Cargo cults and millenarian movements : transoceanic comparisons of new religious movements /

An interesting collection of essays by students, colleagues, and associates of Garry Trompf (religion, University of Sydney) whose introduction and first essay "On the Sunburst Experiment" of Norman Paulsen are most intriguing. Clearly for Trompf, there is a difference between millenial movements and cargo cults in that in millenial movements there is often rejection of the supernatural, technology, hard work, and material goods in favor of a collective dream, "Heaven on Earth"; cargo cults are seen more as a response to colonialism, and "Heaven on Earth" becomes the "goods being brought" by the ancestors. One must also realize, as Kenelm Burridge did long ago in New Heaven, New Earth (1969), that such movements involve adapting to changing measures for the value of human beings, be it the "new goods," money, or whatever, or the retreat from those new measures, as Trompf does. There are essays on White American movements by Bracht in "The Americanization of Adam," by Tillett on three esoteric Christian Adventist movements; an essay on the Black Muslims by Dennis Walker; but noticeably missing is anything on religious movements among Native Americans or any other minorities, although there is an excellent piece on the history of religious movements in South-West Africa (now Namibia) which will add to the growing literature on religious movements among blacks in the Americas and Africa. Essays by Lacey, Gesch, Lindstrom, and Brookes deal with Melanesia and Eastern Indonesia. Recommended for advanced undergraduates and up in religion and anthropology.-F. O. Loveland, Gettysburg College