“Scientific” NRMs: UFO groups and Scientology
- Related Topics:
- Scientology
- New Age movement
- Wicca
- theosophy
- Branch Davidian
- On the Web:
- Cambridge University Press - Introduction to new religious movements (PDF) (Apr. 02, 2025)
Many NRMs claim to be not religions at all but rather “scientific truth” that has not yet been acknowledged or discovered by the official scientific community. In the search for authority for new teachings, certain NRMs have thus tapped into what is arguably the most powerful form of legitimizing discourse in the modern world: science. Some groups have claimed scientific “proof” for Yoga and meditation, and other NRMs have developed in the West under the umbrella of self-proclaimed scientific validity.
UFO groups, sometimes called collectively the “contact movement,” represent one manifestation of a “scientific” NRM. Drawing on time-honoured religious stories of the descent of supernatural beings from the heavens, UFO groups developed what has been called a “technological myth” of the arrival—whether imminent or actual and ongoing—on Earth of space aliens, who will bring advanced knowledge and spiritual wisdom. By the 1950s, groups such as Understanding, Inc., founded by Daniel Fry (who claimed to be a contactee), argued that UFOs carried beings who had come to Earth to promote world peace and personal development. The Amalgamated Flying Saucer Clubs of America, led by Gabriel Green, and the Aetherius Society, organized by George King, maintained that space aliens held the key to the salvation both of the planet as a whole and of every individual on Earth.
A more recent and highly publicized UFO group was Heaven’s Gate, the creation of Marshall Applewhite, who preferred to call himself “Do.” Applewhite declared that he and his female partner (“Ti”) were really representatives from another world, which he referred to as “the evolutionary level above human.” Claiming to have come to Earth once before in the figure of Jesus, Applewhite asserted that the “kingdom of heaven” taught by Applewhite/Christ was a real, physical place inhabited by highly evolved beings. Earth was a “garden” in which human beings had been “planted” by these superior space beings; some such “plants” could hope to mature and further evolve into “members of the level above human,” but only if they systematically shed all vestiges of their humanity, including sexuality (some members of the group castrated themselves to further this end). Formed originally in the mid-1970s, the group settled in the San Diego, Calif., area in 1996, where it supported itself by creating World Wide Web sites for Internet users. In March 1997 Applewhite declared that the appearance of the Comet Hale-Bopp signaled the arrival of a spaceship sent to gather up the “mature plants” before the impending “spading over” of the garden (i.e., end of the world), and the remaining 39 members of the group committed suicide in order to join the alien community in outer space.
UFO groups sometimes couch traditional religious themes such as apocalypticism and heavenly intervention in the language of modern technology and biological evolutionary theory. Other groups, including the Church of Scientology, fashion spiritual teachings and mythology in the language of modern psychology. Founded by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard (1911–86), Scientology began as Dianetics, which was Hubbard’s term for a kind of therapy that claimed to eliminate destructive imprints of past experiences, called “engrams,” that had accumulated in one’s unconscious. Hubbard devised a method—employing both discussion with an “auditor” and the use of an electrical device called an “E-meter”—to dissipate such engrams and produce (over a long period of treatment in which one attains and passes through a variety of hierarchical levels) a state of liberation he termed “being Clear.” Over time Hubbard also developed a whole cosmology in which human beings were said to be originally divine beings, called “thetans,” who had fallen into and been entrapped by material existence. The freedom of “being Clear” was equated with regaining one’s status as an eternal, omniscient, omnipotent thetan.
Nature religions: Neo-Paganism and Wicca
Neo-Paganism and Wicca represent a different, even opposite, response to the dominance and pervasive influence of science in modern culture. Rather than integrate scientific claims into new religious teachings, these groups tend to oppose the materialism, technological excess, and alienation from nature that science is seen to foster, offering modern people a way to return to and participate in the rhythms of the natural world. The embracing of magic and the use of spells to help further personal goals in everyday life seems to fly in the face of some of the basic tenets of modern science and secular “common sense.”
Some Neo-Pagan groups, which claim to retrieve and revitalize the pre-Christian pagan traditions of northern Europe and the Middle East, may be understood as a reaction against cultural and religious pluralism and an attempt to reclaim their “roots.” Other groups, especially those that collectively go under the name Wicca, are in large part religious articulations of sentiments derived from the modern ecology movement and feminism. Wiccan NRMs, mostly but not exclusively composed of women, tend to centre on the figure of a goddess and the “female principle” manifest in nature, and, like other Neo-Pagan organizations, they attempt to re-enchant and personalize a natural world they believe science has objectified.
The East
NRMs have appeared in South Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia since the mid-19th century. While some of these religious movements have remained small and limited in influence, others have grown quite large and have played important roles in the socioeconomic and political development of their respective nations or regions.
