ONLINE FIRST
published on May 1, 2025
Jacques Parker

https://doi.org/10.5840/asrr2025429126
Anti-Cultism in Japan
American Influences and Differences in Opposition to Cults
The author analyzes the relationship between the American and European anti-cult movements and the burgeoning Japanese anti-cult movement in the late twentieth century. The author relies on pre-existing material on the Japanese anti-cult movement and archival material available in the Cult Awareness Network Collection in University of California, Santa Barbara Special Research Collections. The author argues that it was the American anti-cult movement that particularly influenced the growing Japanese anti-cult movement, especially before the Aum Affair of 1995. However, the Japanese anti-cult movement is distinct from the American one, in that there is a separate yet important historical-religious context.