interpretation of religious dogmas, the absence of professional clergy, and the highest moral spirit of overcoming every conceivable form of human disunity.
The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (other names include Hare Krishna, Krishna Consciousness, Vaishnavism) is a religious sect of neo-Hindu orientation, carrying out its missionary activity within the area of European culture. It was created in 1963 by the Indian thinker Sri Srimad A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896-1977). In the USSR
representatives of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness appeared in 1971.
Unlike classical Hinduism, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness: 1) adheres to the principle of monotheism—it holds that the one god Krishna has many names (Allah, Buddha, Jehovah, Rama, etc., and Jesus Christ is considered the son of Krishna); 2) is pantheistic—the image of the god Krishna is interpreted in both personal and impersonal aspects of the Absolute; 3) holds (unlike classical Hinduism) that Vishnu is an incarnation of Krishna; 4) believes in the earthly incarnations of the personal hypostasis of Krishna—in the avatar; 5) regards the other gods of the Hindu pantheon as demigod-servants of Krishna; 6) denies the existence of Krishna's antipode
—Satan or the Devil, who is partially replaced and compensated for by demons—enemies of Krishna; 7) pays particular attention to the harmful energetic influence exerted on man by the world of illusion—maya; 7) recognizes the justice of the caste system, though it holds that belonging to one caste or another is determined by a person's behavior (and not by birth); 8) believes in the transmigration of souls; 9) attaches special status to the practice of meditation.
In the International Society for Krishna Consciousness the authority of the guru is especially high. Adherents of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness—having undergone the rite of initiation and received Indian names—live in ashrams (communes), where daily life is quite strictly regulated. Monks—members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness—wear red or orange robes (saris) and must shave their heads bald.
The number of adherents of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness in the world is on the order of 3 million people (in Russia, according to various estimates, from 20,000 to 500,000 people; the semi-official figure is more than 100,000 people).
Transcendental Meditation is a neo-Hindu psychotherapeutic (meditative) cult founded in the mid-1950s by a Hindu who took the ritual name Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He proposed a simplified form of mantra yoga, by means of which people, without giving up their accustomed way of life, could radically improve their existence for the better, and, through the mass practice of transcendental meditation, fundamentally improve the life of all humanity.
The distinctive feature of Transcendental Meditation as a modernist variant of neo-Hinduism lay in the dominance of cultic practice, in missionary activity, and in reliance on the realization of global social utopias. Although Transcendental Meditation did not gain notable currency in India itself, it acquired millions of adherents in Western countries. The reason for its popularity is that initiation into Transcendental Meditation was simplified to the utmost and amounted to paying a small sum of money, listening to a short lecture, and receiving a "secret" monosyllabic mantra chosen according to the age and profession of the initiate. Ritual practice was reduced to a 20-minute repetition of this mantra morning and evening in a calm setting.
It is believed that Transcendental Meditation attunes a person into resonance with universal harmony and automatically leads to happiness. In this, there is no need to adhere to the requirements of traditional religious asceticism or to restrain one's desires.
The spread of Transcendental Meditation in Western countries was also stimulated by attention to the "scientific" side of this meditational movement, as a result of which several Maharishi Universities were established (also engaged in training instructor-missionaries) and experimental studies were conducted, which confirmed that the meditative practice had a relaxing effect. On the other hand, commercial methods of promotion and organization of Transcendental Meditation practice also developed.
Maharishi created an extensive network of organizations that promote the methods of Transcendental Meditation among various strata and groups of society, taking into account their educational level and professional and life interests. In some cases Transcendental Meditation is promoted as a means of achieving economic interests, in others as a way of enhancing a person's creative and intellectual capacities, and in still others as a means of harmonizing relations with one's environment, nervous-psychological relief, and so on.
At present, groups of adherents and promoters of Transcendental Meditation, made up of representatives of the creative intelligentsia, exist in major Russian cities.
Scientology is the name of the religious teaching of the followers of L. Ron Hubbard. In the official texts of Scientologists, the name of this cult is interpreted as "the search for truth." It is pointed out that scio means "awareness of the full meaning of the word," and logos means "the study of something." Already this philologically inaccurate commentary, from a scholarly point of view, demonstrates the low level of scholarly competence and "degree of good faith" of the Scientologists.
The Church of Scientology operates in many countries and functions as a modern corporation, well organized both economically and legally. For example, all of its principal terms, such as "Scientology" and "Dianetics," are registered and protected by copyright. It is insistently emphasized that the only way to be initiated into the teaching is the legal purchase of publications or courses that are the products of this corporation.
