Compendium

Indigenous Religions + New Religious Movements

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Indigenous Religions + New Religious Movements

Two heterogeneous categories the academic study of religion has come to treat together for pragmatic reasons:

  • Indigenous religions — the traditional religions of pre-modern + colonized peoples (African + Native American + Aboriginal + Pacific + Arctic + diasporic descendants); long histories often older than “world religions” but often without canonical texts or institutional centralization
  • New religious movements (NRMs) — religions originating in the past ~200 years, primarily 19th-21st c; the term replaced pejorative “cults” in academic discourse from ~1970s (Eileen Barker INFORM, J. Gordon Melton)

The pairing is partly heuristic — both categories have been marginal to “world religion” frameworks; both raise questions about what counts as religion + how religion forms. NRMs also frequently draw on indigenous traditions (Native American Church, Vodou, Rastafari, neo-paganism) or reinvent traditions (Wicca, druidry).

Indigenous religions

African traditional religions (ATR)

~100 million adherents across sub-Saharan Africa; vast diversity but family resemblances — high god + spirit-world + ancestor veneration + diviner-healers + ritual sacrifice + initiation rites + relationship with land.

  • Yoruba religion (Nigeria + Benin + Togo + diaspora)
    • High god Olodumare / Olorun — distant supreme being
    • Orisha — pantheon of ~400+ deities mediating between humans + Olodumare; Ogun (iron + war + technology) + Shango (thunder + kingship) + Yemoja (motherhood + waters) + Oshun (love + fresh water + fertility) + Eshu/Elegba (trickster + crossroads + communication) + Obatala (creator-orisha) + Oya (storms + cemetery)
    • Ifa divination — system of 256 odu (signs) read by babalawo (father of secrets) via palm nuts or divining chain; UNESCO Masterpiece of Oral + Intangible Heritage 2005
    • Diasporic descendants — Santería / Lucumí / Regla de Ocha (Cuba) + Candomblé (Brazil) + Vodou (Haiti, with Fon/Ewe roots) + Trinidad Orisha + Lucumí community US
  • Vodun / Vodou (Fon, Ewe — Benin + Togo + Ghana + Haitian diaspora)
    • Bondye / Gran Mèt — high god
    • Lwa / Loa — spirits — Petwo + Rada nations
    • Ceremonies — drumming + dancing + possession by lwa
    • Haitian Vodou — syncretism with Catholic saints (e.g., Erzulie ~ Virgin Mary; Papa Legba ~ St Peter); Bois Caïman ceremony 1791 catalyzed Haitian Revolution
  • Sangoma / Inyanga — Southern African (Nguni — Zulu + Xhosa + Swati) — diviners-healers; calling via ancestors (amadlozi); training as thwasa + initiation
  • Akan religion (Ghana) — Nyame supreme being + abosom lesser deities + nsamanfo ancestors
  • Bantu ancestor traditions — across sub-Saharan central + southern Africa — ancestors as continuing community members; rituals at gravesites + libations + sacrifices
  • Dogon (Mali) — cosmology recorded by Marcel Griaule (Conversations with Ogotemmêli 1948) — controversial accuracy
  • San / Khoi — Southern Africa hunter-gatherers — trance dance + healing + rock art

Native American religions

Hundreds of distinct traditions across the Americas; no single category but family resemblances — relationship with land + non-human persons + ceremony + visions + healers + creation stories.

