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This chapter explores a common problem of those who research the topic of religion-related terrorism: how to enter into the mindset of religious activists, especially those committed to violent interactions. This is the challenge for anyone trying to make sense of people and groups that are different than themselves, a problem for textual and historical scholars as well as those applying contemporary social and anthropological approaches. This chapter advocates a form of epistemic worldview analysis that adopts an approach involving informative conversations. These emphasize relational knowledge—attempts to engage with a subject either directly or through textual analysis that brackets the investigator’s assumptions and allows the subject to frame the information from his or her own worldview.

One of the most striking characteristics of conspiracy theories is their frequently transnational character. In previous centuries, such theories most frequently revolved around either the Catholic Church, the Masonic movement, or Jews. These traditional conspiracist networks were absorbed and superseded after World War II by conspiracy theories built around schemes for international cooperation. These included the United Nations, the Bilderberg conferences, the Trilateral Commission, and the World Economic Forum at Davos. All were at one time or another thought to be instrumentalities for an elite cabal seeking global hegemony. This scheme and the conspiracy theories related to it were generally referred to as the “New World Order” and appeared in both religious and secular versions. While general conceptions of a New World Order laid out plans for a takeover that destroyed sovereignty on a worldwide basis, a number of separate conspiracy theories arose at the same time that were consistent with the New World Order but were conceptually quite distinct from it. An examination of three of them is particularly instructive as a demonstration of the ability of conspiracy theories to cross borders. The three are, first, the Sovereign Citizen Movement; second, the followers of Anders Breivik; and, third, the QAnon movement. Sovereign citizens appeared in the United States as part of a highly deviant strain of legal and constitutional interpretation, according to which the state and national governments are illegitimate, a conspiracy of lawyers and judges has distorted the law, and only the individual holds legal powers. Despite its link to peculiarly American issues, sovereign citizen ideas migrated to Australia. Anders Breivik, the Norwegian mass casualty killer, claimed to lead an international movement but in fact had no followers at the time of his crimes. However, subsequently lone wolves in several European countries self-identified as his acolytes. Finally, the QAnon movement began as a web-based attack on the Democratic-liberal establishment and a representation of Donald Trump as a savior figure. Yet despite its American roots, it has spread as far as European and Japan.

New religious groups by their very nature pose some degree of challenge to the social order within which they emerge as they involve alternative ways of imagining and organizing. The sources of contention are some combination of movement provocation and societal control imposition. In a few cases, movement-societal conflict rises to the level of violence, in which each side concludes that peaceful coexistence is impossible. While there has been considerable research on the dynamics of such conflicts, there is less understanding of how movements that have been vanquished in battle with the forces of social control re-form, reorganize, and re-establish themselves. This chapter examines the loosely-coupled Lost Cause Movement following the end of Civil War hostilities. Three primary reconstitution tactics are identified: creation of an alternative social-cultural power base, narrative accounts challenging delegitmating depictions of slavery, and restoration of legitimacy through sacralization of southern culture. These tactics proved to be remarkably successful in repositioning the Confederate states over the next century.

This chapter focuses on the burning of the Quran and the Hebrew Bible and the relation between bibliocaust and holocaust. I will begin with the recent series of Quran burnings in Sweden and then revisit history, from the ceremonial Quran burnings in Grenada 1499 via the Nazi bonfires of 1933 back to our time and show how book burnings throughout this history have been used as a way of ridding society of the evil these books were seen as associated with and how this frequently included the people who read and cherished these books.

The extensive writings of James R. Lewis provide a number of insights that illuminate studies of Peoples Temple and Jonestown. Sometimes these insights directly relate to the tragedy in which more than 900 people lost their lives, such as his analysis of the mental and physical states of those cult leaders who led their followers to death. At other times, insights come indirectly. These include Lewis’s concept of “monolithic inferences,” which features his observation that scholars, including he himself, tend to assume that everyone belonging to a new religion has the same knowledge and information as everyone else. Another, and related, example is Lewis’ insistence that scholars differentiate between religious groups, noting salient differences and similarities, rather than squeezing them into ideal types. A final, implicit insight concerns the way, or ways, in which the Jonestown tragedy has shaped the study of new religious movements. Lewis sees Jonestown as a pivotal moment in the growth of this field. I agree, but at the same time—and using Lewis’ own arguments—I argue that Jonestown is largely an anomaly, and ultimately somewhat irrelevant to the study of new religions.