Hubbard's biography, written in a hagiographic style, mentions, among other things, his close friendship in early childhood with an Indian medicine man, his winning of every conceivable Boy Scout merit badge, travels to distant countries and service in the United States Marine Corps, engagement in aeronautics and the organization of a scientific expedition on a sailing yacht, the publication of an enormous number of fictional and dramatic works, and work for intelligence during the Second World War. At the end of the 1940s, this prolific author of adventure novels, novellas, and screenplays wrote that "writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion."
Initially the project developed as a set of psychotherapeutic techniques, united by Hubbard under the name "Dianetics." Later the organization was registered as a religious association, which brought significant tax benefits. Hubbard, without ceasing his active writing, began giving public lectures (numbering in the hundreds within a single year), first in the United States, then in Europe as well.
Scientology claims to disclose the "natural laws" of the spirit. Understood as a spiritual being, man, they assert, can learn to control matter, energy, time, space, thought, and life. Movement toward this godlike state, in a process that Scientologists call the "bridge to total freedom," can supposedly take decades and cost (by the estimates of independent analysts) around half a million dollars.
Having grown over time into a highly powerful international organization, the Church of Scientology develops and carries out large-scale projects of a political character, such as the creation and provision to a preferred party of compromising materials on political opponents, or long-term programs of infiltration
into the educational systems of entire countries. Its own security service develops and carries out covert operations against persons who publicly criticize the cult's teaching. Toward the enemies of the teaching (referred to by Hubbard as SPs, from "suppressive person") any moral restrictions are declared null and void. In this, the resources of the judicial system are used with tremendous effectiveness. Hubbard himself wrote: "The purpose of a lawsuit is to harass and discourage rather than to win. The law can be used very easily to harass, and if possible, one should threaten, cause trouble, and, if possible, ruin them utterly. It is not necessary to win the case, only to cause enough trouble and expense to a person who is already unsteady in his position, since he knows he is guilty, that he can be effectively destroyed as a professional." Despite periodic scandals, sometimes with a criminal tinge (as, for example, in the case of the death of Lisa McPherson, whom her fellow believers did not allow to receive timely proper medical care), the Scientologists' legal services manage to shield the organization from harm.
It is notable that Scientology as a cult parasitizes on the "cult of science," a specific reverence for the signs of "scientific-ness" widespread
outside the more highly educated segment of contemporary society. An example of such "scientifically" colored theory can be seen in the Scientology scale of "emotional levels," extending from 0—the state of a dead body—to 40—the level of "serenity." The intermediate levels include, among other things, numerous precise values, such as 0.05—apathy; 0.07—despair; 0.94—numbness; 0.96—terror; 0.98—hopelessness; 1.0—fear; 1.02—anxiety; 1.1—covert hostility, and so on. The obvious dubiousness of any quantitative method of analyzing emotions does not negate the main point: matching a series of ordinary-language terms with a series of specific numerical values produces a psychologically meaningful effect of supposed "scientific-ness" for the "knowledge" presented.
In fairness it should be noted that there are movements opposing this cult. Some of the printed texts and online resources directed against Scientology were created by renegades from the teaching, and some simply by critically minded people who consider the spread of Scientology a dangerous phenomenon. However, these movements are inferior in organization and influence to Hubbard's teaching.
Aum Shinrikyo (Japanese: "teaching of the truth") is a Japanese totalitarian religious sect of a terrorist character. It was created in 1987 and operated legally until 1995, taking part in elections to local government bodies. The sect's founder, Shoko Asahara, saw his goal in seizing power first in Japan and then throughout the world. The sect recruited persons who could offer it material support, as well as specialists capable of preparing terrorist attacks. Branches of the sect were set up in a number of countries around the world, including Russia and Ukraine.
Aum Shinrikyo, which by that time numbered 9,000 followers in Japan and 40,000 followers in the rest of the world, gained sad and widespread notoriety in connection with the terrorist attack in the Tokyo subway. On March 20, 1995, the nerve agent sarin was used in five train cars on three lines of the Tokyo subway system. As a result, 12 people were killed and more than 3,000 were injured or fell ill from the effects of poisoning. In May 1995 the sect's leader, S. Asahara, was arrested, and in October of that same year the sect's activities were banned. In 2004 S. Asahara was sentenced to death, but the organization's structures have not been completely destroyed, since some of its leaders remain at large.
