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Groups Referred To As Cults In Government Reports
The application of the labels "cults" or "sects" to (for example) religious movements in government documents usually signifies the popular and negative use of the term "cult" in 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, 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 Holosophic community, the Osho movement, Sahaja Yoga, Sai Baba, Sri Chinmoy, Transcendental Meditation, L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cults
In modern English, ''cult'' is usually a pejorative term for a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal. This sense of the term is controversial and weakly defined—having divergent definitions both in popular culture and academia—and has also been an ongoing source of contention among scholars across several fields of study. Richardson, James T. 1993. "Definitions of Cult: From Sociological-Technical to Popular-Negative." ''Review of Religious Research'' 34(4):348–56. . . An older sense of the word involves a set of religious devotional practices that are conventional within their culture, related to a particular figure, and often associated with a particular place. References to the "cult" of a particular Catholic saint, or the imperial cult of ancient Rome, for example, use this sense of the word. While the literal and original sense of ... [...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 guru. At the age of fourteen he claimed that he was the reincarnation of Shirdi Sai Baba, and left his home to serve his devotees. Sai Baba's believers credited him with miracles such as materialisations of ''vibhuti'' (holy ash) and other small objects such as rings, necklaces and watches, along with reports of miraculous healings, resurrections, clairvoyance, bilocation and was allegedly omnipotent and omniscient. Multiple studies have concluded that his acts were based on sleight of hand or had other explanations that were not supernatural, although his devotees believe them to be signs of his divinity.Palmer, Norris W. "Baba's World". In: In 1972, Sathya Sai Baba founded the Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust. "to enable its members to undertake service activities as a means to spiritual advancement". Through this organisation, Sathya Sai Baba established a network of free su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Discord
Discord is a VoIP and instant messaging social platform. Users have the ability to communicate with voice calls, video calls, text messaging, media and files in private chats or as part of communities called "servers".The developer documentation refers to servers as "guilds". A server is a collection of persistent chat rooms and voice channels which can be accessed via invite links. Discord runs on Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, iPadOS, Linux, and in web browsers. , the service has over 350 million registered users and over 150 million monthly active users. History The concept of Discord came from Jason Citron, who had founded OpenFeint, a social gaming platform for mobile games, and Stanislav Vishnevskiy, who had founded Guildwork, another social gaming platform. Citron sold OpenFeint to GREE in 2011 for million, which he used to found Hammer & Chisel, a game development studio, in 2012. Their first product was ''Fates Forever'', released in 2014, which Citron anticipated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Family Association
The American Family Association (AFA) is a 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 LGBT rights and expression, pornography, and [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Falun Gong
Falun Gong (, ) or Falun Dafa (; literally, "Dharma Wheel Practice" or "Law Wheel Practice") is a new religious movement.Junker, Andrew. 2019. ''Becoming Activists in Global China: Social Movements in the Chinese Diaspora'', pp. 23–24, 33, 119, 207. Cambridge University Press. ; Barker, Eileen. 2016. ''Revisionism and Diversification in New Religious Movements'', cf. 142–43. Taylor & Francis. ; Oliver, Paul. 2012. ''New Religious Movements: A Guide for the Perplexed'', pp. 81–84. Bloomsbury Academic. ; Hexham, Irving. 2009. ''Pocket Dictionary of New Religious Movements'', pp. 49, 71. InterVarsity Press. ; Clarke, Peter. 2004. ''Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements''. Taylor & Francis. ; Partridge, Christopher. 2004. ''Encyclopedia of New Religions: New Religious Movements, Sects and Alternative Spiritualities'', 265–66. Lion. .Ownby, David. 2005. "The Falun Gong: A New Religious Movement in Post-Mao China" in Lewis, James R. & Jesper Aagaard. Editors. ''Controversial N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aum Shinrikyo
, formerly , is a Japanese 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 attacks did so secretly, without 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 were executed as a punishment for the 1995 attacks and other crimes, and the remaining six on death row were executed on 26 July. At 12:10 am, on New Year's Day 2019, at least nine people were injured (one seriously) when a car was deliberately driven into crowds celebrating the new year on Takeshita Street in Tokyo. Local police reported the arrest of Kazuhiro Kusakabe, the suspected driver, who allegedly admitted to intentionally ramming his vehicle into ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Order Of The Solar Temple
The Order of the Solar Temple (french: Ordre du Temple solaire, OTS) and the International Chivalric Organization of the Solar Tradition, or simply The Solar Temple, is a cult and religious sect that claims to be based upon the ideals of the Knights Templar. OTS was founded by Joseph di Mambro and Luc Jouret in 1984 in Geneva, as ''l'Ordre International Chevaleresque de Tradition Solaire'' (OICTS), and later it was renamed ''Ordre du Temple Solaire''. It is associated with a series of murders and mass suicides that claimed several dozen lives in France, Switzerland, and Canada in 1994 and 1995. Some historians allege that the Solar Temple was founded by the French author Jacques Breyer, who established a ''Sovereign Order of the Solar Temple'' in 1952. In 1968, a schismatic order was renamed the ''Renewed Order of the Solar Temple'' (ROTS) under the leadership of the French right-wing political activist Julien Origas. Beliefs According to "Peronnik" (a pseudonym of templ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Branch Davidians
The Branch Davidians (or the General Association of Branch Davidian Seventh-day Adventists) were an apocalyptic new religious movement 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 Bulgarian immigrant and a Seventh-day Adventist, wrote a series of tracts entitled the "Shepherd's Rod", which called for the reform of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. After his ideas were rejected by Adventist leaders, Houteff and his followers formed the group that later became known as "Davidians" and some of them moved onto a tract of land on the western outskirts of Waco, Texas, United States, where they built a community called the Mount Carmel Center, which served as the headquarters for the movement. After Houteff's death in 1955, his wife Florence took control of the Davidian organization. That same year, Roden (a follower of Houteff), proclaimed ... [...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 of 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''. Festinger and other researchers have attempted to explain the commitment of members to their doomsday cult after the leader's prophecies have proven false. Festinger attributed this phenomenon 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, rationaliz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canadian Security Intelligence Service
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS, ; french: Service canadien du renseignement de sécurité, ''SCRS'') is Canada's primary national intelligence agency. It is responsible for collecting, analysing, reporting and disseminating intelligence on threats to Canada's national security, and conducting operations, covert and overt, within Canada and abroad. The agency also reports to and advises the minister of public safety on national security issues and situations that threaten the security of the nation. CSIS is headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, in a purpose-built facility completed in 1995. The agency is responsible to Parliament through the minister of public safety, and it is overseen by the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency. CSIS is also subject to review by the Federal Court. CSIS agents are not allowed to make arrests. The agency is led by a director, the ninth and current being David Vigneault, who assumed the role on June 19, 2017. History ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Family International
The Family International (TFI) is a Christian New Religious Movement founded in Huntington Beach, California, USA, in 1968 by David Berg that has been criticized as an authoritarian cult. Originally named Teens for Christ, it has gone under a number of different names. It gained notoriety as The Children of God (COG). It was later renamed and reorganized as The Family of Love (1978–1981), which was eventually shortened to The Family. As of 2004, it has gone by The Family International. Former members have accused the group of child sexual abuse, physical abuse, exploitation, the targeting of vulnerable people, and creating lasting trauma among children raised in the group. 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Universal Life
Universal Life (german: Universelles Leben, 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 Würzburg, 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, Universa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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