Spiritual Ideas Home

 INTRODUCTION
 HOMER
 GREEKS AND PERSIANS
 AESCHYLUS AND ATHENS
 SOME PERICLEAN FIGURES
 SOCRATES AND PLATO
 THE MAURYAS OF INDIA
 THE BLACK-HAIRED PEOPLE
 THE DRAGON AND THE BLUE PEARL
 SUCH A ONE
 CONFUCIUS THE HERO
 TALES FROM A TAOIST TEACHER
 MANG THE PHILOSOPHER, AND BUTTERFLY CHWANG
 THE MANVANTARA OPENS
 SOME POSSIBLE EPOCHS IN SANSKRIT LITERATURE
 THE BEGINNINGS OF ROME
 ROME PARVENUE
 AUGUSTUS
 AN IMPERIAL SACRIFICE
 CHINA AND ROME: THE SEE-SAW
 CHINA AND ROME: THE SEE-SAW 2
 EASTWARD HO
 THE DRAGON, THE APOSTATE, THE GREAT MIND
. FROM JULIAN TO BODHIDHARMA
 TOWARDS THE ISLANDS OF THE SUNSET
 SACRED IERNE OF THE HIBERNIANS
 THE IRISH ILLUMINATION

Rodney Stark & W. S. Bainbridge's put forward the following theory in their book "Theory of Religion" and subsequent works. According to the theory, religions are simply cults that become mainstream. They define cults as "deviant religious organization with novel beliefs and practices" that is as new religious movements that unlike sects have not separated from another religious organization. They assert that cults appear into society in two ways, innovation and importation. Innovation happens when an individual starts a new cult within a society, usually because he or she had a purported revelation. Importation occurs when a group that is accepted and established in one society is brought into another society.

As to the development of the cults, the authors present four models: the Psychopathological Model, the Entrepreneurial Model, the Social Model and the Normal Revelations model.

Psychopathological model: religions are founded during a period of severe stress in the life of the founder. The founder suffers from psychological problems, which they resolve through the founding of the religion. (The development of the religion is for them a form of self-therapy, or self-medication.)

Entrepreneurial model: founders of religions act like entrepreneurs, developing new products (religions) to sell to consumers (to convert people to). According to this model, most founders of new religions already have experience in several religious groups before they begin their own. They take ideas from the pre-existing religions, and try to improve on them to make them more popular.

Social model: religions are founded by means of social implosions. Members of the religious group spend less and less time with people outside the group, and more and more time with each other within it. The level of affection and emotional bonding between members of a group increases, and their emotional bonds to members outside the group diminish. According to the social model, when a social implosion occurs, the group will naturally develop a new theology and rituals to accompany it.

Normal revelations: religions are founded when the founder interprets ordinary natural phenomena as supernatural; for instance, ascribing his or her own creativity in inventing the religion to that of the deity.