While new religions have appeared frequently throughout Asian history, there are important differences between those that developed before and after the mid-19th century. Religious movements that emerged after 1850 reflect the impact of the West and of Western forms of political, economic, and cultural imperialism. From the 19th century onward the newly industrialized and expansionist West advanced into Asia for God, glory, and gold. Western nations, secure in their sense of political, military, economic, and cultural superiority and armed with either an expansionist Protestant or Roman Catholic faith, frequently sent missionaries as the vanguard of later imperialist ventures. Some areas in South and Southeast Asia—India, Vietnam (along with Laos and Cambodia), Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines—were taken outright and made to fit into larger European and American colonial networks. Even those areas that were not controlled directly by the West (such as China, Japan, and Korea) felt its influence in the form of imposed unequal treaties or carefully applied military pressure. The NRMs that evolved in this sociopolitical and cultural environment were either direct reactions against Western imperialism, taking the form of reinvention of an older tradition, or spiritual syntheses of Western and Asian belief systems. These new religions were thus designed to serve both as an answer and as an alternative to the spreading Westernization, secularization, individualism, and materialism occurring within Asian cultures.
India
The rise of the Arya Samaj and the Brahmo Samaj movements in India in the 19th century was a response to the growing British presence in India and the British challenge to Hindu traditions. These movements paved the way for other NRMs, including Ramakrishna’s Vedanta movement, which sought to make Vedanta philosophy and practice accessible to a Western audience. A second such movement was the Transcendental Meditation movement of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. A third new religion, with strong ties to the 12th-century Bhakti movement, was the Hare Krishna movement. Yet another was the cult founded by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, who was also known as Acharya Rajneesh and, later, as Osho.
China and Taiwan
NRMs in China emerged after the first Opium War (1839–42) and were the result of Western imperialism, difficult economic conditions in southern China owing in part to the opium trade and the war over opium, and the arrival of the first generation of Anglo-American Protestant missionaries. The first and foremost of these new religions was the Taiping Tianguo (the Heavenly Kingdom of the Great Peace), a mixture of Evangelical Christianity, classical quasi-Confucian methods, and various popular traditions. Under its charismatic leader, Hong Xiuquan, the movement developed into a religious state that controlled key provinces in southern and central China. Taiping Tianguo threatened the stability of the Qing state until the movement was finally put down in 1865.
After the signing of the treaties of Tianjin (1858), the Western Christian missionary enterprise was legalized in China, and many forms of Christian denominational messages spread throughout the country. One effect of this cultural and spiritual influence was the development of indigenous Protestant sects and denominations. One of these Christian new religions, the Zhen Yesu Jiaohui (True Jesus Church), evolved as a result of the Pentecostal charismatic revivals (1900–20) in the United States. A second independent church was the Difang Hui (Local Church), founded in the 1930s by Watchman Nee, whose followers later spread the church to the United States.
Some of China’s later new religions grew out of forms of sectarian and popular faith that predated the Opium Wars. One such major new body, which evolved out of the White Lotus millenarian tradition and the related tradition of moralistic spirit-writing (bailuan/fuji), or shamanistic sects, is the highly syncretistic Yiguan Dao (I-Kuan Tao; “the Unity Sect”). Another fuji group, the Zhihui Tang (Compassion Sect), began in Taiwan in 1949, and, as in Yiguan Dao, Wangmu Niangniang is its major deity.
The constitution adopted by the People’s Republic of China in 1982 contains religious tolerance clauses, and both traditional and newer forms of religiosity are flourishing. House churches—small Evangelical and charismatic Christian bodies reminiscent of the True Jesus Church—have appeared, and the number of those who call themselves Christian has risen markedly. Minjian (popular) traditions have also made a comeback, with older temples being restored and new ones being built. The revival of the minjian traditions is due in part to renewed contact with Taiwan and to the moral and financial support of followers in Taiwan of such mainland cults as those of Mazu, the goddess of the sea; Baosheng Dadi, the god of medicine; Guanyin, the popular goddess of mercy; and Guangong, the martial and judicial god.
The most important NRM to appear in China is the faith in the semimystical powers of qigong (Chinese: “discipline of the vital breath”), the classical tradition of spiritual and physical exercise that is often seen as the basis for the martial arts. In the 1980s and ’90s, qigong masters developed followings throughout China by demonstrating their powers. The movement spread to Taiwan, where qigong teachings were integrated into the teachings of syncretistic sects. The most controversial and best-known qigong group is Falun Gong, which was founded by Li Hongzhi in 1992. Li taught meditation techniques and ritual exercises designed to provide a means of obtaining spiritual and mental renewal. In 1999 the group staged a dramatic demonstration in Beijing against the Chinese government, which had denounced Falun Gong as a xiejiao (“heretical cult”) and has continued to suppress the group in the 21st century.
