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Governmental Lists Of Cults And Sects
The application of the labels "cults" or "sects" to (for example) new religious movement, religious movements in government documents usually signifies the popular and negative use of the term "cult" in English (language), English and a functionally similar use of words translated as "sect" in several European languages. Government reports which have used these words include ones from Austria, s:International Religious Freedom Report 2006 - Austria, International Religious Freedom Report 2006 - Austria, released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, United States Department of State."The vast majority of groups termed "sects" by the Government were small organizations with fewer than 100 members. Among the larger groups was the Church of Scientology, with between 5,000 and 6,000 members, and the Unification Church, with approximately 700 adherents throughout the country. Other groups found in the country included Divine Light Mission, Eckankar, Hare Krishna, the Holo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cults
Cults are social groups which have unusual, and often extreme, religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals. Extreme devotion to a particular person, object, or goal is another characteristic often ascribed to cults. The term has different, and sometimes divergent or pejorative, definitions both in popular culture and academia and has been an ongoing source of contention among scholars across several fields of study. Beginning in the 1930s, new religious movements became an object of sociological study within the context of the study of religious behavior. Since the 1940s, the Christian countercult movement has opposed some sects and new religious movements, labeling them cults because of their unorthodox beliefs. Since the 1970s, the secular anti-cult movement has opposed certain groups, which they call cults, accusing them of practicing brainwashing. Groups labelled cults are found around the world and range in size from small localized groups to some inter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sathya Sai Baba
Sathya Sai Baba (born Ratnakaram Sathyanarayana Raju; 23 November 192624 April 2011) was an Indian godman, guru and philanthropist. At the age of 14, he claimed to be the reincarnation of Shirdi Sai Baba and left his home saying "my devotees are calling me, I have my work". Sathya Sai Baba's followers have attributed to him a range of miraculous abilities, including the materialisation of '' Vibhuti'' (holy ash) and other small objects such as rings, necklaces, and watches. He was also believed to have performed spontaneous healings, resurrections, and exhibited clairvoyant abilities. Additionally, claims were made regarding his ability to be in multiple places simultaneously ( bilocation), as well as his omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience. Sathya Sai Baba's devotees include members of all religions. In 1972, Sathya Sai Baba founded the Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust. Through this organization, Sathya Sai Baba established a network of free, general, and superspeci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ministry Of Public Security Of The People's Republic Of China
Ministry may refer to: Government * Ministry (collective executive), the complete body of government ministers under the leadership of a prime minister * Ministry (government department), a department of a government Religion * Christian ministry, activity by Christians to spread or express their faith ** Minister (Christianity), clergy authorized by a church or religious organization to perform teaching or rituals ** Ordination, the process by which individuals become clergy * Ministry of Jesus, activities described in the Christian gospels * ''Ministry'' (magazine), a magazine for pastors published by the Seventh-day Adventist Church Music * Ministry (band), an American industrial metal band * Ministry of Sound, a London nightclub and record label Fiction * Ministry of Magic, governing body in the ''Harry Potter'' series * Ministry of Darkness, a professional wrestling stable led by The Undertaker See also * Minister (other) * Department (other) D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Family Association
The American Family Association (AFA) is a conservative and Christian fundamentalist 501(c)(3) organization based in the United States.CyberPatrol Blocks Conservative Christian Site over Anti-Gay Content ." . June 1998. Retrieved on September 15, 2007. It opposes LGBTQ rights and expression, |
Falun Gong
Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa, is a new religious movement founded by its leader Li Hongzhi in China in the early 1990s. Falun Gong has its global headquarters in Dragon Springs, a compound in Deerpark, New York, United States, near the residence of Li Hongzhi. Led by Li Hongzhi, who is viewed by adherents as a god-like figure, Falun Gong practitioners operate a variety of organizations in the United States and elsewhere, including the dance troupe Shen Yun. They are known for their opposition to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), espousing anti-evolutionary views, opposition to homosexuality and feminism, and rejection of modern medicine, among other views described as " ultra-conservative". The Falun Gong also operates the Epoch Media Group, which is known for its subsidiaries, New Tang Dynasty Television and '' The Epoch Times'' newspaper. The latter has been broadly noted as a politically far-right media entity, and it has received significant attention in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aum Shinrikyo
, better known by their former name , is a Japanese new religions, Japanese new religious movement and doomsday cult founded by Shoko Asahara in 1987. It carried out the deadly Tokyo subway sarin attack in 1995 and was found to have been responsible for the Matsumoto sarin attack the previous year. The group says that those who carried out the attacks did so secretly, without their plans being known to other executives and ordinary believers. Asahara insisted on his innocence in a radio broadcast relayed from Russia and directed toward Japan. On 6 July 2018, after exhausting all appeals, Asahara and six followers on death row were executed as punishment for the 1995 attacks and other crimes. Six additional followers were executed on 26 July. At 12:10 am, on New Year's Day 2019, at least nine people were injured (one seriously) when 2019 Tokyo car attack, a car was deliberately driven into crowds celebrating the new year on Takeshita Street in Tokyo. Local police reported the a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Order Of The Solar Temple
