The purpose of this study was to try to develop a better understanding of the process that being a member in a New religious movement might imply, and to find out how the identity of a defector changes from the time upon entering the movement, while they are within the movement and after leaving the movement. We also wanted to examine what kind of help and support would be needed around a defection. The study focuses on identity and our questions were: How does the defector describe him/herself and his/her identity before joining the New religious movement until the period after defecting? What demand for support and help may there be when defecting from New religious movement? The theoretical starting point was The Identity Theory, Structural Role Theory and KASAM. A qualitative method was used and four defectors from New religious movements were interviewed.

This essay studies what has been written about religious experience and visions both in the past and now. It deals with both the religious experience and tries to explain how and if there is any place in the modern society for religious visions and experience. The essay has a strong theoretical perspective to psychology of religion as presented by Anton Geels whose writings in the subject have been of one of my main sources.The study shows that people of all times and cultures have had religious visions and the feeling of a divine experience even if this has changed because of tradition, time and place. Religious experience and visions can furthermore occur both in a spontaneous, unprepared way as well as being cultured through ascetic practice in order to facilitate the divine reception. The study also shows that religious experience in no means is reserved for special ?chosen ones? but can occur to each and every one, no matter what class, race or position in life.

In 1809 the citizens of Sweden where given the freedom to practice their Christian faith through the Swedish constitution of 1809, 16 §. This proclaimed that there should be religious freedom in Sweden, albeit restricted to Evangelical-Lutheran faith. Although after the law regarding dissenters was passed in 1860 by choosing another church than the Evangelical-Lutheran church you lost some civic rights, for example you could not become a public official. The freedom to choose religious affiliation was given through the Law of Religious Freedom in 1951. The purpose of this study is to evaluate in what way the concept of religious freedom has developed in Swedish law between 1809 and 1951.In the background I treat two historical events and one era, with focus upon religious freedom, which have in my opinion influenced the view of religious freedom in Sweden during the chosen period of 1809?1951.

This study deals with religious independent schools and its impact on society. The purpose of this essay has been to examine what various teachers from both religious independent schools and public schools have for perception of religious independent schools. The questions highlighted in the study is the teachers´ general view to religious independent schools, teachers´ perception of the Education Act " a denominational education, but a non- denominational teaching", and what teachers believe to be segregated or inclusive.The study has consisted of five qualitative interviews with different teachers, where three of them work at religious independent schools, while the other two teachers work in public schools.The study shows that there are prominent differences of approach to religious independent schools. Teachers who work at religious independent schools avert criticism of religious independent schools and argue that teaching in religious independent schools do not differ appreciably from the public schools. Instead can religious independent schools serve as a good alternative to the public school.

In 1809 the citizens of Sweden where given the freedom to practice their Christian faith through the Swedish constitution of 1809, 16 §. This proclaimed that there should be religious freedom in Sweden, albeit restricted to Evangelical-Lutheran faith. Although after the law regarding dissenters was passed in 1860 by choosing another church than the Evangelical-Lutheran church you lost some civic rights, for example you could not become a public official. The freedom to choose religious affiliation was given through the Law of Religious Freedom in 1951. The purpose of this study is to evaluate in what way the concept of religious freedom has developed in Swedish law between 1809 and 1951.In the background I treat two historical events and one era, with focus upon religious freedom, which have in my opinion influenced the view of religious freedom in Sweden during the chosen period of 1809?1951.

The premise for this study is the question how we should relate to people with different religious beliefs. The aim is to examine if an existence characterized by a religious diversity should affect the certainty and confidence in our faith. To answer my question I have turned to the philosophers David Basinger, Mikael Stenmark, William Lane Craig and Robert McKims different views on this issue. Using an approach based on a comparative method and argument analysis I have then assessed their different opinions in the matter. Based on my own discussion of these arguments I conclude that a religious diversity should imply a reduction in our own religious confidence and that it should be reduced in relation to the amount of disagreement that exist between conflicting religious perspectives in an specific case and matter.

My aim for this essay is to investigate if The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a religious sect, on the basis of literature and information about the Mormons organisation and their religious standpoints. My conclusion is that Mormon Church is a religious sect. Their organisation has several sect characteristics according to sect definitions; see for example Göran Gustafsson (2000), Mikael Rothstein (1997) and Bryan R. Wilson (1970). Other researchers in religious studies think that the Mormon Church is not a sect but a cult.