Theosophy—from the Greek theos, "god," and sophia, "wisdom"—is a body of teachings offering an explanation of the origins and meaning of life. Theosophy encompasses anthropogenesis and cosmogenesis, considering the unity of life, material and spiritual, in categories of evolution subordinate to a certain absolute law. Theosophical ideas can be found in the writings of philosophers (for example, Plato and Plotinus), among the Christian Gnostics, and—in a more explicit form—in the sacred literature of Egypt, China, and India.
Theosophy rests on the following principles.
1. It postulates the existence of a First Cause, which is eternal, does not arise and does not die; this First Cause is the absolute and unchanging first principle, an infinite reality within which every one of its manifestations possesses being.
2. The Primordial Source is reflected in the created universe, thereby becoming a manifestation of God, or the Logos.
3. The universe is generated by the uncaused First Cause as cosmic ideation, from which first arises a dyad, i.e., the opposition of spirit and matter, and then a triad—spirit, matter, and the relation between them (consciousness).
4. Within manifested consciousness, though differentiated, there exist myriad individual consciousnesses, each of which is a Divine Son, or Monad.
5. The cosmic task of the Monads is to unfold the innate powers of conscious divinity through the awareness of limitations and the mastery of ever deeper layers of matter within the three material worlds—mineral, vegetable, and animal. Theosophy teaches that there exists
an evolution of the level of consciousness parallel to the evolution of form, and that at the human level the Monad can more quickly accomplish its task, since here it meets with intelligent cooperation.
6. The Monad is the immortal principle of consciousness in man, and the potential powers of this principle are gradually released through cycles of reincarnation.
7. Reincarnation is conceived as the orderly and periodic exchange, by a person's higher "Self," of various mortal "shells," in which this "Self," using mind, emotions, and the physical body as instruments, gains the opportunity to expand its experience and further growth.
8. The periodic return of the human spirit into material form is predetermined by karma—the law of action and reaction, ensuring observance of the principle of higher justice in the Universe.
9. The purpose of human experience consists in the "enlightened" awareness of the unity of Life; this awareness is spiritual wisdom—it serves as the foundation of ethics, which, in turn, guarantees that awakened spiritual powers will be directed toward sustaining the evolutionary process,
and not toward opposing it. After attaining this stage, the destiny of the human spirit becomes the endless perfection of its own divine nature.
The revival of ancient theosophical ideas in modern times was linked with the founding, on November 17, 1875, in New York, on the initiative of
H. P. Blavatsky, Colonel H. S. Olcott, W. Q. Judge, and others, of the Theosophical Society. Olcott became its first president, and Blavatsky its first corresponding secretary. Initially small, the Society now numbers 35,000 members in more than 50 countries of the world. The headquarters of the Theosophical Society is located in Adyar (Madras State, India). The Society has produced an extensive body of literature, but the principal theosophical work continues to be considered Blavatsky's "The Secret Doctrine" (completed in 1888). Later presidents of the Society, Annie Besant in particular, also contributed to the literary heritage of the Theosophical Society. The main goals of the Society are: 1) to form a nucleus of universal brotherhood of humanity without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or color; 2) to encourage the study of comparative religion, philosophy, and science; 3) to investigate unexplained laws of nature and the latent powers latent in man.
Anthroposophy is one of the versions of theosophy (which fully distanced itself from it in 1909), a mystical teaching about man as a sentient-suprasensory being, set out by the German occultist R. Steiner in the books "Occult Science" (1910) and "Theses of Anthroposophy" (1925). Unlike theosophy, which placed its own God at the center of the Universe and was oriented toward the tenets of Buddhism and Eastern occultism, Anthroposophy relied on Christian mysticism of an unorthodox character and the European idealist tradition (in particular, on the teaching of J. W. Goethe; Steiner himself referred to anthroposophy as "the Goetheanism of the 20th century"). The foundations of anthroposophy also included ideas and suppositions from Pythagorean and Neoplatonic mysticism, the Kabbalah, Vedanta, and German Naturphilosophie.
Steiner considered the goal of anthroposophy (developing a sense of union with the spiritual foundation of the Universe) attainable through introducing youth to the "secret teaching," through cultivating in them the abilities of meditation and "spiritual contemplation," by means of which inaccessible horizons of knowledge would become likened to directly tangible objects. "Higher knowledge" is, in anthroposophy, in principle attainable for every person. At the center of the anthroposophical system lay a deified human essence, accessible only to the initiated. Man, according to Steiner, forms a microcosm consisting of a physical and an astral body, with the etheric body descending into man with the cutting of the permanent teeth (age 7), and the astral body with the onset of sexual maturity (age 14). These spheres correspond to the stages of development of the World Spirit.
