Contemporary Religion

In order to better cope with the pressures and stresses of the current day, modern psychology is anxiously seeking to find new therapies to address the increasing disorders within the human psyche. In the process new fields of research, such as humanistic and transpersonal psychology, curiously appear to borrow more and more from the wisdom of the ages. This volume, containing eighteen articles by noteworthy expositors of the perennial philosophy such as Huston Smith, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, and Frithjof Schuon, presents the spiritual psychology of the wisdom traditions as a much-needed antidote to the current impasse in modern psychology.

Some Endorsements for Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy:

“[Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy] is more than an anthology. It is a wisely crafted collection of classic and contemporary scholarship noting that what many are seeking is what has always been, a perennial philosophy, that remains foundational. As one of the authors, Tage Lindbom, properly notes, ‘Secularization is a fish in troubled waters.’ This book claims the waters and is essential reading for all those who may have forgotten or are simply ignorant of the rich foundation provided by the perennial philosophy.”
—Ralph W. Hood, Professor of Psychology at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, past president of the Psychology of Religion division of the American Psychological Association, co-founder of The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion and co-author of The Psychology of Religion

“A necessary and bracing critique of the assumptions and limitations of contemporary Western psychology, this generous volume is also a passionate call and learned guide towards a truer perspective that embraces man's spiritual nature.”
—Gabor Maté, M.D., and author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

“Knowing the nature of the mind is perhaps the most difficult undertaking, especially in today’s world. To comprehend the nature of mind one needs to turn to the domain of religion and spirituality. Yet the truth of the mind and its complexity cannot explicitly be defined in words. Inner or transcendent wisdom sees the mind’s own nature without the duality of the seer. Suchness (tathatā) of mind is only experiential and not expressible. The words used to describe thought are themselves a product of thought, which is conditioned and limited. Thus, differences and contradictions are unavoidable. Therefore, a comparative study of different viewpoints and commentaries is immensely important to awaken the inner intelligence to see the mind as it is. Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy: Studies in Comparative Religion edited by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos is an outstanding effort in this direction.”
—Samdhong Rinpoche, former Prime Minister (Kalon Tripa) of the Tibetan Government-in-exile, author of Uncompromising Truth for a Compromised World: Tibetan Buddhism and Today’s World

“The rise of psychology has impacted the study and practice of spirituality, the experiences and attitudes relevant to ultimate human values that transcend ordinary behavior. Each chapter of this remarkable book demonstrates this interaction in a unique and provocative way. But rather than using psychology to reduce and ‘psychologize’ spiritual topics, its authors demonstrate how directives from the spiritual traditions can enhance and even illuminate the enduring importance of psychology in the 21st century.”
—Stanley Krippner, Saybrook University, co-author of Spiritual Dimensions of Healing

“The work at hand is a thinking and debating man’s delight. If you have any interest at all in attempting to include an educated and enlightened view of man’s higher functions in your purview of the world, you will learn from and enjoy this collection of essays. If you already have some knowledge in this area, brace yourself: you may see some of your favorites sharply criticized. A thought-provoking work.”
—Bruce W. Scotton, University of California, San Francisco, co-editor of Textbook of Transpersonal Psychiatry and Psychology

“This book, superbly edited by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos, is a masterful critique of the field of psychology and its loss of the sacred ground in which it once was rooted. It offers depth psychologists an opportunity to contemplate timeless truths echoed through the centuries by perennial philosophers who have always claimed psyche is subordinate to Spirit. Although ignored in depth psychology’s early years due to prejudice and lack of understanding, this is a message today’s psychotherapists must take seriously. Human beings need a deeper and wider transpersonal vision of who and what we are, which the saints and sages of the world’s spiritual traditions have always pointed to. In psychotherapy with a therapist committed to such a vision, patients penetrate into their unconscious depths and not infrequently awaken to the Ground of all Being. Their suffering itself occurred because they had turned away from Spirit. Above all, this volume passionately calls upon depth psychology to remember its origin in the perennial wisdom at the core of the great religions. There is something of a polemic in these pages. It deserves to be considered by depth psychologists of all persuasions.”
—Bryan Wittine, Transpersonal psychologist and Jungian psychoanalyst

