Afro-American Religion - New Religious Movements

New Religious Movements

Some syncretic new religious movements have elements of these African religions, but are predominantly rooted in other spiritual traditions. A first wave of such movements originated in the early twentieth century:

• Santo Daime (folk Catholicism and Spiritism, Brazil);
• Moorish Science Temple of America (Islam and Christianity, USA);
• Nation of Islam (Islam, USA)
• Black Hebrew Israelites (Judiasm, USA)
• Rastafari movement (African-influenced Judeo-Christian, Jamaica); and
• Espiritismo (mixture of Taino and Kongo beliefs, Puerto Rico)

A second wave of new movements originated in the 1960s to 1970s, in the context of the emergence of New Age and Neopaganism in the United States:

• União do Vegetal (Brazil, entheogenic, since 1961);
• Vale do Amanhecer (Brazil, Spiritism, since 1965);
• Ausar Auset Society (USA, Kemetism, Pan-Africanism, since 1973); and
• Black Buddhist Community in America (USA, Buddhism, since the 1960s).