Individual Groups and Movements

Technological millenarianism refers to beliefs that technological innovations will bring a new golden age or alternatively the destruction of the human race.

Generally known as the Brahma Kumaris (BKs) the movement’s official title is The Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University (BKWSU).

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The Branch Davidians are an indirect splinter group of the Seventh‐day Adventist Church (SDA) whose members believe in the imminent return of Jesus and that living prophets can interpret God’s Word in the Bible.

The Children of God (CoG), later known as The Family International (TFI), was an evangelical organization founded in the late 1960s in California by David Brandt Berg (1919–94).

Christian Zionism is a millenarian movement that draws adherents from different denominations and persuasions within the Christian faith.

The Church of Almighty God, a Chinese millenarian movement, is also known as Eastern Lightning. This name was originally given to the group by outside observers.

The basic beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the official name of the Church, known popularly as the LDS Church or the Mormon Church) can be summed up in its 13 Articles of Faith, the first of which states that members believe in God the Father, his son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost.

In the 21st century, new forms of millenarianism emerge from science rather than religion. At first this may seem surprising since scientists are not given to eschatological speculation.

This contemporary civil rights movement is intertwined with millenarian religion, forming part of a cycle of resistance to American colonial domination through ritual and prayer from the 1890 Ghost Dance to the 1970s American Indian Movement to the protest camps at Standing Rock (2016-2017).

The origins of the Islamic State – also known more widely as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) – can be traced back to the US‐led military invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), popularly known as the Hare Krishna movement, has been one of the more visible minority religions in the West.

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Jehovah’s Witnesses are the followers of a Christian-based religion perhaps best known for their ‘door-to-door’ evangelizing activities.

The Nation of Islam (NOI) began in Detroit’s black ghetto during the 1930s depression. The NOI was influenced heavily by the racial ideology of Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) who was a proponent of black nationalism and pan-Africanism.

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The Neturei Karta (“Guardians of the City” in Aramaic) is a relatively small movement within the milieu of anti‐Zionist haredim (singular: haredi) or strictly Orthodox Jews.

The Order of Nine Angles (ONA) is a secret religious movement that originated in Britain in the 1970s and combines elements of occultism, Satanism, and mysticism in its beliefs and practices.

Peoples Temple (sometimes spelt People’s Temple) was a Christian movement founded by Jim Jones.

The Plymouth Brethren Christian Church (henceforth PBCC), also known as the Exclusive Brethren, is a branch of the wider Brethren movement, a group of evangelical Protestants whose origins can be traced to a series of interrelated groups of Christians who seceded from various mainline Christian denominations in the first half of the nineteenth century.

QAnon is the name often given to the loose affiliation of users who belong to connected but discrete social media communities that host content supportive of the anonymous figure known as ‘Q’.

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Rastafari originated in the 1930s in Jamaica. Aspects of the movement are both messianic and millenarian.

The Sadrist Movement—named after prominent clerics from the al-Sadr family—emerged in Iraq in the 1990s amid the Shia Muslim uprising against President Saddam Hussein after his defeat in the Gulf War.

Sathya Sai Baba (1926?-2011) was based in India (having left the country only once to visit followers in Uganda and Kenya) and visitors flocked to see him and be in his presence.

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The Strauss-Howe Generational Theory describes a recurring cycle of age cohorts called ‘generations’ with specific patterns of behaviour that are regarded as intertwined with the history of the United States of America.

Survivalism is the practice of preparing for the imminent apocalyptic destruction of society which might be framed within either a religious or secular narrative. Survivalists are also known as ‘preppers’ because of this focus on preparation for catastrophe.