“This anthology from Samuel Bendeck Sotillos is a must reference for anyone who is interested in psychology and its relationship to spirituality, and in developing an inclusive dialogue between disciplines that favor an integral outlook on the person and his or her potential. Selections in this anthology will inspire us to reexamine the metaphysical underpinnings of psychology, and remind us how important it is to rise above science’s attempt to reduce the human being to an epistemic object.”
—Sangeetha Menon, National Institute of Advanced Studies (Bangalore, India), Board Member of the International Transpersonal Association (ITA), author of The Beyond Experience: Consciousness in Bhagavad Gita

“This anthology has some of the most discerning essays and reviews on spirituality and psychology, which provide much-needed care and caution to all those engaged in bringing them together or who wish to do so in future. Therefore, it is a must-read for all those who teach, research, consult, or study in such frontier areas as transpersonal psychology, states of consciousness, mind-body relation, holistic health, Indian psychology, and so on. It will be an invaluable textbook for courses in these and other related areas. I congratulate the editor of the book.”
—Kiran Kumar K. Salagame, University of Mysore (India), Board Member of the International Transpersonal Association (ITA), author of The Psychology of Meditation: A Contextual Approach

“One of the finest collections of essays on the Perennial Philosophy—a must-read for all psychologists who are engaged with spirituality and transpersonal psychology. The essays which critique modern psychology (including transpersonal psychology, and the framework of Carl Jung), in the light of the Perennial Philosophy are a revelation and make compelling reading. The book serves as a corrective to the excesses of modern psychology, and to this end Sotillos has done a commendable job. I for one will include the book in some of the graduate courses that I teach.”
—Suneet Varma, University of Delhi, co-editor of Foundations of Indian Psychology

“To its credit modern science by-and-large is becoming more cognizant of the essential connection between spirituality and psychological health and well-being and most of all its positive implications within the field of psychology. While there is ample data to document this in a plethora of academic journals and books, this new book Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy adds a novel contribution to the dialogue between psychology and spirituality, which captures many nuances that for the most part go unnoticed within these discussions, and last but not least, it provides a keen eye of discernment to understand this intricate relationship on a deeper level that is crucially needed. This work will be a valuable asset to students and long term mental health practitioners and professors alike who seek to better understand the relationship between psychology and spirituality.”
—Harold G. Koenig, Duke University, Director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health, co-author of The Handbook of Religion and Health

‘Shamanism’ is a problematic and contested concept. After Westerners first heard the term in Siberia at the end of the seventeenth century, it rapidly acquired a remarkable range of meanings in different contexts. Theologians saw shamans as sidekicks of the devil, enlightenment thinkers considered them as mentally ill or retarded. From the eighteenth century onwards, the Romantic image of the shaman as an artistically gifted mystic became fashionable, whereas nineteenth-century folklorists, in turn, used the term ‘shamanism’ in nationalist quests for the essence of the Volksgeist of their nation. Twentieth-century psychologists identified shamans both as schizophrenics and as primal therapists. During the 1960s shamans came to be perceived as psychonauts who used hallucinogens to gain access to the divine essence of life.
During the 1970s an American anthropologist created workshops that, he claimed, were based on universal shamanic principles and practices. Through so-called archaic techniques his students could get in touch with the healing forces of nature. Contemporary forms of shamanism present themselves as countercultural, but a historical-sociological interpretation suggests that it is no coincidence that shamanism especially gained popularity at the time that neoliberal capitalism became dominant. Neoliberalisation disempowered people over their working lives and forced them to exert self-authority and make choices in their lives. Contemporary shamanic practices are also focused on self-authority, can be consumed in a free market and offer opportunities for empowerment. Instead of changing society, however, contemporary Western shamanism contributes to structure the structures it claims to resist.

