The Problem of Invented Religions

Steven J. Sutcliffe is Senior Lecturer in the Study of Religion at the University of Edinburgh, UK. He is the author of Children of the New Age: A History of Spiritual Practices (2003), editor of Religion: Empirical Studies (2004), and co-editor (with Ingvild Gilhus) of New Age Spirituality: Rethinking Religion (2013). Carole M. Cusack is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia. She is the author of Invented Religions: Imagination, Fiction, and Faith (2010), The Sacred Tree: Ancient and Medieval Manifestations (2011), and co-editor (with Alex Norman) of New Religions and Cultural Production (2012).

Introduction: Making it (all?) up – ‘invented religions’ and the study of ‘religion’ 1. Play, narrative and the creation of religion: Extending the theoretical base of ‘invented religions’ 2. Fiction-based religion: Conceptualising a new category against history-based religion and fandom 3. Between Synchromysticism and Paganism: Tracing some metaphysical uses of popular fictions 4. Serious parody: Discordianism as liquid religion 5. ‘Rosicrucians at large’: Radical versus qualified invention in the cultic milieu 6. The appropriation of a religion: The case of Zoroastrianism in contemporary Russia 7. The problem with the jargon of inauthenticity: Towards a materialist repositioning of the analysis of postmodern religion 8. The category of ‘invented religion’: A new opportunity for studying discourses on ‘religion’