The Order of the Solar Temple (, OTS), or simply the Solar Temple, was a new religious movement and secret society, often described as a cult, notorious for the mass deaths of many of its members in several mass murders and suicides throughout the 1990s. The OTS was a neo-Templar order, claiming to be a continuation of the Knights Templar, and incorporated an eclectic range of beliefs with aspects of Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, and New Age ideas. It was led by Joseph Di Mambro, with Luc Jouret as a spokesman and second in command. It was founded in 1984, in Geneva, Switzerland. Di Mambro, a French jeweler and esotericist with a history of fraud, co-led the group with Jouret, a Belgian homeopath known for lecturing on alternative medicine and spirituality. Di Mambro had founded several past esoteric groups, and had previous affiliation with a number of other organizations. This included The Pyramid and the Golden Way Foundation, a New Age group founded by Di Mambro that the OTS ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Branch Davidians
The Branch Davidians (or the General Association of Branch Davidian Seventh-day Adventists, or the Branch Seventh-day Adventists) are a religious sect founded in 1955 by Benjamin Roden. They regard themselves as a continuation of the General Association of Davidian Seventh-Day Adventists, established by Victor Houteff in 1935. Houteff, a Seventh-day Adventist, wrote a series of tracts entitled the "Shepherd's Rod" that called for reform of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. After his ideas were rejected, Houteff and his followers formed the group that became known as "Davidians", and some moved onto land outside Waco, Texas. They built a community called the Mount Carmel Center, which served as headquarters for the movement. After Houteff's death in 1955, his wife Florence took control of the organization. That same year, Benjamin Roden, a follower of Houteff, proclaimed what he believed to be a new message from God and wrote letters presenting it to Davidians. In 1957, Flo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Doomsday Cult
A doomsday cult is a cult that believes in apocalypticism and millenarianism, including both those that predict disaster and those that attempt to destroy the entire universe. Sociologist John Lofland coined the term ''doomsday cult'' in his 1966 study of a group of members belonging to the Unification Church of the United States: '' Doomsday Cult: A Study of Conversion, Proselytization, and Maintenance of Faith''. In 1958, Leon Festinger published a study of a group with cataclysmic predictions: '' When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World''. The phenomenon of continued commitment to the "doomsday cult", even after the prophecy fails, has been attributed to the coping method of dissonance reduction, a form of rationalization. Members often dedicate themselves with renewed vigor to the group's cause after a failed prophecy, rationalizing with explanations such as a belief that their actions forestalled ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canadian Security Intelligence Service
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS, ; , ''SCRS'') is a Intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service and security agency of the Government of Canada, federal government of Canada. It is responsible for gathering, processing, and analyzing national security information from around the world and conducting Covert operation, covert action within Canada and abroad. CSIS reports to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, and is subject to review by the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency. The CSIS has no law enforcement function and mainly focuses on intelligence gathering overseas. The agency is led by a director, the current being interim appointee Vanessa Lloyd, who assumed the role on July 20, 2024. History Prior to 1984, security intelligence in Canada was the purview of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). However, during the 1970s, there were allegations that the RCMP Security Service – the predecessor to CSIS – had be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Family International
The Family International (TFI) is an American new religious movement founded in 1968 by David Brandt Berg. The group has gone under a number of different names since its inception, including Teens for Christ, The Children of God (COG), The Family of Love, or simply The Family. A British court case found the group was an authoritarian cult which engaged in the systematic physical and sexual abuse of children, resulting in lasting trauma among survivors. The group has also been accused of targeting vulnerable people. Overview According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, "at its height" the Family movement had "tens of thousands of members, including River and Joaquin Phoenix, Rose McGowan, and Jeremy Spencer". TFI initially spread a message of salvation, apocalypticism, spiritual "revolution and happiness", and distrust of the outside world, which the members called ''The System''. Like some other fundamentalist groups, it "foretold the coming of a dictator called t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Universal Life
Universal Life (, unofficially abbreviated UL) is the name of a controversialhttp://members.aol.com/bbsaktuell/weristue.htm and http://members.aol.com/bbswerth/weristue.htm new religious movement based in Marktheidenfeld, Germany, United States Department of StateInternational Religious Freedom Report 2006 (Austria), released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, The vast majority of groups termed "sects" by the Government were small organizations with fewer than 100 members. Among the larger groups present in Austria, are the Church of Scientology, with between 5,000 and 6,000 members, and the Unification Church, with approximately 700 adherents throughout the country. Other groups found in the country included Divine Light Mission, Eckankar, Hare Krishna, the Holosophic community, the Osho movement, Sahaja Yoga, Sai Baba, Sri Chinmoy, Transcendental Meditation, Landmark Education, the Center for Experimental Society Formation, Fiat Lux, Universal Life, and The Fam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
