Why do all the world’s religions emphasize giving thanks? What are the spiritual benefits of giving thanks? The physical benefits?

National Library of Medicine’ National Institutes of Health offers an essay from 1993 on the psychology of Cults.

Yahoo! Cults directory offers articles, organizations and directories on Cults.

About.com provides information on Cults and New Religious Movements Articles in addition to bibliographies and web sites about current trends in religious movements.

“New Religious Movements: An Orthodox Perspective” is an article written by Vladimir Fedorov on World Council of Churches site in 1998.

“Psychology of Spiritual Movements” provides a psychological analysis of Spiritual Movements’ history, beliefs and ideals by Michael Rogge.

Julie Hicks Patrick is an associate professor of psychology at West Virginia University in Morgantown. She is working on a journal article that examines what adults pray and why.

Mary Elizabeth Perry is a certified spiritual director in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) who teaches Lectio Divina and meditation as a form of prayer. She can discuss the mainline Protestant concept of meditation. She lives in Mobile, Ala.

Mark Shibley is a sociologist at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Ore. He has studied spirituality in the Pacific Northwest, historically the region with the greatest number of religiously unaffiliated people in the United States, and contributed a chapter on the subject to Religion and Public Life in the Pacific Northwest: The None Zone.