نشریه مطالعات معنوی
پیاپی 1 (پاییز 1390)

Modernism, despite the welfare provided for the Western man, failed to fulfill his spiritualrequests, the sole reason of which is the modern thought, s disregard for and even disbelief in man, s soul and his spiritual aspect. The nihilism crisisin the West, which roared and claimed victims, the conversion of the Western man into an object and commodity, the loss of purpose and meaning of life, and the lack of a value system made the Westerngreat thinkers to find a remedy for it. Finally, in the Modern era, man had to reconsider the intellectual foundations of Modernism and pay special attention to its shortcomings, and this turned into a prelude for the postmodern era. Reanalysis of tradition and its foundations by the Westernthinkers was to respond to their unmet needsin the modern life. They, considering the spiritual crisis in the West and the Western man, s needto human emotions and consideration of spirit, followed thepeople, s tendency towards spirituality and canceled the prevailing opinion of the Modern era, which regarded man as equal to body and acknowledged the spiritual dimension of man. Criticizeof Modernism and return to a kind of ethics, spirituality and human spiritual values are some of the theories, which thinkers such as «Michel Foucault», «Jürgen Habermas», and «Marx Horkheimer» held. Now, it, s nearly three decades that manynoble and serious Westernthinkers have noticed theproblem. Collapse of communism, the deadlock state of capitalist methods and various theories of management, and decline of colorful, deceptive philosophiespushed some of the Westernthinkers for a serious reflection, and all this was a beginning to return to spirituality.

NRMs may be studied from different aspects. Looking at this subject from the globalism window, however, can provide an explanation for the increasing propagation of these movements in different parts of the world. Moreover, this window clears the way for better understanding of some characteristics of these movements.Nevertheless, it should be noted that globalism of these movements does not contradict their localism, specifically as occurred in the Eastern countries, such as Iran in particular. The present writer believes that the root cause and key to globalism of these movements, which emerges in the form of a kind of invasion in countries such as Iran, is a sort of sublime plural secularism, i.e. reduction of religion to spirituality and mixing the resulting spirituality with different elements of other religions.

There are many sects and spiritualist movements in the world, which are active in Iran as well, but some of these movements try to presentthemselves in conformity withIran,s indigenous culture and Islam. One of the most successful movements, which unfortunately attracted considerable followers, is the Ring Mysticism. This sect, through combining a number of mystical issues with modern physics, theories, has claimed providing cure and making a revolution in medical knowledge, but it has caused many moral damages and endangered the spiritual health of society.

The sect of Satanism is one of the branches of the modern Devilworship, which was established by «Anton LaVey» in 1966. The present article has taken a descriptive approach to discover and display the sect of Satanism as well as the organization of «Church ofSatan» as the official institution of this sect. Since the teachings of this sect stem from the similar movements of Devil-worship and Satanism in the past centuries and even ancient times, before describingthe current movement, the trace of theseteachings in ancient times and the Middle Ages has been briefly mentioned. Now, approximately after half of a century, the sect of Satanism is still powerfully going on its promotional activities. Though these activities is mainly concentrated on geographical scope of the USA, because of its attractive differences with other sects, some ideas of this sect and the similar movements are promoted in other countries – including Muslim countries. For this reason, the necessity to have accurate information aboutthis movement in order to analyze and counter effectively to it is doubled.

Superstition is based on false beliefs and it lacks rational, scientific bases and so, is in conflict and inconsistent with the Islamic values and principles. Mysticism in general sense, and Islamic mysticism and Sufismin specific senseare of the areas in which there are backgroundsand conditions ofemergence of superstitions in theoretical as well as practical respects. In this article, the origins and backgroundsof such superstitions are analyzed and it is concluded that scientific as well aspractical ignorance are central points ofsuperstitionism. One of the subjects discussed here isthe ways of elimination of superstitions in mysticism, some of which to be mentioned are a full and comprehensive introduction to the Islamic pure mysticism, providing scientific and practical indicators for recognition and rejection of superstitions, introducing the true mystics, deepening mystical wisdom and morale of Ijtihadism in it, and so on.

The Eckankar anthropology, like many of its teachings, contains many contradictions. The Eckankar man sometimes has satanic status and sometimes, divine status. Eckists, like many other cults, have admitted the spiritual dimension of man. The study of human spirit as the most important characteristic of many NRMs can review their belief in man. Spirit and spirit belief can be regarded just as a pretext to keep away from monotheistic belief in God and religious belief in the Resurrection. The attitude of these pseudo-religions to the human mind, as one of the most important divine gifts which stimulates the intellect, is very important and necessary. Since contradiction and unreasonable, odd remarks is abundantly found in these pseudo-religions, mind and mental, intellectual analysis are introduced as highways of astray. In addition, in these pseudo-religions periodic look at human leads to doctrines of Reincarnation and it is regarded as a certain principle.