  • Plains traditions — Lakota + Dakota + Cheyenne + Blackfoot + Crow + Pawnee:
    • Sun Dance — most sacred ceremony — 4-day annual; piercing + dancing + fasting; suppressed by US/Canada 1880s-1934, revived
    • Wakan Tanka — Lakota “Great Mystery / Great Sacred”
    • Black Elk (1863-1950) — Lakota holy man + Black Elk Speaks Neihardt 1932
    • Pipe ceremony (chanunpa) — sacred pipe gift of White Buffalo Calf Woman
    • Sweat lodge (inipi) — purification
    • Vision quest (hanbleceya) — solitary fast + prayer
  • Hopi (Arizona) — katsina (kachina) spirits visit during winter-spring ceremonies; clan-based; matrilineal; corn-centered cosmology + emergence story
  • Navajo / Diné — Diné Bahaneʼ (Navajo creation story) — emergence through four worlds; Holy People (Diyin Diné’é) + Changing Woman + Hero Twins; Blessingway + Enemyway + Nightway healing ceremonies; sandpaintings as temporary sacred art; hooghan (hogan) dwelling sacred geometry
  • Iroquois / Haudenosaunee (Six Nations) — Longhouse Religion / Code of Handsome Lake (Seneca prophet 1799+); seasonal ceremonies; Great Law of Peace (founding of Iroquois Confederacy 12th-15th c)
  • Pueblo (Tewa + Hopi + Zuni + Keresan) — kachina + kiva (ceremonial chamber) + clan + cyclic ceremonies
  • Pacific Northwest — Coast Salish + Kwakwaka’wakw + Haida + Tlingit — potlatch + totem poles + transformation masks + raven trickster + clan crests
  • Mesoamerican post-conquest syncretism:
    • Maya — Day of the Dead + cofradías + saints over older deities
    • Aztec/Nahua — Tonantzin → Our Lady of Guadalupe 1531
    • K’iche’ Popol Vuh (16th c manuscript) — creation myth, hero twins
  • Inuit / Yupik — angakkuq (shaman) — Sedna (sea woman) keeper of sea animals; soul-flight; spirit helpers
  • South American:
    • Andean — Pachamama (earth mother) + apus (mountain spirits) + Incan Inti (sun); syncretic with Catholicism
    • Amazonian — Yanomami + Shipibo + Ashaninka — shamanism + ayahuasca + spirit animals

Aboriginal Australian religions

~60,000+ years continuous traditions; hundreds of language groups; Dreaming / Dreamtime (Tjukurpa, Jukurrpa, Yumana — varies by language) — ancestral creative beings + their journeys + the world they made; the Dreaming is not “in the past” but eternally present + accessible through ceremony + song + land.

  • Songlines / dreaming tracks — paths of ancestor beings across the continent; songs recall + maintain the country; Bruce Chatwin The Songlines 1987 popularized term
  • Tjurunga sacred objects (stones, wood) carrying ancestral power
  • Initiation — secret-sacred men’s + women’s business
  • Land + identity — sacred sites; native title legal recognition Mabo decision 1992 + Native Title Act 1993
  • Suppression + revival — Stolen Generations 1910-1970s removed Aboriginal children; cultural recovery underway; Uluru Statement from the Heart 2017 + 2023 Voice referendum (failed)

Maori religion (Aotearoa / New Zealand)

  • Atua — gods — Ranginui (sky father) + Papatuanuku (earth mother) + their offspring Tane (forests) + Tangaroa (sea) + Tu (war) + Rongo (peace) + Tawhirimatea (winds)
  • Mauri — life essence in all things
  • Tapu (sacred/prohibited) + noa (ordinary/freed) — fundamental categorization, source of Polynesian “taboo”
  • Mana — power, prestige, spiritual authority
  • Marae — sacred meeting ground with whare (house); welcoming ritual (powhiri); haka
  • Treaty of Waitangi 1840 + ongoing reconciliation + cultural renaissance

Other indigenous + circumpolar

  • Sami / Saami (Lapland — Norway + Sweden + Finland + Russia) — noaidi (shaman) + drum + yoik (vocal tradition); Christianization 17th-18th c + recovery
  • Ainu (Hokkaido + Sakhalin + Kuril) — kamuy (spirits) — bear ceremony iyomante; near-extinct, modest revival
  • Siberian peoples — Chukchi + Yakut + Evenki + Buryat + Tuvan — classic locus of Eliade’s Shamanism
  • Andamanese + Tasmanian (extinct as continuous cultures) — small-band hunter-gatherer religions

African diaspora religions

Reformed in Americas from West/Central African traditions intersecting with Catholicism + Native traditions + Atlantic slave-trade contexts:

  • Vodou (Haiti) — covered above; ~50% of Haitians practice
  • Santería / Lucumí (Cuba + diaspora) — Yoruba orisha hidden behind Catholic saints; sacrifice + initiation; ~5M+ worldwide
  • Candomblé (Brazil, especially Bahia) — Yoruba + Fon + Bantu elements; nations (Ketu + Jeje + Angola); ~2M+
  • Umbanda (Brazil, ~1920s) — synthesis Candomblé + Kardecist spiritism + Catholicism + indigenous; ~half of Brazilians have engaged
  • Quimbanda — Brazilian “darker” counterpart, exu spirits
  • Trinidad Orisha + Shango Baptist
  • Hoodoo / Conjure (US South) — African-American folk magic + Bible
  • Rastafari — Jamaica 1930s — emerged from Marcus Garvey’s Pan-Africanism + coronation of Haile Selassie I (Ras Tafari Makonnen) as Ethiopian Emperor November 2 1930 (interpreted as messianic fulfillment); Babylon (Western oppression) vs Zion (Ethiopia/Africa); cannabis as sacrament; dreadlocks; Ital diet; reggae music as expression; ~1M adherents
    • Mansions/houses — Nyabinghi (oldest), Bobo Shanti (Prince Emmanuel Charles Edwards), Twelve Tribes of Israel (Vernon Carrington founded 1968 — Bob Marley’s mansion)

Shamanism

Mircea Eliade Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy 1951 — defined shamanism as soul-flight technique characteristic of Siberian + circumpolar + then expanded globally; specialist mediates between worlds via altered states (drumming + chanting + plants + dance). Critique: Eliade’s category is overly broad + universalizing; specific traditions differ substantially.

Psychedelic plant traditions — entheogens central to many indigenous religions:

  • Ayahuasca — Amazon — Banisteriopsis caapi vine + chacruna leaves (DMT); shamanic + healing + emergent neo-shamanic + Brazilian ayahuasca religions Santo Daime (Mestre Irineu 1930s) + União do Vegetal (UDV, Mestre Gabriel 1961) — legally recognized in Brazil + US (UDV won 2006 Supreme Court case Gonzales v O Centro Espírita)
  • Peyote — Lophophora williamsii cactus — Mexican + US Southwest indigenous; Native American Church founded 1918 (institutional umbrella for peyotism); ~250-400k members across 70+ tribes; Lophophora declining wild
  • Iboga / ibogaine — Tabernanthe iboga — Gabonese Bwiti religion (Fang + Mitsogo)
  • Psilocybin mushrooms — Mazatec curandera María Sabina (1894-1985, Oaxaca); R. Gordon Wasson’s 1957 Life magazine article + subsequent commercialization controversy
  • San Pedro / huachuma cactus — Andean
  • Salvia divinorum — Mazatec divination
  • Renewed scientific interest 2000s-2020s (“psychedelic renaissance”) — Johns Hopkins + NYU + MAPS + Imperial College London studies of psilocybin + MDMA + ayahuasca for depression + PTSD + addiction + end-of-life anxiety

New Religious Movements (NRMs)

Religions arising primarily in the past ~200 years. The category is contested:

  • Bryan Wilson + Roy Wallis sociology of NRMs typology — world-affirming + world-accommodating + world-rejecting
  • Eileen Barker INFORM (Information Network Focus on Religious Movements, LSE 1988) academic NRM tracking
  • J. Gordon Melton Encyclopedia of American Religions + Institute for the Study of American Religion — comprehensive cataloging

Difference between “cult” (popular pejorative) + “NRM” (academic neutral). The line between an NRM and an established religion is contested + depends on age + size + acceptance — Mormonism is now mainstream LDS; Sikhism + Bahá’í are NRMs by historical measure but established religions by adherent count.

