NEO-RELIGIOSITY AND POLITICAL RHETORIC: A POSSIBLE "GENERATION MECHANISM" OF ANTI-SYSTEM DISCOURSE

• Published in: Journal for the study of religions and ideologies Vol. 24; no. 71; p. 112
• Main Author: Pavel, Aurel
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: The Academic Society for the Research of Religions and Ideologies (SACRI) 22.06.2025
• Subjects: Cults; Gnosticism; Religious aspects
• ISSN: 1583-0039; 1583-0039

Shaped at the end of the 1960s, the new religiosity comes to reflect that "new and exotic" spirituality that Nicolae Achimescu put in a direct connection with the advance of post-modernity, namely with the mutations that postindustrial society has generated (under the pressure of globalization and secularization) in the field of religious consciousness. Combined with the reticence of "recent" man (H.-R. Patapievici) towards the biblical-dogmatic foundations and the hierarchical structure of the traditional Churches, the new religiosity - assumed as such by the entities known as new religions movements - aims to restructure the way of conceptualizing and practicing faith, including from the perspective of its relationship with the values of civil society. In these circumstances, the fact that sometimes the 'messages' of new religious movements sometimes interfere with radical political discourse in a partisan way should not come as a surprise, as their capacity to embody such aspirations cannot be neglected. Moreover, the conflictual and manipulative potential of some of these movements has brought them to the attention of EU bodies and national authorities in Western Europe in recent decades. It is precisely for this reason that we aim to diagnose the anti-system political vocation of some of the new religious movements, and to insist on the mechanism by which they use their doctrinal particularities to underpin a particular type of political rhetoric. Key words: new religious movements (nrm), esoteric groups, neo-gnostic groups, neoreligiosity, post-modernity, religious movement.