Revising the Existentialist Doctrines in New Religious Movements

Abstract:New religious movements that have emerged in protest against Western modernity, include variety of tendencies. Despite the fact that many of the famous leaders of these movements, such as Ashou, Quillo and Castaneda, have opposed philosophy, they have been influenced by the new philosophies, especially the teachings of existentialism. Existentialist philosophy began officially in twentieth century by the publication of Kierkegaard's works. There are many teachings in this school related to human existence and life used by new religious movements in an Unreasonable way. This paper, without paying attention to the critical study of existentialism, describes teachings of this school, which we can see in works of some most famous leaders of new religious movements, namely, Ashou, Quillo and Carlos Castaneda. Also, the imperfect use of these leaders is explained in this paper.