Encyclopedia of Cults, Sects, and New Religious Movements

  • Agasha Temple of Wisdom (1943)

    Agasha Temple of Wisdom (1943)

    The Agasha Temple of Wisdom was founded in Los Angeles in 1943 by Richard Zenor, a medium who said he was channeling messages from a spiritual entity named Master Agasha. Zenor relayed a system of spiritual knowledge called “Universal Understanding of the God Consciousness” that he said was the result of a “Grand Convention” of Continue reading

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  • Agape Ministries International (1993)

    Agape Ministries International (1993)

    Rocco Leo was born in Italy in 1956 and was said to have survived a near-death experience after nearly drowning in a shipping channel at age six. He would claim to have been dead for several hours and that he was revived through his mother’s prayers. Leo also said this experience gifted him with divine Continue reading

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  • Aetherius Society (1956)

    Aetherius Society (1956)

    London taxi driver George King grew up in a Protestant family with a strong interest in the occult, and he studied yoga and Theosophy throughout his early life. According to King, on May 8, 1954, when he was 35 years old, he was alone in his apartment and heard a voice that declared, “Prepare yourself! Continue reading

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  • Aesthetic Realism (1946)

    Aesthetic Realism (1946)

    Eli Siegel was born in Russia in 1902 and emigrated to the United States with his family when he was just two years old. They settled in Baltimore, Maryland, where Siegel would attend Baltimore City College and earn attention for his writing skills. In 1922, he co-founded The Modern Quarterly, writing essays with such lofty Continue reading

  • Adventures In Enlightenment (1982)

    Adventures In Enlightenment (1982)

    Terry Cole-Whittaker was a New Thought author and minister who founded Terry Cole-Whittaker Ministries, which later became Adventures In Enlightenment, which ran tours to exotic locations around the world that doubled as spiritual retreats. After winning the Mrs. California pageant and finishing third in the Mrs. America pageant in 1968, Cole-Whittaker became a motivational speaker Continue reading

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  • Adonism (1926)

    Adonism (1926)

    Adonism is a Neopagan religion that was founded by German esotericist Franz Sättler in 1926. Its name is drawn from both the Greek “Adonis” and the Hebrew “Adonai.” Sättler, who wrote under the pseudonym “Dr. Musalam,” claimed that Adonism was an ancient faith, but scholars concur that it was his own creation. Sättler was born Continue reading

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  • Adonai-Shomo (1861)

    Adonai-Shomo (1861)

    Adonai-Shomo, from the Hebrew “the Lord is there,” was a Christian commune in western Massachusetts in the latter half of the 19th century. It emerged from an 1855 meeting between Frederick T. Howland, a Quaker, and Caroline Hawks and Sarah Hervey at a religious meeting. This encounter sparked the community’s spiritual foundation, rooted in Adventist-influenced Continue reading

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  • Adidam (1972)

    Adidam (1972)

    Franklin Albert Jones was born into a middle-class household in Queens, New York, in 1939. In his youth, he considered becoming a minister in the Lutheran church in which he was raised, and studied philosophy at Columbia University. After obtaining his bachelor’s degree, he did graduate work in English literature at Stanford, studying under novelist Continue reading

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  • Access Consciousness (1991)

    Access Consciousness (1991)

    Access Consciousness was founded as Access Energy Transformation by Gary Douglas, a former real estate professional and member of the Church of Scientology, in 1991. Its key teaching is that there are 32 points on the human head, called “access bars,” that when touched through a method similar to acupressure can clear the mind, eliminate Continue reading

  • A∴A∴ (1907)

    A∴A∴ (1907)

    The A∴A∴ is an initiatory occult organization founded by British esotericist Aleister Crowley in November 1907, three years after Crowley said that he had received The Book of the Law (Liber AL vel Legis) from a voice called Aiwass over three days in Cairo in April 1904. Before his experience in Cairo, Crowley had been Continue reading