Massimo Introvigne
Encyclopedia
Massimo Introvigne is an Italian sociologist and intellectual property consultant. He is the founder and managing director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR
), an international network of scholars who study new religious movement
s. Introvigne is the author of tens of books and articles in the field of sociology of religion. He was the main author of the Enciclopedia delle religioni in Italia (Encyclopedia of Religions in Italy). He is a member of the editorial board for the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion http://www.religjournal.com/. He is also a consultant on intellectual property rightshttp://www.jacobacci.com/People/Attorneys/prof/122/l/I/Massimo-Introvigne. In 2011, he has been appointed OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) "Representative on combating racism, xenophobia and discrimination, with a special focus on discrimination against Christians and members of other religions".
on June 14, 1955. As he reported in a partially auto-biographical paper presented at the 2008 yearly conference of the American Academy of Religion
in Chicago
http://www.cesnur.org/2008/mi_20.htm, his interest for non-Christian religions dates back to his reading as a young boy of the novels of Emilio Salgari
, Rudyard Kipling
, and Luigi Ugolini (1891–1980, the author in 1950 of the Italian novel L'isola non trovata), which included references to Hinduism
, Islam
and other religions not generally well-known at that time in Italy. The popular encyclopedia Le grandi religioni del mondo (The Great Religions of the World), published in 1964 by the leading publishing house Rizzoli, was – according to the same paper – also an influence on the young Introvigne, who devotely purchased its monthly instalments at age nine. Also in the Chicago paper, Introvigne mentions the crucial importance of his Jesuit high school, the Istituto sociale in Turin
, Italy
, between 1970–1973. As other Italian high schools in these years, that one hosted a vigorous political debate, and Introvigne attended it in the same years of future left-wing Italian leader Piero Fassino
and centrist politician Michele Vietti (whose cousin, the scholar of Islam
Silvia Scaranari, he will eventually marry in 1982). At the same school he met the Catholic conservative organization Alleanza Cattolica
which he joined in 1972. He went on to obtain a bachelor's degree in Philosophy from the Pontificia Università Gregoriana in Rome
, a Vatican
-accredited institution, and a laurea
degree (roughly equivalent to a Master's degree) in Law from the University of Turin
, Italy
.
During the Gregoriana years he also attended (as a layman, i.e. not as a seminarian studying for priesthood) the Catholic Almo collegio Capranica
, where he had as fellow students the future Archbishops Rino Fisichella
, Nikola Eterovic, and many others who will later become prominent figures of the Catholic Church. His dissertation at the University of Turin was on John Rawls
, and was later published in 1983 by Giuffré as I due principi di giustizia nella teoria di Rawls, the first work on Rawls in Italian. The dissertation was directed by Italian philosopher Enrico di Robilant
, with whom Introvigne worked between 1979 and 1985 as an assistant lecturer.
Gradually, he shifted his main interests from philosophy to sociology, and from law to religion. In 1987 he presented a paper at the international conference of the Mormon History Association
in Oxford
, where he started a long-lasting co-operation with Swiss historian Jean-François Mayer
and with the Utah
lawyer and historian Michael W. Homer, which would eventually lead to the establishment of CESNUR
in 1988. He taught short courses in the sociology of religious movements at the Athenaeum Pontificium Regina Apostolorum and in 2005–2006 at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross
, both Vatican-accredited institutions. In the second edition of his Nuovo manuale di sociologia della religione (New Manual of Sociology of Religion) Roberto Cipriani, former president of AIS (Associazione Italiana di Sociologia) and one of Italy's leading sociologists, calls Introvigne "one of the Italian sociologists of religion most well-known abroad, and among the world's leading scholars of new religious movements".
From 1980, Introvigne also developed a parallel activity as an intellectual property attorney. He is currently a partner in the Jacobacci & Partners patent and trademark consultancy firm in Turin
, Italy, and is of counsel to the law firm Jacobacci, Sterpi, Francetti, Regoli, de Haas & Associati, a firm he helped establishing in 1998. He is also one of the partners of Terrazza Solferino, a company which bought and restored the historical terrace and Liberty
apartment of the same name in Turin as a center for business and culture. He is married and has four children.
Introvigne started collecting books on minority religions and esoteric-gnostic schools in the 1970s. His collection now includes more than 50,000 volumes – see online catalogue http://www.cesnur.org/library.htm – that are made available to the public via the CESNUR library.
