The New Religions: Tarcher Cornerstone Editions

by Jacob Needleman

Philosopher Jacob Needleman's groundbreaking study of America's alternative spiritual movements is back in print with a new introduction by the author.

Originally published in 1970, The New Religions was the first full-scale study of alternative spirituality in America. It remains unparalleled for the intellectual depth and seriousness with which it regards Eastern, New Age, and alternative faiths on the American landscape.

Needleman’s writing and reportage are unfailingly thoughtful and incisive as he illuminates topics that other scholars failed to consider or could not fully grasp.

Genres: Religion, Nonfiction

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Jacob Needleman is Professor of Philosophy at San Francisco State University, former Visiting Professor at Duxx Graduate School of Business Leadership in Monterrey, Mexico, and former Director of the Center for the study of New Religions at The Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. He was educated in philosophy at Harvard, Yale and the University of Freiburg, Germany. He has also served as Research Associate at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, as a Research Fellow at Union Theological Seminary, as Adjunct Professor of Medical Ethics at the University of California Medical School and as guest Professor of Religious Studies at the Sorbonne, Paris (1992).

Reviews

[Grady Ormsby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fifty or sixty years ago many kids, including me, began to feel were had been lied to. Some of the things we had heard from adults didn’t ring true. (In the “underground” youth culture there was an adage, ”Don’t trust anyone over thirty.” I’m more than twice that age now and I still believe there is a great deal of truth to the saying. After thirty many people have become crystalized into whatever belief system they’ve used to build a wall around themselves.) The result of our feelings was a revolution in politics, culture, art, society, music, philosophy and religion. In The New Religions Jacob Needleman describes the religions and philosophies that were being regarded as alternatives when people began to discount or displace the Jewish, Catholic and Protestant religions they had grown up with. The religions discussed are new only in the sense that they were relatively unknown in America. The religions, philosophies and personalities discussed include Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, Sufism, the occult, Subud, Astrology, Native American spirituality, Meher Baba, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, J. Krishnamurti, Gurdjieff and, of course, the hugely influential non-religion, drugs. It’s interesting to read a book that was written for a market of long ago. The topics from Needleman’s Table of Contents have risen to the forefront of attention and have, for the most part, faded. The effects of the wave of religious questioning have made their marks. I’m not qualified to form sweeping conclusions about the religious upheaval that began in the sixties. But it seems to me that, if nothing else, the related questioning has brought about a different religious focus in America, a focus that is less dogmatic, less authoritarian and less repressive. The people who say, “I’m not religious; I’m spiritual,” have adopted a world view that seems more open, more curious and more inclusive.

[Luciano Andraschko · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well. It's easy to read, full of information, gives a swift explanation about the regilion new era.