Invented religions: this fiction is so good it should be true!

Abstract

Utilizing contemporary scholarhip on secularization, individualism, and consumer capitalism, Invented Religions: Imagination, Fiction and Faith by Carole Cusack analyses six new religions created from 1957 to 2005: Discordianism, The Church of All Worlds, The Church of the SubGenius, Jediism, Matrixism, and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. In many ways, it is an original and enjoyable work that sheds light on the richly imagined worlds of six invented religions that most people know little about. This interdiciplinary book introduces the concept of 'invented religions', questions religious legitimacy, and discusses religious creativity, its relations to humour and story-telling. Despite being culturally viable and popular, scholars investigating religious phenomena have long dismissed these groups as jokes, since they don't fit the well-established typologies. Cusack's empirical exploration of creative bricolage seeks to broaden the understanding of religion and argues for the right of invented religions to be taken seriously as significant (counter)cultural innovators formulating influential narratives about the nature of reality