He is vice-president of the Catholic movement Alleanza Cattolica
and one of the founding members of the Italian think tank
Res Publica
initiated in 1999 by Silvio Berlusconi
, to which The People of Freedom
it is closely connected. Introvigne was also a member of the National Council of the Italian Christian Democrat party UDC – Union of the Centre, but disagreed with this party's decision not to support Silvio Berlusconi at the Italian political elections of 2008 (which Berlusconi eventually won) and left the party. At the regional elections of 2010 in his home region of Piedmont
Introvigne emerged as one of the most vocal supporters of Berlusconi's candidate, Roberto Cota
, who defeated governor Mercedes Bresso
, and a vitriolic critic of the support by UDC and other Catholics to the strongly pro-choice Bresso http://www.alleanzapercota.org.
In 2010 he was appointed as one of the 19 members of the Comitato per l'Islam Italiano, a body created by the Italian Ministry for Internal Affairs in order to advise the government in matters related to the Islamic minority in Italy.
In 2011 he was appointed by OSCE, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, as its "Representative on combating racism, xenophobia and discrimination, with a special focus on discrimination against Christians and members of other religions".
He has also written hundreds of articles, both in daily newspapers (including Silvio Berlusconi's Il Giornale of Milan) and in religious and secular periodicals. Some twenty of them were published in scientific journals in various countries, as can be seen in his bibliography. The same bibliography shows him as contributor of several collective works on the sociology of religion. After 9/11 an important part of his work has been devoted to the study of Islamic fundamentalism
and to the application to this field of the methodology developed by scholars of new religious movements. In Italy, Introvigne is known as one of the main proponents of the sociological theory of religious economy developed by Rodney Stark
and Lawrence Iannaccone. With Stark, Introvigne co-published in 2003 Dio è tornato: indagine sulla rivincita delle religioni in Occidente (God Is Back: An Enquiry on Religious Revival in the West – Casale Monferrato: Piemme), and with Iannaccone, in 2004, Il mercato dei martiri: l’industria del terrorismo suicida (A Market for Martyrs: The Industry of Suicide Terrorism – Turin: Lindau). These books were written specifically for the Italian editions, but a part of the Introvigne-Stark study appeared in April 2005 in the first issue of the online Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religionhttp://www.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=ijrr.
Introvigne has also written books and articles in several languages criticizing The Da Vinci Code
and the documentary on pedophile priests Sex Crimes and the Vatican. In 2006, Introvigne published a book which he considered very different from his previous production: Il dramma dell'Europa senza Cristo (The Drama of a Europe without Christ – Milan: Sugarco), where he proposed a militant criticism of secular humanism
, based on the teachings of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. The book was sympathetically reviewed (although with some criticism on specific issues) by the Vatican-connected Jesuit journal La Civiltà Cattolica
: In 2008, Introvigne followed with a second book in the same vein, Il segreto dell'Europa (Europe's Secret – Milan: Sugarco), intended as a study guide for the groups which had been established in several Italian cities for studying The Drama.
The collection of books on religion of CESNUR
"is regarded as the largest collection in Europe and the second in the world in its field", according to its own website.
He is also the main editor of the website www.cesnur.org. He has participated in several activities of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion
and the International Federation of Catholic Universities. He is also a member of the "Sociology of Religion" group of the Italian Association of Sociology.
He is also director of CESPOC, the Center for the Study of Popular Culture http://www.popularculture.it, an institution which hosts his large collections of dime novels and comics
, and collects his articles on these subjects. Introvigne's CESPOC collection hosts inter alia
the largest collection in Europe of dime novels and other materials featuring the literary character Nick Carter
. In 2006, Introvigne published a bibliography of Nick Carter's Italian translations in the specialized magazine Dime Novel Round-Up (vol. 75, no. 1, February 2006, pp. 12–15). The collection has also important holdings and earlier editions of Fantômas
, Zorro
, Dracula
, and other characters which defined the popular culture
of the 20th century. In 2008, with the help of the American scholar J. Gordon Melton
, Introvigne published on CESNUR's Web site a bibliography of English-language vampire comics between 1935 and 2000, which includes more than 11,000 entries and is defined as a "lifetime achievement" by the authors .
see Introvigne's framing of scholars and academics (those who agree with CESNUR) vs. anti-cult movement (those who do not agree with CESNUR regardless of their academic qualifications) as biased, not to mention the term anti-cult terrorism he coined.
