Carole M. Cusack, Invented Religions By Carole Cusack

https://www.academia.edu/145781885/Carole_M_Cusack_Invented_Religions?email_work_card=title “Invented religions” are a subset of new religious movements. Various terms exist for these phenomena that are explicitly the product of human creativity and use fictional sources as inspiration. These include Markus Davidsen’s “fiction-based religions,” Adam Possamai’s “hyper-real religions,” and Alexander van der Haven’s “hypothetical religion.” All designators have value but are significantly more limited in scope than Carole Cusack’s “invented religions,” which can accommodate Davidsen’s foregrounding of fiction, van der Haven’s emphasis on uncertainty and provisionality, and Possamai’s focus on the sacralisation of popular culture. The notion that fiction and self-conscious invention can give rise to valid or authentic religion is controversial, and hostile terms for such cultural products also exist; Denis Bekkering’s “fake religions,” Scott Simpson’s “joke religions,” and the more general “parody religions.” This chapter analyses invented religions via these terminological prisms and argues for their importance for the academic study of religion as a boundary case. ...