“Charisma” is essentially a relationship of great emotional intensity between a charismatic leader and the disciples, as depicted by sociologist Max Weber. This study focuses on a charismatic leader’s powerful influence on his close companion through an examination of the life of Ma Yoga Vivek, the lover, head medium, and caretaker of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh/Osho. Her role in the charisma-building processes that shaped Rajneesh’s career, and the divagations of her own spiritual status, buffeted by competing factions in Rajneesh’s inner circle, is analyzed within the framework of recent elaborations of Weberian charisma theory and studies of the dynamics of “proximal authority” and “haptic logics” (sacred touch) in the charismatic relationships involving women devotees in new religious movements. It is argued that Vivek’s peculiar passive and reflected type of charisma was dependent upon her propinquity to, and physical intimacy with Rajneesh, and this dynamic explains the dramatic rise and decline of her spiritual status and social influence within the “charismatic aristocracy” that surrounded Rajneesh/Osho.

Based on interviews and ethnographic observation, this study builds on my previous research concerning the Twelve Tribes, an American communal new religious movement that emerged out of the Jesus People Revolution in the early 1970s and has since spread internationally. Having now sustained three generations, the Twelve Tribes constitute an instructive case study of doctrinal and religious change in a maturing religious movement. Among other things, this article discusses ways in which the Tribes have reduced their level of tension with secular society while also elaborating an amalgamation of Jewish and Christian beliefs and developing a distinctive communal way of life that attempts to restore the Apostolic Church of early Christianity.

This is a report on the latest developments in the "cult wars" in France. The anticult panic caused by the Solar Temple group suicides and murders has, after thirteen years, died down, and a more moderate government has replaced the Socialist Party. The old government-sponsored Ministry to Fight Sects (MILS) has been replaced by MIVILUDES (Mission interministrielle de vigilance et de lutte contre les drives sectaires), which adopts a more circumspect approach towards the secte problem. On the basis of my findings from field research conducted in the spring of 2006, I argue that the social control efforts that targeted NRMs in the 1990s have not abated, but merely shifted tactics. Interviews with distinguished French academics clearly illustrate that their expertise in the relevant fields of sociology and history of religions is deliberately ignored by officials, and they are even punished for voicing their scholarly opinions regarding public policies towards les sectes . The new, covert threat to religious freedom posed by the About-Picard Law (2001), which was designed to target secte leaders who brainwash, is analyzed after investigating its first application to a tiny group called Nééo-Phare.

Falun Gong's emerging resistance movement and the escalation of Master Li's apocalyptic ideology in response to persecution is the focus of this study. On the basis of field research and interviews with practitioners, I propose a four-phase model of conversion, culminating in an activist commitment to the Master's call to serve in the protest demonstrations against the People's Republic of China's persecution of Falun Gong. Since Falun Gong's civil disobedience has resulted in the death of over 343 practitioners, it is important to analyze the process of conversion/commitment to the cause, and the practitioners' own spiritual understanding of their activist efforts in a two-tiered resistance movement that is concerned with global human rights, but also with a cosmic battle between gods and demons, called fa -rectification.

This research note presents the results of a study of the current ongoing persecution of religious minorities in France and examines the impact of the anti-sect social control measures on fourteen out of the 172 groups listed as " sectes " in the 1996 Guyard Report.