Religious Developments in the Contemporary Worldwith an emphasis on new religions and spirituality

It is an imperfect inquiry to study religious changes in contemporary Iran without considering new religious movements in the world. In this essay, the most important characteristics of religious developments in contemporary world are studied from a global perspective in order to recognize the main trend of these changes. Here, using the method of logical analysis of and inference from knowledge gathered in the realm of sociology of religion, the characteristics of new religious movements and their possible trends are identified. Some of these characteristics include: the proliferation of movements that are undogmatic, unregulated and unstructured, personal experience as the measure of truth claims, the notion of religion as a self-revising system, the principle of salvation without intermediaries, multiple membership, and the goal of liberating humanity, either through self-knowledge, which includes understanding the self as part of the universal Self, or through self-transformation through transformation of the world, as in engaged spirituality.