Anthroposophy, retaining the significance of reincarnation as a principle of evolution, asserted that the spirit is governed by the law of reincarnation. For Steiner himself, the idea of reincarnation became an "idée fixe": in his system, people, animals, the Earth, the Moon, all the planets, the Sun, and so forth underwent reincarnation. The body, according to Steiner, is governed by the law of heredity, and the soul by a fate created by itself.
In 1912 Steiner founded the Anthroposophical Society, and in 1922 the anthroposophical "Christian Community." Admirers of anthroposophy included Andrei Bely, M. Voloshin and his wife M. Sabashnikova, V. Kandinsky, and others. According to N. Berdyaev, it is difficult to find man within anthroposophy: he is broken apart into a multitude of components and planes (all of Steiner's books are overloaded with descriptions of the most varied hierarchies and cosmic dimensions). Steiner did not succeed, by means of his anthroposophy, in bringing theosophy and Christianity together, since in his system Jesus Christ became a God proceeding from the Sun—a solar Deity (A. Men). According to the convictions of anthroposophy's adherents, people are apparently not yet ready for contact with these mysterious worlds, even if this model can somehow be correlated with contemporary conceptions of the world.
Agni Yoga also has a second, equivalent name—the Living Ethics
(English: Living Ethics; German: Lebendige Ethik; French: Éthique de Vie)—a philosophical and
ethical teaching touching on all aspects of existence—from cosmological questions to the everyday life of the ordinary person—brought into the world in the first half of the 20th century by the couple Nicholas and Helena Roerich. The first record of the Agni Yoga teaching was made in London on March 24, 1920. This day—March 24—is celebrated annually by all followers of Agni Yoga as "Teacher's Day."
Foundations of the worldview:
•Unity of matter and spirit—matter and spirit are one and are gradations of each other. They cannot exist without one another—spirit without matter is nothing (the theosophical Nihil), and matter without spirit is chaos, incapable of development. And only in the cooperation of spirit with matter is conscious existence possible. "Spirit and Matter are united in space" (Fiery World 3, 303). "Spirit is a certain quality of matter" (Aum, 706). "Of course, matter is a state of spirit…" (Illumination, part 2, II.3).
•The Monad is a spark of spirit born in the higher, non-material Fiery World as an unconscious particle, which then gradually descends to denser levels of existence—through the Subtle World into the Physical World—for the purpose of self-awareness and the development of spiritual reason, which will inevitably lead to ascension into its native Fiery World, but now as a rational individuality. "…man is not merely a monad completing its evolutionary path, but he is part of the Monad of the Cosmos. All
Scientology, Aum Shinrikyo, "New Age" cults. Theosophy. Anthroposophy. Agni Yoga
the monads born within a single Monad of the Cosmos bear responsibility for the existence of the whole Universe" (Fiery World 3, 312)
•The omnipresence of life and reason—in every atom, in every stone, in every plant, in every animal, in every person, in every planet and star, in every galaxy pulses reason and glimmers a single life, whose gradations are as numerous as the stars in the sky.
•The threefold nature of the world—the cosmos consists of three basic divisions—the Fiery World, the Subtle World, the Physical World. The first is non-material, mental. The second is half-material, half-mental. The last—in which people live—is material. People pass into the Subtle World (astral) after physical "death"; in it matter is subject to the power of thought. In the Fiery World everything is built solely of mental energy. Only those who have developed their spirituality by kindling the chakras (subtle-energy centers) and have shaped their fiery body pass into the Fiery World. In all three worlds there exist many subdivisions, but the basic division is by the essence of existence in the three states—fiery, astral, physical. "Among the interpretations of the pyramids, note one that indicates three Worlds. The apex—the Fiery World, where all is one; the middle of the structure—the Subtle World, where natures are already divided; the bottom—the dense World. <…> One may divide the edge of the pyramid into four parts, and into five, and into eight, and into many other divisions, but the three basic Worlds will remain the foundations" (Fiery World 3, 519).
•The threefold nature of man—man consists of three basic bodies—the fiery (mental) body, the subtle (astral) body, the physical body. There is also an auxiliary body—the etheric double, which serves as an intermediary between the physical body and the subtle body. In most of humanity only the subtle (astral) body is developed, while the fiery body exists only in a rare minority. "…how much further and deeper one may go, knowing of the division
and connection between the three bodies. For, if the physical body is already formed, then the astral body is nearly formed, and the very subtle mental body is formed only in the chosen few" (Fiery World 3, 369).
