Author : E. Burke Rochford
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
Page : 348 pages
File Size : 29,80 MB
Release : 1985
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780813511146
Traces the growth of the Hare Krishna movement in the U.S., describes the experiences of individual followers, and analyzes recruitment patterns, activities, and leadership of the movement.
Author : E. Burke Rochford
Publisher : NYU Press
Page : 296 pages
File Size : 10,96 MB
Release : 2007-05
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0814775799
Most widely known for its adherents chanting “Hare Krishna” and distributing religious literature on the streets of American cities, the Hare Krishna movement was founded in New York City in 1965 by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Formally known as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, or ISKCON, it is based on the Hindu Vedic scriptures and is a Western outgrowth of a popular yoga tradition which began in the 16th century. In its first generation ISKCON actively deterred marriage and the nuclear family, denigrated women, and viewed the raising of children as a distraction from devotees' spiritual responsibilities. Yet since the death of its founder in 1977, there has been a growing women’s rights movement and also a highly publicized child abuse scandal. Most strikingly, this movement has transformed into one that now embraces the nuclear family and is more accepting of both women and children, steps taken out of necessity to sustain itself as a religious movement into the next generation. At the same time, it is now struggling to contend with the consequences of its recent outreach into the India-born American Hindu community. Based on three decades of in-depth research and participant observation, Hare Krishna Transformed explores dramatic changes in this new religious movement over the course of two generations from its founding.
Author : Hayagriva Dasa
Publisher : Golden Age Media
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 29,45 MB
Release : 2020-01-01
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9389050596
The first draft of The Hare Krishna Explosion was written in July 1969 just after Srila Prabhupada’s first visit to New Vrindavan. At that time Hayagriva realized that the details of the beginnings of the Krishna Consciousness Movement had best be recorded when the events were still fresh. Working from notebooks, diaries and memories he compiled the first edition in a month. Then the manuscript remained packed away until Srila Prabhupada left the mortal world in 1977.
Author : Edwin Bryant
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 506 pages
File Size : 46,1 MB
Release : 2004-06-23
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780231508438
Dancing and chanting with their shaven heads and saffron robes, Hare Krishnas presented the most visible face of any of the eastern religions transplanted to the West during the sixties and seventies. Yet few people know much about them. This comprehensive study includes more than twenty contributions from members, ex-members, and academics who have followed the Hare Krishna movement for years. Since the death of its founder, the movement, also known as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), has experienced debates over the roles of authority, heresy, and dissent, which have led to the development of several splinter movements. There is a growing women's rights movement and a highly publicized child abuse scandal. Providing a privileged look at the people and issues shaping ISKCON, this volume also offers insight into the complex factors surrounding the emergence of religious traditions, including early Christianity, as well as a glimpse of the original seeds and the germinating stages of a religious tradition putting down roots in foreign soil.
Author : Nori J. Muster
Publisher : University of Illinois Press
Page : 254 pages
File Size : 42,39 MB
Release : 2013-03-15
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0252094999
Combining behind-the-scenes coverage of an often besieged religious group with a personal account of one woman's struggle to find meaning in it, Betrayal of the Spirit takes readers to the center of life in the Hare Krishna movement. Nori J. Muster joined the International Society of Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON)--the Hare Krishnas--in 1978, shortly after the death of the movement's spiritual master, and worked for ten years as a public relations secretary and editor of the organization's newspaper, the ISKCON World Review. In this candid and critical account, Muster follows the inner workings of the movement and the Hare Krishnas' progressive decline. Combining personal reminiscences, published articles, and internal documents, Betrayal of the Spirit details the scandals that beset the Krishnas--drug dealing, weapons stockpiling, deceptive fundraising, child abuse, and murder within ISKCON–as well as the dynamics of schisms that forced some 95 percent of the group's original members to leave. In the midst of this institutional disarray, Muster continued her personal search for truth and religious meaning as an ISKCON member until, disillusioned at last with the movement's internal divisions, she quit her job and left the organization. In a new preface to the paperback edition, Muster discusses the personal circumstances that led her to ISKCON and kept her there as the movement's image worsened. She also talks about "the darkest secret"–child abuse in the ISKCON parochial schools--that was covered up by the public relations office where she worked.