On the other hand, Introvigne says that "anti-cult terrorism" has not always been a metaphorical term, pointing out that:
One of the main points which are questioned regarding Introvigne's work is his attitude regarding brainwashing and the CESNUR information he presents on that subject. Gandow refers to what he calls the "APA-Lie" (i.e. the way Introvigne presented the position of the American Psychological Association on brainwashing) as a scientific scandal. Introvigne's reply was regarded as useful even by critics (see e.g. the review by Jean-Bruno Renard in "Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions", 52ème année, avril-juin 2007, no. 138, p. 97–99, of the book on the controversy Introvigne co-authored in French with Dick Anthony), since he went to great lengths to obtain, post on the Internet and later publish crucial and previously unavailable documents of the original U.S. brainwashing controversy.
His Encyclopedia of Religion in Italy was one of the most reviewed books in Italy in the year of its publication and those reviews were positive for the most part. Many of the reviews came from the most important newspapers of the country.
and Introvigne organized an event at the Westin Hotel in Los Angeles where 1,500 attendees came dressed as vampire
s for: "creative writing contest, Gothic rock music and theatrical performances" Melton came dressed as Dracula
.
Melton is the American President of The Transylvanian Society of Dracula
, and Introvigne is the Italian director of the society, which includes the leading academic scholars in the field of the literary and historical study of the vampire myth. An informative page in Italian about the society is hosted at Introvigne's CESNUR
institute for the study of new religious movements, with which Melton is actively involved.
Melton and Introvigne also participated in several international conferences on vampires, including one on "Buffy, the vampire slayer", in Nashville, TN in 2004. Introvigne was titled as: "president" of the Transylvanian Society in Italy, and Dr. Melton was titled as the "Count Dracula Ambassador to the U.S.". The large bibliography on vampire comics Introvigne and Melton posted on CESNUR's Web site in 2008 is discussed above, under "Work".
CESNUR
CESNUR , is an organization based in Turin, Italy. It was established in 1988 by a group of religious scholars from universities in Europe and the Americas, working in the field of new religious movements. Its director is the Italian sociologist and attorney Massimo Introvigne...
), an international network of scholars who study new religious movement
New religious movement
A new religious movement is a religious community or ethical, spiritual, or philosophical group of modern origin, which has a peripheral place within the dominant religious culture. NRMs may be novel in origin or they may be part of a wider religion, such as Christianity, Hinduism or Buddhism, in...
s. Introvigne is the author of tens of books and articles in the field of sociology of religion. He was the main author of the Enciclopedia delle religioni in Italia (Encyclopedia of Religions in Italy). He is a member of the editorial board for the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion http://www.religjournal.com/. He is also a consultant on intellectual property rightshttp://www.jacobacci.com/People/Attorneys/prof/122/l/I/Massimo-Introvigne. In 2011, he has been appointed OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) "Representative on combating racism, xenophobia and discrimination, with a special focus on discrimination against Christians and members of other religions".
Life
Massimo Introvigne was born in RomeRome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
on June 14, 1955. As he reported in a partially auto-biographical paper presented at the 2008 yearly conference of the American Academy of Religion
American Academy of Religion
The American Academy of Religion is the world's largest association of scholars in the field of religious studies and related topics. It is a nonprofit member association,...
in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
http://www.cesnur.org/2008/mi_20.htm, his interest for non-Christian religions dates back to his reading as a young boy of the novels of Emilio Salgari
Emilio Salgari
Emilio Salgari was an Italian writer of action adventure swashbucklers and a pioneer of science fiction.For over a century, his novels were mandatory reading for generations of youth eager for exotic adventures. In Italy, his extensive body of work was more widely read than that of Dante. Today...
, Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...