19th-century NRMs

  • The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS / Mormons) — Joseph Smith Jr. (1805-44) Palmyra New York — vision of God + Jesus 1820 (“First Vision”); angel Moroni 1823 reveals golden plates; translated as Book of Mormon published March 26 1830; founded church April 6 1830; revelations compiled as Doctrine and Covenants; Pearl of Great Price (Book of Moses + Abraham + extracts); Kirtland Ohio → Missouri → Nauvoo Illinois; Smith killed by mob June 27 1844 Carthage Illinois; Brigham Young 1801-77 led migration to Salt Lake Valley 1846-47; polygamy practiced 1840s-1890 (officially renounced 1890 Manifesto, splinter FLDS continued); ~17M worldwide; lay priesthood; temple ordinances (endowment + sealing + baptism for dead); abstain from alcohol/tobacco/coffee/tea (Word of Wisdom); pre-existence of souls; eternal progression toward exaltation
  • Christian Science — Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910) Boston — Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures 1875 (revised through 1906 final); mind as ultimate reality, illness as error; Christian Science Practitioners; Mother Church Boston; Christian Science Monitor newspaper 1908; ~100k+ today, declining
  • Jehovah’s Witnesses — Charles Taze Russell (1852-1916) Pittsburgh — Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society 1879; Joseph Franklin Rutherford 1869-1942 named “Jehovah’s Witnesses” 1931; reject Trinity + immortal soul + hell; 144,000 anointed + great crowd; refuse blood transfusions + military service + voting + birthday/holiday celebrations; door-to-door evangelism; Watchtower + Awake! magazines; ~8.7M worldwide
  • Seventh-day Adventist — Ellen G. White (1827-1915) + James White + others — emerged from Millerite movement after Great Disappointment Oct 22 1844 (William Miller’s predicted Second Coming); Saturday Sabbath; healthy lifestyle (vegetarianism encouraged); Loma Linda + Andrews universities; ~22M
  • Bahá’í Faith — Bahá’u’lláh (Mirza Husayn-Ali Núrí, 1817-92 Persia) declared mission 1863 Baghdad; preceded by **the Báb** (SayyedAli Muhammad Shirazi, 1819-50, executed) as Bahá’u’lláh’s forerunner; teaches progressive revelation — all major religions stages in continuing divine plan; unity of God + unity of religions + unity of humanity; no clergy + administrative structure of elected Houses of Justice + Universal House of Justice (Haifa); ~8M worldwide; recognized as religion in 200+ countries; persecuted in Iran (executions + property confiscation); Bahá’í pilgrimage to Haifa Shrines of Báb + Bahá’u’lláh; Lotus Temple Delhi 1986; Wilmette Illinois House of Worship
  • Spiritualism — Fox sisters’ “rappings” Hydesville NY 1848 — communication with dead; peaked late 19th c; mediums + séances; influenced Theosophy + Christian Science indirectly; National Spiritualist Association of Churches
  • Theosophical Society — Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-91 Russian-American) + Henry Steel Olcott New York 1875; moved Adyar Madras 1882; Isis Unveiled 1877 + The Secret Doctrine 1888; synthesis of Western occult + Eastern religion + esoteric Christianity; influenced Hindu reform + Buddhist revival (Olcott Sri Lanka) + Krishnamurti ; Annie Besant (1847-1933) president 1907; Rudolf Steiner broke off founding Anthroposophy 1912 → Waldorf education + biodynamic agriculture
  • Christian Science, New Thought (Phineas Quimby + Emma Curtis Hopkins + Unity + Religious Science + Divine Science) — mind-cure traditions

