Buddhist/Hindu
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Elan Vital (1971)
The spiritual lineage of Elan Vital traces back to early 20th-century India with Shri Hans Ji Maharaj, who founded the Divine Light Mission (DLM) based on the Sant Mat tradition. This tradition emphasized a direct, internal experience of divinity rather than external rituals. After his death in 1966, his youngest son, Prem Rawat, then eight… Continue reading
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Eckankar (1965)
Eckankar is a new religious movement combining elements of several belief traditions that was founded by Paul Twitchell in 1965. It is today one of the larger new faiths coming out of that period, with as many as 100,000 adherents worldwide in more than 120 countries, with significant communities in the United States, Canada, Nigeria,… Continue reading
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Dudeism (2005)
Dudeism, formally known as the Church of the Latter-Day Dude, is a new religious movement inspired by the character Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski from the 1998 Coen Brothers film “The Big Lebowski.” The movement was founded in 2005 by Oliver Benjamin, a journalist based at the time in Chiang Mai, Thailand. It was developed as… Continue reading
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Virender Dev Dixit (c. 1970)
Virender Dev Dixit was born in India in 1942 inro a Brahmin household and spent much of his childhood studying religious texts. While working toward a doctorate in 1969, Dixit became associated with the Brahma Kumaris, a spiritual movement founded by Lekhraj Kirpalani. After Kirpalani’s death, Dixit stated that the founder’s soul, along with the… Continue reading
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Divine Light Mission (1960)
The Divine Light Mission, known in India as Divya Sandesh Parishad, was established in 1960 by Shri Hans Maharaj Ji. Born in 1900, Shri Hans was initiated into the Sant Mat tradition by the guru Sarupanand Ji. Sant Mat is a mystical movement that combines elements of Hinduism and Sikhism and emphasizes direct spiritual experience.… Continue reading
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Diamond Way (1972)
Ole Nydahl, often referred to as “Lama Ole,” is a Danish teacher associated with the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. He was born on March 19, 1941, and grew up in an academic family in Copenhagen. In his early adulthood, he pursued interests that included boxing, motorcycle racing and philosophy studies at the University… Continue reading
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Diamond Mountain (2000)
Michael Roach was born in Los Angeles in 1952. He attended Princeton University, and during his college years, his academic path was interrupted by personal events, including the deaths of his parents and the suicide of a brother. Around this time, he became increasingly involved in Eastern spirituality. In 1983, he was ordained as a… Continue reading
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Diamond Approach/Ridhwan School (1976)
A. Hameed Ali, known by the pen name A. H. Almaas, was born in Kuwait in 1944. At age 18, he moved to the United States to study physics at the University of California, Berkeley. During his doctoral studies, he experienced what he later described as a psychological and spiritual shift. He subsequently left his… Continue reading
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Dhunami (2008)
Dhunami is a small offshoot of Eckankar that continues the lineage of Darwin Gross, who succeeded Eckankar founder Paul Twitchell in the leadership of that group but who was deposed and erased from Eckankar history under longtime leader Harold Klemp. Gross founded his own offshoot, Ancient Teachings of the Masters (ATOM), which had largely faded… Continue reading
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Dera Sacha Sauda (1948)
Dera Sacha Sauda (DSS), also referred to as the “Dera,” was founded on April 29, 1948, by Mastana Balochistani in Sirsa, India, as a center for religious instruction. Its founding principles emphasized humanitarian service and meditation, with followers required to practice vegetarianism, abstain from intoxicants, and observe marital fidelity. After Balochistani’s death in 1960, leadership… Continue reading
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Dahn Yoga (1985)
Dahn Yoga, now known as Body & Brain, is a mind-body training system founded in 1985 by Ilchi Lee, born Seung Heun Lee. The system teaches what it calls “Brain Education,” a proprietary exercise program that combines elements of yoga, tai chi, and martial arts with traditional Korean healing philosophies. The term “Dahn” refers to… Continue reading
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Deepak Chopra (c. 1989)
Deepak Chopra is an author, public speaker, and alternative medicine advocate. Over the course of several decades, he has moved from a career in conventional medicine to a prominent role in the global wellness industry. His books, public appearances, and centers for health and well-being have made him one of the most widely recognized figures… Continue reading
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Cao Dai (1926)
