Destructiveness as a Disfunction of Religious Identity: A Comment on the Methodology of Research into New Religious Movements

In the article, the problem of new religious movements (NRM) is regarded as a a specific form of modern religiosity, shaped under the influence of the deconstruction of traditional religious normative conventions. The special attention is paid to the identification processes, influenced by NRMs, particularly to such controversial aspects as its destructive potential for the human personality. Authors suggest that the destructiveness emerges at the stage of interpreting religious experience and is reinforced by its ritual and institutional organization in the religious act.