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Spiritual Counterfeits Project
The Spiritual Counterfeits Project (SCP) is a Christian evangelical parachurch organization located in Pasadena, California. Since its inception in the early 1970s, it has been involved in the fields of Christian apologetics and the Christian counter-cult movement. Its current president is Dr. Mark J. Harris. In its role as a think tank, SCP has sought to publish evangelically based analyses of new religious movements, New Age movements, and alternative spiritualities in light of broad cultural trends. SCP has also been at the center of two controversial U.S. lawsuits, one involving church-state issues (''Malnak v. Yogi'') and the other being a religious defamation case (''Lee et al. v. Duddy et al.''). It published the ''SCP Journal'' and ''Newsletter''. Background The SCP began as a ministry within the Christian World Liberation Front, an outreach to students at the University of California, Berkeley. It was founded by Brooks Alexander, David Fetcho (who named the ministry), a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global population. Its adherents, known as Christians, are estimated to make up a majority of the population in 157 countries and territories, and believe that Jesus is the Son of God, whose coming as the messiah was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible (called the Old Testament in Christianity) and chronicled in the New Testament. Christianity began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the 1st century Hellenistic Judaism in the Roman province of Judea. Jesus' apostles and their followers spread around the Levant, Europe, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, the South Caucasus, Ancient Carthage, Egypt, and Ethiopia, despite significant initial persecution. It soon attracted gentile God-fearers, which led to a departure from Jewish customs, and, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of California cities by population, fourth most populous in California and List of United States cities by population, 17th most populous in the United States, with 815,201 residents as of 2021. It covers a land area of , at the end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated large U.S. city after New York City, and the County statistics of the United States, fifth most densely populated U.S. county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs. Among the 91 U.S. cities proper with over 250,000 residents, San Francisco was ranked first by per capita income (at $160,749) and sixth by aggregate income as of 2021. Colloquial nicknames for San Francisco include ''SF'', ''San Fran'', ''The '', ''Frisco'', and '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wolters Kluwer
Wolters Kluwer N.V. () is a Dutch information services company. The company is headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, Netherlands (Global) and Philadelphia, United States (corporate). Wolters Kluwer in its current form was founded in 1987 with a merger between Kluwer Publishers and Wolters Samsom. The company serves legal, business, tax, accounting, finance, audit, risk, compliance, and healthcare markets. It operates in over 150 countries. History Early history Jan-Berend Wolters founded the Schoolbook publishing house in Groningen, Netherlands, in 1836. In 1858, the Noordhoff publishing house was founded alongside the Schoolbook publishing house. The two publishing houses merged in 1968. Wolters-Noordhoff merged with Information and Communications Union (ICU) in 1972 and took the name ICU. ICU changed its name to Wolters-Samsom in 1983. The company began serving foreign law firms and multinational companies in China in 1985. In 1987, Elsevier, the largest publishing house in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baker Books
Baker Publishing Group is a Christian book publisher that discusses historic Christian happenings for its evangelical readers. It is based in Ada, Michigan and has six subdivisions: namely Bethany House, Revell, Baker Books, Baker Academic, Chosen, and Brazos Press. History The company was founded in 1939 by Herman Baker in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The company mainly publishes content that covers many issues ranging from family life to theology, mostly within a broad evangelical framework. Furthermore, Baker also publishes books and ministry resources for pastors and church leaders, concentrating on topics such as preaching, worship, pastoral ministries, counseling and leadership. Apart from that, they also publish content for lay Christians on topics such as discipleship, spirituality, encouragement, relationships, marriage, parenting and the intersection of Christianity and culture. In June 2014, Baker announced that it had acquired the publishing rights for Regal Books from G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mantra
A mantra (Pali: ''manta'') or mantram (मन्त्रम्) is a sacred utterance, a numinous sound, a syllable, word or phonemes, or group of words in Sanskrit, Pali and other languages believed by practitioners to have religious, magical or spiritual powers. Feuerstein, Georg (2003), ''The Deeper Dimension of Yoga''. Shambala Publications, Boston, MA Some mantras have a syntactic structure and literal meaning, while others do not. The earliest mantras were composed in Vedic Sanskrit in India. At its simplest, the word ॐ (Aum, Om) serves as a mantra, it is believed to be the first sound which was originated on earth. Aum sound when produced creates a reverberation in the body which helps the body and mind to be calm. In more sophisticated forms, mantras are melodic phrases with spiritual interpretations such as a human longing for truth, reality, light, immortality, peace, love, knowledge, and action. Some mantras without literal meaning are musically uplifting an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plaintiff