Taiwan’s postwar political and religious experience differs from that of the mainland. Taiwan was taken over by Chinese Nationalists in 1945 and became the refuge for and a bastion of the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) after 1949. With considerable American help and a reformed Nationalist regime, it developed into an economic success. Its leaders opened the nation to Christian missionaries and to independent Chinese churches, such as the True Jesus Church. The government of Taiwan also supported mainstream traditions such as Buddhism and Daoism and did little, if anything, to stifle the development of the major popular cults (many from Fujian province) that had evolved on the island after 1600. Numerous syncretistic new religions have blossomed in this climate, including socially active, salvationistic Buddhist organizations; charismatic Christian churches, such as the True Jesus Church and the New Testament Church; the moralistic, syncretistic sect Yiguan Dao (I-Kuan Tao); and a postmodern and highly eclectic millenarian sect, the Zhen Dao (True Way).
Japan
The traumatic political, economic, social, and cultural changes that took place during the final years of the Tokugawa shogunate and the first two decades of the Meiji Restoration contributed to the formation of a large number of new religious entities that scholars of Japan have termed “new religions.” Such religions had their roots in Shintō and Buddhism, the two dominant traditions in Japan, as well as in Tokugawa neo-Confucianism. The basic causes of the dynamic growth of these religions are rooted in the extreme lack of vitality and formalism of the older traditions and the enthusiasm and sense of renewal of the NRMs. Like those of China, Taiwan, Korea, and Southeast Asia, the NRMs of Japan are characterized by high levels of popular participation and volunteerism, with followers running day-to-day operations and converting new adherents.
The earliest of the Japanese new religions include Tenri-kyō and Konkō-kyō. The years between World Wars I and II saw the development of Gedatsu-kai (a sect that is a syncretistic blend of Shintō, Buddhism, and Confucianism), Ōmoto-kyō, and Hito-no-michi (another Shintō-related sect). The postwar period saw further development of some of these earlier groups—Hito-no-michi, for example, became PL Kyōdan (Perfect Liberty Church). New sects also appeared, such as Tenshō Kōtai Jingō-kyō, also known as Odoru Shu-kyō (the Dancing Religion); and Jōhrei, a Christian-based self-help movement. The most notorious of the Japanese NRMs, the radical doomsday religion AUM Shinrikyo, was founded in 1987 by Matsumoto Chizuo (known as Asahara Shoko), whose teachings were a mixture of Asian traditions and Christian apocalypticism. The group fell into disgrace after it launched a nerve gas attack on a Tokyo subway. The group later changed its name to Aleph and tried to rehabilitate itself without its founder.
The most successful of the Japanese NRMs, however, is Sōka-gakkai (Value Creation Society), a lay Buddhist group that claimed more than six million members at the end of the 20th century. Founded originally in 1930, the group was repressed and disbanded during World War II, but it was refounded in 1946. It experienced dramatic growth in the 1950s due to a controversial policy of conversion, and in 1964 it founded the political party Kōmeitō (Clean Government Party). Its teachings are rooted in the tradition of Nichiren, a 13th-century Japanese Buddhist. Sōka-gakkai stresses the values of beauty and goodness (Zen) and the benefits of chanting an invocation to its chief scripture, the Lotus Sutra.
Korea
The history of modern Korea has been one of war and division. Long influenced by both the Chinese and the Japanese, Korea became a battleground in the age of imperialism. In the late 19th century Japan entered the ranks of modern militarized and expansionist states, first taking over Taiwan in 1895 and then, in 1910, Korea. Japan ruled Korea with a strong and sometimes brutal hand until 1945. Korea was then divided into two states. In 1950 South Korea was invaded by the communist regime of North Korea. Intervention by the United Nations (largely the United States) saved the two-state system and allowed for a truce that redefined the borders of the two Koreas, one a communist state and the other a Westernized, quasi-military state. Only from the mid-1980s did South Korea move toward democracy, while North Korea remained a poverty-stricken, family-run dictatorship.
This painful and traumatic history created a fertile environment for the development of Korean NRMs. Meanwhile, since the mid-19th century, Korea had been heavily influenced by Christian missionaries, both Catholic and Protestant. In the late 19th century the millenarian Tajong-gyo, or the Tangun Cult, was formulated by Na Chul. The postwar period sparked not only Christian churches—almost 50 percent of Koreans are Christian—but the development of radical forms of Christianity and quasi-Christianity. David Yonggi Cho’s Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul is the world’s largest congregation, with more than 700,000 parishioners. It belongs to the Assemblies of God, the major Pentecostal denomination in the United States. The largest quasi-Christian new religion is Sun-Myung Moon’s Unification Church.
