New religions is the academic designation for those religious groups popularly designated as cults or sometimes as sects. New religions emerged as a field of study in the 1970s when these exotic new groups – charged with brainwashing and exploiting their mostly youthful converts – became a hot public issue. It became an established field by the 1990s, in the wake of a series of tragedies involving small alternative religious groups – the Branch Davidian siege, the Solar Temple murder-suicides, the AUM Shinrikyo subway gassings, and the Heaven's Gate suicides. This course will survey selected new religions, the controversy and violence involving such groups, and related topics.
Course programme
Friday 2 October 2015
Please plan to arrive between 16:30 and 18:30. You can meet other course members in the bar which opens at 18:15. Tea and coffee making facilities are available in the study bedrooms.
19:00 Dinner
20:30 - 22:00 Introduction: The Cult Controversy
22:00 Terrace bar open for informal discussion
Saturday 3 October 2015
07:30 Breakfast
09:00 - 10:30 New Religions from the East and teh Cultic Milieu
10:30 Coffee
11:00 - 12:30 Satanism and Witchcraft
12:30 Free
13:00 Lunch
14:00 Free
16:00 Tea
16:30 - 18:00 Scientology
18:00 Free
18:30 Dinner
20:00 - 21:30 Violence and New Religions
21:30 Terrace bar open for informal discussion
Sunday 4 October 2015
07:30 Breakfast
09:00 - 10:30 The New Age
10:30 Coffee
11:00 - 12:30 UFOs and UFO Religions
12:30 Free
12:45 Lunch
The course will disperse after lunch
