Core Research

Alternative, New, and Diasporic Religion in Austria
Lukas K. Pokorny

I am fascinated by the growing diversity of Austria's religious panorama. This research draws on a variety of social-scientific (qualitative interviews et al.) and historical methods, investigating one substantial aspect of the vibrant Austrian religious landscape, that is, alternative, new, and diasporic religion. Examining both the historical formation processes and the contemporary situation of selected groups/traditions, I contribute to mapping the largely uncharted domain of religion in Austria, both past and present. While assessing the historical development, this research also traces Austrian missionary trajectories into the neighbouring Central European countries. A survey of the historical dimension likewise includes a study of glocalisation processes in terms of ritual and doctrine, but also how they manifest contemporarily. Additionally, each country-specific case study is commonly anchored in a succinct preceding discussion of the group’s general history and main doctrinal tenets. Naturally, I take a Religious Studies approach towards the movements encountered, seeking to establish a trusting working collaboration where the researcher and the informants are on a par. This research is descriptive, recognises the significance of and does not pass any value judgement on the teachings and groups studied. My research in this field is chiefly published in Religion in Austria, a Study of Religions book series launched in 2012 to create an international dissemination platform of respective scholarship.
 

Disciplinary Trajectories in the Study of Ancient Religions
Nickolas Roubekas

My current research revolves around the disciplinary chasm encountered in the contemporary study of ancient religions. On the one hand, classicists and ancient historians have served the field of ‘ancient religions’ with their detailed studies, commentaries, textual analyses, and discussions. On the other hand, the hegemony of the North American and North European postmodern view of the category of ‘religion’ has raised some important and—more often than not—‘dangerous’ issues in the overall academic study of religion. However, both ancient history/classics and postmodern religious studies approaches seem to be somehow utterly isolated within their own disciplinary limits when it comes to the study of ancient religions. This research is situated at the crossroad of the two fields, attempting to bring together the two disciplines while simultaneously promoting criticisms and the centrality of methodological and theoretical discussions that are most of the times neglected by representatives of both fields.

Ancient Theories of Religion
Nickolas Roubekas

Many scholars of religion are familiar with modern theories of religion, i.e., the ones that virtually founded the very field of religious studies from the eighteenth century onwards (from F. Max Müller, Rudolph Otto, and Mircea Eliade to E. B. Tylor, Émile Durkheim, and Karl Marx, to name just a few). However, what is often overlooked among scholars of religion are the theoretical inputs pertaining to the origins and function of religion that were formulated and disseminated in the ancient world – specifically within the so-called Graeco-Roman antiquity. More often than not, such thinkers from antiquity (e.g., Democritus, Plato, Aristotle, or Cicero) are dealt with as mere philosophers, whereas their ideas more often than not constituted theoretical exercises regarding the very nature of the religious phenomenon. This research, therefore, seeks to re-evaluate these thinkers and their conceptualisations from a religious studies perspective, as well as linking them to modern and postmodern theorization about religion.

Millenarianism and East Asian New Religious Movements
Lukas K. Pokorny

This research is situated at the intersection of East Asian Studies and Religious Studies, and Millenarian Studies and New Religions Studies, respectively. In recent years, an increasing amount of scholarship has been produced around the junction of Millenarian Studies and New Religions Studies. Whereas the significance of millenarianism—that is, the belief in an all-embracing salvational transformation of the current world order—in East Asian new religious movements (NRMs) is broadly recognised by scholars, a substantial treatment of the subject has been, as yet, largely avoided. My research aims to fill this lacuna, providing the first comprehensive (comparative) analysis of the millenarian trajectories of a number of major East Asian NRMs based on copious and close hermeneutical examinations of original sources in Japanese, Korean, Modern and Classical Chinese, and Vietnamese. I argue that this millenarian dimension forms the doctrinal leitmotif and root ideological cause sanctioning and facilitating the versatile mundane (that is, social, political, and economic) engagement of East Asian NRMs. Based on a specific definition of millenarianism (inspired by the scholarship of Catherine Wessinger), the movements under scrutiny are first assessed individually, delineating in detail the dominating millenarian narratives, which are usually blended with conspicuously ethnocentric topoi. The discussion also reveals the distinct soteriological discourse, which is largely fed by functional patterns adopted from the surrounding religious-doctrinal environment. Based on a sufficient number of individual case studies, I intend to eventually comparatively classify the millenarian themes of East Asian NRMs along the theoretical lines developed by Wessinger et al. ("catastrophic millenarianism," "avertive millenarianism," and "progressive millenarianism") with the aim of creating a more refined scheme by adding functional subcategories. Ultimately, the research is anticipated to offer an initial thorough, philologically sound comparative analysis of the millenarian anatomy of East Asian NRMs, linking the results to, and thereby substantially advancing the vibrant theoretical discourse in current Millenarian Studies. As such, this research will contribute substantially to a solid understanding of East Asian NRMs, many of which have spread overseas, considering their main motivational urges as well as their domestic and global mission and aims.

The Study of Esotericism
Lukas K. Pokorny

My current research focuses on three interrelated areas: (1) The Euro-American esoteric reception of Asia; (2) Theosophy; and (3) millenarian manifestations of the esoteric (here specifically the New Age) current. I have worked on the teachings of the Scottish esotericist Benjamin Creme (1922−2016), UFO religiosities, the esoteric reception of Maitreya, Confucius, and Tibet, as well as the Theosophical engagement with the Dàodéjīng.