, and Luigi Ugolini (1891–1980, the author in 1950 of the Italian novel L'isola non trovata), which included references to Hinduism
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
, Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
and other religions not generally well-known at that time in Italy. The popular encyclopedia Le grandi religioni del mondo (The Great Religions of the World), published in 1964 by the leading publishing house Rizzoli, was – according to the same paper – also an influence on the young Introvigne, who devotely purchased its monthly instalments at age nine. Also in the Chicago paper, Introvigne mentions the crucial importance of his Jesuit high school, the Istituto sociale in Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, between 1970–1973. As other Italian high schools in these years, that one hosted a vigorous political debate, and Introvigne attended it in the same years of future left-wing Italian leader Piero Fassino
Piero Fassino
Pietro Franco "Piero" Fassino is an Italian politician with the Democratic Party, the current Mayor of Turin and a former national secretary of the Democrats of the Left party.-Biography:...
and centrist politician Michele Vietti (whose cousin, the scholar of Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
Silvia Scaranari, he will eventually marry in 1982). At the same school he met the Catholic conservative organization Alleanza Cattolica
Alleanza Cattolica
Alleanza Cattolica is an Italian association whose aim is "to study and spread the social doctrine" of the Catholic Church.It strives to follow the teachings of the Popes, and so trains its members in the papal teachings. They also provide spiritual training, with a stress on traditional Catholic...
which he joined in 1972. He went on to obtain a bachelor's degree in Philosophy from the Pontificia Università Gregoriana in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, a Vatican
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
-accredited institution, and a laurea
Laurea
In Italy, the laurea is the main post-secondary academic degree.-Reforms due to the Bologna process:Spurred by the Bologna process, a major reform was instituted in 1999 to introduce easier university degrees comparable to the bachelors...
degree (roughly equivalent to a Master's degree) in Law from the University of Turin
University of Turin
The University of Turin is a university in the city of Turin in the Piedmont region of north-western Italy...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
.
During the Gregoriana years he also attended (as a layman, i.e. not as a seminarian studying for priesthood) the Catholic Almo collegio Capranica
Almo Collegio Capranica
The Almo Collegio Capranica is the oldest Roman college, founded in 1457 by Cardinal Domenico Capranica in his own palace for 31 young clerics, who received an education suitable for the formation of good priests. Capranica himself drew up their rules and presented the college with his own library,...
, where he had as fellow students the future Archbishops Rino Fisichella
Rino Fisichella
Salvatore Rino Fisichella is an Italian titular archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church. He is the current and first President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelisation...
, Nikola Eterovic, and many others who will later become prominent figures of the Catholic Church. His dissertation at the University of Turin was on John Rawls
John Rawls
John Bordley Rawls was an American philosopher and a leading figure in moral and political philosophy. He held the James Bryant Conant University Professorship at Harvard University....
, and was later published in 1983 by Giuffré as I due principi di giustizia nella teoria di Rawls, the first work on Rawls in Italian. The dissertation was directed by Italian philosopher Enrico di Robilant
Enrico di Robilant
Enrico di Robilant is an italian philosopher of law. He taught philosophy of law and political philosophy at the University of Turin, where he had been a disciple of Norberto Bobbio....
, with whom Introvigne worked between 1979 and 1985 as an assistant lecturer.
Gradually, he shifted his main interests from philosophy to sociology, and from law to religion. In 1987 he presented a paper at the international conference of the Mormon History Association
Mormon History Association
The Mormon History Association is an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to the study and understanding of all aspects of Mormon history to promote understanding, scholarly research, and publication in the field...
in Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, where he started a long-lasting co-operation with Swiss historian Jean-François Mayer
Jean-François Mayer
Jean-Francois Mayer is a religious historian, translator in Switzerland, and Director of the Institute Religioscope.He has a doctorate degree in History at the Jean Moulin University Lyon 3 ....
and with the Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
lawyer and historian Michael W. Homer, which would eventually lead to the establishment of CESNUR
CESNUR
CESNUR , is an organization based in Turin, Italy. It was established in 1988 by a group of religious scholars from universities in Europe and the Americas, working in the field of new religious movements. Its director is the Italian sociologist and attorney Massimo Introvigne...
in 1988. He taught short courses in the sociology of religious movements at the Athenaeum Pontificium Regina Apostolorum and in 2005–2006 at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross
Pontifical University of the Holy Cross
Pontifical University of the Holy Cross is a Roman Catholic university under the Curial Congregation for Catholic Education, which it has entrusted to the Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei, or more commonly called Opus Dei...
, both Vatican-accredited institutions. In the second edition of his Nuovo manuale di sociologia della religione (New Manual of Sociology of Religion) Roberto Cipriani, former president of AIS (Associazione Italiana di Sociologia) and one of Italy's leading sociologists, calls Introvigne "one of the Italian sociologists of religion most well-known abroad, and among the world's leading scholars of new religious movements".