With regard to processes of change which are indicative of decline, loss of membership or social and political influence, weakening or fragmentation, and final demise or extinction, in the study of new religious movements (NRMs) no agreed vocabulary has emerged to map the particular trajectories of specific groups, or to craft a model that has application across either the ‘class’ of NRMs as a whole, or of certain sub-classes (UFO religions, ephemeral ‘spiritual’ clusters, or neo-Hindu guru focused groups, for example). The language used to describe such negative developments among all religions may be strong and definite (for example, death, end, eradication) or more modest, as in the use of ‘demise’ as a broad catch-all that can encompass everything from decisive, datable ends to attenuated trends and indicators that bode ill, but where no endgame has been reached (de Jong 2018). The difficulty in identifying unambiguous ends was noted by Bryan R. Wilson more than three decades ago; he linked the failure of new religions to endogenous issues (while acknowledging exogenous pressures might also contribute), and proposed ideology, leadership, organization, constituency, and institutionalization to be the crucial factors (Wilson 1987). The recognition that new religions do not come into existence ex nihilo, but rather were embedded in the culture(s) of the charismatic founder and the early convert community, and that NRMs drew upon existing religious and spiritual concepts and trends, renders beginnings and endings fluid and mixed, with ambiguity about all but the simplest types of origins and endings being the norm not the exception. The clearest case for ‘endings’ in new religions appeared to be in acts of violence, including mass suicide and mass murder (Richardson 2001), upheavals sufficient to make it impossible for the group to continue.

The book uses an ethnographic approach to explore why the Tablighi Jamaat movement remains so successful in contemporary times. It shows that this success results from the positive image that it cultivates, and the systematic preaching activities of Tablighi Jamaat followers, and that the organisation’s apolitical image, the public profile of the ijtema, the humbleness of Tablighi followers, and the attraction of belonging to the global Tablighi community all help to create a positive image of the Tablighi Jamaat among ordinary Muslims. The book also argues that the Tablighi Jamaat remains successful because of its ability to hold its followers within a Tablighi-guided life, which is perceived as protection against the Western lifestyle. Many elements of contemporary Western lifestyle are considered non-Islamic, and so by clearly defining what is Islamic and non-Islamic in modern society, the Tablighi Jamaat provides a way in which Muslims can live in the contemporary world, but remain good Muslims.

This paper that the burkini ban in France can be analysed as part of a larger dynamic concerning the way that patriarchal society constructs images and expectations of women's bodies. As such, the issue is not so much the burkini but men's control over women's bodies.

Numerous studies on death in African societies with no doubt have been successfully conducted though their preoccupation has been with the religious and spirituality perspectives. There has been a great deal of theologizing about the spiritual connection between the life here and life after death. Most studies in the humanities have zeroed on burial rituals and rites as means of transition to the spiritual world. Others have concentrated on how different societies cope with the misfortune of death; through grieving, mourning, choosing an heir or heiress and the succession disputes that are always part and parcel of such a culturally acknowledged process. Death is largely constructed as a challenge and misfortune, and many a scholar in the humanities are concerned with how different societies define, perceive, handle and cope with this catastrophe. Most scholarly works have paid a deaf ear to the social value that comes with the demise of an individual. One such social value is the d...

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The article proposes an interpretative study of Darren Aronofsky's film Noah. The film draws inspiration from various spiritual traditions ranging from shamanism to Buddhism, whilst relying heavily on Jewish midrash, and adds a layer of innovation. Our main assertion is that the film attempts to present three viewpoints on issues of religion, humanity, nature, and God-while negating two of them and preferring one. Each of the various characters and groups in the film represents one of the three stances, as the film's protagonist must cope with the problematic nature of his worldview and revisit it.
The film engages with current pivotal issues: climate change, the depletion of natural resources, materialism and hedonism, fundamentalism in both religious and environmental trends, suspicion of religious institutionalized interpretations, and gendered spiritual religious beliefs. Thus, the film Noah is a cultural product that disseminates spiritual ideas and values within mainstream culture.

Zijn wij de weg kwijt? Is Nederland of is zelfs de hele westerse wereld van God los? Zijn wij redeloos, radeloos en redde-loos, zoals in het rampjaar 1672, maar dan nu door ons onvermogen om zin en betekenis aan ons bestaan te verlenen? Weten wij simpel-weg niet meer waar wij de zingeving van ons bestaan, de betekenis van ons leven en dat van anderen, moeten zoeken? Het lijkt er sterk op.

This article is a case study of a lay Buddhist community that employs a business model called “living hall” (Shenghuo guan 生活馆) to facilitate the practice of Tibetan Buddhism among its members. The living hall model is explored in the context of the politics of religion in the People’s Republic of China (prc) and the dynamics of Tibetan Buddhism among Han Chinese in the past decades. The author investigates the model’s origin, its implementation in a contemporary Buddhist community, and its interaction with the discourse on Buddhism in the prc. The article joins a recent academic endeavor to illuminate the different modalities in which lay practitioners carry out Buddhist practice outside the sphere of institutionalized Buddhism. The article sheds light on the delicate dynamics between religion and state control in the prc and the role of entrepreneurs and materiality within lay Tibetan Buddhism.

