Japanese new religions

Mormonism

Islam

Evolutionism

I have some stuff from the Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion, it has a chapter on New Religious Movements (NRMs):

(1) they are more concerned than
churches or sects with meeting the needs of their individual members;
(2) they lay claim to some esoteric knowledge that has been lost, repressed,
or newly discovered; (3) they offer their believers some kind of ecstatic
or transfiguring experience that is more direct than that provided by
traditional modes of religious life; (4) unlike established faiths, they often
display no systematic orientation to the broader society and usually are
loosely organized; and (5) they are almost always centered on a charis-
matic leader and face disintegration when the leader dies or is
discredited.

Research has shown, in
descending order of pertinence, that converts tend to be young (in their
early twenties), better educated than the general public (quite notably
in some groups), disproportionately from the middle and upper middle
classes, relatively unattached socially, ideologically unaligned, and with a
history of seekership – that is, with a history of investigating different
religious and spiritual options. In the words of Rodney Stark and William
Sims Bainbridge, the research suggests that contemporary NRMs “skim
more of the cream of society than the dregs” (Stark and Bainbridge 1985,
p. 395). This fact alone may account for much of the stiff opposition to
NRMs. Of course, there are interesting exceptions to these generalizations.
The age profile of some NRMs is changing as the membership ages, and
groups such as Scientology and Soka Gakkai have always attracted a
larger number of older, even middle-aged, followers.

most persons join NRMs through
pre-existing social networks and favorable social interactions with cult
members. Converts help to convert friends, family members, classmates,
and neighbors. Converts repeatedly say that they were influenced first and
foremost by the warmth, genuineness, and sense of purpose that they had
detected in the members they met. Few conversions are the result of soli-
tary encounters in public spaces. Ironically, then, NRMs acquire new
members in much the same way as mainstream religions

Rodney Stark has argued that the cumulative body
of research now shows that NRMs will succeed insofar as:
1. They retain cultural continuity with the conventional faiths of the
societies within which they seek converts.
2. Their doctrines are non-empirical.
3. They maintain a medium level of tension with the surrounding
environment – are strict, but not too strict.
4. They have legitimate leaders with adequate authority to be
effective.
(4a) Adequate authority requires clear doctrinal justifications for an
effective and legitimate leadership.
(4b) Authority is regarded as more legitimate and gains in effective-
ness to the degree that members perceive themselves as participants
in the system of authority.
5. They generate a highly motivated, volunteer, religious labor force,
including many willing to proselytize.
6. They maintain a level of fertility sufficient to at least offset member
mortality.
7. They compete against weak, local conventional religious organiza-
tions within relatively unregulated religious economies.
8. They sustain strong internal attachments, while remaining an open
social network, able to maintain and form ties to outsiders.
9. They continue to maintain sufficient tension with their environ -
ment – remain sufficiently strict.
10. They socialize the young sufficiently well as to minimize both defec -
tion and the appeal of reduced strictness.
If Stark is correct, then some of the changes that Barker has observed
in the larger and more controversial NRMs may be detrimental to their
success in the long run. For example, if strictness contributes to the com-
petitive edge of a group, then accommodation may harm it. But accom-
modation to the dominant society seems advantageous in other ways.
Success hinges on sustaining a delicate balance of these elements in the
face of known and unknown contingencies.

New religions can be classified in
many ways. From a strictly descriptive perspective it might be said that
there are at least five different family groups of NRMs. First are the groups
based on various East Asian and Southeast Asian religious traditions, be
they philosophical, mystical, meditative, or devotional. Examples are Soka
Gakkai, Siddha Yoga, Krishna Consciousness, Brahma Kumaris, and the
Divine Light Mission. Second are groups based largely on aspects of the
American Human Potential Movement in psychology. Examples are
Scientology, est, Silva Mind Control, and Synanon. Third are groups based
on various aspects of Western pre-Christian folklore and neo-Christian
esoteric traditions. Examples are Wicca and neo-paganism, Rosicrurians,
I AM, Solar Temple, Ordo Templi Astartes, and Satanism. Fourth are
groups based on aspects of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. Examples are
Jews for Jesus, Children of God/The Family, The Way International, the
International Churches of Christ, Nation of Islam, Bahai, and the Bawa
Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship. Fifth and last are groups based on UFOs and
the teachings of space aliens. Examples are the Aetherius Society, Heaven’s
Gate, Urantia, and the Raelians.
This list could be subdivided or extended.

There are many spin-offs from
other, less prominent religious. Examples of spin-offs are Santeria,
Rastafarians, Subud, and Unio Do Vegetal. There also are groups that defy
easy categorization because they are the product of syncretism –
for example, Cao Dai and Vajradhatu/Shambhala. Other groups blur
the boundaries between religious and secular activities – for example,
Rajneesh/Osho Foundation and the Unification Church. Still others
have origins that are even more idiosyncratic – for example, New Age
channeling groups such as A Course in Miracles and Ramtha. This blend-
ing of diverse religious and cultural legacies prevents any simple classifica -
tion of many of these new religions, yet also makes it important to
understand them, for many of these groups reflect the processes of cul-
tural transplantation, transformation, and globalization that are reshap-
ing the West.

