ABSTRACT
The utopian sect is an extremely rare, complex and hitherto scarcely differentiated and largely unexplored form of sect. In this work three religious groups which are regarded as individuals of the utopian type of sect are analysed. These groups are: the Shakers, who emerged in England in the middle of the eighteenth century, migrated to America, and are now apparently dwindling to extinction; the Oneida Community, which appeared as a distinct religious grouping in New England in the eighteen forties, and abandoned its religiously inspired communal life more than thirty years later; and the Bruderhof, a sect which was founded in Germany shortly after the First World War, and which now maintains three communistic communities in the eastern United States.
