Cult controversies are enduring in France, and it is likely that the state will continue to be involved, but there are signs of a possible change on this issue, reported French sociologist Véronique Altglas, currently a research fellow at the University of Cambridge, at the recent INFORM/CESNUR conference in London (April 16– 19). Some changes […]

The New Age movement has faced many obituaries over the past few decades, but if anything, this movement of disparate spiritual therapies, techniques and teachings is becoming more consolidated thanks to a unique publishing strategy. One publisher is rarely that influential in the fortunes of a religious movement, but Hay House has managed to create […]

Pentecostalism is seen as one the most dynamic expressions of religion in the contemporary world, but this general impression should be qualified by a variety of contrasting developments from one country to another, as attested by several papers presented at the INFORM/CESNUR conference on new religious movements in London (April 16–19), which RW attended. In […]

The close working relationship between the Vatican and the U.S. government since the 1980s, known as the “Holy Alliance,” may be coming to an end or significantly changing as it faces a new era of world power relations, reports Inside the Vatican magazine (April). The alliance was born when President Ronald Reagan and the Vatican […]

Sufi groups in India are currently engaged into efforts to establish a network around the country in order to try to prevent terrorist attacks, reports Farzand Ahmed in India Today magazine (Jan. 28). The idea behind this civic organization is to create a “Sufi corridor of peace” connecting some 400 Sufi centers across India. The […]

The Turkish-based movement founded by the American-based preacher Fethullah Gülen now represents one of the most influential and effective Muslim networks in the world, reports The Economist magazine (March 8). The movement claims to have established 500 schools in 90 countries and has even built up a presence in northern Iraq, with schools, a university […]

Islam in the Muslim areas of the former Yugoslavia is becoming more diverse, with a development of neo-Salafism, but the prospects for any type of Islamic state are not very good, write experts Xavier Bougarel and Bashkim Iseni in the newly published issue of Politorbis (No. 43, 2007), a journal of international affairs published by […]

While Scientology has been more effective than most religions in controlling its teachings and official writings from online use and criticism, recent events suggest that the dynamics of the Internet have overtaken the controversial church. David Sarno, writing in the Los Angeles Times (March 3), reports that there have been a series of challenges to […]