Yesterday upon waking up I remember talking to a very dear friend in my sleep. He knows that I am troubled.  All I can remember is him pointing out the "shadow religions".  I do not know what it means, so I will look some into it.  Just posting here to see if others have heard this term before.  I think it is odd.

So far this is the only thing that I have found that kinda makes sense.

http://www.wwwords.co.uk/pdf/viewpdf.asp?j=pfie&vol=2&issue=2&year=2004&article=5_Waks_PFIE_2_2_web&id

Safe Journey

The way I understand the term it is meant to refer to those groups that are founded as religions or spiritual groups but in fact the founder is not doin so for spiritual reasons so much as either person gain or political, or with some other motive, but that they have gained some kind of recognition as being genuine, and even have members who do not realize they are being manipulated.

Example could be say Jim Jones, when he founded his group the words he preached made sense, it was about helping, caring sharing, etc, the kind of idea of help your neighbor, and in fact there were say elder women on fixed incomes with no family who his church did in fact made sure such woman had food and help.

But the truth was he didn't practice what he preached, he didn't live by what he preached, and people were not always treated well, depending on the situation.

But by the same token there are those who can say that christianity itself is a shadow religion depending on view points, for those who percieve the founding of the Roman Catholic church as a political move rather than a spiritual one, then it to was a shadow religion where the leaders were in place not so much for spiritual community with the people but rather as a means of control through power, politics, fear, etc. using examples of say forcing others to convert or else, which was what happened to the early pagans, for those who did not "convert" to the so called "true" faith, they were called evil, accused of following satan and often put to death.  The inquisition, the crusades were all political manueverings using torture, war, fear to control the population so if you look at it that way then it too was or is a shadow religion.

Spirituality is personal thing, we must each find what works for us, I had a friend who converted to the Judiasm, which was where she found peace and found something that worked for her, so I was very supportive of her, and happy for her, I have cousin s who still attend services with catholic church because their faith is based on the ideas of the teachings of christ rather than the politics of the church, it works for them so I am happy for them.

It is unfortunate that there have been those who do find something of value in their faiths, whether it be Islam, Hindu, Christianity, Jew, Pagan, Wiccan, or spiritual ececltic, but there are also those who have used such groups and twisted and corrupted the ideas with a rigid teaching of my belief is the only belief and all others must be stopped.

Those who can take the good of their spiritual values and find a happy peace in it, are fortunate, those who twist and corrupt those same values to me at least are creating groups that can be classified as shadow religions.


Groups of people who claim they are following a spiritual principle or teaching one, and in fact have different motives entirely.

But then again most extremest would turn around and say that any religion other than their own is a false religion or a shadow religion, or hiding behind a false or shadow religion.

so maybe they are all shadow religions maybe none of them are, it is one of those things that is subjective that it is based on the views of the person who is using the term and so is as different as there are people.