The stone circles of Britain have attracted people throughout history, due to their impressive size, dramatic location in the landscape, and sense of permanence and timelessness. The religious appeal of these monuments for Pagans has been established, particularly in terms of famous circles like Stonehenge and Avebury. This paper addresses imitation or “fake” stone circles built in countries that have no comparable monuments (like America and Australia) and in Britain itself. I argue that the erection of such circles is a contemporary re-enchantment of the landscape which renders it especially appropriate for ritual. Three monuments are examined. The Stonehenge replica at Maryhill, Washington was the site of the 26 February 1979 Pagan solar eclipse gathering coordinated by Oberon Zell of the Church of All Worlds (CAW) and attended by more than three thousand. The Australian Standing Stones at Glen Innes is a ritual site for Australian Pagans, especially those oriented toward Celtic deities. Sighthill Stone Circle in Glasgow, the first astronomically accurate stone circle erected in the British Isles in over three thousand years is a site at which Scottish Pagans experience the astronomical and natural environment as divine. These circles are “genuine fakes” that acquire authenticity from their resemblance to “real” Neolithic monuments, and in the twenty-first century are sacred to Pagans as they re-enchant the landscapes in which they are situated.

Even thousands of years later, Lilith, the demonness, still tempts many. Her image, which appears in ancient tradition as a personification of the forbidden temptation, turns up and is manifest in our time in secular, religious, spiritual, and post-secular contemporary circles1 as an alluring and relevant character. What purposes or ends does her image serve nowadays? Why is she once again referred to and appropriated? What is there about her story that has had such wide appeal to so many in the feminist movement and in various forms of alternative spiritual discourse over the past few decades? Does she represent a certain value, leadership, spiritual perception, or a certain feminist movement?

To answer these questions, I would like to review how Lilith's image is utilized in contemporary feminist spiritual discourse, and to analyze the values and ideas embodied in these appearances. I will present the different and varied ways in which Lilith's image reappears, while attempting to understand what today's admirers view as her unique contribution to their spiritual and/or feminist purposes.

On the occasion of the exhibition at Bard College, I wrote an essay in the catalogue thinking through the contemporary ex-voto. I discuss Yves Klein, Kiki Smith, David Wojnarowicz, Yoko Ono, and others, and in particular the notion of the fragility of the body in relationship to participatory / political goals since the AIDS crisis and who we need to consider addressed in a contemporary ex-voto.

In Mountain, Water, Rock, God, Luke Whitmore situates the disastrous flooding that fell on the Hindu Himalayan shrine of Kedarnath in 2013 within a broader religious and ecological context. Whitmore explores the longer story of this powerful realm of the Hindu god Shiva through a holistic theoretical perspective that integrates phenomenological and systems-based approaches to the study of religion, pilgrimage, place, and ecology. He argues that close attention to places of religious significance offers a model for thinking through connections between ritual, narrative, climate destabilization, tourism, development, and disaster, and he shows how these critical components of human life in the twenty-first century intersect in the human experience of place.

The study of new religious movements or new sectarian groups that originated in Australia is in its infancy. This paper examines two fringe Christian groups led by brothers Lindsay and Ronald Grant. Lindsay, with his ex-wife Del (Adeline) Agnew, directed a sinless perfectionist sect known as Tinker Tailor (named for an interior decorating company owned by the group) in Sydney, that had connections to the right wing of the Liberal Party. Ronald Grant, with Alan Neil, led The Fellowship in Melbourne. Tinker Tailor was in the main Anglican, and The Fellowship Presbyterian, but both groups espoused secrecy, and a theology of holiness at odds with mainstream Christianity. Those who left were cut off from family, and members who offended endured cruel discipline. Members experienced violence including public humiliation, surveillance, authoritarian control, and physical beatings. Both groups collapsed in a torrent of scandal, including adultery and family breakdowns, excommunications and suicides. To date there is no academic work on Tinker Tailor or The Fellowship. Christian popular authors David Millikan and Morag Zwartz have published short books on both (Imperfect Company [1991] and Fractured Families [2004]). This paper focuses on three elements: the nature of sinless perfectionist theology; the insistence on obedience and discipline; and the role of the charismatic leader(s) in both organisations.

