The Concert That Promised a Thousand Years of Peace
Guru Maharaj Ji, the teenage leader of the Divine Light Mission, was poised to usher in a new era. His huge Houston gathering proved to do anything but.
Reaching New Spiritual Heights Through Hula Hooping
The post-World War II hula hooping craze is back...and this time it's got religion.
The Women Who Preached in Their Sleep
Was sleep-preaching an ingenious way for oppressed women to subvert the social order through somniloquy?
Behind the Curtain of the Heaven’s Gate Cult
On the 25th anniversary of UFO cult Heaven's Gate's mass suicide, a religion scholar examines its theology and doctrines in the context of the New Age Movement.
The Origins of LGBTQ-Affirming Churches
As far back as the 1940s, religious LGBTQ people organized groups and congregations that welcomed them.
The Colonization of the Ayahuasca Experience
“If someone is from the Amazon,” says Evgenia Fotiou, an anthropologist who studies Western ayahuasca usage, “they bring some legitimacy” to an ayahuasca ritual.
African American Studies: Foundations and Key Concepts
This non-exhaustive list of readings in African American Studies highlights the vibrant history of the discipline and introduces the field.
When Adventists and Mormons Turned Sex-Positive
How the once sex-averse Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Seventh Day Adventism embraced (married, monogamous) sex as a positive ideal.
Kendrick Lamar and Black Israelism
Kendrick Lamar namechecked Black Israelism on his last album. The history behind the religious doctrine dates back at least to the eighteenth century.