20th-century NRMs

  • Wicca — Gerald Gardner (1884-1964 English) published Witchcraft Today 1954 + The Meaning of Witchcraft 1959 — claimed pre-Christian pagan survival (later largely debunked historically); Wheel of the Year 8 sabbats + 13 esbats; Threefold Law + Wiccan Rede (“an it harm none, do what ye will”); Goddess + God; Gardnerian + Alexandrian (Alex Sanders) traditions + eclectic Wicca + Dianic (feminist); Drawing Down the Moon (Margot Adler 1979); ~1-3M practitioners, larger neo-pagan movement
  • Scientology — L. Ron Hubbard (1911-86) — Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health 1950; Church of Scientology 1953; auditing + e-meter + thetans + clear + Operating Thetan levels; controversial — IRS recognition 1993; litigation + accusations of abuse + Sea Org + Disconnection policy; secrecy of OT materials; Tom Cruise + John Travolta high-profile; Going Clear documentary 2015 (Alex Gibney); ~25-50k members realistically (claimed millions)
  • Unification Church / Moonies — Sun Myung Moon (1920-2012 Korea) — Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity 1954; Divine Principle 1957; Jesus’s mission was incomplete (failed to marry), Moon as Second Coming; mass weddings (largest 360,000 couples Seoul 1995); Washington Times ownership; rebranded Family Federation for World Peace and Unification 1996; ~1-3M
  • Hare Krishna / ISKCON — A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896-1977 Bengal) founded NYC 1966; Gaudiya Vaishnava revival in West (covered Dharmic Traditions); Krishna devotion + mahamantra + vegetarianism + temple worship + book distribution
  • Church of Satan — Anton LaVey (1930-97) San Francisco 1966; Satanic Bible 1969 — non-theistic Satanism — Satan as symbol of individualism + indulgence; counter-cultural; ~5-50k; Temple of Set 1975 schism (Michael Aquino, theistic Setian); Satanic Temple 2013 modern non-theistic atheist activist organization (separation of church + state advocacy + reproductive rights — distinct from Church of Satan)
  • ECKANKAR — Paul Twitchell 1965 — soul travel
  • Cargo cults Melanesia — emerged WWII contact + post-war — John Frum Tanna Vanuatu (American GI mythologized); Prince Philip Movement Tanna (Duke of Edinburgh as divine); ritual to receive Western “cargo” goods
  • Osho / Rajneesh — Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (1931-90 India), later renamed Osho — synthesis of Eastern + Western — neo-tantra + dynamic meditation + critique of religion; Rajneeshpuram Oregon commune 1981-85 → 1984 Wasco County bioterror attack (largest US bioterror incident; Salmonella in salad bars), Sheela conviction, deportation of Rajneesh; “Wild Wild Country” Netflix 2018; followers continue post-Osho
  • Heaven’s Gate — Marshall Applewhite + Bonnie Nettles — UFO Christian group; 39 members suicide March 26 1997 Rancho Santa Fe California (timed to Comet Hale-Bopp); recognizable Nikes + identical clothes
  • Aum Shinrikyo — Shoko Asahara (Chizuo Matsumoto, 1955-2018) Japan 1984 — apocalyptic Buddhist-Hindu syncretic; Tokyo subway sarin attack March 20 1995 — 13 killed + ~5,800 injured; Asahara + senior members executed July 2018; renamed Aleph + splinter Hikari no Wa
  • Branch Davidians — Seventh-day Adventist offshoot — David Koresh (Vernon Howell) — Waco siege Feb-April 1993 — ATF raid Feb 28 → 51-day siege → fire April 19 1993 — 76 deaths including Koresh + children; FBI investigation + multiple inquiries
  • Jonestown — Jim Jones (1931-78) Peoples Temple California → moved to Guyana 1977; Congressman Leo Ryan visit Nov 18 1978 → Ryan + others assassinated → mass murder-suicide Jonestown Nov 18 1978 — 909 dead from cyanide-laced Flavor Aid (origin of “drinking the Kool-Aid”); largest single deliberate death of American citizens until 9/11
  • Order of the Solar Temple — Joseph Di Mambro + Luc Jouret — 1984+ — 74 deaths in Switzerland + France + Canada 1994-97

