Aum Shinrikyo. Can religious studies cope?

Religion

Volumn 26, Issue 3, 1996, Pages 261-270

  Pye, Michael ^a  

^a FG Religionswissenschaft ^*  (Germany)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 30244569355     PISSN: 0048721X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1006/reli.1996.0020     Document Type: Article

References (10)

1. In Cyberspace see in particular contributions in late 1995 by Clark Chilson and Ian Reader (Religious Studies UK list).
2. For a general account of Aum Shinrikyō, see also Shimazono Susumu, 'In the wake of Aum: the formation and transformation of a universe of belief', Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 22: 3/4 (1995) pp. 381-415. Professor Shimazono's article appeared shortly after the present article was written and is therefore not taken up in detail here.
3. See the introduction to the present writer's Comparative Religion. An Introduction through Source Materials, Newton Abbot, David and Charles, 1972, and references there to Kishimoto Hideo's espousal of this simple but helpful terminology.
4. I have advanced this concept briefly in various places, most recently in 'Religion: shape and shadow', Numen 41 (1994), pp. 51-75, and in 'Religion and identity: clues and threads', in J. W. de Gruchy and S. Martin (eds.) Religion and the Reconstruction of Civil Society, Pretoria (Unisa) 1996, pp. 3-17. A more substantial presentation is in progress.
5. I have advanced this concept briefly in various places, most recently in 'Religion: shape and shadow', Numen 41 (1994), pp. 51-75, and in 'Religion and identity: clues and threads', in J. W. de Gruchy and S. Martin (eds.) Religion and the Reconstruction of Civil Society, Pretoria (Unisa) 1996, pp. 3-17. A more substantial presentation is in progress.
6. C.f. Ian Reader, 'The rise of a Japanese 'new new religion' - themes in the development of Agonshū', Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 15:4 (1988), pp. 235-61.
7. The question of whether groups can be defined as Buddhist simply because they say they are is of course a subtle problem at the interface between phenomenology of religion and history of religion. This section has benefited from discussions at Bath College of Higher Education, England, and in particular with Helen Waterhouse who is pursuing research on various Buddhist groups in the United Kingdom.
8. The related problems of coherence and authenticity in religious traditions are bound to exercise the minds of theologians or their equivalents within any specific tradition. The problem is tackled in comparative perspective by various authors in Michael Pye and Robert Morgan (eds.) The Cardinal Meaning Essays in Comparative Hermeneutics: Buddhism and Christianity, The Hague, Mouton, 1973. For more recent orientation, see Michael Pye, 'Religious tradition and the student of religion' in A. W. Geertz and J. S. Jensen (eds.) Religion, Tradition and Renewal, Aarhus 1991, pp. 29-36,
9. The related problems of coherence and authenticity in religious traditions are bound to exercise the minds of theologians or their equivalents within any specific tradition. The problem is tackled in comparative perspective by various authors in Michael Pye and Robert Morgan (eds.) The Cardinal Meaning Essays in Comparative Hermeneutics: Buddhism and Christianity, The Hague, Mouton, 1973. For more recent orientation, see Michael Pye, 'Religious tradition and the student of religion' in A. W. Geertz and J. S. Jensen (eds.) Religion, Tradition and Renewal, Aarhus 1991, pp. 29-36,
10. and 'Reflections on the treatment of tradition in comparative perspective, with special reference to Ernst Troeltsch and Gerardus van der Leeuw' in H. G. Kippenberg and B. Luchesi (eds.) Religionswissenschaft und Kulturkritik, Marburg, Diagonal Verlag 1991, pp. 101-11.