A plaintiff ( Π in legal shorthand) is the party who initiates a lawsuit (also known as an ''action'') before a court. By doing so, the plaintiff seeks a legal remedy. If this search is successful, the court will issue judgment in favor of the plaintiff and make the appropriate court order (e.g., an order for damages). "Plaintiff" is the term used in civil cases in most English-speaking jurisdictions, the notable exceptions being England and Wales, where a plaintiff has, since the introduction of the Civil Procedure Rules in 1999, been known as a "claimant" and Scotland, where the party has always been known as the "pursuer". In criminal cases, the prosecutor brings the case against the defendant, but the key complaining party is often called the "complainant". In some jurisdictions, a lawsuit is commenced by filing a summons, claim form or a complaint. These documents are known as pleadings, that set forth the alleged wrongs committed by the defendant or defendants with a de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States District Court For The District Of New Jersey
The United States District Court for the District of New Jersey (in case citations, D.N.J.) is a federal court in the Third Circuit (except for patent claims and claims against the U.S. government under the Tucker Act, which are appealed to the Federal Circuit). The Judiciary Act of 1789 established New Jersey as a single District on September 24, 1789. On February 13, 1801 the Judiciary Act of 1801 reorganized the federal court system, resulting in the state being divided into Eastern and Western districts. The Judiciary Act of 1801 was repealed on March 8, 1802 and New Jersey was re-established as a single district court. The United States Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey represents the United States in civil and criminal litigation in the court. the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey is Philip R. Sellinger. Organization of the court The United States District Court for the District of New Jersey holds court at Mitchell H. Cohen Build ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Puja (Hinduism)
''Puja'' ( sa, पूजा, pūjā, translit-std=IAST) is a worship ritual performed by Hindus, Buddhists and Jains to offer devotional homage and prayer to one or more deities, to host and honor a guest, or to spiritually celebrate an event. It may honor or celebrate the presence of special guests, or their memories after they die. The word ''pūjā'' is Sanskrit, and means reverence, honor, homage, adoration, and worship.पूजा ''Sanskrit Dictionary'', Germany (2009) Puja, the loving offering of light, flowers, and water or food to the divine, is the essential ritual of Hinduism. For the worshipper, the divine is visible in the image, and the divinity sees the worshipper. The interaction between human and deity, between |
Hinduism
Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global population, known as Hindus. The word ''Hindu'' is an exonym, and while Hinduism has been called the oldest religion in the world, many practitioners refer to their religion as '' Sanātana Dharma'' ( sa, सनातन धर्म, lit='the Eternal Dharma'), a modern usage, which refers to the idea that its origins lie beyond human history, as revealed in the Hindu texts. Another endonym is ''Vaidika dharma'', the dharma related to the Vedas. Hinduism is a diverse system of thought marked by a range of philosophies and shared concepts, rituals, cosmological systems, pilgrimage sites, and shared textual sources that discuss theology, metaphysics, mythology, Vedic yajna, yoga, agamic rituals, and temple building, among other to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (born Mahesh Prasad Varma, 12 January 1918Yogi's passport paulmason.info – 5 February 2008) was an Indian Modern yoga gurus, yoga guru known for developing and popularizing Transcendental Meditation (TM), and for being the leader and guru of a Transcendental Meditation movement, worldwide organization that has been characterized in multiple ways including as a new religious movement and as non-religious. He became known as ''Maharishi'' (meaning "great seer") and ''Yogi'' as an adult.#Mason, Mason (1994), p. 28 After earning a degree in physics at Allahabad University in 1942, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi became an assistant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Divine Light Mission
The Divine Light Mission (''Divya Sandesh Parishad''; DLM) was an organization founded in 1960 by guru Hans Ji Maharaj for his following in northern India. During the 1970s, the DLM gained prominence in the West under the leadership of his fourth and youngest son (Prem Rawat). Some scholars noted the influence of the Bhagavad Gita and the Radha Soami tradition, a.k.a. Sant Mat movement, but the western movement was widely seen as a new religious movement, a cult, a charismatic religious sect or an alternative religion. DLM officials said the movement represented a church rather than a religion. When Shri Hans Ji Maharaj died in 1966, he was succeeded as guru by Prem Rawat, then just eight years old, despite rival claims from other family members. Although Prem Rawat was accepted as his father's successor, because of his age his family retained effective control of the DLM. In 1971, Rawat defied his mother by travelling to the UK and the US, where local branches of DLM were establish ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prem Rawat
Prem Pal Singh Rawat (born 10 December 1957), formerly known as Maharaji, is an international speaker and book-author. His teachings include a meditation practice he calls "Knowledge", and peace education based on the discovery of personal resources such as inner strength, choice, appreciation and hope.Shanti Ayadurai.Opening The Doors Of Peace In Prison" in ''The Malaysian Times'' (29 October 2012) Prem Rawat is the youngest son of Hans Ram Singh Rawat, an Indian guru and the founder of the Divya Sandesh Parishad, later known as Divine Light Mission (DLM). After his father's death, eight-year-old Prem Rawat assumed his role. At 13, he traveled to the West and took up residence in the United States. When young adults took interest in his message, the movement grew by tens of thousands. Many in the news media were perplexed by his youth and claims of divine status; he was also criticized for a lack of intellectual content in his public discourses,Schnabel (1982), p. 99 and fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