From 1980, Introvigne also developed a parallel activity as an intellectual property attorney. He is currently a partner in the Jacobacci & Partners patent and trademark consultancy firm in Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
, Italy, and is of counsel to the law firm Jacobacci, Sterpi, Francetti, Regoli, de Haas & Associati, a firm he helped establishing in 1998. He is also one of the partners of Terrazza Solferino, a company which bought and restored the historical terrace and Liberty
Liberty
Liberty is a moral and political principle, or Right, that identifies the condition in which human beings are able to govern themselves, to behave according to their own free will, and take responsibility for their actions...
apartment of the same name in Turin as a center for business and culture. He is married and has four children.
Introvigne started collecting books on minority religions and esoteric-gnostic schools in the 1970s. His collection now includes more than 50,000 volumes – see online catalogue http://www.cesnur.org/library.htm – that are made available to the public via the CESNUR library.
He is vice-president of the Catholic movement Alleanza Cattolica
Alleanza Cattolica
Alleanza Cattolica is an Italian association whose aim is "to study and spread the social doctrine" of the Catholic Church.It strives to follow the teachings of the Popes, and so trains its members in the papal teachings. They also provide spiritual training, with a stress on traditional Catholic...
and one of the founding members of the Italian think tank
Think tank
A think tank is an organization that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, and technology issues. Most think tanks are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax...
Res Publica
Res publica
Res publica is a Latin phrase, loosely meaning "public affair". It is the root of the word republic, and the word commonwealth has traditionally been used as a synonym for it; however translations vary widely according to the context...
initiated in 1999 by Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi , also known as Il Cavaliere – from knighthood to the Order of Merit for Labour which he received in 1977 – is an Italian politician and businessman who served three terms as Prime Minister of Italy, from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006, and 2008 to 2011. Berlusconi is also the...
, to which The People of Freedom
The People of Freedom
The People of Freedom is a centre-right political party in Italy. With the Democratic Party, it is one of the two major parties of the current Italian party system....
it is closely connected. Introvigne was also a member of the National Council of the Italian Christian Democrat party UDC – Union of the Centre, but disagreed with this party's decision not to support Silvio Berlusconi at the Italian political elections of 2008 (which Berlusconi eventually won) and left the party. At the regional elections of 2010 in his home region of Piedmont
Piedmont
Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...
Introvigne emerged as one of the most vocal supporters of Berlusconi's candidate, Roberto Cota
Roberto Cota
Roberto Cota is the leader of Lega Nord Piemont and a leading member of Lega Nord.After a degree in law, Cota joined the party in 1990. In 2000 he was elected to the Regional Council of Piedmont and was President of it until 2005...
, who defeated governor Mercedes Bresso
Mercedes Bresso
Mercedes Bresso is an Italian politician and former President of the Piedmont Region. She is a member of the Democratic Party . After her election as governor of Piedmont, she resigned from the office as Member of European Parliament. She is a Grand Officer of the Italian Republic...
, and a vitriolic critic of the support by UDC and other Catholics to the strongly pro-choice Bresso http://www.alleanzapercota.org.
In 2010 he was appointed as one of the 19 members of the Comitato per l'Islam Italiano, a body created by the Italian Ministry for Internal Affairs in order to advise the government in matters related to the Islamic minority in Italy.
In 2011 he was appointed by OSCE, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, as its "Representative on combating racism, xenophobia and discrimination, with a special focus on discrimination against Christians and members of other religions".
Work
Introvigne is the author of more than 60 books including Le Nuove Religioni ("The New Religions". 1989), and I Mormoni ("The Mormons", 1991), and editor of nine books in the field of sociology of religion. In 2001, he was the main author of the Enciclopedia delle religioni in Italia (Encyclopedia of Religions in Italy), one of the most reviewed Italian books in this field. A second edition, Le Religioni in Italia, was published in 2006.He has also written hundreds of articles, both in daily newspapers (including Silvio Berlusconi's Il Giornale of Milan) and in religious and secular periodicals. Some twenty of them were published in scientific journals in various countries, as can be seen in his bibliography. The same bibliography shows him as contributor of several collective works on the sociology of religion. After 9/11 an important part of his work has been devoted to the study of Islamic fundamentalism
Islamic fundamentalism
Islamic fundamentalism is a term used to describe religious ideologies seen as advocating a return to the "fundamentals" of Islam: the Quran and the Sunnah. Definitions of the term vary. According to Christine L...
