cult/new religious movements

From Fifth Avenue to Dorchester Heights, this St. Patrick’s Day will feature the traditional uilleann pipers and Irish step dancers; in Chicago the river will be dyed green, and in Washington DC the…

Cloying sentimentality, saccharine pablum, ridiculous camp and embarrassing kitsch—in the contemporary moment the word “angel” hasn’t fared well among those who describe themselves as sophisticates or…

In 1961, driving back from a short vacation, Betty and Barney Hill encountered a bright cigar-shaped light on the highway that moved erratically before appearing to chase them. They fled and then told…

Sure, it’s easy to poke fun at Pat Robertson for his 2,000-pound leg press claims or to scold him for his vile Haiti comments, but Robertson thrives on the ‘persecution.’ Our list spins the Robertson moral differently and shows just why he’s been a truly dangerous figure.

This coming Saturday, March 25 th—one week after a hysterical all-caps social media post in which he declared that he “will be arrested on Tuesday” and called on supporters to “protest, take our…

Around 3 a.m. on October 28, David DePape attacked Paul Pelosi, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s husband, with a hammer. During the attack, DePape yelled “Where’s Nancy?” raising concerns that his…

Earlier this month, amid increasing death threats, the synagogue of the judge who signed the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago search warrant was forced to cancel its Shabbat service . And this is hardly an isolated…

Stormy Daniels, the adult film star who rose to prominence as a result of her former relationship with Donald Trump, is testifying against her former lawyer, Michael Avenatti, who’s on trial for…

QAnon isn’t a cult. I know we want it to be, as numerous pundits have argued . I know it would be comforting, to believe that it’s a weird fringe, in the grasp of charismatic leaders, that the people…

While researching ghost hunters in the 21st century US during the course of earning my PhD, I was sometimes asked what ghost-hunting had to do with religious studies. In fact, Americans’ interactions…