“New Religious Movement” is one of those tricky, catch-all terms that can refer to lots of different communities, including ones that have very little in common. Broadly, a New Religions Movement (NRM) is a religious group that came into existence more recently (typically somewhere around the 19th century or later). Other terms include alternative spiritualities, […]

In June 2022, after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Circle Sanctuary’s Pagan Spirit Gathering (PSG) was back at the Pulaski County Fort Leonard Wood Shrine Camp in Waynesville, Missouri. Featuring daily concerts, ritual workshops and scores of pagan vendors offering sacred art, jewelry, magickal tools, drums, altar paraphernalia, candles, psychic readings, […]

The Adocentyn Research Library is a multicultural, interreligious library in California’s East Bay Area. It collects, archives, preserves and makes available information related to paganism. The 13,000 books in the library’s catalog include a broad range of information on all Indigenous, tribal, polytheistic, nature-based and Earth-centered religions, spiritualities, beliefs, practices and cultures around the world and throughout human […]

Teemu Taira is senior lecturer in the study of religion, University of Helsinki, and docent at the department of study of religion, University of Turku, Finland. His research has focused on three areas: religion in the media; the new visibility of atheism and nonreligion; and discursive study of the category of “religion.” He has published on paganism […]

Mitch Horowitz is popular voice on esoteric ideas and writer-in-residence at the New York Public Library, lecturer-in-residence at the Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles and a PEN Award-winning author.

Henrik Bogdan is professor in religious studies at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. His main areas of research are alternative forms of religion, such as Western esotericism, New Religious Movements and secret/initiatory societies.

Andrew Singleton is a sociologist of religion at Deakin University in Australia. He studies spirituality, New Religious Movements and young people’s relationship with faith.

Galen Watts is a Ph.D. candidate in cultural studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. He is studying contemporary spirituality and has focused his research on Canadian millennials.

Duane Bidwell is a professor of practical theology, spiritual care and counseling at Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California. He is the author of When One Religion Isn’t Enough: The Lives of Spiritually Fluid People.