and to the application to this field of the methodology developed by scholars of new religious movements. In Italy, Introvigne is known as one of the main proponents of the sociological theory of religious economy developed by Rodney Stark
Rodney Stark
Rodney Stark is an American sociologist of religion. He grew up in Jamestown, North Dakota in a Lutheran family. He spent time in the U.S. Army and worked as a journalist before pursuing graduate studies at The University of California, Berkeley...
and Lawrence Iannaccone. With Stark, Introvigne co-published in 2003 Dio è tornato: indagine sulla rivincita delle religioni in Occidente (God Is Back: An Enquiry on Religious Revival in the West – Casale Monferrato: Piemme), and with Iannaccone, in 2004, Il mercato dei martiri: l’industria del terrorismo suicida (A Market for Martyrs: The Industry of Suicide Terrorism – Turin: Lindau). These books were written specifically for the Italian editions, but a part of the Introvigne-Stark study appeared in April 2005 in the first issue of the online Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religionhttp://www.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=ijrr.
Introvigne has also written books and articles in several languages criticizing The Da Vinci Code
The Da Vinci Code
The Da Vinci Code is a 2003 mystery-detective novel written by Dan Brown. It follows symbologist Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu as they investigate a murder in Paris's Louvre Museum and discover a battle between the Priory of Sion and Opus Dei over the possibility of Jesus having been married to...
and the documentary on pedophile priests Sex Crimes and the Vatican. In 2006, Introvigne published a book which he considered very different from his previous production: Il dramma dell'Europa senza Cristo (The Drama of a Europe without Christ – Milan: Sugarco), where he proposed a militant criticism of secular humanism
Secular humanism
Secular Humanism, alternatively known as Humanism , is a secular philosophy that embraces human reason, ethics, justice, and the search for human fulfillment...
, based on the teachings of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. The book was sympathetically reviewed (although with some criticism on specific issues) by the Vatican-connected Jesuit journal La Civiltà Cattolica
La Civiltà Cattolica
La Civiltà Cattolica is a Rome based Italian biweekly magazine printed by the Jesuits. The bimonthly journal was founded in 1850 with papal funding by order of the Pope and readers have recognised it as representing contemporary Vatican opinion. It has been praised and highly regarded by readers...
: In 2008, Introvigne followed with a second book in the same vein, Il segreto dell'Europa (Europe's Secret – Milan: Sugarco), intended as a study guide for the groups which had been established in several Italian cities for studying The Drama.
The collection of books on religion of CESNUR
CESNUR
CESNUR , is an organization based in Turin, Italy. It was established in 1988 by a group of religious scholars from universities in Europe and the Americas, working in the field of new religious movements. Its director is the Italian sociologist and attorney Massimo Introvigne...
"is regarded as the largest collection in Europe and the second in the world in its field", according to its own website.
He is also the main editor of the website www.cesnur.org. He has participated in several activities of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion
International Society for the Sociology of Religion
The International Society for the Sociology of Religion , also known as the Société Internationale de Sociologie des Religions , arose in 1989 from the International Conference on Sociology of Religion , founded in 1948...
and the International Federation of Catholic Universities. He is also a member of the "Sociology of Religion" group of the Italian Association of Sociology.
He is also director of CESPOC, the Center for the Study of Popular Culture http://www.popularculture.it, an institution which hosts his large collections of dime novels and comics
Comics
Comics denotes a hybrid medium having verbal side of its vocabulary tightly tied to its visual side in order to convey narrative or information only, the latter in case of non-fiction comics, seeking synergy by using both visual and verbal side in...
, and collects his articles on these subjects. Introvigne's CESPOC collection hosts inter alia
Inter Alia
-Track listing:# Inter Alia# Outfox'd # Righteous Badass # The Altogether feat. Bix, Apt, UNIVERSE ARM and Cal# The Day-to-Daily# Trouble Brewing # The Prestidigitator# The Force...
the largest collection in Europe of dime novels and other materials featuring the literary character Nick Carter
Nick Carter (literary character)
Nick Carter is a fictional character who began as a pulp fiction private detective and has appeared in a variety of formats over more than a century.-Literary history:...