21st-century + ongoing

  • New Age spirituality — diffuse — crystals + astrology + meditation + Reiki + chakras + holistic + channeling; Marilyn Ferguson The Aquarian Conspiracy 1980; Esalen Institute Big Sur (founded 1962, hub of consciousness movement)
  • Secular Buddhism — Stephen Batchelor (Buddhism Without Beliefs 1997) + naturalized Buddhism without rebirth/supernatural
  • Mindfulness apps + secular meditation — Headspace (Andy Puddicombe 2010) + Calm (2012) + Waking Up (Sam Harris 2018) + Insight Timer; multi-billion dollar industry; criticism of “McMindfulness” decoupling Buddhist ethics from practice (Ron Purser 2019)
  • QAnon — anonymous “Q” posts 4chan Oct 2017 → 8chan → 8kun; argues for satanic-pedophile deep state vs Trump; analyzed as religious phenomenon — apocalyptic narrative + millenarian salvation + community + sacred figure; FBI domestic terrorism designation 2019; Marcello Cline-Wozniak + others academic analyses 2020-22; January 6 Capitol attack involvement
  • Falun Gong / Falun Dafa — Li Hongzhi 1992 China — qigong-derived spiritual practice — truthfulness + compassion + forbearance (zhen-shan-ren); rapid growth 1990s 70-100M practitioners; banned in China July 1999 + persecution including credible reports of organ harvesting; Epoch Times + Shen Yun outside China; complex political-religious presence in Western diasporas
  • Pastafarianism / Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster — Bobby Henderson 2005 — parody religion + Intelligent Design satire; recognized for religious head-covering in some legal cases
  • Discordianism — Greg Hill + Kerry Thornley 1963 — older parody religion + chaos worship
  • Spiritual But Not Religious (SBNR) — rising demographic — 18-27% US adults (Pew 2017+); decoupling personal spirituality from institutional affiliation; “nones” rising (PRRI 2023: ~27% US adults, 50%+ Gen Z partial unaffiliation)
  • Secular humanism + atheism — American Humanist Association 1941; Humanist Manifesto I 1933 + II 1973 + III 2003; British Humanist Association → Humanists UK 2017; New Atheism — Richard Dawkins The God Delusion 2006 + Christopher Hitchens God Is Not Great 2007 + Sam Harris The End of Faith 2004 + Daniel Dennett Breaking the Spell 2006; Brights movement Dennett + Dawkins early 2000s (term largely faded)

Religious freedom + cult controversy

  • Employment Division v Smith 1990 — US Supreme Court — neutral laws of general applicability do not require religious exemption (Oregon could deny unemployment to Native American Church members fired for peyote use); narrowed Sherbert v Verner 1963 + Wisconsin v Yoder 1972 strict scrutiny standard
  • Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) 1993 federal — restored strict scrutiny test for federal laws burdening religion; passed near-unanimously (Bill Clinton signed); City of Boerne v Flores 1997 limited RFRA’s reach to federal not state law; ~22 state RFRAs followed
  • Gonzales v O Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal 2006 — UDV won use of ayahuasca-containing sacrament under RFRA
  • Burwell v Hobby Lobby 2014 — closely-held corporations have RFRA standing; contraceptive mandate exemption
  • International religious freedom — USCIRF (US Commission on International Religious Freedom) + State Department International Religious Freedom Report annual; Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 18 + ICCPR Article 18

Cult studies + brainwashing debates

  • Margaret Singer Cults in Our Midst 1995 — pro-anti-cult thesis on coercive persuasion; brainwashing model
  • Steven Hassan Combating Cult Mind Control 1988 + BITE model — Moonie former member, deprogrammer; influence
  • Robert Jay Lifton Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism 1961 — 8 criteria for thought reform (originally about Chinese reeducation, applied to cults)
  • Counter-anti-cult scholarship — Eileen Barker + David Bromley + James Richardson + Anson Shupe — rejected coarse “brainwashing” model; argued NRMs draw existing seekers + retention rates are low (Moonie joiners study); raised concerns about deprogramming + anti-cult industry; APA effectively rejected brainwashing testimony in court 1990s
  • Family International / Children of God (David Berg founded 1968) + Twelve Tribes + The Way International + many “fringe” movements
  • Recent attention — Netflix documentaries (Wild Wild Country + Keep Sweet + The Vow on NXIVM + Bad Vegan) sustain public interest

Adjacent

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