Rodney Stark and William
Sims Bainbridge (1985) have proposed differentiating among audience
cults, client cults, and cult movements. This distinction is based on the
mode of membership displayed by groups and their consequent organiza-
tion. Audience cults are the least organized yet most pervasive aspect of
cult activity in contemporary societies. They consist of loose networks of
persons who absorb the lectures and books of spiritual teachers such as
Krishnamurti and Deepak Chopra. These audience cults sometimes
develop into client cults, in which followers enter into a more regular and
contractual-like relationships with their spiritual leaders, signing up for
sessions of counselling, meditation, communication with the dead, and
other exotic undertakings. Cults of this kind – for example, est, Scientology,
and New Age groups – require a higher level of organization. But the
clients are not welded to a social movement. They maintain independent
lives, which may involve ties to other religious organizations. By contrast,
cult movements are full-fledged religious organizations, seeking to meet
all the religious needs of their members, sever their ties with competing
groups, and change the world by converting others. Examples are Krishna
Consciousness and Soka Gakkai.

Thomas Robbins and American psychologist
Dick Anthony (1987) suggest differentiating cults according to their
teachings and the ramifications of those teachings for the “moral indeter -
minacy” of modern mass societies. They divide groups into dualistic move-
ments, which promote an absolute dichotomy of good and evil forces in
the world, and monistic movements, which teach the ultimate unity of all
things and moral relativism. This distinction is then correlated with a
distinction between unilevel and multilevel religions. Unilevel groups tend
to be literalistic in their approach to language and texts. Multilevel groups
display a higher appreciation of the symbolic and metaphorical aspects of
language and regard spiritual teachings as encompassing various levels
of meaning. When this distinction is combined with a further distinction
between subtypes of monism – technical movements, which offer proce-
dures for manipulating consciousness, and charismatic movements, which
stress the emulation of a spiritual leader – an elaborate array of classifica -
tory possibilities unfolds.

>Why did the Japs decide to make new religions?
My pet theory is that many young Japanese people experience an existentially unfulfilling life due to occupational, societal, educational pressures, but the mainstream religions, namely Shinto and Buddhism, are too secluded (just look how isolated are shrines and temples) and possibly even "too old" for their spiritual needs.

>Are they just "life philosophy sort of religions"?
They do anything less new religions can involve themselves into, be it exoteric like volunteering and proselytism, to esoteric like procedures for manipulating consciousness and meditation.

>Do the Japs like this development?
Compared to the extant mainstream religions, evidently yes.

Aum Shinrikyo is a New Religious Movement, yes.

This was great.
Are there any good books about this subject? Some of these cults have millions Of followers according to their own stats.
That's some major power over alot of people desu.

>Do the Japs like this development?
What I meant was what do most Japanese think of them?
If the wiki numbers are right, a serious percentage of Japanese people are members in these new religions, do most other Japanese feel uncomfortable with that fact? I even read that some cults try to influence politics.
Surely that might start to make some people worry.

Also, if the Japanese are missing some spiritual ethical component in their lives, it seems quite strange and also a bit uncomfortable that they choose to go seeking these one man new cults instead of regular old religion.

Maybe old and new religions have some sort of fundamental structural difference that make them work better in our more cosmopolitan and socially connected world? Who knows.

Same thing

read pic related. he goes into why japs are attracted to weirdo cults in this era

Well that's great desu
Been one of my father's fav writers, I'll give him a go, thanks!

sarin guys were part of some meme weren't they?

Bromley, David G., and J. Gordon Melton, eds. Cults, Religion and Violence.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Hall, John R. Apocalypse Observed: Religious Movements and Violence in North
America, Europe, and Japan. New York: Routledge, 2000.

Lewis, James, R., ed. The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements. New
York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Stark, Rodney, and William Sims Bainbridge. The Future of Religion:
Secularization, Revival, and Cult Formation. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1985.

>What I meant was what do most Japanese think of them?
The hammer that sticks out will be hammered down. They're a highly conformist society.

Before Aum Shinrikyo unleashed the sarin gas attack, they were already under investigation by the police.

>Also, if the Japanese are missing some spiritual ethical component in their lives, it seems quite strange and also a bit uncomfortable that they choose to go seeking these one man new cults instead of regular old religion.
A miko and a Buddhist nun will never knock at your door. Cult members will.

>Maybe old and new religions have some sort of fundamental structural difference that make them work better in our more cosmopolitan and socially connected world?
As I was saying, your typical Shinto shrine is in a secluded, isolated place, away from the city. So is the typical Buddhist temple.

But the new religious movement's headquarters are in your town.

Because Japan isn't religous
And when that happens the gullible who were raised witrout it already in their brain can fall to scam cults if they aren't careful.
Most of these cults barely have any followers anyways