Author : Larry D. Shinn
Publisher : Westminster John Knox Press
Page : 212 pages
File Size : 46,89 MB
Release : 1987
Category : Religion
ISBN :
Author : John Hubner
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P
Page : 472 pages
File Size : 13,4 MB
Release : 1988
Category : Religion
ISBN :
When ex-Krishna Steve Bryant launched a one-man holy war against the Hare Krishna cult, his body was found murdered. It was the Krishnas' response to make Bryant a monkey on a stick, a gruesome warning to all other Krishnas that death was in store for those with dreams of defection. 16 pages of photos.
Author : Mukunda Goswami
Publisher : Torchlight Publications
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 12,19 MB
Release : 2016-01-10
Category :
ISBN : 9781937731199
Miracle on Second Avenue is a short, carefully researched documentary book written in a you-are-there style, that catalogs the start and growth of the Hare Krishna movement. The work is a memoir of Mukunda Goswami, one of the pioneers of the religious group that is now known throughout the world formally as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). Miracle on Second Avenue is a series of historical events that include the movement's founder, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, and his interactions on two continents with the author over the three-year period from August 1966 until December 1969. Mukunda Goswami's book Miracle on Second Avenue won the 2012 National Indie Excellence Award, as their 2012 Biography-General prize winner.
Author : Henry Doktorski
Publisher :
Page : 664 pages
File Size : 50,93 MB
Release : 2018-01-08
Category :
ISBN : 9781544607276
The 1986 murder of Hare Krishna devotee Steven Bryant (Sulochan dasa) was arguably the darkest moment in the fifty-two year history of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness-a new branch of the Chaitanya-Bengali-Vaishnava religion founded in New York City in 1966 by an Indian spiritual teacher and guru, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896-1977). A mere nine years after the disappearance of this beloved spiritual father, one of their own was hunted down and assassinated. This brutal killing was achieved through a cooperative effort by "spiritual" leaders, senior managers and hit men enforcers from West Virginia, Ohio, and Southern California ISKCON temples. The murdered whistle-blower had discovered many secrets and threatened to reveal to the world the immoral acts and criminal dealings of a set of self-appointed, illegitimate successors to Swami Prabhupada: a corrupt oligarchy of new ISKCON "gurus." He had also, perhaps foolishly, advocated using violence against the gurus to evict them from their posts. ISKCON leaders took his threats seriously, and they hunted down and assassinated the passionate reformer. How did the peaceful, shaven-headed, saffron-clad Hare Krishna devotees regress from their blissful activities of chanting, dancing, and selling incense in the streets to this? The author, himself a former ISKCON devotee, probes deeply into the disturbing direction of a new religious movement. In this book, he exposes the danger of philosophical errors and deranged devotion that practically ensured that bloody tragedy would eventually occur. The author has engaged in years of painstaking research by poring over tens of thousands of pages of trial transcripts, newspaper and magazine articles, ISKCON publications, and confidential ISKCON documents, while also interviewing dozens of eyewitnesses. His effort culminates in a thoroughly-engaging and extremely well-documented thesis exposing the hidden inside story of the conspiracy to murder Steven Bryant, including its genesis, development, blunders involved in it, execution, cover up, as well as a stunning aftermath after the deed was done.
Author : Nicole Karapanagiotis
Publisher :
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 17,24 MB
Release : 2021-04-06
Category :
ISBN : 9780253054890
How do religious groups reinvent themselves in order to attract new audiences? How do they rebrand their messages and recast their rituals in order to make their followers more diverse? In Branding Bhakti, Nicole Karapanagiotis considers the new branding of the Hare Krishna Movement, or the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). Known primarily for their orange robes, shaved heads, ecstatic dancing on the streets, and exuberant Hindu-style temple worship, many contemporary ISKCON groups are radically reinventing their public presentation and their style of worship in order to attract a global audience to their movement. Karapanagiotis explores their innovative and complex approaches in both the United States and India by following three new ISKCON brands aimed at gathering new followers. Each is led by a world-renowned ISKCON guru and his global disciples, and each is promoted through a mix of digital and social media and the construction of an innovative "worship-scape." These new spaces trade ISKCON's traditional temples for corporate work-life balance programs, posh yoga studios, urban spiritual lounges, edgy mantra clubs/lofts, and rural meditative retreat facilities. Branding Bhakti not only investigates the methods the ISKCON movement uses to position itself for growth but also highlights devotees' painful and complicated struggles as they work to transform their shrinking, sectarian movement into one with global religious appeal.