James R. Lewis has the distinction of publishing the first edited book, From the Ashes: Making Sense of Waco (1994), on the conflict between the Branch Davidians at Mount Carmel Center outside Waco, Texas, and federal agents in 1993. In 2014 Lewis published a chapter titled “The Mount Carmel Holocaust: Suicide or Execution?” He argued that the FBI Hostage Rescue Team’s tank and CS gas assault on the Branch Davidians on April 19, 1993, which culminated in a fire, amounted to the execution of Branch Davidians for the deaths of four Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents killed during a shootout on February 28, 1993. On the other hand, FBI agents, Justice Department attorneys, and other government representatives have argued that the deaths of seventy-six Branch Davidians of all ages in the fire were the result of a mass suicide. Based on sources accumulated during thirty years of research, Catherine Wessinger argues that there is evidence supporting both conclusions—mass suicide and massacre. She describes the social construction of the charisma of Vernon Howell/David Koresh (1959-1993), and how his narcissistic attachment to his charisma was an important factor in the interactions between FBI agents and the Branch Davidians. FBI behavioral scientists informed FBI decision-makers about Koresh’s psychopathologies and how he was likely to react to an assault, but FBI officials opted for a tank and CS gas assault that would obviously end in deaths.

In 2018 a Dutch law student, Mienke de Wilde (Radboud University, Nijmegen) went to the highest court in the Netherlands to plead for her right to wear a colander on her head in official documents like her driver’s license. This action was taken because she is a Pastafarian. The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (Pastafarianism), a third millennium ‘invented religion’ was founded by Bobby Henderson in 2005 (Henderson 2006a, 33-37). De Wilde’s court case failed, and she filed an application in Strasbourg to the European Court of Human Rights, resulting in that court’s first judgement on Pastafarianism (Wolff 2021). This chapter considers invented religions (or “fiction-based religions,” ‘”hyper-real religions,” and “hypothetical religions”), examining their history, defining qualities, and legal status (Wolff 2022). Jediism and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster are then discussed regarding ritual garb in public and official contexts (hoods for Jedis, colanders and pirate attire for Pastafarians). I argue that the distinction between Jedis and Pastafarians and traditional religions with mandated religious attire like Sikhs and Jews is not as clear-cut as non-religious studies scholars think (Cusack 2010, 32-34).

Stefano Bigliardi, along with his students Abdelmojib Chouhbi, Mohamed Amine Ghafil, Amine Nakari, Danya Tazi Mokha, and Salma Zahidi, surveyed and analyzed the plots, dialogues and cinematic features of twenty-two movies which represented fictional new religious movements and their investigators. Among other foci, the group explored how culture, ethnicity, and gender were exploited to fit the films into the genre of horror. All the films are interesting, but the range may be suggested by the first and last.

The People’s Republic of China (“PRC”) maintains a systematic and consistent set of policies toward Xie Jiao (邪教), often mistranslated as “destructive cults.” Due to the sensitiveness of the topic and for certain other reasons, international academic scholars often lack appreciation of the concept according to PRC’s own understanding. When James R. Lewis visited Zhejiang University in 2018, he asked this author to write an objective and detailed introduction of the PRC’s own view toward Xie Jiao. China is a big country with a long history of experiences and lessons relating to this issue, so the topic is worth critical exploration. The main purpose of this chapter is to offer a critical exploration of the Chinese official viewpoint and policies. Thus, this article will analyze the logic behind the whole system in order to render this system comprehensible for western scholars. This article consists of three main parts: The first part introduces the PRC’s definition of Xie Jiao and the PRC perspective on how and why Xie Jiao may be considered destructive. The second part illustrates Falun Gong as a typical Xie Jiao, acknowledging its transformation from Qi Gong to Exceptional Function to Buddhism to apocalyptic cult. The third part is the analysis of the PRC’s treatment of Xie Jiao from the perspective of religious policy, including criteria of identification, the policy principles, and its potential difficulties.