. In 2006, Introvigne published a bibliography of Nick Carter's Italian translations in the specialized magazine Dime Novel Round-Up (vol. 75, no. 1, February 2006, pp. 12–15). The collection has also important holdings and earlier editions of Fantômas
Fantômas
Fantômas is a fictional character created by French writers Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre .One of the most popular characters in the history of French crime fiction, Fantômas was created in 1911 and appeared in a total of 32 volumes written by the two collaborators, then a subsequent 11...
, Zorro
Zorro
Zorro is a fictional character created in 1919 by New York-based pulp writer Johnston McCulley. The character has been featured in numerous books, films, television series, and other media....
, Dracula
Dracula
Dracula is an 1897 novel by Irish author Bram Stoker.Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, the novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to relocate from Transylvania to England, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor...
, and other characters which defined the popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
of the 20th century. In 2008, with the help of the American scholar J. Gordon Melton
J. Gordon Melton
John Gordon Melton is an American religious scholar who was the founding director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion and is currently a research specialist in religion and New Religious Movements with the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara...
, Introvigne published on CESNUR's Web site a bibliography of English-language vampire comics between 1935 and 2000, which includes more than 11,000 entries and is defined as a "lifetime achievement" by the authors .
Views
- He wrote, "The demise of the largest American anti-cult organization, the Cult Awareness NetworkCult Awareness NetworkThe Cult Awareness Network was founded in the wake of the November 18, 1978 deaths of members of the group Peoples Temple and assassination of Congressman Leo J. Ryan in Jonestown, Guyana. CAN is now owned and operated by associates of the Church of Scientology, an organization that the original...
, finally occurred because of its involvement in a violent and illegal activity, i.e. forcible deprogrammingDeprogrammingDeprogramming refers to actions that attempt to force a person to abandon allegiance to a religious, political, economic, or social group. Methods and practices may involve kidnapping and coercion...
..." - He agreed with the view that "the great majority of members of the new religious movementNew religious movementA new religious movement is a religious community or ethical, spiritual, or philosophical group of modern origin, which has a peripheral place within the dominant religious culture. NRMs may be novel in origin or they may be part of a wider religion, such as Christianity, Hinduism or Buddhism, in...
s derive positive experience from their membership". [ibid]
Views of his work
Anti-cult activists and scholars sympathetic to the anti-cult movement such as Thomas Gandow, Stephen Kent, as well as Benjamin ZablockiBenjamin Zablocki
Benjamin Zablocki is and American professor of sociology at Rutgers University where he teaches sociology of religion and social psychology. He has published widely on the subject of charismatic religious movements and cults....
see Introvigne's framing of scholars and academics (those who agree with CESNUR) vs. anti-cult movement (those who do not agree with CESNUR regardless of their academic qualifications) as biased, not to mention the term anti-cult terrorism he coined.
On the other hand, Introvigne says that "anti-cult terrorism" has not always been a metaphorical term, pointing out that:
- "acts of terrorism in the strictest sense of the word were indeed perpetrated in France in 1996 and later. Premises of both the Unification Church and New Acropolis (a movement headquartered in Argentina) were bombed in Paris."
One of the main points which are questioned regarding Introvigne's work is his attitude regarding brainwashing and the CESNUR information he presents on that subject. Gandow refers to what he calls the "APA-Lie" (i.e. the way Introvigne presented the position of the American Psychological Association on brainwashing) as a scientific scandal. Introvigne's reply was regarded as useful even by critics (see e.g. the review by Jean-Bruno Renard in "Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions", 52ème année, avril-juin 2007, no. 138, p. 97–99, of the book on the controversy Introvigne co-authored in French with Dick Anthony), since he went to great lengths to obtain, post on the Internet and later publish crucial and previously unavailable documents of the original U.S. brainwashing controversy.
His Encyclopedia of Religion in Italy was one of the most reviewed books in Italy in the year of its publication and those reviews were positive for the most part. Many of the reviews came from the most important newspapers of the country.
Vampirism hobby
In 1997, J. Gordon MeltonJ. Gordon Melton
John Gordon Melton is an American religious scholar who was the founding director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion and is currently a research specialist in religion and New Religious Movements with the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara...
and Introvigne organized an event at the Westin Hotel in Los Angeles where 1,500 attendees came dressed as vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
s for: "creative writing contest, Gothic rock music and theatrical performances" Melton came dressed as Dracula
Dracula
Dracula is an 1897 novel by Irish author Bram Stoker.Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, the novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to relocate from Transylvania to England, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor...
.