Santurismo (Santeria + Turismo) refers to the popular formula of Afro-Cuban religions and tourism and initially served the Cuban government in the 1960s to promote Santeria as a folkloric product of Cuban identity through staged performances in touristic surroundings. Gradually, it became a coping strategy by Cuban people to deal with political and economic hardship during the Special Period in the 1990s which led to the emergence of Diplo-Santeria by so-called jinetero-santeros. While the continuous process of commodification of Cuban Santeria is marked by local social, economic and political influences, it also relates to current tendencies in comparable religious and spiritual phenomena at a global level. Afro-Cuban religions have worked their way up from a stigmatized and persecuted religious system to a widely valorized religion in the spiritual and touristic sphere. Over time, Santeria has proved to serve as a weapon for resistance and struggle, which is still ongoing in Cuban society today.

Published in Almatourism - Journal of Tourism, Culture and Territorial Development in 2018.

Full bibliographical information:

Davidsen, Markus Altena (2016), “From Star Wars to Jediism: The Emergence of Fiction-based Religion”, in Ernst van den Hemel & Asja Szafraniec (eds.), Words: Religious Language Matters, New York: Fordham University Press, 376-389 (plus endnotes pp. 571-575).

The article is a revision of an article published in Danish in 2010 as "Fiktionsbaseret religion: Fra Star Wars til jediism", Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift 55, 3-21.

Unfortunately the volume took a long time coming along; the volume is based on a conference in Groningen, the Netherlands in June 2009. My article was submitted in 2011. Sorry if it is already pretty outdated - and please get in touch if you have newer or better information on Jediism.

In the ancient sources, Druids are presented both as philosophers and sages who “likewise discuss and impart to the youth many things respecting the stars and their motion, respecting the extent of the world and of our earth, respecting the nature of things, respecting the power and the majesty of the immortal gods.” (Caesar, De bel. Gal., VI, 14), and on the other hand, as blood sacrifcers of a religion in which „to murder a man was to do an act of the greatest devoutness, and to eat his flesh was to secure the highest blessings of health.” (Plinius Secundus, Nat. Hist., XXX, 4). Throughout its history, the Druid myth has undergone many transformations; the information on the alleged blood sacrifices passed by the ancients authors with time became forgotten, and the image of a Druid as a philosopher and expert on nature and its secrets stepped to the foreground.

The aim of “The Golden Sickle",is to present the history of Druidism, from the ancient Roman and Greek testimonies on the Druids, to the revival of the Druidic myth in English literature and 19th-century British paramasonic Druidic orders, to the core issue of the book – presenting a panorama of modern Druidic movements, and, therefore, answering the question of “who modern Druids are and what do they believe”.

L’article a pour sujet la personnalité extraordinaire du kabbaliste le Rabbin Levi Isaac Krakovsky (1891–1966), un des étudiants oubliés du Rabbin Yehuda Leib Ashlag (1885–1955). Krakovsky diffusait l’enseignement de son maître en Amérique en anglais, écrivait des douzaines de livres et essayait d’établir des yeshivot de Kabbalistes. Contrairement à son maître, il présentait un enseignement exotérique et une vision de diffusion de la Kabbale dans le monde entier. Son influence était minime, mais un de ses élèves était Shraga Philip Berg qui continuait son chemin et le complétait de plusieurs points de vue. L’article se base sur de riches matières archivales, parmi lesquelles de longues essays de l’auteur en manuscrit qui sont décrits ici pour la premiere fois. D’une telle façon, nous décrivons le dévelopment de la Kabbale en Amérique du début du vingtième siècle jusqu’ aujourd’hui.

