The Brahma Kumaris as a Reflexive Tradition: Responding to late Modernity

The aim of this book is to examine the status of tradition in the contemporary world, through a critical engagement with the recent social theory of Anthony Giddens on the emergence of a ‘post-traditional society’ using as a case study, the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual Organisation, a millenarian South Asian New Religious Movement, aims to examine the ways in which forms of tradition not only persist but also flourish in the contemporary world, and the manner in which they are drawn on and (re) created by individuals in their ongoing construction of self – identity.

Contents

Acknowledgements, Introduction-Responding to Late Modernity, Beyond Tradition and Modernity, Reflexive Traditions and the New Age Religious Life, From World-Rejection to Ambivalence: A Genealogy of the Brahma Kumaris, The Ascetic and the Instrumental: Two Contemporary Renditions of Raja Yoga, Users, Drifters and Searchers: A Typology of Brahma Kumaris, Membership Patterns, Manifesting Ambivalence: The Pursuit of the Millennium, Conclusion-in Search of Post-Traditional Religiosity, Bibliography, Index.

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