Melton is the American President of The Transylvanian Society of Dracula
Transylvanian Society of Dracula
The Transylvanian Society of Dracula is a cultural-historic, non-profit, non-governmental organization. Its members include Romanian and international scholars, folklorists, historians, esoterists, writers, cultural anthropologist, and individuals interested in comparative religion, magic and...
, and Introvigne is the Italian director of the society, which includes the leading academic scholars in the field of the literary and historical study of the vampire myth. An informative page in Italian about the society is hosted at Introvigne's CESNUR
CESNUR
CESNUR , is an organization based in Turin, Italy. It was established in 1988 by a group of religious scholars from universities in Europe and the Americas, working in the field of new religious movements. Its director is the Italian sociologist and attorney Massimo Introvigne...
institute for the study of new religious movements, with which Melton is actively involved.
Melton and Introvigne also participated in several international conferences on vampires, including one on "Buffy, the vampire slayer", in Nashville, TN in 2004. Introvigne was titled as: "president" of the Transylvanian Society in Italy, and Dr. Melton was titled as the "Count Dracula Ambassador to the U.S.". The large bibliography on vampire comics Introvigne and Melton posted on CESNUR's Web site in 2008 is discussed above, under "Work".
Books
- The Unification Church (Studies in Contemporary Religions, 2), Signature Books (September 1, 2000) ISBN 1-56085-145-7
- Osho Rajneesh: Studies in Contemporary Religion (Studies in Contemporary Religions, 4), Signature Books (August 1, 2002), ISBN 1-56085-156-2 (by Judith M. Fox, with Massimo Introvigne as the Series Editor)
- Les Mormons, Brepols (December 30, 1996), ISBN 2-503-50063-3
- I nuovi movimenti religiosi: Sètte cristiane e nuovi culti, Editrice Elle Di Ci (1990), ISBN 88-01-14260-9
- Il ritorno dello gnosticismo (Nuove spiritualità) , SugarCo (1993), ISBN 88-7198-216-9
- I nuovi culti: Dagli Hare KrishnaInternational Society for Krishna ConsciousnessThe International Society for Krishna Consciousness , known colloquially as the Hare Krishna movement, is a Gaudiya Vaishnava religious organization. It was founded in 1966 in New York City by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada...
alla Scientologia (Uomini e religioni), Mondadori; 1. ed. Oscar Uomini e religioni edition (1990), ISBN 88-04-34057-6 - Il satanismo (Collana religioni e movimenti), Elle Di Ci (1997), ISBN 88-01-00799-X
Other
- New Age is Mistaken Answer to Search For Meaning, Interview with Introvigne, Turin, Italy, 19 March 2003 (Zenit News AgencyZenit News AgencyZENIT is a non-profit news agency that reports on the Catholic Church and issues important to it from the perspective of Church doctrine. ZENIT's motto is, "The world seen from Rome."...
). Available online - "The Secular Anti-Cult and the Religious Counter-Cult Movement: Strange Bedfellows or Future Enemies?" in New Religions and the New Europe, Robert Towler, ed. (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1995), pp. 32–54.
- "Christian New Religious Movements: A Roman Catholic Perspective" and "New Religious Movements and the Law: A Comparison between Two Different Legal Systems – The United States and Italy," in New Religions and New Religiosity, Eileen Barker and Margit Warburg, eds., (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1998), pp. 243–261 and 276–290.
- "Children of the Underground Temple: Growing Up in Damanhur," in Children in New Religions, Susan J. Palmer and Charlotte E. Hardman, eds., (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1999), pp. 138–149.
- "After the New Age: Is There a Next Age?" in New Age Religion and Globalization, Mikael RothsteinMikael RothsteinMikael Rothstein is an associate professor of religious history at the University of Copenhagen in Copenhagen, Denmark. In 2002 he was on the board of the Danish Association for the History of Religions and the editorial boards of the publications Renner Studies on New Religions and Nye...
, ed., (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2001), pp. 58–69. - "Lectorium Rosicrucianum: A Dutch Movement Becomes International," in New Religions in a Postmodern World, Mikael Rothstein and Reender Kranenborg, eds., (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2003), pp. 11–22.
- "Occult Masters and the Temple of Doom: The Fiery End of the Solar Temple," (co-authored with Jean-Francois Mayer) in Cults, Religion and Violence, David G. Bromley and J. Gordon Melton, eds., (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 170–188.