Cao Dai is a Vietnamese monotheistic and syncretic religion that officially began in Southern Vietnam in 1926. It is formally known as the “Great Way of the Third Time of Redemption,” a name that reflects its mission of unifying all spiritual paths into a single faith. Its theology, called “The Third Great Universal Religious Amnesty,”… Continue reading
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Buddhafield (c. 1980)
Jaime Gomez, later known by a variety of names including Michel, Andreas, The Teacher, and Reyji, was born in Venezuela to a wealthy rancher. He eventually moved to the United States hoping to become an actor and professional dancer. He secured a non-speaking role in the 1968 film “Rosemary’s Baby” and performed with the Oakland… Continue reading
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Brahma Kumaris (1936)
The Brahma Kumaris — the “Daughters of Brahma” — is a spiritual movement that began in the 1930s in Hyderabad, a section of British India that is now part of Pakistan. Its founder, Lekhraj Khubchand Kirpalani, also known as Om Baba, was a wealthy jeweler who, in 1935, gave up his business after claiming to… Continue reading
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Bikram Yoga (c. 1971)
Bikram Yoga is a system of hot yoga introduced by Bikram Choudhury in the United States in the early 1970s. Classes typically take place in a yoga studio with the temperature set to 105° F (41° C) with a humidity of 40%, which is said to emulate the climate of India. The rooms are usually… Continue reading
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Bhakti Marga (2005)
Mahadeosingh Komalram was born into a Hindu Brahmin family in Mauritius in 1978. He later claimed to have experienced an apparition of a holy man who he identified as his personal guru at the age of five. At 14, he is said to have entered a state of samadhi, a state of profound meditative union… Continue reading
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Aumism (1969)
Gilbert Bourdin was born in Martinique in 1923 and spent his early career in the French Civil Service. His early life is otherwise mostly obscure. When he was 33, he moved to France and studied law, economics, and politics. He also developed an interest in esoteric studies and got involved with several Rosicrucian and Martinist… Continue reading
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Aum Shinrikyo/Aleph (1984)
Aum Shinrikyo, renamed “Aleph” in 2000, is best known for orchestrating the deadly sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995, which resulted in 13 deaths and thousands of injuries. The sect’s theology is an amalgam of Buddhist, Christian, and Hindu elements with millenarian overtones and the expectation of an impending apocalypse. Chizuo Matsumoto… Continue reading
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Assembly of Man (1928)
Franklin Wolff was raised as a Methodist in California but abandoned Christianity in his youth as he began to explore philosophy. He studied mathematics at Stanford and Harvard, and briefly taught at Harvard before giving up on academia to focus on his own philosophical explorations. In 1920, he married Sarah Merrell Briggs and they combined… Continue reading
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Asaram (c. 1970)
Asumal Thaumal Harpalani was born in British India in 1941 in a town that was located in Pakistan after the partition of 1947. After partition, his family migrated to Ahmedabad, India, where his father opened a coal and wood business. Harpalani dropped out of school in third grade and briefly managed the family business after… Continue reading
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Arya Samaj (1875)
The Arya Samaj is a Hindu modernization and reform movement founded in 1875 by Dayananda Saraswati, and it was the first significant Hindu organization to actively seek converts to Hinduism. Saraswati, born Mool Shankar Tiwari, was born in 1824 into a Brahmin family. At age eight, he was initiated into religious study in the Saivite… Continue reading
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Art of Living Foundation (1981)
Ravi Shankar was born in Tamil Nadu, India, in 1956 and became a student of Hindu Vedic philosophy at a young age. After completing college, he became involved with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation movement, first travelling with the Maharishi and then setting out on his own to establish TM training centers. In 1981, after… Continue reading
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Ancient Teachings of the Masters (1983)
After stints in Scientology, the Self-Revelation Church of Absolute Monism, and several other groups, Paul Twitchell founded Eckankar in 1965. He claimed to be the 971st in the line of ECK Masters, the spiritual leader of Eckankar. Twitchell adapted many Sanskrit words into English in his teachings, and it is believed that “Eckankar” is a… Continue reading
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Ānanda Mārga (1955)
Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar was born in West Bengal in 1921 and studied at the University of Calcutta. He completed basic science studied but was forced to leave college to support his family after his father died, and worked as an accountant for the Indian railways system until the mid-1950s. But his chief interest was in… Continue reading