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Oh dear!
By William B. Bennett
To author a genuine work that would truly live up to this impressive title would be such a massive exercise in human exploration that no individual or group of authors could untake it, nor publisher finance it. So what we have here is essentially a superficial review of a lot of seemingly interesting accounts, predicated on the assumption that it is better to sit in a chair and read about other people's experience than to live it oneself. More serious is the general tone throughout that there is a fundamental difference between the publishers and their ally the reader, and the misguided individuals suffering from the mass psychosis: the disease NRM.
A fairly non-committal study of this text reveals that it relies heavily on unattributed passages from dead writers who can't challenge for plagiarism. It is lacking in authority and real substance, and essentially an exercise in autoeroticism. The sad part is that earnest young men and women will take it at face value and think they really understand something.
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Product Description
New Religious Movements (NRMs) can involve vast numbers of followers and in many cases are radically changing the way people understand and practice religion and spirituality. Moreover, many are having a profound impact on the form and content of mainstream religion. The Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements provides uniquely global coverage of the phenomenon, with entries on over three-hundred movement from almost every country in the world. Coverage includes movements that derive from the major religions of the world and to neo-traditional movements, movements often overlooked in the study of NRMs.
In addition to the coverage of particular movements there are also entries on topics, themes, key thinkers and key ideas, for example the New Age Movement, Neo-Paganism, New Religion and gender, NRMs and cyberspace, NRMs and the law, the Anti-Cult Movement, Swedenborg, Jung, Teilhard de Chardin, Lovelock, Gurdjieff, al-Banna, Qutb.
The marked global approach and comprehensiveness of the encyclopedia enable an appreciation of the innovative energy of NRMs, of their extraordinary diversity, and the often surprising ways in which they can propagate geographically. The most ambitions publication of its sort, the Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements is a major addition to the reference literature for students and researchers of the field in religious studies and the social sciences. Entries are cross-referenced with short bibliographies for further reading. There is a full index.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #2946112 in Books
- Published on: 2005-12-20
- Original language:English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.57" h x7.01" w x1.69" l,3.09 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 720 pages
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