•The hierarchical nature of the cosmos—organized matter at all levels and forms of existence presupposes a leading principle, around which a certain number of Monads unite, followed by other Monads. If one takes into account that matter is spiritualized by Monads, then one can extrapolate the law of Hierarchy to the principle of the formation and development of matter. And if one recalls that humanity consists of self-aware Monad-individuals, then the law of hierarchy can be applied to the laws of humanity's evolution.
•Psychic Energy—is the basic energy of the universe, which links all levels of existence and all beings into a single whole. Psychic Energy is the basic energy, from which all other forms of energy derive, both those known to classical physics in our physical world and those unknown energies of the subtle-material worlds.
All so-called phenomena and miracles are performed by means of Psychic Energy. The highest form of Psychic Energy is thought.
The beginning of the development of the movement of Agni Yoga followers was laid in New York in 1921, where the Roerichs created a first circle of seven people, who founded a number of Roerich organizations in America that promoted Roerich ideas, translated the books of Agni Yoga into English, and printed and distributed them throughout North and South America. Later, in 1947, the Roerich Museum in New York was recreated anew by staff led by Z. G. Fosdick. During the Roerichs' lifetime, the second important center of Agni Yoga became Riga, and the Baltic region as a whole, where from the early 1930s until the start of the war there existed a large number of Roerich societies engaged in the study of Agni Yoga. The four final books of the Agni Yoga teaching series were printed in Riga, along with reprints of two of the teaching's earlier books.
The peak of the pre-war development of the Agni Yoga movement can be considered the years 1930-1933, when hundreds of Roerich societies existed around the world, engaged not only in cultural activity but also in studying the books of Agni Yoga. In Soviet times the books of Agni Yoga were banned, but circulated in samizdat. After perestroika came the flourishing of the movement of Agni Yoga followers, who are called the Roerich Movement. Practically every more or less large city in Russia has a Roerich Society, in which the books of Agni Yoga (the Living Ethics) are studied.
Neo-paganism is the general designation for new and reconstructed pagan teachings.
Neo-paganism is clearly divided into two branches—revived ethnic religions and supranational pagan movements. Some people call themselves pagans while not belonging to any movement; their belief cannot be considered new, since it is usually a synthesis of already-existing religious currents, but neither is it a reconstruction of a previously existing belief. Their affiliation with one branch or the other is quite conditional, since they are "on their own."
The first branch includes Slavic Rodnovery, Turkic Tengrism, Baltic paganism, the religion of the Armenian sun-worshippers, and other ethnic forms of polytheism.
A supranational character is possessed by the pagan New Age movement, and an increasingly global character is also being acquired by the Japanese religion of Shinto, by Wicca, which has Celtic roots, and by Asatru, the pagan religion of the Germanic peoples.
The ideologists and followers of supranational neo-paganism, as a rule, do not conceal the syncretic character of their teachings, although they trace their foundations back to traditions whose roots go deep into antiquity.
Ethnic neo-paganism should be distinguished from ethnic religions that have preserved an unbroken religious tradition (for example, from Finno-Ugric and Paleo-Asiatic shamanism).
A neo-pagan temple among Polish Rodnovers
The traditions of Slavic Rodnovery, owing to the wide spread of Christianity, were interrupted from the 5th to the 10th century, and in connection with this contemporary reconstructors, in recreating them, must resort to conjecture and invention, and also draw upon, as sacred and doctrinal texts, sources whose authenticity is called into question by independent researchers (such as the Book of Veles) or even categorically denied.
Nevertheless, supporters of Rodnovery are extremely negative toward the term "neo-paganism," and some of them prefer to avoid the term "paganism" as well, preferring to speak of "ancestral faith" and "folk tradition."
In the 1960s-1980s, high-quality Russian translations of surviving sacred polytheistic texts and the epics of Indo-European peoples were published in mass print runs with detailed commentary by specialists, among them M. I. Steblin-Kamensky, A. Ya. Gurevich, Yu. K. Kuzmenko, O. A. Smirnitskaya, E. M. Meletinsky, V. V. Ivanov, and V. N. Toporov. The shortage of primary written sources about the original Slavic culture is compensated for by heightened interest in the
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Часть 1 12. The evolution of religion in the modern world: new, contemporary, non-standard and alternative religious
Часть 2 1. The main trends in the evolution of religion. -
Часть 3 7. Parody religiosity - 12. The evolution of religion in
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