I’m interested in New Religious Movements and obscure cults. Please give me any book recommendations on them.I’ve read No Man Knows My History annd The Doctrine of Tenrikyo, and am currently reading Love Sex Fear Death by Timothy Wylie. I’d specifically like to learn more about the various Asian new religious movements. Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche by Haruki Murakami is on my shortlist. I’d like to learn more about the Unification Church, Falun Gong, and any other random Korean who claims to be God.
>>23315901What did you think of No Man Knows My History? I see it get compared to Mormonism: Shadow or Reality? a lot.
>>23316079Well I haven’t read Mormonism: Shadow or Reality, so I can’t compare them, but No Man Knows My History was a great read. It examines the state of Christianity at the time. Mormonism, in some ways, fossilized some specific currents within Christendom at that time by making them doctrine. For instance, the idea that American Indians were the lost tribes of Israel was not invented by the Mormons, it was widespread speculation at the time which certain scholars promoted. Ancient Israelite polytheism was becoming more understood as well, with the new (at the time) JEPD theory. Mormonism gives a doctrinal reason for the difference between Elohim and Jehovah. Regarding Smith himself, he’s portrayed as a very complicated man, who is portrayed as someone whose own scam grew beyond his control and eventually got high on his own supply. There’s a lot of history I didn’t know about, like the Mormon wars, or their mass migration into Utah. You won’t come away from the book believing that Mormonism is true, but you will develop a lot of sympathies for their movement and Smith himself. It details the growth of doctrines which changed as Smith’s own opinions changed. For instance, the Book of Mormon is pretty explicitly anti-Freemason. However, Smith grew to like Masonry and became a Mason himself, and so later Mormon practices share certain a lot of its beliefs and rituals. One surprising thing was how polygamy was practiced. I thought it was pretty simple (one man can have many wives), but it actually wasn’t originally. Joseph Smith would have “spiritual marriages” with other female members, and these would allow them to stay with Smith in the afterlife, but he would only live with his own wife and was legally married to only her. Smith’s wife publicly denied the practice, said it was all slander, and started her own splinter group after Joseph Smith’s death, which didn’t practice polygamy. Reports around that time indicate that she was aware of it and was just saving face, and one time beat one of Smiths other wife with a broom and chased her out of their house.
A more obscure one that emerged in the town that I live in is Psychiana. It was successful even though in rural Idaho because of its mail order system.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiana
>>23315901Murakami has a book of interviews relating to the Aum Shinrikyo sarin attack called Underground. Religious Violence in Contemporary Japan is good, too.
