Abstract

The phenomenon that in recent years has attracted more and more attention from the mass media in Poland and it worries public opinion, the circles of the Church and also those with it imn connected, is a continuous development of the activity of groups and movements of a religious nature or pseudo-religious, usually designated as „cults”. Movements of the kind have been presentí in Poland already in the seventies and eighties, but their activity has increased significantly since the fall of the Iron Curtain. This article wants to present to the Polish reader the discussion that took place in the seminars interdisciplinary courses organized in the years 1994-97 by the Faculty of Educational Sciences of the Pontifical Salesian (UPS) of Rome and dedicated to the New Religious Movements. Nci seminars were attended by scholars of various disciplines (psychology, sociology, theology, philosophy, religious sciences, etc.) from both Italy and other European countries. II The problem of the New Movements has and has had a much wider extension in Western countries wide and a longer history than in Poland. Even more scientific research has been devoted to it. Therefore, knowing the conclusions of the meetings organized at UPS can help nothing understanding of the problem of New Religious Movements in the Polish reality and in the give it an adequate response, especially on the part of pastors, catechists, educators and teachers. The content of this article embraces the following problematic nodes: after discussing the question concerning the nomenclature used in scientific publications on the subject of the New Religious Movements, the socio-cultural context in which, starting from the sixties, the development of these movements began in western countries ie nti, a context marked in a particular way by the progress of the secularization process ej the transition to the postmodern era. The classification of the New will be presented later Religious Movements made on the basis of the criterion of their relationship with the Christian worldview c with its characteristic elements: the Church, the unique role of Jesus Christ, God, the religious sense com and specific way of relating to the sacred. The always will also be discussed The bad problem of the harmfulness of New Religious Movements, but some will also be indicated positive, i.e. „semina Verbi” , which can be seen in them. The last partagraphs are dedication to attempting an explanation of the cause of the rapid expansion of the New Movements, identified above all in the unsatisfied needs of modern man, caught up in the vortex the rapid pace of industrialisation, urbanisation, secularisation and bureaucratisation, to the clarification of the most important key points or common denominators of the „nova religiosit a and, finally, to the presentations of a particular point of view on New Religious Movements, and there I is the one who sees in them an alternative to psychotherapy.