Encyclopedic Dictionary of Cults, Sects, and World Religions: Revised and Updated Edition

This book helped lead me to do further research and make a life changing decision. Without it, I may have made a very bad decision. However, do to its accurate and thorough information, it led me to do further research about a certain religion and make an informed decision by having all the facts about it. I highly recommend it for learning more about religions, sects, and cults, If nothing else it is a good starting point for further research into the areas covered in the book.

I purchased this book for my Kindle and I have been very pleased with the content, to the extent that I am able to read it. I do not recommend that customers purchase this book in Kindle format. Whole paragraphs are unintelligible. It's like sentences were chopped into four or five pieces and the pieces scattered throughout the paragraph. Also, some material is repeated and still scrambled. I highly recommend the book, but I strongly suggest you buy a hard copy.

Schmidt, one of the author-editors, is an excellent writer and source. While a few years behind their recent edition, an excellent source on about every major religious and philosophical movement on the planet. Check out Schmidt's corpus libre, he is well worth it.

book with all kinds of definition very interesting

Great buy

Extremely difficult to look up a word or concept. Thus for example when I tried to find the Germanic god "Wotan," it took me considerable triangulation just to find the words or names starting with W. And when I finally got there, there was no entry for "Wotan"!

I always wanted to have a book like this one, explaining - in a condensed form - various sects and religions. What I do not appreciate is that throughout the book, the authors often compare certain concepts from other religions to Christianity, and write far more about Christian view than that religion's. For example, when I read about Buddhism and their concept of "sin," the authors mostly write about Christian view of sin, and devoted only one sentence to how Buddhists see it.If you are like me and do not subscribe to any religion, but wish to learn some gist about all of them, then this book could still be useful, but also very annoying.I wish the authors would made another book without Christian commentaries, which would result in more space to other religions. It would also help readers make their own connections, comparisons, formulate questions, etc.

I found the book itself well written and very informative. However, (at the time of this review) this Kindle version has no clickable table of contents, making this encyclopedia almost unusable. I spent way too much time trying to find the article on whatever NRM I need to read about. I certainly wish I had bought a physical copy.

This is a really useful resource to have on your bookshelf. It covers a wide range of the Worlds Religons, Cults and Sects. The entries are well laid out and informative. Unfamiliar terms are clearly explained and referenced, if you want to read more. It's easy to read and I find myself returning to it again & again as questions crop up.