WESTERN “EASTERN WISDOM” AND THE CONCEPT OF NEW RELIGIONS: REMAPPING THE FIELD

• Authors: Milan Fujda
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Terms “new religions” or “new religious movements” refer usually to 1950s or 1960s as the time of the origin of particular religious groups/movements. Yet to set up a date is something else than to clarify why the date is important. The debate concerning NRMs is, however, either surprisingly silent on this issue or inconsistent in subsuming particular cases under this heading. Sociologists and scholars of religion seem to do, in this field, little more than balancing the anti-cultist discourse with minor terminological differences creating an impression of value neutrality. In the following article the author will examine the concept of “new religions” on the background of an introduction of communication through the printed media. Using data from his research on acculturation of Hinduism in Czech occultism during the turn of the 19th and 20thcenturies, he will point out that this factor played a significant role in modernization of religions in general – “new” as well as “old” – and that after contrasting new religiosity with traditional religiosity while dwelling on a more conservative understanding of the “traditional”, the difference between “new” and “old” religions will largely vanish while new possibilities of understanding more important distinctions in the field of religion in modern societies might emerge.

Keywords

EN

RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT; HINDUISM; OCCULTISM; COMMUNICATION; MEDIA; CZECH REPUBLIC

• Publisher: Institute of Ethnology, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Slovenský národopis (Slovak Ethnology)
• Year: 2012
• Volume: 60
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 513 – 538

Contributors

author

Milan Fujda

• Katedra religionistiky, Masarykova Univerzita, Arne Nováka 1, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic