Talk:Divine Light Mission/Reception draft 2

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] Reception

The Divine Light Mission has been described in various and sometimes conflicting terms. It has been called a new religious movement,[1] a cult,[2] a charismatic religious sect,[3] an offshoot of Sant Mat,[4] an alternative religion or spin-off from other traditional religions,[5] a Radhasoami offshoot,[6] an orthodox Sikh community,[7] an Advait Mat related tradition,[8] Guru-ism,[9] and a defunct religious movement.[10] A study of terms used in U.S. newspapers and news magazines found that Divine Light Mission was referred to as a "sect" in 10.3% of articles, as a "cult" in 24.1%, and as both in 13.8%.[11]

Bromley and Hammond describe the Divine Light Mission as belonging in a "medium tension category" one of a group that were seen by the public as peculiar rather than threatening and to which society responded with watchfullnes and ostracism. [12] Psychiatrist Saul V. Levine wrote that the DLM, the Hare Krishna movement, the Unification Church and the Children of God were widely held in low esteem – families felt that their children were being financially exploited, while the groups' leaders lived in "ostentation and offensive opulence."[13]

Ron Geaves states that although the Divine Light Mission was established as an organization for promoting Prem Rawat's teachings, it developed into a vigorous new religious movement with its own specific traits that included characteristics of a contemporary North Indian Sant panth and nirguna bhakti, combining intense reverence for the living satguru with the millennial expectations of the 1970s counter-culture.[14]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Hunt, 2003: 116; Derks and van der Lans Of Gods and Men 1983: 303; Wilson, Social Dimensions of Sectarism, 1990: 209
  2. ^ Beckford, Of Gods and Men 1983: 195; Langone, 1995 :41
  3. ^ Galanter, 1999: 19
  4. ^ Lewis, 2004: 24; Edwards, 2001 :227
  5. ^ Guiley, 1991: 152; >Barret, 1996
  6. ^ Miller, 474: 364; Juergensmeyer, 1991 :207
  7. ^ Sutton, 2005 :44
  8. ^ Geaves, 2002
  9. ^ Axel Michaels, Barbara Harshav. Hinduism: Past and Present. 2004 Princeton University Press, p. 23. ISBN 0691089523
  10. ^ Olson, Roger E., in Miller 1995: 364
  11. ^ van Driel, Barend and James T. Richardson. "Research Note Categorization of New Religious Movements in American Print Media". Sociological Analysis 1988, 49, 2:171-183
  12. ^ Bromley, Hammond, 1983: 113-4, 227
  13. ^ Levine, 1989: 96, 102
  14. ^ Geaves, Ron, Globalization, charisma, innovation, and tradition: An exploration of the transformations in the organisational vehicles for the transmission of the teachings of Prem Rawat (Maharaji), 2006, Journal of Alternative Spiritualities and New Age Studies, 2 44-62