Ist Yoga Gymnastik, Spiritualität, Philosophie oder Religion? Zur Beantwortung dieser Frage trägt seit jeher der Diskurs über »Yogaphilosophie« maßgeblich bei. Das vorliegende Buch widmet sich der Erforschung dieses Phänomens und fokussiert dabei auf das Yogasūtra, ein heute oft als philosophischer Überbau der körperlichen Yogapraxis verstandenes, jedoch primär meditativen und soteriologischen Inhalten gewidmetes altindisches Werk. Von Ostrowskis Monografie konzentriert sich auf den modernen Yogastil Ashtanga Yoga als Fallbeispiel und geht historisch und ethnographisch der bewegten Geschichte des Yogasūtras bis in die Gegenwart nach.
Da die moderne Rezeption des Textes stets von der Suche nach einer praktischen Umsetzung geprägt war, legt das Buch einen religionsästhetischen Schwerpunkt auf die heute zunehmende Vernetzung von Textinhalten mit der Körperpraxis namens Yoga. Das längst in die Europäische Religionsgeschichte eingegangene Diskurselement »Yogaphilosophie« war und ist von Synthese und interkulturellem Transfer geprägt. Die Arbeit zeigt, dass es sich heute unter anderem mit Inhalten der Körperkulturbewegung, des New Age, der Positiven Psychologie und der Achtsamkeitsbewegung verbunden hat. Nicht zuletzt unterstreicht das Buch so die beständige Relevanz der (kultur-)wissenschaftlichen Auseinandersetzung mit diesem vielschichtigen Diskurs.

This course gives an overview of the most important themes in the sociology of religion. The course falls in three parts: The first part of the course is concerned with theorising religion sociologically. We raise sociological questions at the level of the individual (e.g., why are people religious in the first place?; why are women more religious than men?), at the level of the nation-state (e.g., why are some countries more religious than others?; how and why do state-religion relations differ cross-culturally?), and at the level of religious communities (e.g., how are religious communities maintained socially?) The second part of the course is concerned with the profound changes that have taken place in the religious field across the world during the 20 th and 21 st centuries. We explore the secularisation thesis, i.e. the idea that religion (necessarily) loses power, prestige, and plausibility as a result of modernisation, and evaluate alternatives to this master narrative (e.g., the subjectivisation thesis and the return-of-religion thesis). We compare the religious field in Europe (ongoing secularisation) with the United States (continued high levels of religion) and China (religious revival despite Communist oppression) and try to explain the differences between these cases. We also explore the rise of new, late modern 'religiosity styles', such as fundamentalism and new age spirituality. The third part of the course looks at the relation between religion and other aspects of civil society. In particular, we will discuss religion education and religion in popular culture.

Disgusted with ISIS, some Kurds turned away from Islam following the fall of Mosul in 2014. Many became atheists, while others sought comfort in Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism, according to converts, was the “original” religion of the Kurds before they embraced Islam. In 2015, two Zoroastrian centers opened in Sulaimani, both of which are recognized by the Kurdish Regional Government in northern Iraq. Notably, neither has tried to recreate Zoroastrianism the way it is currently and has been historically practiced in Iran and South Asia. Instead, they have created their own versions of Zoroastrianism, which is nationalist, postmodern, and liberal. Kurdish Zoroastrians argue that the reason Kurds are “backward” is Islam. They seek to rectify the present situation through a Kurdish “authenticated” and “original” form of Zoroastrianism. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork at these two centers, the present article examines this new religious movement in Sulaimani, an important city in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. It analyses the rise and distinctiveness of Kurdish Zoroastrianism looking at how Zoroastrian Kurds articulate their views on Islam, women’s rights, human rights, and Kurdish independence.

The original version in English:
Doi: 10.1163/1573384X-20180108
Issue: 1
Volume: 22
Page Numbers: 96-110
Publication Date: 2018
Publication Name: Iran and the Caucasus

Disgusted with ISIS, some Kurds turned away from Islam following the fall of Mosul in 2014. Many became atheists, while others sought comfort in Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism, according to converts, was the “original” religion of the Kurds before they embraced Islam. In 2015, two Zoroastrian centers opened in Sulaimani, both of which are recognized by the Kurdish Regional Government in northern Iraq. Notably, neither has tried to recreate Zoroastrianism the way it is currently and has been historically practiced in Iran and South Asia. Instead, they have created their own versions of Zoroastrianism, which is nationalist, postmodern, and liberal. Kurdish Zoroastrians argue that the reason Kurds are “backward” is Islam. They seek to rectify the present situation through a Kurdish “authenticated” and “original” form of Zoroastrianism. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork at these two centers, the present article examines this new religious movement in Sulaimani, an important city in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. It analyses the rise and distinctiveness of Kurdish Zoroastrianism looking at how Zoroastrian Kurds articulate their views on Islam, women’s rights, human rights, and Kurdish independence.