ABSTRACT
In the 1970s, in the wake of countercultural turbulence of the 1960s, the United States witnessed the upsurge of new religious movements, cults, and quasi-religious therapeutic movements (Robbins 1988a, 1988b). In the 1980s spiritual innovation has continued, though there is some ambiguity as to its prospects: some of the better-known controversial groups, such as the Unification Church, Hare Krishna, the church of Scientology, the Children of God, or the B hag wan Movement, have either experienced significant declines in membership or are suffering from the impact of scandals and legal complications such that their future is clouded (Bromley and Hammond 1987; Robbins 1988a). Authoritarian and totalistic move ments may be declining, but there are indications that New Age and occult beliefs are spreading, and that New Age religiotherapeutic practices are penetrating conventional business, educational, and even military institu tions (Bordewich 1988; Garvey 1985).