Riksteatern is a Swedish movement which was formed during the 1930s. The movement now consists of 230 local societies and had 545 000 visitors last year. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how a movement, mainly financed by the Swedish government, is run. To be able to understand this, the theories of Pierre Bourdieu are used together with organizational theories. The empirics are collected mainly by semi-structured interviews made with employees at Riksteatern.

Is there a specific tradition of songs within the swedish environmental movement? What kinds of music has been performed in different situations and what does it mean to the movement and its inner life? The essay deals with a town meeting and action against plans of establishing passenger flights at a former military airport in Uppsala, looking at the action as a performance and as a ritual. The second part of the essay is built on interviews of three veterans of the movement's organisations one of which is as a singer-songwriter originally active in the peace movement of the 60's. The paper is about the songs and the situations in which they were sung, concluding that there is, the limited material considered, little evidence of considerable transfer of songs within the movement, though some coherence exists. The connection to between environmental movement and the swedish radical music movement of the 70's is also slightly mentioned.

This paper?s main goal is to study how religious studies teachers and religious studies teacherstudents reason concerning armed religious conflicts, with fundamentalism and terrorism ascentral concepts. The study does this with the use of semi-structured interviews. The resultsare analyzed with a phenomenographic analysis with the interviewees? understanding of thecentral concepts being the target of the interviews.

This essay is about the modern Swedish Nazi movement in relation to the German Nazi movement before and during the Second World War. The analysis is made using the Nazi Myth theory as described by French philosophers Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe & Jean-Luc Nancy. Theory and method are aimed at analysing the Nazi movement as a religious one. In this essay I have identified five main Nazi Myth elements required to realize Nazi ideals and embraced by original German Nazis. Through text analysis I have studied how Swedish Nazis use and reproduce these elements.The result will show that the main elements are well represented in modern Swedish Nazi texts and must be considered as central and bearing in modern Swedish Nazism. However, modern Swedish Nazism is also different from original German Nazism in some ways, for example in view of race, land and art..

This essay analyzes the doctrines of the revival preacher E.W. Kenyon (1867-1948), such as perfect health, faith and positive thinking. Two of his late works from 1941 and 1942 is analyzed and contextualized referring to the contemporary New Thought movement, Christian revival movements and religious pragmatism in America during the late 19th century continued into the 20th century. Kenyon?s anthropology, his soteriology and epistemology is showed to be pneumocentric in a way that can be compared with the New Thought movement, but also has connections to Christian revival theology and Christian mysticism.

The previous research in the field of New religious movements has mostly focused on the spectacular parts where phenomena such as ?brainwashing? and the ?charismatic leader? have attracted both media and the scientific studies of religion. Professor Liselotte Frisks has done several enquiries about sects and New religious movements in Sweden. One of her main conclusions is that the relation between these New religious movements and the rest of society has changed; a relation that used to be characterized by conflicts and tension is now becoming more open as both parts are changing.This study does not focus on the spectacular parts. Instead I have studied something more common and general.

This study´s focus was a group of participants of a social movement called The Zeitgeist Movement. The purpose of this study was to understand and convey what causes participants of this movement to engage despite that the prevailing culture teaches them otherwise.With qualitative methodology of participatory observation and semi-structured interviews with ten participants, our objective has been to answer the following questions: What are the driving forces that make these people act, which approach do they have to ?reality? and how do they relate to it, and what are the potential consequences with this approach?The study has shown that their critical and questioning attitude towards their perception of reality and their social constructivist view of it lead to conflicts between them and their fellowmen. The data was then analyzed with Alfred Schütz phenomenological theories in synthesis with Zygmunt Baumans critical societal analysis and theories.The study's focus was on the Gothenburg chapter of the Swedish Zeitgeist Movement. We did not make any comparisons with other national or international chapters of the movement..

This report is a qualitative interview study which central content enlightens how movement and sports effects children?s performance in school. With the help of five different teachers in three different schools questions like; how does movement effect the performance of children in school? Have been answered.Lots of research and litterateur shows that children is doing better physical and mental, the concentration level is improved and the performance in school is better when exposed to more movement, also there are less conflicts and the students gets better motor skills.Comparison with the ?Bunkefloproject? has been done, which was a project in the south of Sweden where they let the children have physical education every day and then they examined how this effected their performance in school. With this basis this report will examine the teachers view on the subject.The result shows that the teachers think that there should be more movement in the daily schedule for the children because they seam to be more happy and concentrates better after movement.