Even New Religious Movements Have Legacies

Abstract

Hundreds of thousands of new religious movements (NRMs) have made an appearance throughout the world since time immemorial. The majority of them have gathered only a small following for a generation or two, but then they are more likely than not to die out and be forgotten. Many of them do manage, however, to leave a legacy that makes its mark on the wider society, which often forgets their origin. This paper looks at some of those legacies in an attempt to indicate the broad range of innovations that have emanated from some of the more recent religious manifestations during their early years.